Impact of Precision Mass Measurements on Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics

Among all nuclear ground-state properties, atomic masses are highly specific for each particular combination of neutron and proton number, N and Z, respectively. The data obtained through mass measurements provide details of the nuclear interaction and thus apply to a variety of physics topics. Some of the most crucial questions to be addressed by mass spectrometry of unstable radionuclides are, on the one hand, nuclear forces and structure, describing phenomena such as the so-called neutron-halos or the evolution of magic numbers when moving towards the borders of nuclear existence. On the other hand, the understanding of the processes of element formation in the Universe poses a challenge and requires an accurate knowledge of nuclear astrophysics. Here, precision atomic mass values of a large number of exotic nuclei participating in nucleosynthesis processes are among the key input data in large-scale reaction network calculations.