No Arabic abstract
A theoretical approach was developed to describe secondary particle emission in heavy ion collisions, with special regards to pre-equilibrium {alpha}-particle production. Griffins model of non-equilibrium processes is used to account for the first stage of the compound system formation, while a Monte Carlo statistical approach was used to describe the further decay from a hot source at thermal equilibrium. The probabilities of neutron, proton and {alpha}-particle emission have been evaluated for both the equilibrium and pre-equilibrium stages of the process. Fission and {gamma}-ray emission competition were also considered after equilibration. Effects due the possible cluster structure of the projectile which has been excited during the collisions have been experimentally evidenced studying the double differential cross sections of p and {alpha}-particles emitted in the E=250MeV 16O +116Sn reaction. Calculations within the present model with different clusterization probabilities have been compared to the experimental data.
The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction 40Ca + 12C at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce alpha-emission sources. From a careful selection of these sources provided by a complete detection and from comparisons with models of sequential and simultaneous decays, strong indications in favour of $alpha$-particle clustering in excited 16O, 20Ne and 24}Mg are reported.
The $alpha$ particle preformation in the even-even nuclei from $^{108}$Te to $^{294}$118 and the penetration probability have been studied. The isotopes from Pb to U have been firstly investigated since the experimental data allow us to extract the microscopic features for each element. The assault frequency has been estimated using classical methods and the penetration probability from tunneling through the Generalized Liquid Drop Model (GLDM) potential barrier. The preformation factor has been extracted from experimental $alpha$ decay energies and half-lives. The shell closure effects play the key role in the $alpha$ preformation. The more the nucleon number is close to the magic numbers, the more the formation of $alpha$ cluster is difficult inside the mother nucleus. The penetration probabilities reflect that 126 is a neutron magic number. The penetration probability range is very large compared to that of the preformation factor. The penetration probability determines mainly the $alpha$ decay half-life while the preformation factor allows us to obtain information on the nuclear structure. The study has been extended to the newly observed heaviest nuclei.
In this Letter, we report on alpha particle emission through the nuclear break-up in the reaction 40Ca on a 40Ca target at 50A MeV. It is observed that, similarly to nucleons, alpha particles can be emitted to the continuum with very specific angular distribution during the reaction. The alpha particle properties can be understood as resulting from an alpha cluster in the daughter nucleus that is perturbed by the short range nuclear attraction of the collision partner and emitted. A time-dependent theory that describe the alpha particle wave-function evolution is able to reproduce qualitatively the observed angular distribution. This mechanism offers new possibilities to study alpha particle properties in the nuclear medium.
A new $alpha$-emitting isotope $^{214}$U, produced by fusion-evaporation reaction $^{182}$W($^{36}$Ar, 4n)$^{214}$U, was identified by employing the gas-filled recoil separator SHANS and recoil-$alpha$ correlation technique. More precise $alpha$-decay properties of even-even nuclei $^{216,218}$U were also measured in reactions of $^{40}$Ar, $^{40}$Ca with $^{180, 182, 184}$W targets. By combining the experimental data, improved $alpha$-decay reduced widths $delta^2$ for the even-even Po--Pu nuclei in the vicinity of magic neutron number $N=126$ were deduced. Their systematic trends are discussed in terms of $N_{p}N_{n}$ scheme in order to study the influence of proton-neutron interaction on $alpha$ decay in this region of nuclei. It is strikingly found that the reduced widths of $^{214,216}$U are significantly enhanced by a factor of two as compared with the $N_{p}N_{n}$ systematics for the $84 leq Z leq 90$ and $N<126$ even-even nuclei. The abnormal enhancement is interpreted by the strong monopole interaction between the valence protons and neutrons occupying the $pi 1f_{7/2}$ and $ u 1f_{5/2}$ spin-orbit partner orbits, which is supported by a large-scale shell model calculation.
The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction $^{40}$Ca+$^{12}$C at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce excited states candidates to $alpha$-particle condensation. Complete kinematic characterization of individual decay events, made possible by a high-granularity 4$pi$ charged particle multi-detector, reveals that 7.5$pm$4.0% of the particle decays of the Hoyle state correspond to direct decays in three equal-energy $alpha$-particles.