Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 202501 (2008) [4 pages]First Penning-Trap Mass Measurement of the Exotic Halo Nucleus 11LiReceived 21 July 2008; published 14 November 2008 In this Letter, we report a new mass for 11Li using the trapping experiment TITAN at TRIUMF’s ISAC facility. This is by far the shortest-lived nuclide, t1/2=8.8 ms, for which a mass measurement has ever been performed with a Penning trap. Combined with our mass measurements of 8,9Li we derive a new two-neutron separation energy of 369.15(65) keV: a factor of 7 more precise than the best previous value. This new value is a critical ingredient for the determination of the halo charge radius from isotope-shift measurements. We also report results from state-of-the-art atomic-physics calculations using the new mass and extract a new charge radius for 11Li. This result is a remarkable confluence of nuclear and atomic physics. © 2008 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.202501
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.202501
PACS:
21.10.Dr, 21.10.Gv, 21.45.−v, 29.30.Aj
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