0000000000746714
AUTHOR
Jochen Ketter
Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability
The mass of an atom incorporates all its constituents and their interactions. The difference between the mass of an atom and the sum of its building blocks (the binding energy) is a manifestation of Einstein's famous relation E = mc(2). The binding energy determines the energy available for nuclear reactions and decays (and thus the creation of elements by stellar nucleosynthesis), and holds the key to the fundamental question of how heavy the elements can be. Superheavy elements have been observed in challenging production experiments, but our present knowledge of the binding energy of these nuclides is based only on the detection of their decay products. The reconstruction from extended d…
Position-sensitive ion detection in precision Penning trap mass spectrometry
A commercial, position-sensitive ion detector was used for the first time for the time-of-flight ion-cyclotron resonance detection technique in Penning trap mass spectrometry. In this work, the characteristics of the detector and its implementation in a Penning trap mass spectrometer will be presented. In addition, simulations and experimental studies concerning the observation of ions ejected from a Penning trap are described. This will allow for a precise monitoring of the state of ion motion in the trap.
Mass Measurements of Very Neutron-Deficient Mo and Tc Isotopes and Their Impact on rp Process Nucleosynthesis
The masses of ten proton-rich nuclides, including the N=Z+1 nuclides 85-Mo and 87-Tc, were measured with the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP. Compared to the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2003 a systematic shift of the mass surface by up to 1.6 MeV is observed causing significant abundance changes of the ashes of astrophysical X-ray bursts. Surprisingly low alpha-separation energies for neutron-deficient Mo and Tc are found, making the formation of a ZrNb cycle in the rp process possible. Such a cycle would impose an upper temperature limit for the synthesis of elements beyond Nb in the rp process.
Image charge shift in high-precision Penning traps
An ion in a Penning trap induces image charges on the surfaces of the trap electrodes. These induced image charges are used to detect the ion's motional frequencies, but they also create an additional electric field, which shifts the free-space cyclotron frequency typically at a relative level of several ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}11}$. In various high-precision Penning-trap experiments, systematics and their uncertainties are dominated by this so-called image charge shift (ICS). The ICS is investigated in this work by a finite-element simulation and by a dedicated measurement technique. Theoretical and experimental results are in excellent agreement. The measurement is using singly stored ions a…