High-precision mass measurements of hydrogen-like <Superscript>24</Superscript>Mg<Superscript>11+</Superscript> and <Superscript>26</Superscript>Mg<Superscript>11+</Superscript> ions in a Penning trap

For the determination of the bound-electron g factor in hydrogen-like heavy ions the mass of the ion is needed at a relative uncertainty of at least 1 ppb. With the SMILETRAP Penning trap mass spectrometer at the Manne Siegbahn Laboratory in Stockholm several mass measurements of ions with even-even nuclei at this level of precision have been performed so far, exploiting the fact that the mass precision increases linearly with the ion charge. Measurements of masses of the hydrogen-like ions of the two Mg-isotopes ²⁴Mg and ²⁶Mg are reported. The masses of the hydrogen-like ions are 23.979011054(14) u and 25.976562354(34) u, corresponding to the atomic masses 23.985041690(14) u and 25.982592986(34) u, respectively. The possibility to use these two isotopes for the first observation of an isotope effect in the bound-electron g factor in hydrogen-like heavy ions is discussed.     

SMILETRAP — Atomic mass measurements with ppb accuracy by using highly charged ions

In the SMILETRAP facility externally produced highly charged ions are captured in a Penning trap and utilized for high precision measurements of atomic masses. Accuracy tests on a ppb level have been performed, using highly charged carbon, oxygen and neon ions. In all cases hydrogen ions served as a reference for the calibration and monitoring of the magnetic field in the trap. Deviations smaller than 3 ppb from the expected results were found in mass measurements of the¹⁶O and²⁰Ne atomic masses. The proton atomic mass, determined from the reference measurements on hydrogen ions, is in good agreement with the accepted value [1]. A direct mass measurement on the⁸⁶Kr-isotope, using trapped⁸⁶Kr²⁹⁺-ions is reported.     

Mass measurements of few-electron systems in Penning traps

The accuracy of the SMILETRAP mass spectrometer has been verified by a number of mass comparisons involving well-known masses. Our results for H₂ ⁺,Ne⁶⁺,Ne^{9+ ,10+},Si^{12+ ,13+ ,14+},and Ar^{14+ ,16+} all agree within the statistical errors (0.3–1 ppb) with previous determinations. However, all measurements involving He give a deviation. The combined He^1+,2+ data results in a mass deviation of +1.9 ±0.23 ppb. The uncertainty of the accepted He mass is 0.25 ppb, thus this represents a significant deviation. High statistics comparisons (statistical uncertainty <0.5 × 10^-9utilizing different species (excluding He) and charge states agree within ±0.5 ppb. An analysis estimating the contribution from individual systematic error sources and other auxiliary tests does not allow a systematic error larger than ± 0.85 ppb. We conclude that for now we cannot rule out the presence of an unknown systematic error which in the He comparison results in a near 2 ppb deviation. Thus, as a safety measure we should exclude the He data when calculating the proton mass. The He discrepancy also forces us to give a larger limit of the systematic error of the proton mass than motivated by high statistics comparisons. However, due to the consistency of all other measurements and tests, it appears unlikely that this deviation should be present to the same extent in other comparisons. Thus, for now, after a preliminary analysis we report a proton mass = 1.007 276 466 72 ± 16 ± 85 u, where the errors are the weighted statistical errors and the estimated maximal systematical error, respectively. After a complete analysis we expect the systematic error to be reduced below ±0.5 ppb. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cooling of short-lived, radioactive, highly charged ions with the TITAN cooler Penning trap

TITAN is an on-line facility dedicated to precision experiments with short-lived radioactive isotopes, in particular mass measurements. The achievable resolution on mass measurement, which depends on the excitation time, is limited by the half life of the radioactive ion. One way to bypass this is by increasing the charge state of the ion of interest. TITAN has the unique capability of charge-breeding radioactive ions using an electron-beam ion trap (EBIT) in combination with Penning trap mass spectrometry. However, the breeding process leads to an increase in energy spread, ??E, which in turn negatively influences the mass uncertainty. We report on the development of a cooler Penning trap which aims at reducing the energy spread of the highly charged ions prior to injection into the precision mass measurement trap. Electron and proton cooling will be tested as possible routes. Mass selective cooling techniques are also envisioned.     

