Fully upgraded β -NMR setup at ISOLDE for high-precision high-field studies

Abstract β -NMR is an advancing technique that enables measurements relevant to various fields of research, ranging from physics to chemistry and biology. Among the recent achievements of the β -NMR setup located at the ISOLDE facility at CERN is the determination of the magnetic moment of a short-lived nucleus with a part-per-million accuracy. Presented here are major upgrades and extensions of that β -NMR setup. The most important advancement is the installation of a 4.7 T superconducting solenoidal magnet, leading to sub-ppm spatial homogeneity and temporal stability of the magnetic field. A detector array optimised for such magnetic field has also been implemented and a more powerful, time-resolved, fully-digital data acquisition system has been deployed. To commission the upgraded beamline, β -NMR resonances of short-lived 26 Na were recorded in solid and liquid samples. These showed 3-fold narrower linewidths and 15-fold higher resolving power than using the previous setup. Hence, the improvements achieved here permit more accurate bio- β -NMR studies, investigating, e.g., the interaction of metal ions with biomolecules, such as DNA. They also pave the way for the first studies of the distribution of the magnetisation inside short-lived nuclei.