Speaker
Description
Nuclear masses provide a direct probe of nuclear structure effects and are necessary inputs for studies of nuclear astrophysics. Measuring the masses of neutron-rich nuclei far from stability, which are relevant to heavy element nucleosynthesis, is difficult due to low production rates in the laboratory, and short lifetimes. Over the past three decades, Penning trap mass spectrometry has been the preferred mass measurement method due to its proven accuracy and precision, and is employed at several rare isotope beam facilities around the world. At CARIBU, intense beams of radioactive neutron-rich nuclei are produced from the spontaneous fission of $^{252}$Cf. Using the MR-TOF, high-purity beams ($R = m/\Delta m > 100,000$) are rapidly prepared and efficiently transported to the experimental area where the Canadian Penning Trap mass spectrometer (CPT) resides. To take advantage of these clean beams, the CPT has pivoted from using TOF-ICR to a phase-imaging measurement technique (PI-ICR), which has improved the overall sensitivity of the device by more than two orders of magnitude. In the PI-ICR method, masses can be determined with fewer ions and with a shorter measurement cycle without loss in precision, making it well-suited for studying the most weakly produced isotopes at CARIBU. I will present details of the PI-ICR technique used by the CPT and highlight several recent results.