Radioactive beams of $^{14}$O and $^{15}$O were used to populate the resonant states 1/2$^+$, 5/2$^+$ and $0^-,1^-,2^-$ in the unbound $^{15}$F and $^{16}$F nuclei respectively by means of proton elastic scattering reactions in inverse kinematics. Ba
sed on their large proton spectroscopic factor values, the resonant states in $^{16}$F can be viewed as a core of $^{14}$O plus a proton in the 2s$_{1/2}$ or 1d$_{5/2}$ shell and a neutron in 1p$_{1/2}$. Experimental energies were used to derive the strength of the 2s$_{1/2}$-1p$_{1/2}$ and 1d$_{5/2}$-1p$_{1/2}$ proton-neutron interactions. It is found that the former changes by 40% compared with the mirror nucleus $^{16}$N, and the second by 10%. This apparent symmetry breaking of the nuclear force between mirror nuclei finds explanation in the role of the large coupling to the continuum for the states built on an $ell=0$ proton configuration.
The decay of $^{19}$O($beta^-$) and $^{19}$Ne($beta^+$) implanted in niobium in its superconducting and metallic phase was measured using purified radioactive beams produced by the SPIRAL/GANIL facility. Half-lives and branching ratios measured in th
e two phases are consistent within one-sigma error bar. This measurement casts strong doubts on the predicted strong electron screening in superconductor, the so-called superscreening. The measured difference in screening potential energy is 110(90) eV for $^{19}$Ne and 400(320) eV for $^{19}$O. Precise determinations of the half-lives were obtained for $^{19}$O: 26.476(9) s and $^{19}$Ne: 17.254(5) s.
$gamma$-ray production cross sections have been measured in proton irradiations of N, Ne and Si and $alpha$-particle irradiations of N and Ne. In the same experiment we extracted also line shapes for strong $gamma$-ray lines of $^{16}$O produced in p
roton and $alpha$-particle irradiations of O. For the measurements gas targets were used for N, O and Ne and a thick foil was used for Si. All targets were of natural isotopic composition. Beams in the energy range up to 26 MeV for protons and 39 MeV for $alpha$-particles have been delivered by the IPN-Orsay tandem accelerator. The $gamma$ rays have been detected with four HP-Ge detectors in the angular range 30$^{circ}$ to 135$^{circ}$. We extracted 36 cross section excitation functions for proton reactions and 14 for $alpha$-particle reactions. For the majority of the excitation functions no other data exist to our knowledge. Where comparison with existing data was possible usually a very good agreement was found. It is shown that these data are very interesting for constraining nuclear reaction models. In particular the agreement of cross section calculations in the nuclear reaction code TALYS with the measured data could be improved by adjusting the coupling schemes of collective levels in the target nuclei $^{14}$N, $^{20,22}$Ne and $^{28}$Si. The importance of these results for the modeling of nuclear $gamma$-ray line emission in astrophysical sites is discussed.
