Nuclear Physics News - NuPECC · 2019-10-17 · 4 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012 power plants. However, the politicians took initiative to import commercial nuclear power

Nuclear Physics NewsInternational

Volume 22, Issue 3July–September 2012

FEATURING:The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research:

55 Years of Scientific Exploration • Neutron-Rich Hypernuclei The Discovery of the Nuclides

10619127(2012)22(3)

Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012, Nuclear Physics News 1

Editor: Gabriele-Elisabeth Körner

Editorial Board Maria José Garcia Borge, Madrid (Chair) Douglas MacGregor, Glasgow and EPS/NPB Rick Casten, Yale Eugenio Nappi, Bari Ari Jokinen, Jyväskylä Hideyuki Sakai, Tokyo Reiner Krücken, Vancouver James Symons, Berkeley Jan Kvasil, Prague and EPS/NPB Marcel Toulemonde, Caen Yu-Gang Ma, Shanghai

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Nuclear Physics NewsVolume 22/No. 3

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2 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012

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Cover Illustration: Photo of the AGATA Demonstrator Array installed at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy (see article on page 27).

Volume 22/No. 3

Contents

Editorial .......................................................................................................................................................... 3

Editorial .......................................................................................................................................................... 5

Laboratory PortraitThe Joint Institute for Nuclear Research: 55 Years of Scientific Exploration

by Boris Starchenko and Yulia Shimanskaya ............................................................................................... 7

Feature ArticlesNeutron-Rich Hypernuclei

by Tullio Bressani, Elena Botta, and Stefania Bufalino .............................................................................. 13The Discovery of the Nuclides

by Michael Thoennessen .............................................................................................................................. 19

Facilities and MethodsNational Nuclear Data Center: A Worldwide User Facility

by B. Pritychenko and M. W. Herman ......................................................................................................... 23The AGATA Demonstrator Array at LNL

by Enrico Farnea and Dino Bazzacco ......................................................................................................... 27

Meeting ReportsThe International Symposium on Physics of Unstable Nuclei 2011

by Dao Tien Khoa and Nguyen Van Giai ..................................................................................................... 33SPIRAL2 Week 2012

by Ketel Turzó and Marek Lewitowicz ......................................................................................................... 35Meeting Report on the 12th International Workshop on Meson Production, Properties and Interaction (MESON2012)

by Carlo Guaraldo, Stanisław Kistryn, and Hans Ströher .......................................................................... 36

News and Views .............................................................................................................................................. 38

Calendar........................................................................................................................................................ 40

editorial


The IAEA’s 2011 projection in-dicates that the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident is likely to slow the growth in nuclear power capacity, but not to reverse it. It shows that in the updated estimate on the low side, the world’s nuclear power capacity will grow from 375 GW(e) today to 501 GW(e) in 2030, down 8% from what was projected in 2010, while in the updated estimate on the high side, it will grow to 746 GW(e) in 2030, down 7% from the projection in 2010. Among all, the projected growth in the Far East is the greatest [1].

Meanwhile, according to the global poll taken by GlobeScan (Figure 1), the global research agency commis-sioned by BBC News, from July to September 2011, 71% of 23,231 peo-ple in 23 countries say that they “could

have coal and nuclear energy replaced within 20 years almost entirely by be-coming highly energy-efficient and focusing on generating energy from the sun and wind.” While 84% of peo-ple oppose to building new reactors in Japan, the ratio of those who support building new reactors has remained around the 40% in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Paki-stan [2].

I would now like to discuss the history and the situation regarding nuclear power and nuclear physicists in Japan. There were four cyclotrons in Japan before the end of World War II: two at the Nishina Laboratory of RIKEN, one at the Kikuchi Laboratory of Osaka University, and one at the Arakatu Laboratory of Kyoto Univer-sity. These laboratories were the cen-

ters of fundamental nuclear science, and during the war, the Nishina and Kikuchi Laboratories, and Arakatsu Laboratory were asked to develop a nuclear weapon by the Japanese army and navy, respectively. They started to work on it, but did not succeed in producing enriched uranium until the end of the war when two atomic bombs were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, the oc-cupation forces destroyed all Japanese cyclotrons, and prohibited the study of not only nuclear power engineering but also fundamental nuclear science. Several years later, the cyclotrons were rebuilt for fundamental nuclear physics research following Professor Lawrence’s recommendation to the general headquarters of the occupa-tion forces. Yet Japanese scientists still hesitated to study nuclear power engineering.

In contrast, a budget for the devel-opment of nuclear power was sud-denly allocated by the Diet in 1954 through a motion from some politi-cians who were influenced by Eisen-hower’s speech of “Atoms for Peace” at the General Assembly of the United Nations. Japanese scientists stated that nuclear power should be used only for peace based on democratic, independent, and public principles. These principles were introduced to the fundamental law of nuclear en-ergy as well, but were ignored. Profes-sor Hideki Yukawa argued at the first Japan Atomic Energy Commission that one should start with basic re-search first, and then develop nuclear Figure 1. Shift in public opinion following the Fukushima nuclear accident [2].

