First direct mass measurements of stored neutron-rich ^129,130,131Cd isotopes with FRS-ESR

A 410 MeV/u ²³⁸U projectile beam was used to create cadmium isotopes via abrasion-fission in a beryllium target placed at the entrance of the in-flight separator FRS at GSI. The fission fragments were separated by the FRS and injected into the isochronous storage ring ESR for mass measurements. Isochronous Mass Spectrometry (IMS) was performed under two different experimental conditions, with and without Bρ-tagging at the high-resolution central focal plane of the FRS. In the experiment with Bρ-tagging the magnetic rigidity of the injected fragments was determined with an accuracy of 2⋅10^-4. A new method of data analysis, which uses a correlation matrix for the combined data set from both experiments, has provided experimental mass values of 25 rare isotopes for the first time. The high sensitivity and selectivity of the method have given access to nuclides detected with a rate of a few atoms per week. In this letter we present for the ^129,130,131Cd isotopes mass values directly measured for the first time. The experimental mass values of cadmium as well as for tellurium and tin isotopes show a pronounced shell effect towards and at N=82. Shell quenching cannot be deduced from a single new mass value, nor by a better agreement with a theoretical model which explicitly takes into account a quenching feature. This is in agreement with the conclusion from γ-ray spectroscopy and confirms modern shell-model calculations.