Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability

Autoren

M Block
D Ackermann
K Blaum
C Droese
M Dworschak
S Eliseev
T Fleckenstein
E Haettner
F Herfurth
FP Heßberger
S Hofmann
J Ketelaer
J Ketter
H-J Kluge
G Marx
M Mazzocco
Yu N Novikov
WR Plaß
A Popeko
S Rahaman
D Rodríguez
C Scheidenberger
L Schweikhard
PG Thirolf
GK Vorobyev
C Weber

DOI

10.1038/nature08774

eISSN

1476-4687

ISSN

0028-0836

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

7282

Zeitschrift

Nature

Sprache

en

Paginierung

785 - 788

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2010

Status

Published

Herausgeber

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Herausgeber URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08774

Datum der Datenerfassung

2023

Titel

Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

463

Data source: Crossref

Abstract

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 decay chains introduces uncertainties that render the interpretation difficult. Here we report direct mass measurements of trans-uranium nuclides. Located at the farthest tip of the actinide species on the proton number-neutron number diagram, these nuclides represent the gateway to the predicted island of stability. In particular, we have determined the mass values of (252-254)No (atomic number 102) with the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP. The uncertainties are of the order of 10 keV/c(2) (representing a relative precision of 0.05 p.p.m.), despite minute production rates of less than one atom per second. Our experiments advance direct mass measurements by ten atomic numbers with no loss in accuracy, and provide reliable anchor points en route to the island of stability.

Addresses

GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Planckstrasse 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany. m.block@gsi.de

Autoren

M Block
D Ackermann
K Blaum
C Droese
M Dworschak
S Eliseev
T Fleckenstein
E Haettner
F Herfurth
FP Hessberger
S Hofmann
J Ketelaer
J Ketter
H-J Kluge
G Marx
M Mazzocco
Yu N Novikov
WR Plass
A Popeko
S Rahaman
D Rodríguez
C Scheidenberger
L Schweikhard
PG Thirolf
GK Vorobyev
C Weber

DOI

10.1038/nature08774

eISSN

1476-4687

Externe Identifier

PubMed Identifier: 20148034

Open access

false

ISSN

0028-0836

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

7282

Zeitschrift

Nature

Sprache

eng

Medium

Print

Paginierung

785 - 788

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2010

Status

Published

Datum der Datenerfassung

2010

Titel

Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability.

Sub types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Journal Article

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

463

Data source: Europe PubMed Central

Abstract

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 decay chains introduces uncertainties that render the interpretation difficult. Here we report direct mass measurements of trans-uranium nuclides. Located at the farthest tip of the actinide species on the proton number-neutron number diagram, these nuclides represent the gateway to the predicted island of stability. In particular, we have determined the mass values of (252-254)No (atomic number 102) with the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP. The uncertainties are of the order of 10 keV/c(2) (representing a relative precision of 0.05 p.p.m.), despite minute production rates of less than one atom per second. Our experiments advance direct mass measurements by ten atomic numbers with no loss in accuracy, and provide reliable anchor points en route to the island of stability.

Date of acceptance

2009

Autoren

M Block
D Ackermann
K Blaum
C Droese
M Dworschak
S Eliseev
T Fleckenstein
E Haettner
F Herfurth
FP Hessberger
S Hofmann
J Ketelaer
J Ketter
H-J Kluge
G Marx
M Mazzocco
Yu N Novikov
WR Plass
A Popeko
S Rahaman
D Rodríguez
C Scheidenberger
L Schweikhard
PG Thirolf
GK Vorobyev
C Weber

Autoren-URL

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20148034

DOI

10.1038/nature08774

eISSN

1476-4687

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

7282

Zeitschrift

Nature

Sprache

eng

Country

England

Paginierung

785 - 788

PII

nature08774

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2010

Status

Published

Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde

2010

Titel

Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability.

Sub types

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

463

Data source: PubMed

Direct mass measurements above uranium bridge the gap to the island of stability

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