Nuclear Physics in the Aftermath of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

The views expressed here do not represent the views and policies of NuPECC except where explicitly identified.

editorial


power plants. However, the politicians took initiative to import commercial nuclear power plants from abroad. Thus Yukawa soon resigned from the Commission. Particle and nuclear physicists in Japan turned away from nuclear power and instead joined the anti-nuclear weapon movement. Meanwhile, the nuclear power inter-est group formed a close community, called “genshiryoku mura,” in which genshiryoku means atomic power and mura means a village in Japa-nese. To realize the construction of nuclear power plants, the pronuclear group spread a nuclear safety myth that the nuclear power plant is com-pletely safe and will never cause an accident, while the antinuclear group proclaimed the risks of a nuclear ac-cident. Both groups blamed each other of being dishonest.

However, the safety myth was completely destroyed by the Fuku-shima nuclear disaster. People now no longer trust the government, the electric power companies, the nuclear safety committees, and the nuclear engineering scholars who live in the “genshiryoku mura.” The nuclear op-position group is also disappointed because they could not stop the plant constructions nor prevent the ac-cidents. Until now, most Japanese nuclear physicists have not been con-cerned with nuclear engineering as

mentioned above. They do not live in the “genshiryoku mura.” However, immediately following the Fukushima nuclear accident, they started radiation surveys of people and the natural en-vironment in Fukushima. I hope this action will help to make the nuclear power village more open.

The modern state defines its terri-torial borders, creates a sense of na-tionality, and pursues the wealth of the nation through a strong military force. Each modern state wants to be more powerful than others as much as possi-ble. Thus, it is difficult not only to stop the construction and operation of nu-clear power plants but also to abolish all nuclear weapons. Some advanced countries are hoping for a differ-ent form of state such as perhaps the European Union, but this has not yet been achieved, while many countries are still developing to become modern states. Hence, Homo sapiens may con-tinue to live with the risk of nuclear and radiation hazards throughout this century or longer. However, nuclear physicists should not stop the progress of nuclear science and technology. Rather, we should be concerned with reducing the risks. Besides developing radiation detection technology, we can proceed with basic research on much safer nuclear power plants, such as a thorium sub-critical reactor, trans-mutation of long-lived nuclei in the

nuclear waste by an accelerator driven system, and other advanced technolo-gies. We can also educate the younger generation about nuclear safety. The three principles of democratic, in-dependent, and public together with scientific literacy of the people are the vital aspects of our research and de-velopment.

References1. IAEA, Energy, Electricity and Nuclear

Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050, Reference Data Series No. 1, 2011 Edition.

2. GlobeScan, Opposition to Nuclear En-ergy Grows: Global Poll, A GlobeScan Poll for the BBC, 25 November 2011.

Makoto Inoue

Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University, and Former

Director of the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University

editorial


The terrible natural disaster that struck the Japanese people on Friday, 11 March 2011 produced a devastating combination of earthquake and flood wave, destroying large areas in the northeast of the Japanese main island of Honshu, and caused unimaginable suffering of the population. Japan, the proud technology nation, has been hard hit. More than 15,800 persons were killed and more than 3,000 are missing. Roughly 115,000 buildings were destroyed; 340,000 people left their homes.

This natural disaster also damaged the nuclear power plants on the site of Fukushima-Daiichi. Failure of the emergency power diesel generators and of the voltage and current supply of the emergency core cooling sys-tems resulted in a catastrophic nuclear accident. The scenarios predictable by science became reality: core heating up to partial core meltdown accompa-nied by hydrogen production; inten-tional depressurization of the contain-ment; hydrogen explosions destroying reactor building structures and uncon-trolled release of radioactive materi-als into the environment. The events in reactor units 1, 2, and 3 are listed in the top category, 7, of the Interna-tional Nuclear Event Scale (INES) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which indicates a catastrophic accident. 78,000 persons fled from the radioactivity released. 53,000 persons are still living in con-tainers. It is not possible to say reli-ably when the contaminated areas will be available to the population again.

In Germany, pictures and reports about the disaster in Japan were om-

nipresent in the media. It was not only a Japanese disaster; it was very much our disaster treated in a very emotional and political way. Actually, it was not the earthquake and the tsunami but the nuclear accidents in Fukushima and the unfathomable consequences to the population that were the sub-jects of very detailed reporting. From the more than 50,000 press articles that were published in Europe about Fukushima and the nuclear phase-out within the month after 11 March 2011 more than 80% appeared in Germany.

The responses of those bearing po-litical responsibility in Germany were both straightforward and consistent: immediate shutdown of the seven old-est German nuclear power plants (Nu-clear Moratorium of 14 March 2011); organization of stress tests of German nuclear power plants; amendment of the Atomic Energy Act on 6 August 2011; the decision to shut down the remaining nine nuclear power plants by the end of 2022 at the latest; and a transition to the era of renewable energies without running new risks at the same time. In this way, Germany opts out of the use of nuclear power for good, but there was no coordinated agreement with Germany’s European neighbors.

As a consequence of Fukushima, Germany is advancing the energy turnaround, and thus the age of re-newable energies, more energetically than ever. The goal is very ambitious: By 2050, electricity consumption in Germany is to be reduced by nearly 50% relative to 2008, and some 80% of that electricity is to be generated from renewable sources. This cut is to

be achieved by saving and importing energy.

