Study of $Δ$ excitations in medium-mass nuclei with peripheral heavy ion charge-exchange reactions
J. L. Rodriguez-Sanchez, J. Benlliure, I. Vidaña, H. Lenske, C. Scheidenberger, J. Vargas, H. Alvarez-Pol, Y. Ayyad, J. Atkinson, T. Aumann, S. Beceiro-Novo, K.… 展开作者
J. L. Rodriguez-Sanchez, J. Benlliure, I. Vidaña, H. Lenske, C. Scheidenberger, J. Vargas, H. Alvarez-Pol, Y. Ayyad, J. Atkinson, T. Aumann, S. Beceiro-Novo, K. Boretzky, M. Caamaño, E. Casarejos, D. Cortina-Gil, P. Diaz Fernandez, A. Estrade, H. Geissel, E. Haettner, A. Kelic-Heil, Yu. A. Litvinov, C. Paradela, D. Perez-Loureiro, S. Pietri, A. Prochazka, M. Takechi, Y. K. Tanaka, H. Weick, J. S. Winfield
Isobaric single charge-exchange reactions, changing nuclear charges by one unit but leaving the mass partitions unaffected, have been for the first time investigated by peripheral collisions of $^{112}$Sn ions accelerated up to 1\textit{A} GeV at the GSI facilities. The high-resolving power of the FRS spectrometer allows us to obtain $(p, n)$-type isobaric charge-exchange cross sections with an uncertainty of $3.5\%$ and to separate quasi-elastic and inelastic components in the missing-energy spectra of the ejectiles. The inelastic component is associated to the excitation of the $Δ$(1232) isobar resonance and the emission of pions in s-wave both in the target and projectile nucleus, while the quasi-elastic contribution is associated to the nuclear spin-isospin response of nucleon-hole excitations. An apparent shift of the $Δ$-resonance peak of $\sim$63 MeV is observed when comparing the missing-energy spectra obtained from the measurements with proton and carbon targets. A detailed analysis, performed with a theoretical model for the reactions, indicates that this observation can be simply interpreted as a change in the relative magnitude between the contribution of the excitation of the resonance in the target and in the projectile.
The production mechanism of highly excited nuclei in the Fermi energy domain is investigated. A phenomenological approach, based on the exciton model, is used for the description of pre-equilibrium emission. A model of deep inelastic transfer is employed for the peripheral collisions in the post-pre-equilibrium stage. An approach to describe more central collisions is proposed. A geometric overlap formula is employed in a way suitable for given energy domain. A simple geometric approach describing the interaction of participant and spectator zones is used to determine the incomplete fusion cha…
A study of multiplicity distribution of singly charged, doubly charged, multi charged projectile fragments and shower particles have been carried out for the peripheral collisions in 16O-emulsion,22Ne-emulsion and 28Si-emulsion interactions at an incident momentum of (4.1-4.5) AGeV/c. Events having no target fragments have been designated as peripheral collision events. Percentage of peripheral events has been found to increase with the increase of projectile mass. Dispersion of the multiplicity distribution and its dependence on projectile mass for projectile fragments and shower particles ha…
Possibilities of the nuclear emulsion technique for the study of the systems of several relativistic fragments produced in the peripheral interactions of relativistic nuclei are discussed. The interactions of the $^{10}$B and $^{9}$Be nuclei in emulsion are taken as an example to show the manifestation of the cluster degrees of freedom in relativistic fragmentation. For the case of the relativistic $^{9}$Be nucleus dissociation it is shown that exact angular measurements play a crucial role in the restoration of the excitation spectrum of the alpha particle fragments. The energy calibration of…
Experimental results on peripheral fragmentation of relativistic $^{11}$B nuclei are presented. In the experiment the emulsions exposured to $^{11}$B beam with momentum 2.75 A GeV/c at the JINR Nuclotron are used. The relative probability of various fragmentation channels for nucleus breakups (class A) and more violent peripheral interactions (class B) have been determined. For classes under investigations the sum of the fragment charges in narrow forward cone is equal to the projectile charge, but in the events of class A there are no secondary particles and in the events of class B there are…
