B. Fernandez-Dominguez

Experimental Study of the Two-Body Spin-Orbit Force in Nuclei

Energies and spectroscopic factors of the first 7/2-, 3/2-, 1/2-, and 5/2- states in the (35)Si21 nucleus were determined by means of the (d, p) transfer reaction in inverse kinematics at GANIL using the MUST2 and EXOGAM detectors. By comparing the spectroscopic information on the Si35 and S37 isotones, a reduction of the p3/2-p1/2 spin-orbit splitting by about 25% is proposed, while the f7/2-f5/2 spin-orbit splitting seems to remain constant. These features, derived after having unfolded nuclear correlations using shell model calculations, have been attributed to the properties of the two-body spin-orbit interaction, the amplitude of which is derived for the first time in an atomic nucleus. The present results, remarkably well reproduced by using several realistic nucleon-nucleon forces, provide a unique touchstone for the modeling of the spin-orbit interaction in atomic nuclei.

Search for new resonant states in C-10 and C-11 and their impact on the cosmological lithium problem

The observed primordial 7Li abundance in metal-poor halo stars is found to be lower than its Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) calculated value by a factor of approximately three. Some recent works suggested the possibility that this discrepancy originates from missing resonant reactions which would destroy the 7Be, parent of 7Li. The most promising candidate resonances which were found include a possibly missed 1- or 2- narrow state around 15 MeV in the compound nucleus 10C formed by 7Be+3He and a state close to 7.8 MeV in the compound nucleus 11C formed by 7Be+4He. In this work, we studied the high excitation energy region of 10C and the low excitation energy region in 11C via the reactions 10B(3He,t)10C and 11B(3He,t)11C, respectively, at the incident energy of 35 MeV. Our results for 10C do not support 7Be+3He as a possible solution for the 7Li problem. Concerning 11C results, the data show no new resonances in the excitation energy region of interest and this excludes 7Be+4He reaction channel as an explanation for the 7Li deficit.

Single-particle strength in neutron-rich 71Cu from the (d,3He) proton pick-up reaction

We have measured the 72Zn(d,3He)71Cu proton pick-up reaction in inverse kinematics at 38 MeV/u. A dedicated set-up was developed to overcome the experimental challenges posed by the low cross section of the reaction and the low energy of the outgoing 3He particles. The excitation-energy spectrum was reconstructed and spectroscopic factors were obtained after analysis of the angular distributions in the finite-range Distorted-Wave Born Approximation (DWBA). The results show that unlike for the πf5/2 orbital, the πf7/2 singleparticle strength is not appreciably affected by the addition of neutrons beyond N = 40.

Alpha cluster structure in56Ni

The inelastic

Structure Beyond the Neutron Drip-Line: 9He

\alpha

Measurement of the isoscalar monopole response in the neutron-rich nucleus 68Ni.

−scattering experiment on 56Ni in inverse kinematics was performed at an incident energy of 50 MeV/u at GANIL. A very high multiplicity for

Emergence of the N=16 shell gap in ^(21)O

\alpha

Isoscalar response of Ni-68 to alpha-particle and deuteron probes

−particle emission was observed with our phase-space limited experimental set-up. The maximum observed multiplicity, which cannot be explained by means of the statistical decay model, amounted to seven. The ideal classical gas model at kT = 3 MeV fairly well reproduced the experimental momentum distribution and multiplicity of alpha particles. This result strongly suggests that an alpha-gas state in 56Ni may be excited via inelastic alpha scattering.

Spectroscopy of

In order to solve the nature of 9He ground state, additional information on this unbound nucleus with extreme N/Z ratio was needed. The present study was performed via the (d,p) reaction, a standard tool for determination of neutron single-particle distribution.