If this ambitious goal is to be reached in the short time available, three problems must be addressed quickly and put into effect with the support of a combination of funda-mental and application-oriented re-search: storage, grids, and power plants.

Storage: The electricity produced from renewable energy sources, specifically sun and wind, is highly volatile and often not generated at the time it is needed. Chemical or electrochemical storage systems are not (yet) available on a technical and economic scale; pumped storage or compressed-air power plants entail immense expenditures for planning and licensing, apart from missing lo-cations. This leaves but two possibili-ties over the short term: If the electric-ity generated by wind and sun cannot be used directly, power plants must be disconnected from the grid. Or, the surplus electricity is passed on to utili-ties abroad, which may result in nega-tive electricity prices: Germany would have to pay for its electricity being accepted elsewhere. For both vari-ants, which are highly uneconomical, consumers will have to pay the grid feeding bonus, with the consequence that electricity prices will rise. Thus, research must urgently develop eco-nomic storage systems.

Grids: In the northern part of Ger-many, more and more offshore wind parks are being built, which may pro-duce electricity also for the southern part of the country, where most of

Nuclear Energy after Fukushima—A German View

The views expressed here do not represent the views and policies of NuPECC except where explicitly identified.

editorial


the nuclear power plants are located. Although the high-voltage power lines necessary to transport this elec-tricity have been planned, practical implementation takes time and will cost more than EUR 30 billion. Thus, only a few hundred kilometers of the roughly 3,600 km of necessary power lines have been built in recent years. Intelligent coupling of the electricity and gas systems, and the conversion into gas of surplus energy produced from renewable sources, is still in its infancy. This power-to-gas process of-fers the opportunity, however, to make use of the gas piping system existing in Germany as a huge storage and dis-tribution system.

Power plants: The remaining nine nuclear power plants with a net power of 12 GWe will be disconnected from the grid step by step until 2022. This generating capacity gradually will have to be replaced by new power plants. In the absence of wind or sun-shine, coal- or gas-fired power plants, which can be controlled swiftly, are to produce the electricity required. The very low utilization expected of these standby capacities implies that

these power plants cannot be run eco-nomically and, consequently, there is no investor willing to spend money on them. Thus, we also need a new, market-driven promotion system for the renewable energies.

The energy turnaround in Germany is a huge, combined challenge facing politics, industry, research, and so-ciety. The problems ahead are much more demanding than the Apollo flight to the moon once was. However, there is a difference: we yet have to develop the technology needed for the energy turnaround before this change can be affected reliably, affordably, and in agreement with society. This is a major challenge for research: the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Helmholtz Association have strongly enforced their research on energy efficiency, renewables, electricity storage, and coupled intel-ligent grid systems for electricity, gas, and information technologies. And we still have to contribute much to the phase-out of nuclear energy by top-notch research on nuclear safety and nuclear waste disposal.

Joachim Knebel

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

eberhard Umbach

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

laboratory portrait


The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) is an international intergovernmental scientific research organization established through the Convention signed on 26 March 1956 in Moscow by the representatives of the governments of 11 states-founders, to unite their scientific and material potential in order to study fundamen-tal properties of matter. The Institute is located in the city of Dubna in 120 km from Moscow in the Russian Federa-tion. On 1 February 1957, JINR was registered with the United Nations or-ganization.

In March 1956 the following states founded the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research: Albania, Bulgaria, the Peo-ple’s Republic of China, Czechoslova-kia, the German Democratic Repub-lic, Hungary, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, and the U.S.S.R. In Septem-ber 1956, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam became a member to JINR, signing the Convention. After the con-clusion of the Convention on JINR es-tablishment, specialists from 12 coun-tries arrived in Dubna to work at the Institute. Research in a wide range of nuclear physics trends started here.

Professor D. Blokhintsev, under whose guidance the construction of the first in the world atomic power station had just been accomplished in Obninsk, was elected director of the Joint Institute. Professors M. Danysz (Poland) and V. Votruba (Czecho-slovakia) were elected the first JINR vice-directors.

JINR today is a world-known sci-entific center where the fundamental research (theoretical and experimen-tal) is successfully integrated with

the new technology work-out and ap-plication of the latest techniques and university education. The prestige of JINR in the world scientific com-munity is very high today. The Insti-tute has been firmly based on power-ful grounds: traditions of scientific schools that are world acknowledged; basic facilities with unique opportuni-ties allowing urgent solutions in many fields of modern physics; the status of an international intergovernmental organization. According to its Charter, the Institute exercises its activities on the principles of openness to all inter-ested states for their participation and equal mutually beneficial cooperation.

JINR has at present 18 Member States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, D. P. Repub-lic of Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Participation of Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Republic of South Africa, and Serbia in JINR activities is

based on bilateral agreements signed on the governmental level. The Su-preme governing body of JINR is the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the governments of all 18 Member States. The JINR director is RAS Academi-cian Professor V. Matveev; vice-direc-tors are Professors R. Lednický and M. Itkis (Figure 1).

Wide international cooperation is a most important aspect of JINR ac-tivities. The research policy of JINR is determined by the Scientific Council, which consists of eminent scientists from the Member States, as well as fa-mous researchers from China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Switzerland, the United States and the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN). JINR collaborates with more than 700 scientific centers and universities in 62 countries of the world.

