TITAN: An ion trap facility for on-line mass measurement experiments
Precision determinations of ground state or even isomeric state masses reveal fingerprints of nuclear structure. In particular, at the limits of existence for very neutron-rich or -deficient isotopes, one can extract detailed information about nuclear structure from separation energies or binding energies. Mass measurements are important to uncover new phenomena, to test new theoretical predictions, or to refine model approaches. For example, the N = 28 shell has proven more stable than previously expected; however, the predicted new "magic" number at N = 34 in the K and Ca isotopes has yet to be confirmed experimentally. For these neutron-rich nuclei, the inclusion of three-body forces leads to significantly better predictions of the ground-state mass. Similarly, halo nuclei present an excellent application for ab-initio theory, where ground state properties, like masses and radii, test our understanding of nuclear structure. Precision mass determinations at TRIUMF are carried out with the TITAN (TRIUMF's Ion Traps for Atomic and Nuclear science) facility. It is an ion-trap setup coupled to the on-line facility ISAC. TITAN has measured masses of isotopes as short-lived as 9 ms (almost an order of magnitude shorter-lived than any other Penning trap system), and it is the only one with charge breeding capabilities, which allow us to boost the precision by almost 2 orders of magnitude. We recently made use of this feature by measuring short-lived, proton-rich Rb-isotopes, up to 74Rb while reaching the 12 + charge state, which together with other improvements led to an increase in precision by a factor 36. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
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- General Physics
- 5106 Nuclear and plasma physics
- 5104 Condensed matter physics
- 5102 Atomic, molecular and optical physics
- 0204 Condensed Matter Physics
- 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- General Physics
- 5106 Nuclear and plasma physics
- 5104 Condensed matter physics
- 5102 Atomic, molecular and optical physics
- 0204 Condensed Matter Physics
- 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics