Search results for "nucleus"
showing 10 items of 1803 documents
Studies of pear-shaped nuclei using accelerated radioactive beams
2013
There is strong circumstantial evidence that certain heavy, unstable atomic nuclei are ‘octupole deformed’, that is, distorted into a pear shape. This contrasts with the more prevalent rugby-ball shape of nuclei with reflection-symmetric, quadrupole deformations. The elusive octupole deformed nuclei are of importance for nuclear structure theory, and also in searches for physics beyond the standard model; any measurable electric-dipole moment (a signature of the latter) is expected to be amplified in such nuclei. Here we determine electric octupole transition strengths (a direct measure of octupole correlations) for short-lived isotopes of radon and radium. Coulomb excitation experiments we…
A triplet of differently shaped spin-zero states in the atomic nucleus 186Pb
2000
Understanding the fundamental excitations of many-fermion systems is of significant current interest. In atomic nuclei with even numbers of neutrons and protons, the low-lying excitation spectrum is generally formed by nucleon pair breaking and nuclear vibrations or rotations. However, for certain numbers of protons and neutrons, a subtle rearrangement of only a few nucleons among the orbitals at the Fermi surface can result in a different elementary mode: a macroscopic shape change. The first experimental evidence for this phenomenon came from the observation of shape coexistence in 16O (ref. 4). Other unexpected examples came with the discovery of fission isomers and super-deformed nuclei…
Superallowed Gamow-Teller decay of the doubly magic nucleus $^{100}$Sn
2012
Expérience au GSI; The shell structure of atomic nuclei is associated with 'magic numbers' and originates in the nearly independent motion of neutrons and protons in a mean potential generated by all nucleons. During b1-decay, a proton transforms into a neutron in a previously not fully occupied orbital, emitting a positron-neutrino pair with either parallel or antiparallel spins, in a Gamow-Teller or Fermi transition, respectively. The transition probability, or strength, of a Gamow-Teller transition depends sensitively on the underlying shell structure and is usually distributed among many states in the neighbouring nucleus. Here we report measurements of the half-life and decay energy fo…
Sensitivity of one-neutron knockout to the nuclear structure of halo nuclei
2019
Background: Information about the structure of halo nuclei are often inferred from one-neutron knockout reactions. Typically the parallel-momentum distribution of the remaining core is measured after a high-energy collision of the exotic projectile with a light target. Purpose:We study how the structure of halo nuclei affects knockout observables considering an eikonal model of reaction. Method: To evaluate the sensitivity of both the diffractive and stripping parallel-momentum distributions to the structure of halo nuclei, we consider several descriptions of the projectile within a halo effective-field theory. We consider the case of Be11, the archetypical one-neutron halo nucleus, impingi…
Competition between Allowed and First-Forbidden β Decay: The Case of Hg208→Tl208
2020
The β decay of ^{208}Hg into the one-proton hole, one neutron-particle _{81}^{208}Tl_{127} nucleus was investigated at CERN-ISOLDE. Shell-model calculations describe well the level scheme deduced, validating the proton-neutron interactions used, with implications for the whole of the N>126, Z<82 quadrant of neutron-rich nuclei. While both negative and positive parity states with spin 0 and 1 are expected within the Q_{β} window, only three negative parity states are populated directly in the β decay. The data provide a unique test of the competition between allowed Gamow-Teller and Fermi, and first-forbidden β decays, essential for the understanding of the nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei in…
Two-Quasiparticle Mixing in Odd-Odd Nuclei
2007
In Chap. 16 the residual Hamiltonian was used to mix proton-proton and neutron—neutron two-quasiparticle configurations. The resulting wave functions described states in even-even open-shell nuclei. In this chapter we develop a corresponding formalism, the proton-neutron QTDA, for mixing proton-neutron two-quasiparticle configurations. This mixing produces wave functions that describe states in odd-odd open-shell nuclei. The quasiparticles are obtained from a BCS calculation for an even-even reference nucleus next to the odd-odd nucleus of interest.
Has the neutral double hypernucleus nΛΛ4 been observed?
2019
Abstract The BNL-AGS E906 experiment was the first fully electronic experiment to produce and study double hypernuclei with large statistics. Two dominant structures were observed in the correlated π − – π − momentum matrix at ( p π − H , p π − L ) = ( 133 , 114 ) MeV / c and at ( 114 , 104 ) MeV / c . In this work we argue that the interpretation of the structure at ( 133 , 114 ) MeV / c in terms of Λ 3 H+ Λ 4 H pairs is questionable. We show, that neither a scenario where these single-Λ hypernuclei are produced after capture of a stopped Ξ − by a 9Be nucleus nor interactions of energetic Ξ − with 9Be nuclei in the target material can produce a sufficient amount of such twin pairs. We have…
Single-particle and collective excitations in the transitional nucleus 166Os
2021
The mean lifetimes of the lowest energy 2(+), 8(+) and 9(-) states in Os-166 have been measured using the recoil distance Doppler-shift method in conjunction with a selective recoil-decay tagging t ...
Shape isomerism and shape coexistence effects on the Coulomb energy differences in theN=Znucleus66As and neighboringT=1multiplets
2012
Excited states of the $N=Z=33$ nucleus ${}^{66}$As have been populated in a fusion-evaporation reaction and studied using $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-ray spectroscopic techniques. Special emphasis was put into the search for candidates for the $T=1$ states. A new 3${}^{+}$ isomer has been observed with a lifetime of 1.1(3) ns. This is believed to be the predicted oblate shape isomer. The excited levels are discussed in terms of the shell model and of the complex excited Vampir approaches. Coulomb energy differences are determined from the comparison of the $T=1$ states with their analog partners. The unusual behavior of the Coulomb energy differences in the $A=70$ mass region is explained through…
Electromagnetic transitions andαdecay of the223Panucleus
1999
Actinides with $N\ensuremath{\sim}132$ present the best explored region of pear shape nuclei. Still almost no spectroscopic information is available for the heaviest elements, $Z=91--98,$ which are predicted to be octupole instable. The lack of data for the latter nuclei results from the high fission probability encountered in the heavy-ion reactions used to populate them. In order to overcome this handicap, an $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-decay tagging technique was used to identify $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ rays in ${}^{223}\mathrm{Pa}$ produced through the ${}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}{(}^{19}\mathrm{F},4n)$ reaction. A new value of 4.9(4) ms for the half-life of ${}^{223}\mathrm{Pa}$ was obtained as a by-p…