Decay studies of neutron-rich products from 76Ge induced multinucleon transfer reactions including the new isotopes 62Mn, 63Fe and 71, 72, 73Cu

By irradiating a ^natW target with 9 MeV/u ⁷⁶Ge ions, neutron-rich isotopes in the chromiumgermanium region were produced. On-line mass-separated samples were investigated. The new isotopes ⁶²Mn, ⁷¹Cu, ⁷²Cu and ⁷³Cu were identified and their half-lives measured to be 0.88(15), 19.5(16), 6.6(1) and 3.9(3) s, respectively. The half-life of ⁶³Fe, a nucleus which has previously been detected using particle-identification techniques, was measured to be 4.9(5) s. Decay schemes were derived in most cases. Additional spectroscopic information was obtained on the decays of ⁷³Zn and ⁷⁴Zn. We give evidence that the earlier reported γ-ray activity attributed to ⁶⁷Ni belongs to the decay of the ⁷⁰Cu isomers. At A = 67 we observed a new β-ray activity of 21(1) s half-life which is here assigned to the decay of ⁶⁷Ni.     

Understanding the template preorganization step of an artificial arginine receptor

A biomimetic complex which mimics the arginine-phosphonate diester interaction of the arginine fork is investigated with respect to structure and energetics of stable configurations. Within this work, we provide knowledge on local minima of the isolated system obtained from first-principles calculations. Non-negligible solvation effects are studied in a microsolvation approach. The interactions which govern the structural patterns of molecular recognition in this tweezer-guest complex can be significantly modulated by the action of hydrogen bond accepting and donating solvent molecules, such as dimethyl sulfoxide or water, which were present in experimental investigations on this system. Different tweezer-guest structures are evaluated with respect to their temperature-dependent thermodynamical properties as products of the first association reaction step of the bisphosphonate tweezer template and the guanidinium moiety.     

Alpha decay of neutron-deficient isotopes with 78 ⪕ Z ⩽ 83 including the new isotopes 183, 184Pb and 188Bi

Using on-line mass separation of evaporation residues from heavy-ion-induced fusion reactions, three new isotopes were identified by their alpha decay, E_α given in keV: ¹⁸³Pb, 6715(20), ¹⁸⁴Pb, 6632(10) and ¹⁸⁸Bi, 6820(20). Half-lives were determined for ¹⁸⁴Pb, 0.55(6)s, ¹⁸⁵Pb, 4.1(3)s and ¹⁸³Tl, 0.060(15) s. The alpha branching ratios were re-measured for ^182–184Hg and ^{178, 179}Pt, the results are discussed within the framework of alpha width systematics.