The Institute has accummulated immense experience of mutually ben-eficial scientific–technical coopera-tion on the international scale. JINR

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research: 55 Years of Scientific Exploration

Figure 1. The 110th session of the JINR Scientific Council (from left to right): JINR Vice-Director M. Itkis, chairman of the session I. Wilhelm (Charles Uni-versity, Prague), JINR Director V. Matveev, JINR Vice-Director R. Lednickỳ, and JINR Chief Engineer G. Shirkov.

laboratory portrait


maintains contacts with the IAEA, UNESCO, the European Physical Society, and the International Centre of Theoretical Physics in Trieste. An-nually, about two thousand scientists from organizations that are JINR part-ners visit Dubna.

Since its foundation, JINR has ac-complished a wide range of research and trained scientific staff of the high-est quality for the Member States. Among them are presidents of the national Academies of Sciences and leaders of large nuclear institutes and universities in many JINR Member States.

JINR comprises seven Laborato-ries, each being comparable with a large institute on the scale and scope of investigations performed. The In-stitute employs about 5,000 people, including more than 1,200 scientists, among whom there are full members and corresponding members of na-tional academies of sciences; more than 260 Doctors of Science and 560 Candidates of Science; and about 2,000 engineers and technicians.

The main fields of JINR’s activity are theoretical and experimental stud-ies in the following subjects: elemen-tary particle physics, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics. The research program of JINR is aimed at obtaining highly significant results of principal scientific value.

The “Road Map”The research at JINR has always

been conducted in accordance with specific plans. Comparative economic stability allowed the scientific com-munity of the Institute to rely on long-standing plans of development and the “road map”—a prospective program of strategic development of JINR for 10–12 years. The latter, which is to be updated every 2–3 years, has been ad-opted in order to concentrate the staff and financing resources of the Insti-

tute to accomplish farsighted, ambi-tious projects.

The conceptual framework of the modern programs for JINR devel-opment is based on the following triad: science, education, innovation. It also accords with the strategy for economic development of the JINR Member States. The basic element of the triad—fundamental science—in-cludes the so-called multitask proj-ects, namely the projects that imply the use of large experimental facilities. New scientific trends appear and new technologies are developed through their accomplishment. The “road map” provides, primarily, updating the scientific-innovation structure of JINR: upgrade of all basic facilities of the Institute and development of new ones. The program is aimed at making the research at the facilities of JINR more attractive for young scientists, both from JINR Member States and worldwide.

The concept of the seven-year plan of the JINR development for 2010–2016 implies concentration of resources to upgrade the Institute ac-celerator and reactor base and inte-gration of its basic facilities into the common system of the European scientific infrastructure. After the ac-complishment of the upgrading of ba-sic facilities a new phase of intensive scientific research activities will come in the frames of partnership programs that are discussed now with Member States and large research centers of the world. The scientific policy of JINR in international cooperation is based on the priniciple that cooperation must be mutually beneficial.

Experimental BasisThe Joint Institute possesses a re-

markable choice of experimental fa-cilities for physics: the first Dubna accelerator—the 680 MeV phasotron that is used for ray therapy, the 6 GeV

nucleon superconducting accelerator of nuclei and heavy ions Nuclotron for the research in relativistic nuclear physics, and the U-400 and U-400M heavy ion cyclotrons used in the syn-thesis of heavy and exotic nuclei to study their physical and chemical properties and mechanisms of nuclear reactions. At the neutron pulsed reac-tor IBR-2 with the average capacity of 2 MW and the peak capacity of 1,500 MW research is conducted in neutron nuclear physics and condensed matter physics.

The experimental basis of JINR makes it possible to conduct not only advanced fundamental research but applied studies as well in the fields of condensed matter physics, biology, medicine, material sciences, geophys-ics, engineering diagnostics, aimed at research in the structure and proper-ties of nanosystems and new materi-als, biological objects, at design and development of new electronic, bio- and information nanotechnologies. All JINR programs for scientific experi-ments are based on the bright school of theoretical physics, advanced meth-ods of physics experiments developed at the Institute, and modern informa-tion technologies, including grid-tech-nology.

Information TechnologiesJINR has a powerful high-produc-

tive computing environment that is integrated into world computer net-works through high-speed communi-cation channels. The basis of the com-puter infrastructure of the Institute is the Central Information Computer Complex (CICC). The JINR GRID-segment developed on its basis is an important element of the Russian Data Intensive Grid (RDIG) grid-infra-structures, Worldwide LHC Comput-ing Grid (WLCG), and Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE). The JINR core network overlaps all local networks

laboratory portrait


of the JINR laboratories and divisions into one unified computer network.

