Precision Mass Measurements of Neutron-Rich Scandium Isotopes Refine the Evolution of N=32 and N=34 Shell Closures

Autor: E, Leistenschneider, E, Dunling, G, Bollen, B A, Brown, J, Dilling, A, Hamaker, J D, Holt, A, Jacobs, A A, Kwiatkowski, T, Miyagi, W S, Porter, D, Puentes, M, Redshaw, M P, Reiter, R, Ringle, R, Sandler, C S, Sumithrarachchi, A A, Valverde, I T, Yandow
Rok vydání: 2020
Zdroj: Physical review letters. 126(4)
ISSN: 1079-7114
Popis: We report high-precision mass measurements of ^{50-55}Sc isotopes performed at the LEBIT facility at NSCL and at the TITAN facility at TRIUMF. Our results provide a substantial reduction of their uncertainties and indicate significant deviations, up to 0.7 MeV, from the previously recommended mass values for ^{53-55}Sc. The results of this work provide an important update to the description of emerging closed-shell phenomena at neutron numbers N=32 and N=34 above proton-magic Z=20. In particular, they finally enable a complete and precise characterization of the trends in ground state binding energies along the N=32 isotone, confirming that the empirical neutron shell gap energies peak at the doubly magic ^{52}Ca. Moreover, our data, combined with other recent measurements, do not support the existence of a closed neutron shell in ^{55}Sc at N=34. The results were compared to predictions from both ab initio and phenomenological nuclear theories, which all had success describing N=32 neutron shell gap energies but were highly disparate in the description of the N=34 isotone.
Databáze: OpenAIRE