We have studied the fragment yields emitted from the fragmentation of excited projectile nuclei in peripheral collisions of 136Xe+Pb at 1 GeV/nucleon, and measured with the high-resolution magnetic spectrometer, the Fragment Separator (FRS) of GSI. The mass, charge and isotope distributions of nuclear fragments formed in the reactions were calculated within a statistical ensemble approach and compared to the experimental data. The ensemble of excited projectilelike source nuclei were created in the framework of a previous analysis of similar reactions performed at 600 MeV/nucleon (ALADIN-exper…
We calculate the impact of the complete set of two-pion exchange contributions at chiral order four (also known as next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order, N3LO) on peripheral partial waves of nucleon-nucleon scattering. Our calculations are based upon the analytical studies by Kaiser. It turns out that the contribution of order four is substantially smaller than the one of order three, indicating convergence of the chiral expansion. We compare the prediction from chiral pion-exchange with the corresponding one from conventional meson-theory as represented by the Bonn Full Model and find, in gen…
The results of investigations of the dissociation of a $^{14}$N nucleus of momentum 2.86~A~GeV/c in photo-emulsion are presented. The main characteristics of these reactions, that is the cross sections for various fragmentation channels, are given. The fragmentation was analyzed by means of an invariant approach. The momentum and correlation characteristics of $α$ particles for the $^{14}$N$\to3α$+X channel in the laboratory system and the rest systems of 3$α$ particles were considered. The results obtained for the $^{14}$N nucleus are compared with similar data for the $^{12}$C and $^{16}$O n…
The technique of nuclear track emulsions is used to explore the fragmentation of light relativistic nuclei down to the most peripheral interactions - nuclear "white" stars. A complete pattern of therelativistic dissociation of a $^8$B nucleus with target fragment accompaniment is presented. Relativistic dissociation $^{9}$Be$\to2α$ is explored using significant statistics and a relative contribution of $^{8}$Be decays from 0$^+$ and 2$^+$ states is established. Target fragment accompaniments are shown for relativistic fragmentation $^{14}$N$\to$3He+H and $^{22}$Ne$\to$5He. The leading role of …
Coherent peripheral collisions of atomic nuclei involve electromagnetic or long range hadronic interactions at impact parameters, where both nuclei survive intact. Recently such ultra-peripheral collisions were observed at RHIC. The effect of the electromagnetic field can be interpreted as a photon-photon collision with an effective center of mass energy up to a few GeV at RHIC. At the Large Hadron Collider the effective center of mass energy will be increased by more than an order of magnitude. This opens new opportunities, ranging from the study of non-perturbative QCD to the search for new …
Fragment properties of hot fragmenting sources of similar sizes produced in central and semi-peripheral collisions are compared in the excitation energy range 5-10 AMeV. For semi-peripheral collisions a method for selecting compact quasi-projectiles sources in velocity space similar to those of fused systems (central collisions) is proposed. The two major results are related to collective energy. The weak radial collective energy observed for quasi-projectile sources is shown to originate from thermal pressure only. The larger fragment multiplicity observed for fused systems and their more sym…
We report the first observation of exclusive $ρ$ production in ultra-peripheral collisions at RHIC. The $ρ$ are produced electromagnetically at large impact parameters where no hadronic interactions occur. The produced $ρ$ have a small perpendicular momentum, consistent with production that is coherent on both the photon emitting and scattering nuclei. We observe both exclusive $ρ$ production, and $ρ$ production accompanied by electromagnetic dissociation of both nuclei. We discuss models of vector meson production and the correlation with nuclear breakup. We also observe $e^+e^-$ pair product…
We present the two- and three-pion exchange contributions to the nucleon-nucleon interaction which occur at next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N4LO, fifth order) of chiral effective field theory, and calculate nucleon-nucleon scattering in peripheral partial waves with L>=3 using low-energy constants that were extracted from pi-N analysis at fourth order. While the net three-pion exchange contribution is moderate, the two-pion exchanges turn out to be sizeable and prevailingly repulsive, thus, compensating the excessive attraction characteristic for NNLO and N3LO. As a result, the …
Nuclei of $^7$Li were accelerated at the JINR Nuclotron. After the charge-exchange reaction involving these nuclei at an external target a second $^7$Be beam of energy 1.23A GeV was formed. This beam was used to expose photo-emulsion chambers. The mean free path for inelastic $^7$Be interactions in emulsion $λ$=14.0$\pm$0.8 cm coincides within the errors with those for $^6$Li and $^7$Li nuclei. More than 10% of the $^7$Be events are associated with the peripheral interactions in which the total charge of the relativistic fragments is equal to the charge of the $^7$Be and in which charged meson…
The results of investigations dealing with the charge topology of the fragments produced in peripheral dissociation of relativistic $^8$B nuclei in emulsion are presented. 55 events of peripheral dissociation of the $^8$B nucleus were selected from the events which do not involve the production of the target-nucleus fragments and mesons (`` white\rq\rq ~stars). A leading contribution of the $^8$B$\to^7$Be+p mode having the lowest energy threshold was revealed on the basis of those events. Information on the relative probability of dissociation modes with a larger multiplicity was obtained. The…
The intense photon fluxes of relativistic nuclei provide a possibility to study photonuclear and two-photon interactions in ultra-peripheral collisions (UPC) where the nuclei do not overlap and no strong nuclear interactions occur. The study of such collisions provides information about the initial state of nuclei. First ALICE results from the LHC Run 2 are presented for forward exclusive \jpsi production in UPC, which is sensitive to the gluon distribution in nuclei. The increased statistics and the higher collision energy allows for a more detailed study at lower values of Bjorken-$x$. The a…
Progress in the study of the peripheral nuclear interactions in $^{14}N$ dissociation at $2.1A GeV$ in nuclear emulsion is outlined. The leading role of the multiple fragmentations in the most peripheral nucleus interactions is discussed. The production of unusual states, for which a regrouping of nucleons beyond the $α$-particle clustering is needed, is identified for this channel.
Ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions, in which the two nuclei pass close to each other, but at an impact parameter greater than the sum of their radii, provide information about the initial state of nuclei. In particular, heavy vector meson production, where the particle mass sets a hard scale, proceeds in such collisions by photon-gluon interactions, and gives access to nuclear PDFs. The ALICE collaboration has published measurements of J/psi and psi(2S) photoproduction in ultra-peripheral collisions in LHC Run 1 at forward (J/psi) and mid-rapidity, and has obtained a substantially larger data s…
A large enhancement in the production of neutron-rich projectile residues is observed in the reactions of a 25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr beam with the neutron rich 124Sn and 64Ni targets relative to the predictions of the EPAX parametrization of high-energy fragmentation, as well as relative to the reaction with the less neutron-rich 112Sn target. The data demonstrate the significant effect of the target neutron-to-proton ratio (N/Z) in peripheral collisions at Fermi energies. A hybrid model based on a deep-inelastic transfer code (DIT) followed by a statistical de-excitation code appears to account fo…
Experimental data on fragmentation channels in peripheral interactions of $^8$B nuclei in nuclear track emulsions are presented. A detailed analysis made it possible to justify selections of events of the electromagnetic-dissociation process $^8$B $\to^7$Be + \emph{p} and to estimate its cross section. Events of $^{10}$C peripheral dissociation that were observed in the same exposure are described.
