First result from SCRIT electron scattering facility: Charge density distribution of Xe

We have constructed the SCRIT electron scattering facility at RIKEN in order to realize electron scattering off unstable nuclei. Because electron scattering is the most powerful and reliable tool to study the internal structure of the atomic nuclei as demonstrated for many stable nuclei in the latter half of the 20th century, actualization of electron scattering for the unstable nuclei has been long awaited. Recently, we have performed a series of elastic electron scattering experiments with ¹³²Xe target. The high luminosity of around 10²⁷ cm^-2s^-1 which is a minimum-requirement for electron scattering is achieved with using only 10⁸ target ions. By comparing with a DWBA calculation assuming the two-parameter Fermi distribution as the nuclear charge density distribution, it is found that a root-mean-square of radius is consistent with that from the measurement of X-ray of muonic atom and an information of surface shape of ¹³²Xe nucleus is extracted for the first time.