Recent Results on Ne and Mg from the MISTRAL Mass Measurement Program at ISOLDE

The MISTRAL experiment (Mass measurements at ISOLDE with a Transmission and Radiofrequency spectrometer on-Line), conceived for very short-lived nuclides, has reached the end of its commissioning phase. Installed in 1997, results have been obtained consistent with all aspects of the projected spectrometer performance: nuclides with half-lives as short as 30 ms have been measured and accuracies of 0.4 ppm have been achieved, despite the presence of a systematic shift and difficulties with isobaric contamination. Masses of several nuclides, including ^25–26Ne and ³²Mg that forms the famous island of inversion around N=20, have been significantly improved. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Accurate Mass Determination of Neutron-Deficient Nuclides Close to Z=82 with ISOLTRAP

The recent implementation of gas-filled radiofrequency traps for efficient ion beam bunching extended the applicability of the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP/CERN to non-surface ionizable species. In a first series of successful runs the masses of ^182–197Hg, ^196,198Pb, ¹⁹⁷Bi, ¹⁹⁸Po and ²⁰³At have been determined with an accuracy of 1⋅10⁻⁷. In order to unambiguously determine the ground state mass the ground and isomeric states of ^{185,187,191,193,197}Hg were separated applying a resolving power of up to 3.7⋅10⁶. First experimental values for the isomeric excitation energy of ^187,191Hg were obtained. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

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.     

Direct mass measurements on the superallowed emitter 74Rb and its daughter 74Kr: isospin-symmetry-breaking correction for standard-model tests

The decay energy of the superallowed beta decay 74Rb(beta+)74Kr was determined by direct Penning trap mass measurements on both the mother and the daughter nuclide using the time-of-flight resonance technique and was found to be Q=10 416.8(4.5) keV. The exotic nuclide 74Rb, with a half-life of only 65 ms, is the shortest-lived nuclide on which a high-precision mass measurement in a Penning trap has been carried out. Together with existing data for the partial half-life as well as theoretical corrections, the decay energy yields a comparative half-life of Ft=3084(15) s for this decay, in agreement with the mean value for the series of the lighter nuclides from 10C to 54Co. Assuming conserved vector current, this result allows for an experimental determination of the isospin-symmetry-breaking correction deltaC.     

Breakdown of the isobaric multiplet mass equation at A = 33, T = 3/2

Mass measurements on (33,34,42,43)Ar were performed using the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP and a newly constructed linear Paul trap. This arrangement allowed us, for the first time, to extend Penning trap mass measurements to nuclides with half-lives below one second ( 33Ar: T(1/2) = 174 ms). A mass accuracy of about 10(-7) (deltam approximately 4 keV) was achieved for all investigated nuclides. The isobaric multiplet mass equation was checked for the A = 33, T = 3/2 quartet and found to be inconsistent with the generally accepted quadratic form.     

The charge radii of198Pt-183Pt

The reactions⁵⁸Ni+¹⁰²Pd→¹⁶⁰W and⁵⁸Ni+¹⁰⁶Cd→¹⁶⁴Os were investigated to search for new decay data of neutron deficient nuclei. Excitation energies of the compound nuclei covered a range from 47 to 89 MeV. Velocity separation of the evaporation residues and position time correlations with the a decays of the implanted nuclei were used. The following new decay data were measured:¹⁶²Os (E_α=(6611 ±30) keV, T_1/2=(1.9±0.7) ms);¹⁵⁸W (T_1/2=(0.9±0.3) ms);¹⁵⁸m_W (E=1.88 MeV, E_α=(8280±30) keV, T_1/2=(0.01-1) ms);^155mLu (E_α=(5575±10) keV); β decay of¹⁵⁶Ta (T_1/2 > 10 ms) to the 8⁺ yrast isomer in¹⁵⁶Hf. A cross section of 5μb was measured for the new isotope¹⁵⁶Ta produced in a p3n evaporation channel from¹⁶⁰W at 64 MeV excitation energy.     

Technical developments for an upgrade of the LEBIT Penning trap mass spectrometry facility for rare isotopes

The LEBIT (Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap) facility is the only Penning trap mass spectrometry (PTMS) facility to utilize rare isotopes produced via fast-beam fragmentation. This technique allows access to practically all elements lighter than uranium, and in particular enables the production of isotopes that are not available or that are difficult to obtain at isotope separation on-line facilities. The preparation of the high-energy rare-isotope beam produced by projectile fragmentation for low-energy PTMS experiments is achieved by gas stopping to slow down and thermalize the fast-beam ions, along with an rf quadrupole cooler and buncher and rf quadrupole ion guides to deliver the beam to the Penning trap. During its first phase of operation LEBIT has been very successful, and new developments are now underway to access rare isotopes even farther from stability, which requires dealing with extremely short lifetimes and low production rates. These developments aim at increasing delivery efficiency, minimizing delivery and measurement time, and maximizing use of available beam time. They include an upgrade to the gas-stopping station, active magnetic field monitoring and stabilization by employing a miniature Penning trap as a magnetometer, the use of stored waveform inverse Fourier transform (SWIFT) to most effectively remove unwanted ions, and charge breeding.     

New mass data for the rp-process above Z = 32

High-accuracy mass measurements have been performed with the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at ISOLDE/CERN. The short-lived nuclides ^{70, 71, 72, 73}Se , ^{72, 73, 74, 75}Br , and ^{98, 99, 100, 101, 103}Ag have been measured with an average uncertainty of a few keV. The data are important input for nucleosynthesis calculations of the rp-process beyond Z = 32 .