In prospect, the E-infrastructure of JINR will consist of three macro-levels: the network level, the resource level, and the applied research one. High-speed fundamental networks and telecommunication channels of JINR connections with the global networks correspond to the network level. The chief task of this level is the devel-opment of a universal informational communication environment of JINR to interact with scientific centers from Member States on the basis of national scientific educational networks. High-productive computer clusters, super-computers, and data storage systems that are packed together with software of visualization and modern distribu-tion systems into a single environment of calculations and data storage form the resource level. The applied re-search level is based on the resource level and provides wide opportunities for users: user support in large collab-orations that are conglomerated into virtual organizations for data process-ing and analysis; the development of distributed systems for data storage, processing, and analysis at the JINR basic facilities to provide for the effi-cient involvement of Member States’ institutes and other centers to imple-ment these projects; and support of information resources, services, and software applications.

The NICA ProjectStudies of new states of nuclear

matter with extremely high densi-ties of the baryonic charge are today of great scientific interest, and heavy ion accelerators, operating and un-der development, such as SPS/NA61 (CERN), LeRHIC (BNL), and FAIR/CBM (GSI), are aimed at this re-search. It is very important to grasp properties of the matter that exists at

extreme conditions of high density not only in the context of nuclear physics, but also for astrophysics, cosmology, condensed matter physics, and for the development of new technologies. The energy range of the JINR accelerator Nuclotron and the collider complex on its basis NICA (Nuclotron Based Ion Collider Facility) is most prom-ising for this purpose (Figure 2). The mean project luminosity of the NICA collider 1 × 1027 cm –2c –1 goes con-siderably beyond the luminosity that can be obtained lowering the energy at the RHIC collider up to the values at NICA, while the collider scenario of experiments has some advantages, comparing to experiments on a fixed target.

The NICA project has a potential for big discoveries. Most distinguished specialists in accelerator physics and technology from various world cen-ters are involved in the project in all stages. The project status is regularly discussed in the international expert committee that includes leading sci-entists in accelerator physics from CERN (Switzerland), BNL and FNAL

(USA), GSI (Germany), and IHEP and OTEP (Russia). One-hundred and twenty-six experts from 50 scientific centers of 21 countries, including 8 specialists from JINR Member States, took part in the preparation of the NICA White Paper.

The development of the multipur-pose detector (MPD) and spin physics detector (SPD), as well as those on the extracted beams, is planned in the frames of international collaborations that are now organized. According to the established world practice, the de-tectors are produced at the expense of all participants. The scale of involve-ment of researchers in the MPD and SPD projects can be more than 1,000 participants from many countries of the world. In 2008, Memoranda of Understanding were signed between JINR and GSI, JINR, and FAIR. JINR also signed agreements on coopera-tion with CERN, INP SD RAS (Novo-sibirsk), and the Kurchatov Institute. It is planned that NICA will be ready to generate the first beams in 2016, while experimental research can be started on the upgraded Nuclotron-M earlier.

Figure 2. A lay-out of the accelerator complex NICA (Nuclotron based Ion Col-lider fAcility).

laboratory portrait


Synthesis of Superheavy Elements (SHE) and the DRIBs Project

The research on the synthesis and new superheavy elements of the Men-deleev periodic table conducted at JINR in recent years have aroused the widest international interest (Figure 3). Dubna scientists were the first to synthesize new long-lived superheavy elements under the numbers of 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118. In June 2011, the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry published the resolution of the joint board of experts of inter-national unions of theoretical and ap-plied chemistry (IUPAC) and physics (IUPAP) on official acknowledgment of the discovery of elements 114 and 116 obtained in the research held in Dubna at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of JINR in collaboration with the Livermore National Labora-tory (USA).

The modern accelerator complex for heavy ions Dubna Radioactive Ion Beams (DRIBs) developed in Dubna provides wide opportunities for experiments to study mechanisms of reactions with stable and radioac-tive nuclei. Among major tasks of the DRIBs project implementation is the construction of an experimental hall and a new accelerator of the cyclic type that will provide acceleration of ions from carbon to xenon up to the energy of 5–10 MeV/nucleon with

a possibility of a graded and smooth variation. The main part of the work is planned to be finished in 2013. After the experiments are started at the new accelerator, the accelerator U-400 will be upgraded. At present, the program on the synthesis of superheavy ele-ments is still being implemented at the U-400 accelerator.

Upgrading the IBR-2 ReactorNeutron nuclear physics research

and applied studies are conducted at the basic facilities of the Frank Labo-ratory of Neutron Physics—the IBR-2M reactor and the source of neutrons and gamma-quanta IREN.

The unique fast-neutron pulsed re-actor IBR-2M is upgraded according to the schedule (Figure 4). It has been included into the 20-year European strategic program of neutron scatter-ing research. Its regular operation will be started in 2012 for the implementa-tion of the scientific program.

The IBR-2M characteristics as a neutron source allow highly efficient experiments in the studies of the prop-eties of nanosystems. Neutrons with a big wave length (5 angstrom and more)—the so-called cold neutrons—are used for such studies. A complex of unique cryogenic moderators, which is under construction now, will allow a 20-time and more increase of the flux of such neutrons, keeping the average capacity of the reactor in the value of 2 MW. In its technical parameters, the reactor can be compared with most modern pulsed neutron sources in the world, including SNS (USA) and the European source ESS in its project pa-rameters in Sweden.