Vector mesons are copiously produced in ultra-peripheral nucleus-nucleus collisions. In these collisions, the nuclei are separated by impact parameters larger than the sum of the nuclear radii, and the interaction is mediated by the electromagnetic field. The interaction effectively corresponds to a photonuclear interaction between a photon, generated from the electromagnetic field of one of the nuclei, and the target nucleus. The ALICE Collaboration has previously published results on exclusive J/psi photoproduction at mid and forward rapidities in Pb-Pb collisions. The cross section for this…
Ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions involve long range electromagnetic interactions at impact parameters larger than twice the nuclear radius, where no nucleon-nucleon collisions occur. The first observation of coherent rho^0 production with and without accompanying nuclear breakup, AuAu->Au*Au*rho^0 and AuAu->Au Au rho^0 respectively, and the observation of e+e- pair production AuAu->Au*Au*e+e- are presented by the STAR collaboration. The transverse momentum spectra are peaked at low pT, showing the coherent coupling to the nuclei. A clear rho^0 signal is observed in the two pion invariant …
A comparison of experimental heavy residue cross sections from the reactions 86Kr+64Ni,112,124Sn with the model of deep-inelastic transfer (DIT) is carried out. A modified expression for nucleon transfer probabilities is used at non-overlapping projectile-target configurations, introducing a dependence on isospin asymmetry at the nuclear periphery. The experimental yields of neutron-rich nuclei close to the projectile are reproduced better and the trend deviating from the bulk isospin equilibration is explained. For the neutron-rich products further from the projectile, originating from hot qu…
The STAR collaboration reports the first observation of exclusive rho^0 photo-production, AuAu->AuAu rho^0, and rho^0 production accompanied by mutual nuclear Coulomb excitation, AuAu->Au*Au*rho^0, in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions. The rho^0 have low transverse momenta, consistent with coherent coupling to both nuclei. The cross sections at sqrt(s_NN)=130GeV agree with theoretical predictions treating rho^0 production and Coulomb excitation as independent processes.
The characteristics, in particular the isotopic composition (N/Z), of intermediate mass fragments (IMF : 3<=Z<=20) produced near the center-of-mass in mid-peripheral and central collisions of 114Cd ions with 92Mo target nuclei at E/A=50 MeV are compared to that of IMFs emitted from the projectile-like fragment (PLF) in mid-peripheral collisions. IMFs produced at mid-velocities are on average larger in atomic number, more energetic, and more neutron-rich as compared to IMFs emitted from the PLF. In contrast, the characteristics of mid-velocity IMFs in central collisions and mid-peripheral colli…
In ultra-peripheral relativistic heavy ion collisions the beam ions scatter at impact parameters larger than the sum of their radii, so that they interact via long range electromagnetic forces. Due to the Lorentz-boost of the beam particles, the exchanged virtual photons have high energies and can induce the photoproduction of vector-mesons. We present recent results of the STAR experiment at RHIC on $ρ^0(770)$ production in Au-Au ultra-peripheral collisions at various energies. STAR has also observed the photoproduction of $π^+π^-π+π^-$, which is related to the still poorly known excited stat…
Recent studies of clustering in light nuclei with an initial energy above 1 A GeV in nuclear treack emulsion are overviewed. The results of investigations of the relativistic $^9$Be nuclei fragmentation in emulsion, which entails the production of He fragments, are presented. It is shown that most precise angular measurements provided by this technique play a crucial role in the restoration of the excitation spectrum of the $α$ particle sysytem. In peripheral interactions $^9$Be nuclei are dissociated practically totally through the 0$^+$ and 2$^+$ states of the $^8$Be nucleus. The results of …
Gluon density and its distributions inside nuclei and the parton modification of bounded nucleons inside a nucleus, are some of the main standing problems in nuclear and particle physics. In recent years, ultra-peripheral collisions (UPC) of heavy ions have provided a new way of probing the gluon density, which is based on coherent diffractive vector-meson productions, e.g., $J/ψ$ meson. For heavy ions, e.g., Pb, the gluon density is found to be significantly suppressed through the UPC $J/ψ$ measurement, suggesting a strong gluon shadowing effect in heavy nuclei. In this analysis, we aim to lo…
Spin dipole (SD) strengths for double beta-decay (DBD) nuclei were studied experimentally for the first time by using measured cross sections of (3He,t) charge exchange reactions (CERs). Then SD nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) for low-lying 2- states were derived from the experimental SD strengths by referring to the experimental GT (Gamow-Teller) and F (Fermi) strengths. They are consistent with the empirical SD NMEs based on the quasi-particle model with the empirical effective SD coupling constant. The CERs are used to evaluate the SD NME, which is associated with one of the major components…
The emission pattern in the V_perp - V_par plane of Intermediate Mass Fragments with Z=3-7 (IMF) has been studied in the collision 116Sn + 93Nb at 29.5 AMeV as a function of the Total Kinetic Energy Loss of the reaction. This pattern shows that for peripheral reactions most of IMF's are emitted at mid-velocity. Coulomb trajectory calculations demonstrate that these IMF's are produced in the early stages of the reaction and shed light on geometrical details of these emissions, suggesting that the IMF's originate both from the neck and the surface of the interacting nuclei.