The TITAN mass measurement facility at TRIUMF-ISAC

The TITAN facility at TRIUMF-ISAC will use four ion traps with the primary goal of determining nuclear masses with high precision, particularly for short lived isotopes with lifetimes down to approximately 10 ms. The design value for the accuracy of the mass measurement is 1 ×10^???8. The four main components in the facility are an RF cooler/buncher (RFCT) receiving the incoming ion beam, an electron beam ion trap (EBIT) to breed the ions to higher charge states, a cooler Penning trap (CPET) to cool the highly charged ions, and finally the measurement Penning trap (MPET) for the precision mass determination. Additional goals for this system are laser spectroscopy on ions extracted from the RFCT and beta spectroscopy in the EBIT (in Penning trap mode) on ions that are purified using selective buffer gas cooling in the CPET. The physics motivation for the mass measurements are manifold, from unitarity tests of the CKM matrix to nuclear structure very far from the valley of stability, nuclear astrophysics and the study of halo-nuclei. As a first measurement the mass of ¹¹Li will be determined. With a lifetime of 8.7 ms and a demonstrated production rate of 4×10⁴ ions/sec at ISAC the goal for this measurement at TITAN is a relative uncertainty of 5×10^???8. This would check previous conflicting measurements and provide information for nuclear theory and models.     

The LEBIT facility at MSU

The low-energy beam and ion trap facility LEBIT at the NSCL at MSU has demonstrated that rare isotopes produced by fast-beam fragmentation can be slowed down and prepared such that precision experiments with low-energy beams are possible. For this purpose high-pressure gas-stopping is employed combined with advanced ion manipulation techniques. Penning trap mass measurements on short-lived rare isotopes have been performed with a 9.4 T Penning trap mass spectrometer. Examples include ⁶⁶As, which has a half-live of only 96 ms, and the super-allowed Fermi-emitter ³⁸Ca, for which a mass accuracy of 8 ppb (280 eV) has been achieved. The high accuracy of this new mass value makes ³⁸Ca a new candidate for the test of the conserved vector current hypothesis.      

A high precision beam-foil meanlife measurement of the 1s 3p1P level in He I

A beam-foil measurement of the meanlife of the 1s 3p ¹ P level in He I has been made and yields the value 1.7225±0.0046 ns. The measurement was made with standard beam-foil techniques and equipment, but special attention was devoted to minimizing sources of uncertainty. The precision far exceeds that of previous beam-foil meanlife measurements and demonstrates that the beam-foil technique is capable of high precision and is competitive with and more flexible than methods such as resonant laser excitation.     

Octupolar excitation of ion motion in a penning trap

The excitation of the motion of ions in a Penning trap at twice their cyclotron frequency, 2ν _c , by means of an azimuthal octupolar RF field has been studied with the LEBIT facility at the NSCL. The possibility of such an RF octupolar excitation has been verified. Compared to ion excitation at ν _c by means of quadrupolar fields an increased resolving power is observed in the cyclotron resonance curves, which may have important implications for Penning trap mass measurements. Numerical simulations have been used to characterize important properties of this type of excitation in detail and to predict the behavior of the ion motion under realistic conditions. Good agreement with the experimental results is observed.      

ISOLTRAP: An on-line Penning trap for mass spectrometry on short-lived nuclides

ISOLTRAP is a Penning trap mass spectrometer for high-precision mass measurements on short-lived nuclides installed at the on-line isotope separator ISOLDE at CERN. The masses of close to 300 radionuclides have been determined up to now. The applicability of Penning trap mass spectrometry to mass measurements of exotic nuclei has been extended considerably at ISOLTRAP by improving and developing this double Penning trap mass spectrometer over the past two decades. The accurate determination of nuclear binding energies far from stability includes nuclei that are produced at rates less than 100 ions/s and with half-lives well below 100ms. The mass-resolving power reaches 10⁷ corresponding to 10keV for medium heavy nuclei and the uncertainty of the resulting mass values has been pushed down to below 10^-8. The article describes technical developments achieved since 1996 and the present performance of ISOLTRAP.     