The IBR-2 reactor is the only high-flux neutron source in the terri-tory of JINR Member States. It is a unique base for experiments and edu-cation. The spectrometer complex of the IBR-2 reactor is well developed and meant for a wide range of scien-

tific research. Its spectrometers match world best equipment of this type in most of their parameters. The upgrad-ing of the spectrometric infrastructure of the reactor is conducted with direct involvement of specialists from JINR Member States, to continue success-fully the studies in the field of nano-systems physics, functional materials, structural biology, geology, and engi-neering.

The IREN source on the basis of a linear accelerator of electrons is meant for research to obtain nuclear data, study fundamental symmetry breaking in the processes induced by neutrons, photonuclear reactions for the pro-duction of isotopes, and neutron and gamma activation analysis.

Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics

Neutrino physics is an important scientific trend of research at JINR. The existence of neutrino masses and their smallness, proved by the discov-

Figure 3. The experimental set-up MASHA (Magnetic Analyzer of Su-perHeavy Atoms) to determine the mass of isotopes of superheavy ele-ments.

Figure 4. Nuclear fuel is loaded into the active zone of the reactor IBR-2M.

laboratory portrait


ery of neutrino oscillations, is a strong indication to the existence of new physics beyond the Standard Model. JINR takes an active part in experi-ments in neutrino physics and uses various detectors and methods of nu-clear physics and high-energy physics.

The OPERA experiment (Gran-Sasso, Italy) searches for oscillations of nm into nt on the facility made with active participation of JINR. For to-day, the first candidate of such trans-formations has been detected. It is planned to register about 10 events in the coming 5 years that will directly prove the existence of muon neutrino oscillations into tau-neutrino.

The BOREXINO experiment reg-istered geo-neutrinos in 2010 for the first time in the world. In other words, a true anti-neutrino signal is observed with the energy spectrum that cor-responds to the expected one from beta-decays of radioactive elements from chains of uranium-238 and tho-rium-232. Therefore, for the first time the radiogenic gain into the heat in the Earth’s interior was proved.

Astrophysics tasks are very close to tasks in neutrino physics. In addition, neutrino detection from space objects has even been called the neutrino as-tronomy. The experiment BAIKAL studies neutrino fluxes of superhigh energy from space.

The international experiment EDELWEISS-II that is also actively participated in by JINR physicists is aimed at the search of WIMP-parti-cles of non-baryonic dark matter with cryogenic germanium detectors. It is planned to reach the best sensitivity in the world in this experiment.

JINR, together with the corporation “Kosmicheskaya Regata” (Space Re-gatta) Consortium, Korolev, Russia, develop now the most complex part of the facility “TUS” (track facility)—a compositional Fresnel mirror with the area of about 2 square meters for oper-

ation in open space with a temperature difference of ±80°С. Space detectors TUS and NUKLON are intended for studies of the spectrum, composition, and angle scattering of space rays. It is one of the most important tasks of astrophysics and high-energy physics. Launching of the detectors and start of data acquisition is scheduled from on board of the satellite Mikhail Lomono-sov.

Theoretical PhysicsUnique experience in research of

key domains of fundamental theo-retical physics has been accumulated at JINR: quantum field theory and elementary particle physics, theory of nucleus, condensed matter theory, and methods of mathematical phys-ics. The research conducted at the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (LTP) is multidisciplinary; it is directly integrated into international projects and is closely coordinated with JINR experimental programs.

Traditionally, the activities of LTP as an educational center for young sci-entists and students from many coun-tries have become so important due to the implementation of the scientific-educational project “Dubna Interna-tional Advanced School on Theoretical Physics (DIAS-TH)” and introduction of new chairs of theoretical physics of the Moscow Physical Technical Insti-tute and the International University Dubna that closely cooperate with the JINR University Centre.

Participation in International Projects

For international organizations like JINR it is utterly important to develop not only experimental and theoreti-cal programs but also user policy as it provides a transparent, clear, and safe-guarded mechanism of implementa-tion of priority research programs for Member States.

Projects aimed at the develop-ment of the scientific base of JINR Member States, construction of new facilities, and elaboration of scientific programs for them are implemented at the Institute – the cyclotron center in Bratislava, Slovak Republic is an ex-ample of them. In Astana, Kazakhstan, in the L.Gumilev Eurasian University, the Multidisciplinary scientific re-search complex successfully operates on the basis of the heavy ion cyclotron DC-60.

Along with the “home” activities, JINR continues to take part in large international projects (LHC, FAIR, XFEL), and research programs at the accelerators RHIC and Tevatron (USA).

JINR is one of the members of the project to develop an international linear collider—the megaproject of the 21st-century ILC. Following the results of negotiations with the lead-ers of the ILC Global Design Effort group, JINR is accepted as one of the official candidates, together with Fer-milab (USA), KEK (Japan), CERN (Switzerland), and DESY (Germany), for the installation of the ILC accel-erator complex in the Dubna vicinity.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research actively cooperates with CERN in solving many theoretical and experimental tasks of high-energy physics. JINR has accomplished all its duties in the work-out and construc-tion of detector systems of ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and the LHC machine itself. Today JINR physicists take part in 15 projects at CERN. The CICC of the Institute is actively used for tasks connected to experiments at the LHC and other scientific projects that need large-scale calculations.

