$$B\rho $$-defined isochronous mass spectrometry and mass measurements of $$^{58}$$Ni fragments

A novel isochronous mass spectrometry, termed as $$B\rho $$ B ρ -defined IMS, has been established at the experimental cooler-storage ring CSRe in Lanzhou. Its potential has been studied through high precision mass measurements of $$^{58}$$ 58 Ni projectile fragments. Two time-of-flight detectors were installed in one of the straight sections of CSRe, thus enabling simultaneous measurements of the velocity and the revolution time of each stored short-lived ion. This allows for calculating the magnetic rigidity $$B\rho $$ B ρ and the orbit length C of each ion. The accurate $$B\rho (C)$$ B ρ ( C ) function has been constructed, which is a universal calibration curve used to deduce the masses of the stored nuclides. The sensitivity to single stored ions, fast measurement time, and background-free characteristics of the method are ideally suited to address nuclides with very short lifetimes and smallest production yields. In the limiting case of just a single particle, the achieved mass resolving power allows one to determine its mass-over-charge ratio m/q with a remarkable precision of merely $$\sim 5$$ ∼ 5 keV. Masses of $$T_z=-3/2$$ T z = - 3 / 2 fp-shell nuclides are re-determined with high accuracy, and the validity of the isospin multiplet mass equation is tested up to the heaviest isospin quartet with $$A=55$$ A = 55 . The new masses are also used to investigate the mirror symmetry of empirical residual proton-neutron interactions.