Level structure of20Na near the proton threshold

The excitation energies of states in²⁰Na near the proton threshold have been measured with the²⁰Ne(³He, t)²⁰Na charge exchange reaction. The possible implications of these states for the stellar reaction rate of¹⁹Ne(p,γ)²⁰ Na are discussed.     

The reaction 23Na(n, γ)24Na studied with unpolarized and polarized thermal neutrons

The γ-radiation produced by thermal neutron capture in a natural Na sample has been investigated. Of the 158 γ-rays ascribed to the ²³Na(n, γ)²⁴Na reaction, 143 have been placed in a ²⁴Na decay scheme accounting for 100(2) % of the total primary strength. The reaction Q-value amounts to 6959.42 ± 0.08 keV. The data resulted in spin assignments for four and spin restrictions for six levels.The circular polarization of 14 γ-rays from the capture of polarized neutrons has been measured. The contribution of the J^π = 2⁺ channel in thermal capture was determined to be below 5 %.     

Fusion of aligned deformed heavy ions calculated in the surface friction model

The surface friction model for heavy ion induced fusion is extended to cover collisions of aligned deformed nuclei taking into account dynamic quadrupole and octupole vibrations and rotations of the reaction partners. Calculated fusion cross sections for unpolarized beam and the tensor analyzing powerT ₂₀ for fusion of²³Na +²³Na are compared with data. The analyzing power is found to be sensitive to variations of the tangential friction strength.     

Multi-photoelectron fluorescence selective detection of single atoms by laser radiation

The results of fluorescence detection of single Na atoms in atomic beams have been presented. It has been shown that, in recording single atoms via the fluorescence signal from the photoelectron of thek>1 atom, it is possible to achieve extremely high selectivity (S≃10²⁰) of detection of these atoms against a great number of other atoms. The probability of recording the atom is slightly decreased.     

TheP +19Nes- wave resonant state in20Na at stellar energies

The first excited state above the p +¹⁹Ne threshold in²⁰Na has been identified at 2.637 MeV (± 15 keV) with J^π=0⁺ or 1⁺ from the²⁰Ne(³He, t)²⁰Na reaction, suggesting this state to be the s-wave resonance in the p +¹⁹Ne scattering at stellar energies.     

CARIBU: a new facility for the study of neutron-rich isotopes

The Californium Rare Ion Breeder Upgrade (CARIBU) to the ATLAS superconducting linac facility is currently being commissioned. It provides low-energy and re-accelerated beams of neutron-rich isotopes obtained from ²⁵²Cf fission. The fission products from a ²⁵²Cf source are stopped in a large high-intensity gas catcher, thermalized and extracted through an RFQ cooler, accelerated to 50 kV and mass separated in a high-resolution separator before being sent to either an ECR charge breeder for post-acceleration through the ATLAS linac or to a low-energy experimental area. This approach gives access to beams of very neutron-rich isotopes, many of which have not been available at low or Coulomb barrier energies previously. These beams provide unique opportunities for measurements along the r-process path. To take advantage of these unique possibility, the reaccelerated beams from CARIBU will be made available at the experimental stations of ATLAS to serve equipment such as Gammasphere, HELIOS and the reaction spectrometers. In addition, the Canadian Penning Trap (CPT) mass spectrometer has been moved to the CARIBU low-energy experimental area and a new injection line has been built. The new injection line consists of a RFQ buncher sitting on a 50 kV high-voltage platform that will accumulate the mass separated 50 kV radioactive beams, cool and extract them as a pulsed beam of 3 keV. This beam can be sent either to a tape station for diagnostics and tuning, or a cryogenic linear trap for preparation before transfer to the high-precision Penning trap where the mass measurements will take place. Initial CARIBU commissioning is proceeding with a 2 mCi source that will be replaced by a 100 mCi source as the commissioning proceeds. Final operation will use a 1 Ci source and attain yield in excess of 10⁷ ions/sec for the most intense beams at low energy, an order of magnitude less for reaccelerated beams.     

A study of three-nucleon transfer reactions on 17O

The reactions ¹⁷O(¹¹B, ⁸Li)²⁰Ne, ¹⁷O(¹²C, ⁹Be)²⁰Ne and ¹⁷O(¹³C, ¹⁰B)²⁰F have been studied using beams of 115 MeV ¹¹B and ¹²C and 105 MeV ¹³C incident on a gas target. Shell-model calculations have been performed for ²⁰Ne and ²⁰F, for comparison with the experimental data. It is found that the data can be interpreted using the shell model spectroscopic factors and a semi-classical reaction theory. We justify the use of the latter by applying it to the cases of three-nucleon transfer on ¹⁶O. Spin assignments are suggested for previously unidentified states in ²⁰F.     