The charge-exchange excitations in nuclei are studied within the fully self-consistent proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation using the finite-range Gogny interaction. No additional parameters beyond those included in the effective nuclear force are included. Axially symmetric deformations are consistently taken into account, both in the description of the ground states and spin-isospin excitations. We focus on the isobaric analog and Gamow-Teller resonances. A comparison of the predicted strength distributions to the existing experimental data is presented and the role of nuc…
Projectile-like fragments (PLF:15<=Z<=46) formed in peripheral and mid-peripheral collisions of 114Cd projectiles with 92Mo nuclei at E/A=50 MeV have been detected at very forward angles, 2.1 deg.<=theta_lab<=4.2 deg. Calorimetric analysis of the charged particles observed in coincidence with the PLF reveals that the excitation of the primary PLF is strongly related to its velocity damping. Furthermore, for a given V_PLF*, its excitation is not related to its size, Z_PLF*. For the largest velocity damping, the excitation energy attained is large, approximately commensurate with a system at the…
We present a summary of recent photoproduction results in ultra peripheral relativistic heavy ions collisions with STAR. These collisions have impact parameters larger then twice the nuclear radius; the nuclei do not physically collide, but interact via long-range electromagnetic fields. We observe exclusive $ρ^0$ production as well as $AuAu\to Au^*Au^* ρ^0$ with accompanying mutual nuclear excitation at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. We report the $ρ^0$ production cross section for both coherent and incoherent coupling accompanied by mutual nuclear excitation. We have studied the cross section as a…
The STAR Ultra Peripheral Collisions program has collected a substantial sample of $ρ$ mesons and for the first time at RHIC energies it has been able to extract the distribution of momentum transfer t from diffractive elastic scattering off the Au ion. The resulting diffraction pattern is consistent with coherent scattering off a nuclear object the size of the Au nuclei. Measurements of this nature can offer insights and guidance to the ongoing preparations for the new electron ion programs.
This paper presents our recent efforts to study the momentum distributions as well as the production of neutron-rich rare isotopes with heavy-ion beams in the energy region of 15 MeV/nucleon. Experimental cross sections of neutron-rich nuclides from collisions of a 86 Kr (15 MeV/nucleon) beam with 64 Ni and 58 Ni targets are presented. Experimental data were obtained from the previous work of our group with the MARS mass spectrometer at the Cyclotron Institute of Texas A&M University. On that note, detailed calculations of yields and momentum distributions of neutron-rich projectile-like fragm…
We present the first measurement of photoproduction of J/psi and of two-photon production of high-mass e+e- pairs in electromagnetic (or ultra-peripheral) nucleus-nucleus interactions, using Au+Au data at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The events are tagged with forward neutrons emitted following Coulomb excitation of one or both Au^{star} nuclei. The event sample consists of 28 events with m_{e+e-} > 2 GeV/c^2 with zero like-sign background. The measured cross sections at midrapidity of dσ/ dy (J/psi + Xn, y=0) = 76 +/- 33 (stat) +/- 11 (syst) micro b and d^2σ/dm dy (e^+e^- + Xn, y=0) = 86 +/- 23 (sta…
Background: One-nucleon knockout reactions provide insightful information on the single-particle structure of nuclei. When applied to one-neutron halo nuclei, they are purely peripheral, suggesting that they could be properly modeled by describing the projectile within a Halo Effective Field Theory (Halo-EFT). Purpose: We reanalyze the one-neutron knockout measurements of $^{11}$Be and $^{15}$C-both one-neutron halo nuclei-on beryllium at about 60MeV/nucleon. We consider Halo-EFT descriptions of these nuclei which already provide excellent agreement with breakup and transfer data. Method: We i…
Systematic examination of fusion for $^{39,41,45,47}$K + $^{28}$Si and $^{36,44}$Ar + $^{28}$Si provides insight into the impact of neutron and proton exchange on fusion for nuclei at and near the N=20 and N=28 shells. Comparison of the reduced excitation functions reveals a marked difference between the behavior of open-shell and closed-shell systems. While coupled channels calculations provide a good description for the closed-shell nuclei they significantly under-predict the fusion cross-section for open-shell nuclei. The observed trends are examined in the context of a potential energy sur…
We report the results of a series of measurements of the differential cross sections for inclusive pion double charge exchange in 6,7Li, 9Be, and 12C for positive and negative incident pions of energies 120, 180, and 240 MeV. The data are compared with the predictions of an intranuclear cascade model and a model based on two sequential single charge exchange processes.