Educational ActivitiesJINR has splendid conditions for

training gifted students and post-grad-uates. The University Centre of JINR

laboratory portrait


celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011. The number of young specialists who studied at the UC and now work at JINR laboratories has grown manifold. JINR Member States continue to express their vivid interest to the work-out of effi-cient educational programs and projects for training national staff on the basis of JINR research trends. International student practice courses organized by the UC become more and more popu-lar in JINR Member States. The total amount of students for the programs of 2011 was about 140 people. Beside the summer practice courses the UC orga-nized an international school “Nuclear Physics Methods and Accelerators in Biology and Medicine” in collabora-tion with universities of Poland, Rus-sia, Czechia, and Slovakia. More than 60 students from JINR Member States attended the event (Figure 5).

The Institute pays much attention to the tasks of increasing efficiency of the educational process due to renova-tion of the Institute’s infrastructure and supply of modern equipment to depart-ments that is used for implementation of educational projects and applied re-search.

In this context, the success of the recent project implemented in col-laboration with CERN should be men-tioned—the schools for physics teach-ers from JINR Member States. Two schools have been held up to the pres-ent in Geneva and two in Dubna. One of the peculiarities of the latest school in Dubna was that the teachers were invited with their best senior students. Organizers intended to acquaint the participants closely with the world of science, arrange meetings with scien-tists from international research centers and help physics teachers to find new “points of support,” and facilitate the attraction of school graduates into the

sphere of the professional scientific ca-reer.

The UC is equipped with modern facilities to hold video conferences that allows it to organize meetings of scientists from JINR and CERN with school students from JINR Member States. The video conference CERN-Moscow-Dubna-Volgograd, for exam-ple, was attended by over 200 school students. In addition to virtual meet-ings, the UC organizes regular excur-sions for school groups from various Member States of JINR. As a result, school students are very much inter-ested in studies of natural sciences.

ConclusionJINR researchers are constant par-

ticipants of many international and national scientific conferences. In its turn, the Institute annually organizes up to 10 large conferences and more than 30 international workshops, as well as traditional schools for young scientists. Each year the Institute as-signs more than 1,500 scientific pa-pers and reports written by 3,000 au-thors to the editorial offices of many journals and organizing committees. JINR publications are distributed in

more than 50 countries in the world. JINR publishes the world-known journals Physics of Elementary Par-ticles and Atomic Nucleus, Physics of Elementary Particles and Atomic Nucleus, Letters, the annual report on JINR activities, the information bulle-tin JINR News, as well as Proceedings of conferences, schools, and meetings organized by JINR.

Forty discoveries in nuclear phys-ics have been made in JINR. In view of the JINR latest achievements is the breakthrough in the superheavy ele-ments’ synthesis and the insight into the problem of their stability. The decision of the General Assembly of the International Committee of Pure and Applied Chemistry to award the name “Dubnium” to element 105 of the Mendeleev Periodic Table may be regarded as the recognition of the achievements of JINR’s staff of re-searchers and the official confirmation of the discovery of elements 114 and 116 in Dubna.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research as a large multidisciplinary international scientific center aims at preserving its unique nature, upgrad-ing the experimental base and ap-proaches to fundamental scientific research, along with work-out and application of new science-intensive technology. It initiates large-scale projects and takes part in the imple-mentation of international experi-ments, as well as pays great attention to educational activities and improve-ment of higher education in the re-spective fields of science.

Figure 5. Participants of the school for students organized by the Univer-sity Centre of JINR on an excursion to the superconducting accelerator of heavy ions Nuclotron.

Boris starchenko and

Yulia shimanskaYa

JINR Press Office

meeting reports


For more than twenty years, scien-tists interested in meson physics have been getting together biennially in the beautiful city of Cracow in southern Poland to attend the MESON-confer-ence series. Organized by the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian Univer-sity in Cracow, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (Germany), INFN-LNF Frascati (Italy), and the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN Cracow, the 12th International Workshop on Me-son Production, Properties and In-teraction (MESON 2012) took place from 31 May to 5 June 2012 at the Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiel-lonian University. Nearly 200 experi-mental and theoretical physicists from 20 countries gathered to exchange and discuss latest results of the field and to plan mutual future projects.

The large number of participating young scientists showed that the cov-ered topics are at the focus of current scientific interest and provides confi-dence in the future of meson physics. To promote the work of young scien-tists, a poster session was arranged to present their results, including a com-petition for the best poster presentation.

The intention of the MESON con-ferences is to provide an overview of the present status of meson production in various hadronic and electromag-netic reactions, meson interactions with mesons, nucleons and nuclei, structure and interaction of hadrons, fundamental symmetries, and exotic systems. Also, new developments and a preview of forthcoming investiga-tions were presented and discussed during the meeting. Thus, the con-ference program covered the broad

spectrum of experiments using accel-erators located at CERN, in Germany (COSY, ELSA, SIS, MAMI), Italy (DAFNE), Japan (KEK, J-PARC, SPring-8, RIKEN), Russia (JINR, No-vosibirsk, Protvino), and the United States (RHIC, CEBAF).