Improvement of the Applicability, Efficiency, andPrecision of the Penning Trap Mass Spectrometer ISOLTRAP

With the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP, close to 200 nuclides have already been investigated and their masses determined with a typical relative precision of δm/m=10⁻⁷. Recently, ISOLTRAP's beam preparation system was replaced by an RFQ ion beam cooler and buncher. The principle and the characteristics of this new beam preparation system will be presented. It is planned to use ions of various carbon clusters C⁺ _n (n>1) as reference ions for mass measurements. Apart from negligible molecular binding energies, these clusters have masses that are exact multiples of the unified atomic mass unit. This will allow ISOLTRAP to carry out absolute mass measurements as well as to investigate possible mass-dependent systematic errors. The results of tests of the production, transport, and trapping of such carbon clusters will be presented. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

From direct to absolute mass measurements: A study of the accuracy of ISOLTRAP

For a detailed study of the accuracy of the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP all expected sources of uncertainty were investigated with respect to their contributions to the uncertainty of the final result. In the course of these investigations, cross-reference measurements with singly charged carbon clusters ¹²C⁺ _n were carried out. The carbon cluster ions were produced by use of laser-induced desorption, fragmentation, and ionization of C₆₀ fullerenes and injected into and stored in the Penning trap system. The comparison of the cyclotron frequencies of different carbon clusters has provided detailed insight into the residual systematic uncertainty of ISOLTRAP and yielded a value of 8×10^-9. This also represents the current limit of mass accuracy of the apparatus. Since the unified atomic mass unit is defined as 1/12 of the mass of the ¹²C atom, it will be possible to carry out absolute mass measurements with ISOLTRAP in the future. Received 7 June 2002 Published online 6 November 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: a.kellerbauer@cern.ch RID="b" ID="b"Current address: Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille, 13288 Marseille Cedex 9, France.     

Absence of low-temperature anomaly on the melting curve of <Superscript>4</Superscript>He

The melting pressure and pressure in the liquid at a constant density of ultrapure ⁴He (0.3 ppb of ³He impurities) have been measured with an accuracy of about 0.5 μbar in the temperature range from 10 to 320 mK. The measurements show that the anomaly on the melting curve below 80 mK, which was recently observed [I. A. Todoshchenko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 165302 (2006)], is entirely due to an anomaly in the elastic modulus of Be-Cu from which our pressure gauge is made. Thus, the melting pressure of ⁴He follows the T ⁴ law due to phonons in the whole temperature range from 10 to 320 mK without any attribute of a supersolid transition. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Ultraprecise atomic mass measurement of the alpha particle and 4He

The atomic masses of the alpha particle and 4He have been measured by means of a Penning trap mass spectrometer which utilizes a frequency-shift detector to observe single-ion cyclotron resonances in an extremely stable 6.0 T magnetic field. The present resolution of this instrument approaches 0.01 ppb [10 ppt (parts per trillion)] and is limited primarily by the effective stability (<5 ppt/h) of the magnet over hundreds of hours of observation. The leading systematic shift [at -202(9) ppt] is due to the image charge located in the trap electrodes. The new value for the atomic mass of the alpha particle is 4 001 506 179.147(64) nu and the corresponding value for the mass of 4He is 4 002 603 254.153(64) nu (nu=10(-9) u). The 16 ppt uncertainty is at least 20 times smaller than any previous determination.     

A high precision beam-foil meanlife measurement of the 1s 3p 1 P level in He I

A beam-foil measurement of the meanlife of the 1s 3p ¹ P level in He I has been made and yields the value 1.7225±0.0046 ns. The measurement was made with standard beam-foil techniques and equipment, but special attention was devoted to minimizing sources of uncertainty. The precision far exceeds that of previous beam-foil meanlife measurements and demonstrates that the beam-foil technique is capable of high precision and is competitive with and more flexible than methods such as resonant laser excitation.     

Controlled synthesis and analysis of He–H+3 in a 3.7 K ion trap

Complexes of the triatomic hydrogen ion with helium were synthesised in a low-temperature 22-pole rf ion trap at He number densities of up to 10¹⁶ cm^?3. Absolute ternary rate coefficients for sequentially attaching He atoms have been determined from the growth of complexes with increasing storage time. The number of helium-tagged ions is significantly reduced when increasing the nominal temperature from 4 to 25 K. Competition between attachment and dissociation via collisions leads to stationary He_n–H⁺₃ (n up to 9) distributions. State-specific excitation of the trapped H⁺₃ ions via IR transitions significantly reduces the formation of complexes. Tuning the laser to Δv₂ = 1 transitions in the range of 2726 cm^?1 leads to LIICG lines, i.e., to spectra caused by laser-induced inhibition of complex growth. In addition, almost 100 lines have been found between 2700 and 2765 cm^?1, which are attributed to laser-induced dissociation of the in situ formed He–H⁺₃ complex ions. These lines are not yet assigned; however, their absorption strength, statistics and predissociation lifetimes provide interesting information on both the stable complexes as well as on scattering resonances in low-energy H⁺₃+He collisions. New calculations of the potential energy surface will help to analyse the dissociation spectrum. There are some indications that para-H⁺₃ is enriched under the conditions of the present experiment.     

Dynamics of laser-cooled Ca+ ions in a Penning trap with a rotating wall

We have performed systematic measurements of the dynamics of laser-cooled ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ions confined in a Penning trap and driven by a rotating dipole field (‘rotating wall’). The trap used is a copy of the one used in the SPECTRAP experiment located at the HITRAP facility at GSI, Germany. The size and shape of the ion cloud has been monitored using a CCD camera to image the fluorescence light resulting from excitation by the cooling laser. We have varied the experimental conditions such as amplitude and frequency of the rotating wall drive as well as the trapping parameters. The rotating wall can be used for a radial compression of the ion cloud thus increasing the ion density in the trap. We have also observed plasma mode excitations in agreement with theoretical expectations. This work will allow us to define the optimum parameters for high compression of the ions as needed for precision spectroscopy of forbidden transitions.     

Stopping power of low-energy deuterons in 3He gas

The stopping power of atomic and molecular deuterons in ³He gas was measured over the range E _d = 10 to 100 keV using the ³He pressure dependence of the ³He(d,p) ⁴He reaction yield. At energies above 30 keV, the observed stopping power values are in good agreement with a standard compilation. However, near 18 keV the experimental values drop by a factor 50 below the extrapolated values of the compilation. In a simple model, the behavior is due to the minimum 1s↦2s electron excitation of the He target atoms (= 19.8 eV, corresponding to E _d = 18.2 keV), i.e. it is a quantum effect, by which the atoms become nearly transparent for the ions.     

Trapping of ions from high energy sources into a radiofrequency ion trap

An attempt is described to confine ions, created externally and accelerated to some energy, in an rf quadrupole trap. 4 keV Ba⁺ ions were stopped on a Ni foil, placed in an aperture of one trap electrode. The Ba then was evaporated from the heated foil and ionized by electron impact. At background pressure of about 10^–5 mbar of various light buffer gases (He, H₂, N₂), the trap was filled once with 10⁵ ions, at a minimum primary ion number of 10¹⁰. The storage time was 10 min. From the data obtained the possibility of spectroseopic experiments on rare isotopes, created with accelerators or nuclear reactors, is discussed.     

Ion bunch stacking in a Penning trap after purification in an electrostatic mirror trap

The success of many measurements in analytical mass spectrometry as well as in precision mass determinations for atomic and nuclear physics is handicapped when the ion sources deliver “contaminations”, i.e., unwanted ions of masses similar to those of the ions of interest. In particular, in ion-trapping devices, large amounts of contaminant ions result in significant systematic errors—if the measurements are possible at all. We present a solution for such cases: The ions from a quasi-continuous source are bunched in a linear radio-frequency-quadrupole ion trap, separated by a multi-reflection time-of-flight section followed by a Bradbury–Nielsen gate, and then captured in a Penning trap. Buffer-gas cooling is used to damp the ion motion in the latter, which allows a repeated opening of the Penning trap for a stacking of mass-selected ion bunches. Proof-of-principle demonstrations have been performed with the ISOLTRAP setup at ISOLDE/CERN, both with ¹³³Cs⁺ ions from an off-line ion source and by application to an on-line beam of ¹⁷⁹Lu⁺ ions contaminated with ¹⁶³Dy¹⁶O⁺ ions. In addition, an optimization of the experimental procedure is given, in particular for the number of ion bunches captured as a function of the ions’ lifetimes and the parameters of the experiment .