Photoproduction of $ρ^0$ mesons in ultra-peripheral Pb+Pb collisions has been studied by the ALICE Collaboration at the CERN LHC. The strong photon flux associated with relativistic charged nuclei leads to a very large cross section for exclusive photoproduction of $ρ^0$ meson in interactions of the type $Pb + Pb \rightarrow Pb + Pb + ρ^0$. For a $ρ^0$ produced at mid-rapidity at the LHC, the photon-nucleus center of mass energy is higher than in any previous experiment. The ALICE detector is a general purpose detector dedicated to study heavy--ion collisions. ALICE has excellent performance i…
An Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics model is used to explore the collision of $^{114}$Cd projectiles with $^{92}$Mo target nuclei at E/A=50 MeV over a broad range in impact parameter. The atomic number (Z), velocity, and emission pattern of the reaction products are examined as a function of the impact parameter and the cluster recognition time. The non-central collisions are found to be essentially binary in character resulting in the formation of an excited projectile-like fragment (PLF$^*$) and target-like fragment (TLF$^*$). The decay of these fragments occurs on a short timescale, 100$\…
Isotope ratios of fragments produced at mid-rapidity in peripheral and central collisions of 114Cd ions with 92Mo and 98Mo target nuclei at E/A = 50 MeV are compared. Neutron-rich isotopes are preferentially produced in central collisions as compared to peripheral collisions. The influence of the size (A), density, N/Z, E*/A, and Eflow/A of the emitting source on the measured isotope ratios was explored by comparison with a statistical model (SMM). The mid-rapidity region associated with peripheral collisions does not appear to be neutron-enriched relative to central collisions.
Peripheral collisions give access to a set of events where hot quasi-projectile (QP) sources are produced exploring a large range of excitation energy. In this range evaporation and multifragmentation are both observed for a similar charge/size of the sources. In this work, this experimental fact will be described in terms of coexistence of two classes of events in the first order phase transition formalism. For this, a detailed study of the experimental correlation between the size/charge of the biggest cluster/fragment (Z1) and the excitation energy (E*) is made. Making the parallel with the…
\indent First results of the exposure of nuclear track emulsions in a secondary beam enriched by $^9$C nuclei at energy of 1.2 A GeV are described. The presented statistics corresponds to the most peripheral $^9$C interactions. For the first time a dissociation $^9$C $\to3^3$He not accompanied by target fragments and mesons is identified.\par
The LHC is not only the highest energy collider for protons and heavy ions, but also for photon photon and photon hadron ($γ$p and $γ$Pb) interactions. This is because the protons and ions accelerated in the LHC carry an electromagnetic field, which can be viewed as a source of photons, and such photons can interact with either other photons or with hadrons. Ultra Peripheral Collisions (UPC) occur when the incoming ions pass beyond the range of the strong force, with impact parameters larger than the sum of the radii of the incoming projectiles, and are mediated by the exchange of virtual phot…
Ultra-peripheral collisions are the energy frontier for photon-mediated interactions, reaching, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), $γ-p$ center of mass energies five to ten times higher than at HERA and reaching $γγ$ energies higher than at LEP. Photoproduction of heavy quarkonium and dijets in $pp$ and $pA$ collisions probes the gluon distribution in protons at Bjorken-$x$ values down to $3\times10^{-6}$, far smaller than can be otherwise studied. In $AA$ collisions, these reactions probe the gluon distributions in heavy ions, down to $x$ values of a few $10^{-5}$. Although more theoretical …
We test the Coulomb exchange and correlation energy density functionals of electron systems for atomic nuclei in the local density approximation (LDA) and the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). For the exchange Coulomb energies, it is found that the deviation between the LDA and GGA ranges from around $ 11 \, \% $ in $ {}^{4} \mathrm{He} $ to around $ 2.2 \, \% $ in $ {}^{208} \mathrm{Pb} $, by taking the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) functional as an example of the GGA\@. For the correlation Coulomb energies, it is shown that those functionals of electron systems are not suitable for at…
