December 2016

Journal

Mass Measurements Demonstrate a Strong N = 28 Shell Gap in Argon

By:
Meisel, Z.; George, S.; Ahn, S.; Browne, J.; Bazin, D.; Brown, B. A.; Carpino, J. F.; Chung, H.; Cyburt, R. H.; Estrade, A.; Famiano, M.; Gade, A.; Langer, C.; Matos, M.; Mittig, W.; Montes, F.; Morrissey, D. J.; Pereira, J.; Schatz, H.; Schatz, J.; Scott, M.; Shapira, Dan ; Smith, K.; Stevens, J.; Tan, W.; Tarasov, O.; Towers, S.; Wimmer, K.; Winkelbauer, J. R.; Yurkon, J.; Zegers, R. G. T.
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Page Number:
022501-1-022501-4
Volume:
114
Issue Number:
2
Publication Date:
December 2016
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.022501

Abstract

We present results from recent time-of-flight nuclear mass measurements at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. We report the first mass measurements of 48Ar and 49Ar and find atomic mass excesses of -22.28(31) MeV and -17.8(1.1) MeV, respectively. These masses provide strong evidence for the closed shell nature of neutron number N = 28 in argon, which is therefore the lowest even-Z element exhibiting the N = 28 closed shell. The resulting trend in binding-energy differences, which probes the strength of the N = 28 shell, compares favorably with shell-model calculations in the sd-pf shell using SDPF-U and SDPF-MU Hamiltonians.