TOF-Brho Mass Measurements of Very Exotic Nuclides for Astrophysical Calculations at the NSCL

Atomic masses play a crucial role in many nuclear astrophysics calculations. The lack of experimental values for relevant exotic nuclides triggered a rapid development of new mass measurement devices around the world. The Time-of-Flight (TOF) mass measurements offer a complementary technique to the most precise one, Penning trap measurements, the latter being limited by the rate and half-lives of the ions of interest. The NSCL facility provides a well-suited infrastructure for TOF mass measurements of very exotic nuclei. At this facility, we have recently implemented a TOF-Brho technique and performed mass measurements of neutron-rich nuclides in the Fe region, important for r-process calculations and for calculations of processes occurring in the crust of accreting neutron stars.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics G, proceedings of Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics II

Unbound states of 32Cl and the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate

The 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction is expected to provide the dominant break-out path from the SiP cycle in novae and is important for understanding enrichments of sulfur observed in some nova ejecta. We studied the 32S(3He,t)32Cl charge-exchange reaction to determine properties of proton-unbound levels in 32Cl that have previously contributed significant uncertainties to the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate. Measured triton magnetic rigidities were used to determine excitation energies in 32Cl. Proton-branching ratios were obtained by detecting decay protons from unbound 32Cl states in coincidence with tritons. An improved 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate was calculated including robust statistical and systematic uncertainties

Time-of-flight mass measurements of neutron-rich chromium isotopes up to N = 40 and implications for the accreted neutron star crust

We present the mass excesses of 59-64Cr, obtained from recent time-of-flight nuclear mass measurements at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. The mass of 64Cr is determined for the first time, with an atomic mass excess of -33.48(44) MeV. We find a significantly different two-neutron separation energy S2n trend for neutron-rich isotopes of chromium, removing the previously observed enhancement in binding at N=38. Additionally, we extend the S2n trend for chromium to N=40, revealing behavior consistent with the previously identified island of inversion in this region. We compare our results to state-of-the-art shell-model calculations performed with a modified Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja interaction in the fp shell, including the g9/2 and d5/2 orbits for the neutron valence space. We employ our result for the mass of 64Cr in accreted neutron star crust network calculations and find a reduction in the strength and depth of electron-capture heating from the A=64 isobaric chain, resulting in a cooler than expected accreted neutron star crust. This reduced heating is found to be due to the >1-MeV reduction in binding for 64Cr with respect to values from commonly used global mass models.Comment: Accepted to Physical Review

Present and Future Experiments with Stored Exotic Nuclei at Relativistic Energies

Recent progress is presented from experiments on masses and lifetimes of bare and few-electron exotic nuclei at GSI.Comment: Proceedings of International Conference on "Frontiers in Nuclear Structure, Astrophysics and Reactions", Kos, Greece, September 12-17, 200

Halo Nucleus Be11: A Spectroscopic Study via Neutron Transfer

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.192701