Time-of-flight mass measurement of neutron-rich nuclei

Astrophysical calculations often require accurate masses of exotic nuclei. In many cases nuclear masses are critical in obtaining a reliable understanding of observational data. The time-of-flight method provides a way to measure the masses of nuclei far from the valley of beta stability with sufficient precision to address questions of stellar nucleosynthesis and nuclear structure in general. Recently such a time-of-flight experiment has been performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) where significant progress has been made on the neutron-rich side of stability in the argon to iron region. We expect to make advances in understanding nuclear structure in the region and nucleosynthesis occurring in accreted neutron star crusts.