Octupolar-Excitation Penning-Trap Mass Spectrometry for Q-Value Measurement of Double-Electron Capture in164Er

The theory of octupolar-excitation ion-cyclotron-resonance mass spectrometry is presented which predicts an increase of up to several orders of magnitude in resolving power under certain conditions. The new method has been applied for a direct Penning-trap mass-ratio determination of the {sup 164}Er-{sup 164}Dy mass doublet. {sup 164}Er is a candidate for the search for neutrinoless double-electron capture. However, the measured Q{sub {epsilon}{epsilon}} value of 25.07(12) keV results in a half-life of 10{sup 30} years for a 1 eV Majorana-neutrino mass.