First high-precision direct determination of the atomic mass of a superheavy nuclide

TL;DR

This paper reports the first direct, high-precision measurement of the atomic mass of the superheavy nuclide $^{257}$Db, demonstrating a novel technique with potential for future heavy element research.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental method combining ion separation, stopping, and mass spectrometry to measure superheavy nuclide masses directly and accurately.

Findings

Mass excess of $^{257}$Db determined as 100,063(231)(132) keV/c^2.

Technique can distinguish atomic number Z=105 unambiguously.

Method shows promise for future measurements of heavier superheavy elements.

Abstract

We present the first direct measurement of the atomic mass of a superheavy nuclide. Atoms of $^{257}$Db ($Z$=105) were produced online at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science using the fusion-evaporation reaction $^{208}$Pb($^{51}$V, 2n)$^{257}$Db. The gas-filled recoil ion separator GARIS-II was used to suppress both the unreacted primary beam and some transfer products, prior to delivering the energetic beam of $^{257}$Db ions to a helium gas-filled ion stopping cell wherein they were thermalized. Thermalized $^{257}$Db$^{3+}$ ions were then transferred to a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph for mass analysis. An alpha particle detector embedded in the ion time-of-flight detector allowed disambiguation of the rare $^{257}$Db$^{3+}$ time-of-flight detection events from background by means of correlation with characteristic $\alpha$-decays. The extreme sensitivity of this technique allowed a precision atomic mass determination from 11 events. The mass excess was determined to be $100\,063(231)_\textrm{stat}(132)_\textrm{sys}$~keV/c$^2$. Comparing to several mass models, we show the technique can be used to unambiguously determine the atomic number as $Z$=105 and should allow similar evaluations for heavier species in future work.