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Precision mass measurement of Zn61 and updated Ft value for conserved vector current tests

P. F. Giesel1,*, D. Atanasov2,†, K. Blaum2, P. Fischer1, J. Karthein3,2, I. Kulikov4, Yu. A. Litvinov4,5, D. Lunney6,‡,§, M. Mougeot6,2,7 et al.

L. Nies7,1, L. Schweikhard1, V. A. Virtanen8,9, and F. Wienholtz1,∥

  • *Contact author: paul.giesel@uni-greifswald.de
  • †Present address: Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK CEN, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium.
  • ‡Contact author: david.lunney@cnrs.fr
  • §Present address: CNRS International Research Laboratory for Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Astrophysics and Accelerator Technologies, TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
  • ∥Present address: Institut für Kernphysik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany.
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Phys. Rev. C 113, 034318 – Published 23 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fbf3-nry6

Abstract

We report a high-precision mass measurement of Zn61, performed with the ISOLTRAP mass spectrometer at ISOLDE, CERN. Our result agrees with a recent measurement from the LEBIT Penning trap at FRIB and reduces the mass uncertainty by a factor of four. Combined with recent measurements of the mirror nuclide Ga61 performed by TITAN at TRIUMF and CSRe at HIRFL, we obtain a more accurate Q value. This new value slightly improves the determination of the corresponding Ft value in the Tz=1/2 mirror beta decays used to test the conserved vector current hypothesis in the standard model.

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Phys. Rev. C 113, 034318– Published 23 March, 2026
  • Received 3 January 2026
  • Accepted 18 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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