No Arabic abstract
The occurrence of octupole shapes in even-mass neutron-rich Ba isotopes has been well established. However, the situation with the odd-mass Ba and odd or odd-odd La nuclei around them is far from settled. In order to shed light on these less-studied isotopes, a fast-timing experiment was performed using GRIFFIN at TRIUMF-ISAC. A wealth of excited-state lifetimes in the 100~ps to few ns range have been measured in $^{144, 145, 146}$Ba and $^{145,146}$La populated in the $beta^-$ and $beta^--n$ decay of $^{145,146}$Cs. The results do not allow to draw firm conclusions on the possible octupole deformation of these nuclei but suggest different spin and parity assignments than previous works. This work highlights the need for more detailed study of the odd and odd-odd isotopes in this region to properly understand their structure.
Low-spin states in the neutron-rich, N = 90 nuclide $^{146}$Ba were populated following $beta$-decay of $^{146}$Cs, with the goal of clarifying the development of deformation in Ba isotopes through delineation of their non-yrast structures. Fission fragments of $^{146}$Cs were extracted from a 1.7-Ci $^{252}$Cf source and mass-selected using the CARIBU facility. Low-energy ions were deposited at the center of a box of thin $beta$ detectors, surrounded by a high-efficiency HPGe array. The new $^{146}$Ba decay scheme now contains 31 excited levels extending up to ~2.5 MeV excitation energy, double what was previously known. These data are compared to predictions from the Interacting Boson Approximation (IBA) model. It appears that the abrupt shape change found at N = 90 in Sm and Gd is much more gradual in Ba and Ce, due to an enhanced role of the $gamma$ degree of freedom.
Lifetimes in the yrast bands of the nuclei $^{182,186}$Pt have been measured using the Doppler-shift Recoil Distance technique. The results in both cases {em viz.} a sharp increase in B(E2) values at very low spins, may be interpreted as resulting from a mixing between two bands of different quadrupole deformations.
Despite the more than one order of magnitude difference between the measured dipole moments in $^{144}$Ba and $^{146}$Ba, the strength of the octupole correlations in $^{146}$Ba are found to be as strong as those in $^{144}$Ba with a similarly large value of $B(E3;3^- rightarrow 0^+)$ determined as 48($^{+21}_{-29}$) W.u. The new results not only establish unambiguously the presence of a region of octupole deformation centered on these neutron-rich Ba isotopes, but also manifest the dependence of the electric dipole moments on the occupancy of different neutron orbitals in nuclei with enhanced octupole strength, as revealed by fully microscopic calculations.
We model the broad-band spectral energy distribution of the innermost core-jet region of the redshift z=1.187 quasar PKS 1127-145. We propose a scenario where the high energy photons are produced via the Compton scattering of thermal IR radiation by the relativistic particles in a parsec-scale jet. The high energy spectrum, together with the observed radio variability and superluminal expansion, suggest that PKS 1127-145 may be a blazar, despite the fact that its optical/UV component is likely dominated by thermal radiation from an accretion disk. The relation of PKS 1127-145 to MeV - blazars is discussed.
Free neutrons have a measured lifetime of 880 s, but disagreement between existing laboratory measurements of ~10 s have persisted over many years. This uncertainty has implications for multiple physics disciplines, including standard-model particle physics and Big-Bang nucleosynthesis. Space-based neutron lifetime measurements have been shown to be feasible using existing data taken at Venus and the Moon, although the uncertainties for these measurements of tens of seconds prevent addressing the current lifetime discrepancy. We investigate the implementation of a dedicated space-based experiment that could provide a competitive and independent lifetime measurement. We considered a variety of scenarios, including measurements made from orbit about the Earth, Moon, and Venus, as well as on the surface of the Moon. For a standard-sized neutron detector, a measurement with three-second statistical precision can be obtained from Venus orbit in less than a day; a one-second statistical precision can be obtained from Venus orbit in less than a week. Similarly precise measurements in Earth orbit and on the lunar surface can be acquired in less than 40 days (three-second precision) and ~300 days (one-second precision). Systematic uncertainties that affect a space-based neutron lifetime measurement are investigated, and the feasibility of developing such an experiment is discussed.