The ACtive TARget and Time Projection Chamber (ACTAR TPC) is a novel gas-filled detector that has recently been constructed at GANIL. This versatile detector is a gaseous thick target that allows the ...tracking of charged particles in three dimensions and provides a precise reaction energy reconstruction from the vertex position. A commissioning experiment using resonant scattering of a 3.2MeV/nucleon 18O beam on an isobutane gas (proton) target was performed. The beam and the heavy scattered ions were stopped in the gas volume, while the light recoil left the active volume and were stopped in auxiliary silicon detectors. A dedicated tracking algorithm was applied to determine the angle of emission and the length of the trajectory of the ions, to reconstruct the reaction kinematics used to built the excitation functions of the 1H(18O, 18O)1H and 1H(18O, 15N)4He reactions. In this article, we describe the design of the detector and the data analysis, that resulted in center of mass reaction energy resolutions of 38(4)keV FWHM and 54(9)keV FWHM for the proton and alpha channels, respectively.
The proton drip-line nucleus 17Ne is considered a good candidate for a Borromean two-proton halo with a 15O + p + p structure. Angular distributions of the elastic scattering and inclusive 15O ...production for a 136 MeV 17Ne beam incident on a 208Pb target were measured for the first time at the SPIRAL1 facility, GANIL. Use of the GLORIA detector array allowed high-resolution data over a wide angular range from 20∘ up to 95∘ in the laboratory frame to be obtained. The elastic scattering angular distribution shows similarities with those for both 6He and 20Ne at equivalent collision energies with respect to the corresponding Coulomb barriers, exhibiting the suppression of the Coulomb rainbow peak characteristic of strong coupling. Optical model and coupled channel fits suggest that this is due to a combination of coupling to low-lying quadrupole resonances and Coulomb dipole coupling to the low-lying continuum, although their relative importance depends on the relevant B(E2) values which remain to be firmly determined.
The advanced time-delayed gamma gamma(t) method has been applied to determine half-lives of low-lying states in the N = 50 isotones Ru-94 and Pd-96. The inferred experimental E2 strengths for the ...4(+) -> 2(+) transitions in the two nuclei show a dramatic deviation with respect to the shell model predictions in the (f(5/2), p, g(9/2)) proton hole space in Sn-100. The anomalous behavior can be ascribed to a breakdown of the seniority quantum number in the pi g(9/2)(n) configuration due to particle-hole excitations across the N = Z = 50 shell as confirmed by large-scale shell model calculations.
The isovector and isoscalar components of neutron-proton pairing are investigated in the N=Z unstable nuclei of the fp-shell through the two-nucleon transfer reaction (p,3He) in inverse kinematics. ...The combination of particle and gamma-ray detection with radioactive beams of 56Ni and 52Fe, produced by fragmentation at the GANIL/LISE facility, made it possible to carry out this study for the first time in a closed and an open-shell nucleus in the fp-shell. The transfer cross-sections for ground-state to ground-state (J=0+, T=1) and to the first (J=1+, T=0) state were extracted for both cases together with the transfer cross-section ratios σ(0+,T=1)/σ(1+,T=0). They are compared with second-order distorted-wave born approximation (DWBA) calculations. The enhancement of the ground-state to ground-state pair transfer cross-section close to mid-shell, in 52Fe, points towards a superfluid phase in the isovector channel. For the “deuteron-like” transfer, very low cross-sections to the first (J=1+, T=0) state were observed both for 56Ni(p,3He) and 52Fe(p,3He) and are related to a strong hindrance of this channel due to spin-orbit effect. No evidence for an isoscalar deuteron-like condensate is observed.
The first investigation of the single-particle structure of the bound states of 17C, via the d(16C,p) transfer reaction, has been undertaken. The measured angular distributions confirm the ...spin-parity assignments of 1/2+ and 5/2+ for the excited states located at 217 and 335 keV, respectively. The spectroscopic factors deduced for these states exhibit a marked single-particle character, in agreement with shell model and particle-core model calculations, and combined with their near degeneracy in energy provide clear evidence for the absence of the N=14 sub-shell closure. The very small spectroscopic factor found for the 3/2+ ground state is consistent with theoretical predictions and indicates that the ν1d3/2 strength is carried by unbound states. With a dominant ℓ=0 valence neutron configuration and a very low separation energy, the 1/2+ excited state is a one-neutron halo candidate.
The β− decay of 81Zn to the neutron magic N=50 nucleus 81Ga, with only three valence protons with respect to 78Ni, was investigated. The study was performed at the ISOLDE facility at CERN by means of ...γ spectroscopy. The 81Zn half-life was determined to be T1/2=290(4) ms while the β-delayed neutron emission probability was measured as Pn=23(4)%. The analysis of the β-gated γ-ray singles and γ−γ coincidences from the decay of 81Zn provides 47 new levels and 70 new transitions in 81Ga. The β−n decay of 81Zn was observed and a new decay scheme into the odd-odd 80Ga nucleus was established. The half-lives of the first and second excited states of 81Ga were measured via the fast-timing method using LaBr3(Ce) detectors. The level scheme and transition rates are compared to large-scale shell-model calculations. The low-lying structure of 81Ga is interpreted in terms of the coupling of the three valence protons outside the doubly magic 78Ni core.
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