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.Comment: Link to online abstract:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.12250