No Arabic abstract
We investigated the 238U(d,p) reaction as a surrogate for the n + 238U reaction. For this purpose we measured for the first time the gamma-decay and fission probabilities of 239U* simultaneously and compared them to the corresponding neutron-induced data. We present the details of the procedure to infer the decay probabilities, as well as a thorough uncertainty analysis, including parameter correlations. Calculations based on the continuum-discretized coupled-channels and distorted-wave Born approximations were used to correct our data from detected protons originating from elastic and inelastic deuteron breakup. In the region where the fission and gamma-decay probabilities compete, the corrected fission probability is in agreement with neutron-induced data, whereas the gamma-decay probability is much higher than the neutron-induced data. The performed statistical-model calculations are not able to explain these results.
Reliable neutron-induced reaction cross sections of unstable nuclei are essential for nuclear astrophysics and applications but their direct measurement is often impossible. The surrogate-reaction method is one of the most promising alternatives to access these cross sections. In this work, we successfully applied the surrogate-reaction method to infer for the first time both the neutron-induced fission and radiative-capture cross sections of 239Pu in a consistent manner from a single measurement. This was achieved by combining simultaneously-measured fission and gamma-emission probabilities for the 240Pu(4He,4He) surrogate reaction with a calculation of the angular-momentum and parity distributions populated in this reaction. While other experiments measure the probabilities for some selected gamma-ray transitions, we measure the gamma-emission probability. This enlarges the applicability of the surrogate-reaction method.
Fission fragments from 1 A GeV 238U projectiles irradiating a hydrogen target were investigated by using the fragment separator FRS for magnetic selection of reaction products including ray-tracing and DE-ToF techniques. The momentum spectra of 733 identified fragments were analysed to provide isotopic production cross sections, fission-fragment velocities and recoil momenta of the fissioning parent nuclei. Besides their general relevance, these quantities are also demanded for applications. Calculations and simulations with codes commonly used and recently developed or improved are compared to the data.
In this article a method for lifetime measurements in the sub-picosecond regime via the Doppler-shift attenuation method (DSAM) following the inelastic proton scattering reaction is presented. In a pioneering experiment we extracted the lifetimes of 30 excited low-spin states of $^{96}$Ru, taking advantage of the coincident detection of scattered protons and de-exciting $gamma$-rays as well as the large number of particle and $gamma$-ray detectors provided by the SONIC@HORUS setup at the University of Cologne. The large amount of new experimental data shows that this technique is suited for the measurement of lifetimes of excited low-spin states, especially for isotopes with a low isotopic abundance, where $(n,n^{prime}gamma$) or - in case of investigating dipole excitations - ($gamma,gamma^{prime}$) experiments are not feasible due to the lack of sufficient isotopically enriched target material.
$beta$ decay of $^{26}$P was used to populate the astrophysically important $E_x=$5929.4(8) keV $J^{pi}=3{^+}$ state of $^{26}$Si. Both $beta$-delayed proton at 418(8) keV and gamma ray at 1742(2) keV emitted from this state were measured simultaneously for the first time with corresponding absolute intensities of 11.1(12)% and 0.59(44)%, respectively. Besides, shell model calculations with weakly bound effects were performed to investigate the decay properties of other resonant states and a spin-parity of $4^+$ rather than $0^+$ was favored for the $E_x=$5945.9(40) keV state. Combining the experimental results and theoretical calculations, $^{25}$Al($p,gamma$)$^{26}$Si reaction rate in explosive hydrogen burning environments was calculated and compared with previous studies.
In the present work, we report our in depth study of 12C(p,pgamma)12C reaction both experimentally and theoretically with proton beam energy ranging from 8 MeV to 22 MeV. The angular distributions were measured at six different angles. We discuss the gamma angular distributions, total cross sections values for 4.438, 9.64, 12.7 and 15.1 MeV states. We also describe the theoretical interpretation of our measurements using optical model analysis. We also report the branching ratios from our measurements. For the first time, we have measured the the cross section and branching ratio for the 9.64 MeV state.