Extending and refining the nuclear mass surface with ISOLTRAP and MISTRAL

Through the nuclear binding energy the atomic mass gives us important information about nuclear structure. Viewing the ensemble of mass data over the nuclear chart, we can examine the hills and valleys that form this surface and make hypotheses about the effects of certain nuclear configurations. To unveil these effects, mass measurements of very high precision (10$^{-6}$) are required. Two experiments at ISOLDE pursue this effort of nuclear cartography the tandem Penning trap spectrometer ISOLTRAP and the radiofrequency transmission spectrometer MISTRAL. Between them, the masses of almost 150 nuclides have been measured from stable isotopes to those with half-lives as short as 30 ms. Both experiments rely on good optical properties of a low energy ion beam and are thus well suited to the ISOLDE facility. (30 refs)