Precision Mass Measurements of Neutron-Rich Neodymium and Samarium Isotopes and Their Role in Understanding Rare-Earth Peak Formation.

The Canadian Penning Trap mass spectrometer at the Californium Rare Isotope Breeder Upgrade (CARIBU) facility was used to measure the masses of eight neutron-rich isotopes of Nd and Sm. These measurements are the first to push into the region of nuclear masses relevant to the formation of the rare-earth abundance peak at A∼165 by the rapid neutron-capture process. We compare our results with theoretical predictions obtained from "reverse engineering" the mass surface that best reproduces the observed solar abundances in this region through a Markov chain Monte Carlo technique. Our measured masses are consistent with the reverse-engineering predictions for a neutron star merger wind scenario.