Production of Nuclear Polarization of Na Isotopes at ISAC/TRIUMF and its Hyperfine Interaction

Hyperfine interactions of Na isotopes in single crystals have been studied using highly nuclear polarized ^{20,21,26,27,28}Na beams provided by ISAC/TRIUMF. The degree of polarization kept in the crystals, the spin-lattice relaxation times, the electric quadrupole coupling constants and the initial distribution of the populations were measured. Such knowledge is indispensable for the application of the hyperfine interactions in the study of precision measurements such as the nuclear structure through nuclear moments and the fundamental symmetries.     

Nuclear depolarization of alkali beams during ionization on surfaces

The depolarization of atomic alkali beams (⁶Li,⁷Li,²³Na) during ionization on oxygen covered hot metal surfaces (Ir, Mo, Re, W) has been investigated. The polarization of the ionized beams was detected by a beam foil experiment. The temperature dependence of the observed depolarization is interpreted as due to a relaxation process caused by the interaction of the nuclear moments with fluctuating fields on the surface.     

Structure of light neutron-rich nuclei through coulomb dissociation

Coulomb breakup of neutron-rich nuclei around mass A ∼ 20 has been studied experimentally using secondary beams (∼ 500–600 MeV/u) of unstable nuclei produced at GSI. The spectroscopic factor deduced for the neutron occupying s _1/2 level in ¹⁵C ground state is consistent with the earlier reported value. The data analysis for Coulomb breakup of ¹⁷C shows that most of the cross section yields the ¹⁶C core in its excited state. For ^17–22O, the low-lying E1 strength amounts up to about 12% of the energy weighted dipole sum rule strength depending on neutron excess. The cluster sum rule limit with ¹⁶O as a core is almost exhausted for ^17,18O, while for more neutron rich isotopes the strength with respect to that limit decreases.     

Ion implantation in III–V compounds

In this work we studied the effect of electron and proton irradiation on the depth distribution of sodium in commercial soda-lime glasses. Samples have been irradiated at different energies and fluences.

The ²³Na (ρ, α) ²⁰Ne nuclear reaction has been used to determine the sodium profiles. No detectable changes in the sodium concentration profiles have been introduced during the measurements, the proton fluences and doses needed in this type of analysis being very low.

The obtained results support the hypothesis that the driving force for Na diffusion is mainly connected to the build-up of an electric field whose direction is determined by the projectile charge, while Na mobility changes because of the local temperature increase due to the beam power dissipation.     

Laser production of polarized beams and targets

Hyperfine interaction techniques have historically been applied to produce polarized nuclei. The use of optical pumping with tunable lasers is a new hyperfine interaction method which dramatically extends the range of nuclear species which can be polarized, as well as the fluxes and densities which can be achieved and the temperature range in which experiments can be carried out. Lasers are ideally suided for the production of polarized atomic beams, as will be illustrated for the cases of^6,7Li,²³Na and³He. Techniques for polarizing dense atomic vapors will be described with an emphasis on achieving full Doppler coverage by the method of velocity changing collisions. Experiments leading to the production of a⁶Li target for a parity non-conservation study of the nuclear reaction⁶Li(α,γ)¹⁰B will be reviewed and results obtained to date presented.     

Recombination of U 92 + ions with electrons

Recombination of fully stripped U⁹²⁺ ions with electrons has been investigated at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) in Darmstadt. Absolute recombination rate coefficients have been measured for relative energies from 0 to 33 eV. For energies greater than 20 meV the experimental result is well described by the theory for radiative recombination (RR). Below 20 meV the experimental rate increasingly exceeds the RR calculation as observed previously in the recombination of light bare ions as well as of Bi⁸³⁺. This low-energy rate enhancement is shown to scale as Z^2.6 for bare ions, where Z is the atomic number of the ion. The U⁹²⁺ recombination rate enhancement is insensitive to changes of the electron density. Variation of the magnetic guiding field strength from 80 mT to 120 mT resulted in oscillations of the recombination rate at 0 eV. The oscillations are partly attributed to changes of the transverse electron temperature accompanying the change of the magnetic guiding field strength; partly they may be caused by uncompensated small changes of the interaction angle between the two beams. Received 1st March 2001 and Received in final form 20 April 2001     

High-spin states of 174, 176Yb studied in Coulomb excitation with Kr AND Xe beams

Rotational states up to spin 20⁺ (18⁺) in ¹⁷⁴Yb (¹⁷⁶Yb) have been Coulomb excited using beams of ¹³⁶Xe. Lifetimes up to and including the 14⁺ state have been measured using Doppler-broadened lineshape techniques with ¹³⁶Xe and ⁸⁶Kr beams. An annular gas-scintillation counter has been developed in order to perform particle-γ coincidence studies. Moments of inertia in ^{174, 176}Yb behave very regularly, showing no signs of backbending effects. The measured lifetimes are in agreement with the rotational model predictions, and the measured cross sections for Coulomb excitation of the high-spin states are in agreement with the semiclassical Winther-de Boer calculation.     

