Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie

MS 3: Präzisionsmassenspektrometrie, Ionenfallen, FT-IZR-MS, Moleküle, Cluster III

MS 3.1: Invited Talk

Monday, March 2, 2009, 16:00–16:30, VMP 8 R05

Penning trap mass measurements on stable isotopes — •David Pinegar — Max-Planck Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg

Because single ions of long-lived nuclides can be observed indefinitely in Penning traps, there is no fundamental limit on the resolving power of Penning trap mass spectrometers. Instead, practical limitations observed on the accuracy of these experiments have included instabilities of the trap’s magnetic field strength, the voltage source used to bias the ring electrode, and the frequency standard used for reference. This talk will review several different techniques used by several research groups to minimize these sources of uncertainty, allowing atomic mass ratios to be measured with uncertainties approaching, and sometimes even exceeding 1 part in 10¹¹. This precision is useful for mass measurements related to neutrino physics, such as neutrinoless double-beta decay. But due to the speaker’s involvement, special emphasis will be given to work on the tritium/helium-3 mass ratio and its application to beta-spectrometer direct neutrino mass measurements.