A new determination of the 4He and 3He masses in a Penning trap

Abstract

The atomic and nuclear masses of 4He and 3He have been measured using doubly charged ions in a Penning trap connected to an electron beam ion source. Recent technical improvements allow mass determinations with uncertainties of a few parts in 1010. The obtained atomic masses are 4.002 603 256 8(13) u and 3.016 029 323 5(28) u respectively. These values deviate by as much as 5 standard deviations from the accepted values.