Alkali displacements in intercalated 1T-TaSe2

Single crystals of 1T-TaSe₂ have been intercalated with different alkali metals by deposition in ultra-high vacuum onto in situ-cleaved (0001) surfaces. In a second step a different alkali metal, or Cl₂, has been deposited on top. The interactions among the deposited species and the substrate have been investigated using soft x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (SXPS). Li and Na appear to compete in the intercalation process. Li replaces Na, by pushing it deeper into the crystal. Cs on Li:TaSe₂ does not intercalate, but stays on top, repelling intercalated Li⁺ deeper inside. For Li on Cs:TaSe₂ an exchange reaction takes place, and Cs is deintercalated. The same effect is induced by Na deposited on intercalated Cs. 1T→2H phase transition for TaSe₂ has been observed only for Li deposition. Cl₂ deposition on Na intercalated substrate induced deintercalation of Na. The experimental results are discussed in relation to thermodynamic, electronic and electrostatic effects. Paper presented at the 5th Euroconference on Solid State Ionics, Benalmádena, Spain, Sept. 13–20, 1998.     

Validation of CASCADE code using the monitor reactions

Production cross-sections of monitor reaction ²⁷Al(x, y)²⁴Na for proton, neutron and deuteron projectiles have been estimated from the CASCADE code from tens of MeV/n to tens of GeV/n energy and compared them with the available experimental data. It has also been shown that using the CASCADE code production cross-section of ²⁷Al(d, y₂)²⁴Na reaction can be obtained from the proton and neutron projectiles. Implicitly, this provides an alternative way of knowing production cross-section of ²⁷Al(n, y ₁)²⁴Na reaction which may be used to monitor the neutron flux in a wide range of energy. However, in the paper need of experimental determination of cross-sections for neutron projectile has been stressed. Similarly, cross-section of other monitor reactions like ²⁷Al(p, y ^′)²²Na and ²⁷Al(n, y ^′ ₁)²²Na are also calibrated as function of energy up to several GeV.     

The (3He,n) reaction on 16O and 18O

The (³He, n) reaction on ¹⁶O and ¹⁸O has been used to study low-spin states in ¹⁸Ne and ²⁰Ne up to E_x ≈ 8 and 20 MeV, respectively. The measured neutron angular distributions have been analysed using DWBA. By a comparison with shell-model calculations in the (s, d) shell it is found that most of the two-proton transfer strength can be explained within that shell. Important contributions, however, from the (f, p) shell in low-lying negative parity states are also present.     

Source of polarised deuterons

The proposed project assumes the development of a universal high-intensity source of polarized deuterons (protons) using a charge-exchange plasma ionizer. The design output current of the source will be up to 10mA for ↑ D⁺(↑ H⁺) and polarization will be up to 90% of the maximal vector (±1) and tensor (+1,−2) polarization. The project is based on the equipment which was supplied within the framework of an agreement between JINR and IUCF (Bloomington, USA). The project will be realized in close cooperation with INR (Moscow, Russia). The source will be installed in the linac hall (LU-20) and polarization of beams will be measured at the output of LU-20. The main purpose of the project is to increase the intensity of the accelerated polarized beams at the JINR Accelerator Complex up to 10¹⁰ d/pulse. Calculations and first accelerator runs have shown that the depolarization resonances are absent for the deuteron beam in the entire energy range of the NUCLOTRON. The source could be transformed into a source of polarized negative ions if necessary. The period of reliable operation without participation of the personnel should be within 1000 hours. The project should be implemented within two to two and a half years from the start of funding.     

The 18F(p,α) reaction and its astrophysical implications

¹⁸F radioactive beams were used to measure the ¹⁸F(p,α) reaction in the c.m. energy ranges of 265–535 keV and 550–740 keV. In each case, a resonant level was clearly detected, of which the resonant strength and some other properties were deduced. The astrophysical reaction rate was calculated down to the novae peak temperature. Consequences for the hot CNO cycles were drawn.     

26g,mAl production cross sections from the 23Na(α, n)26Al reaction

Cross sections have been determined for the production of ^{26g, m}Al from the ²³Na(α, n) reaction. Total ²⁶Al production cross sections were obtained from measurements of the thick-target neutron yield. ^26mAl cross sections were measured using an activation technique. ^26gAl cross sections were deduced by subtracting the ^26mAl cross sections from the total (α, n) cross sections. The principle of detailed balance has been applied to the low-energy data to obtain cross sections for the astrophysically interesting ^26gAl(n, α₀)²³Na reaction. These results are compared with the results of Hauser-Feshbach calculations.