In this work we present some results of the interaction of high energy muons with emulsion nuclei. The interaction results in emission of a number of fragments as a consequence of electromagnetic dissociation of the excited target nuclei. This excitation is attributed to absorption of photons by the target nuclei due to the intense electric field of the very fast incident muon particles. The interactions take place at impact parameters that allows ultra-peripheral collisions to take place, leading to giant resonances and hence multi-fragmentation of emulsion targets. Charge identification, ran…
Production of ensembles of $α$-particle triples associated with the Hoyle state (the second excited state of the ${}^{12}$C nucleus) in peripheral dissociation of relativistic ${}^{12}$C nuclei is studied. Stacks of nuclear track emulsion pellicles exposed to ${}^{12}$C with an energy from hundreds MeV to a few GeV per nucleon serve as the material for studies. The Hoyle state decays are reconstructed via measurement of emission angles of $α$ particles with the precision sufficient for identification of the unstable ${}^{8}$Be nucleus. The estimate of the contribution of Hoyle's state to the $…
These lecture notes present the capabilities of relativistic nuclear physics for the development of the physics of nuclear clusters. Nuclear track emulsion continues to be an effective technique for pilot studies that allows one, in particular, to study the cluster dissociation of a wide variety of light relativistic nuclei within a common approach. Despite the fact that the capabilities of the relativistic fragmentation for the study of nuclear clustering were recognized quite a long time ago, electronic experiments have not been able to come closer to an integrated analysis of ensembles of r…
The quark exchange model (QEM) is reformulated for the $A=12$ and $14$ systems to obtain the constituent quark distributions of $^{12}C$ and $^{14}N$ nuclei, respectively. Afterwards, the different types of the point-like parton distribution functions (PDFs), i.e., the valence quarks, the sea quarks and the gluons, are extracted from the constituent quark model (CQM), at the hadronic scale $Q_0^2=0.34$ $GeV^2$ to generate the constituent quark exchange model (CQEM = QEM $\oplus$ CQM) PDFs. From the resulted PDFs, the structure functions and the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) ratios of the a…
We report on hyperpolarization of quadrupolar (I=3/2) 131Xe via spin-exchange optical pumping. Observations of the 131Xe polarization dynamics show that the effective alkali-metal/131Xe spin-exchange cross-sections are large enough to compete with 131Xe spin relaxation. 131Xe polarization up to 7.6 p/m 1.5 percent was achieved in ca. 8.5EE20 spins--a ca. 100-fold improvement in the total spin angular momentum--enabling applications including measurement of spin-dependent neutron-131Xe s-wave scattering and sensitive searches for time-reversal violation in neutron-131Xe interactions beyond the …
We present the results of a search for optical model potentials for use in the description of elastic scattering and transfer reactions involving stable and radioactive p-shell nuclei. This was done in connection with our program to use transfer reactions to obtain data for nuclear astrophysics, in particular for the determination of the astrophysical S_17 factor for 7Be(p,γ)8B using two (7Be,8B) proton transfer reactions. Elastic scattering was measured using 7Li, 10B, 13C and 14N projectiles on 9Be and 13C targets at or about E/A=10 MeV/nucleon. Woods-Saxon type optical model potentials were…
We study the formation of large hyper-fragments in relativistic heavy-ion collisions within two transport models, DCM and UrQMD. Our goal is to explore a new mechanism for the formation of strange nuclear systems via capture of hyperons by relatively cold spectator matter produced in semi-peripheral collisions. We investigate basic characteristics of the produced hyper-spectators and evaluate the production probabilities of multi-strange systems. Advantages of the proposed mechanisms over an alternative coalescence mechanism are analysed. We also discuss how such systems can be detected taking…
