No Arabic abstract
Production of a GeV photon beam by laser backward-Compton scattering has been playing an important role as a tool for nuclear and particle physics experiments. Its production techniques are now established at electron storage rings, which are increasing worldwide. A typical photon intensity has reached $sim$ 10 $^6$ sec$^{-1}$. In the present article, the LEPS beamline facility at SPring-8 is mainly described with an overview of experimental applications, for the purpose to summarize the GeV photon beam production. Finally, possible future upgrades are discussed with new developments of laser injection.
Progress in nuclear physics is driven by the experimental observation that requires state of the art detectors to measure various kinematic properties, such as energy, momentum, position etc. of the particles produced in a nuclear reaction. Advances in detector technology has enabled nuclear physicists to measure these quantities with better precision, and the reduced cost of the detection system has helped to have larger detection systems (array of detectors) to measure the rare processes with greater sensitivity. Several detection systems have been designed, developed and built in India over last few decades and are being used by the physicists. In this article, I will focus on such developments of detection systems at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata.
The design, construction and performance characteristics of a simple axial-field ionization chamber suitable for identifying ions in a radioactive beam are presented. Optimized for use with low-energy radioactive beams (< 5 MeV/A) the detector presents only three 0.5 $mu$m/cm$^2$ foils to the beam in addition to the detector gas. A fast charge sensitive amplifier (CSA) integrated into the detector design is also described. Coupling this fast CSA to the axial field ionization chamber produces an output pulse with a risetime of 60-70 ns and a fall time of 100 ns, making the detector capable of sustaining a relatively high rate. Tests with an $alpha$ source establish the detector energy resolution as $sim$8 $%$ for an energy deposit of $sim$3.5 MeV. The energy resolution with beams of 2.5 and 4.0 MeV/A $^{39}$K ions and the dependence of the energy resolution on beam intensity is measured. At an instantaneous rate of 3 x 10$^5$ ions/s the energy resolution has degraded to 14% with a pileup of 12%. The good energy resolution of this detector at rates up to 3 x 10$^5$ ions/s makes it an effective tool in the characterization of low-energy radioactive beams.
Gamma-Beams at the HIgS facility in the USA and anticipated at the ELI-NP facility, now constructed in Romania, present unique new opportunities to advance research in nuclear astrophysics; not the least of which is resolving open questions in oxygen formation during stellar helium burning via a precise measurement of the 12C(a,g) reaction. Time projection chamber (TPC) detectors operating with low pressure gas (as an active target) are ideally suited for such studies. We review the progress of the current research program and plans for the future at the HI{gamma}S facility with the optical readout TPC (O-TPC) and the development of an electronic readout TPC for the ELI-NP facility (ELITPC).
Atomic physics techniques for the determination of ground-state properties of radioactive isotopes are very sensitive and provide accurate masses, binding energies, Q-values, charge radii, spins, and electromagnetic moments. Many fields in nuclear physics benefit from these highly accurate numbers. They give insight into details of the nuclear structure for a better understanding of the underlying effective interactions, provide important input for studies of fundamental symmetries in physics, and help to understand the nucleosynthesis processes that are responsible for the observed chemical abundances in the Universe. Penning-trap and and storage-ring mass spectrometry as well as laser spectroscopy of radioactive nuclei have now been used for a long time but significant progress has been achieved in these fields within the last decade. The basic principles of laser spectroscopic investigations, Penning-trap and storage-ring mass measurements of short-lived nuclei are summarized and selected physics results are discussed.
Direct nuclear reactions with radioactive ion beams represent an extremely powerful tool to extend the study of fundamental nuclear properties far from stability. These measurements require pure and dense targets to cope with the low beam intensities. The $^3$He cryogenic target HeCTOr has been designed to perform direct nuclear reactions in inverse kinematics. The high density of $^3$He scattering centers, of the order of 10$^{20}$ atoms/cm$^2$, makes it particularly suited for experiments where low-intensity radioactive beams are involved. The target was employed in a first in-beam experiment, where it was coupled to state-of-the-art gamma-ray and particle detectors. It showed excellent stability in gas temperature and density over time. Relevant experimental quantities, such as total target thickness, energy resolution and gamma-ray absorption, were determined through dedicated Geant4 simulations and found to be in good agreement with experimental data.