On the Direct Detection of 229m Th

This thesis describes the first detection of a nuclear transition that had been sought for 40 years, and marks the essential first step toward developing nuclear clocks.

Atomic clocks are currently the most reliable timekeepers. Still, they could potentially be outperformed by nuclear clocks, based on a nuclear transition instead of the atomic transitions employed to date. An elusive, extraordinary state in thorium-229 seems to be the only nuclear transition suitable for this purpose and f...