A wide spectrum of problems in the light meson sector was presented. The recent studies on meson produc-tion and their properties were re-ported by WASA@COSY collabora-tion—their observation of a striking structure (ABC Effect) in hadronic two pion production was reported. The WASA@COSY collaboration also presented preliminary results and perspectives on tests of fundamental symmetries and the search for phe-nomena beyond the Standard Model in hadronic and leptonic decays of neutral mesons, in particular of the h meson. The COSY-ANKE collabora-

tion reported the first results on double polarized near-threshold pion produc-tion in diproton final states. The first step in the program was to measure the differential cross-section and the vector analyzing power for the pions production in a large angular range. The aim of the experiment is to isolate the four-nucleon-pion contact term appearing in ChPT. This will establish links between the pion production and other low energy phenomena within the ChPT approach. Latest results from Crystal Ball at MAMI from se-lected parts of the physics program were presented. In particular photo-production of pseudoscalar mesons on protons and coherent pion photo-production on nuclei were discussed. Results from LEPS at SPring-8 fa-cility on photoproduction of hadrons containing strange quarks and in particular k meson search in K(890)

Meeting Report on the 12th International Workshop on Meson Production, Properties and Interaction (MESON2012)

Figure 1. Participants of the 12th International Workshop on Meson Production, Properties and Interaction.

meeting reports


S+ photoproduction were presented. Also, future prospects for LEPS-II were shown. Semi-inclusive meson production in electron/positron inter-actions with hydrogen and deuterium obtained in HERMES experiment were discussed, especially results on pion and kaon multiplicities, Sivers and Collins amplitudes and spin-inde-pendent non-collinear cross-section. Results obtained with the upgraded VES setup were reviewed presenting first preliminary results on three and four pseudoscalar meson systems.

Heavier mesons were also exten-sively discussed during the MESON 2012. Results on studies of meson properties with the Belle detector were presented including the first ob-servation of the bottomonium hb(2P) and two exotic charged states Zb. The results in beauty and charmed meson physics and in particular recent results on rare B decays, CP violation, and charm physics were presented from the LHCb experiment. The Charmo-nium physics was covered, report-ing on BESIII experiment, showing among other topics new structures ob-served in J/Y decays.

Kaon physics was another field widely discussed during MESON 2012. New results were shown by dif-ferent groups. On behalf of NA48/2 and NA62 experiments, new preci-sion measurement for the form fac-tors of the semileptonic kaon decays were presented as well as form factor and branching ratio measurements of charged and neutral kaon decays. The latest results on the production of weakly-bound hypernuclei as well as on possible formation of dense ob-jects, strongly bound by the kaonnu-cleon interaction obtained in the FOPI were also discussed. The DIRAC col-laboration showed their investigation of systems consisting of pp- and Kp-atoms. In addition results were shown from SIDDHARTA at DAFNE cover-

ing measurements of the strong inter-action induced shift and the absorption width in kaonic hydrogen, kaonic deu-terium and kaonic helium atoms. Pi-onic atoms from the RI beam factory at RIKEN were discussed, showing new results on precise spectroscopy of pionic atoms. This provides infor-mation on the strong pion-nucleus interaction, leading to the evaluation of the magnitude of the in-medium quark condensate. The observation of light neutron-rich hypernuclei at FI-NUDA (DAFNE) was reported, and hypernuclear spectroscopy via elec-tro-production of strangeness inside the nucleus, performed at JLab Hall C was described.

Studies of mesons using electrons are an important sector of the meson physics. Among others topics, the A1 experiment at MAMI and its most re-cent results and future physics were presented, concentrating on form fac-tor measurements, high-resolution structures, and dark photons. The HA-DES collaboration presented results for the dielectron production in the elementary reactions such as p + p and p + nucleus.

Recent results on baryon reso-nances from double polarization ex-periments performed at CBELSA/TAPS, on the search for spin-exotic mesons and scalar glueballs from COMPASS and on the study of reso-nance transition form factors, transi-tion charge, and magnetization densi-ties from CLAS completed the review of the newest results.

Future facilities, ongoing and planned facility upgrades, and many experimental programs on existing in-stallations were presented. Here one has to mention J-PARC devoted to the strangeness and hypernuclear physics, the study of meson nucleon bound sys-tem and meson properties in nucleus, the KLOE-2 project on study low en-ergy hadronic physics, kaon decays and

tests of the Standard Model, VEPP at Novosibirsk, and GlueX at JLab.

The important part of the MESON 2012 conference was a presentation of the status and perspectives of theo-retical research on mesons. They were discussed in a number of talks includ-ing molecular interpretation of the charmonium-like X, Y, and Z states, a review on recent developments con-cerning the antikaon-nucleon interac-tion and kaonic systems with more baryons in view of possible antikaonic nuclear state, muon anomalous mag-netic moment, results for the spectrum of mesons, as well as charmonium states obtained from lattice QCD or meson electromagnetic formfactors.

The last day of the conference heard nice summaries, which reviewed ex-perimental findings for the in-medium properties of mesons and also pre-sented results for light vector me-sons obtained in photon and proton induced reactions. An overview was given about the applications of Chiral Perturbation Theory to hadron-hadron scattering, hadronic atoms, and Gold-stone boson octet scattering on the D-meson triplet, demonstrating that a consistent analysis of various pro-cesses in the meson sector may be nowadays obtained within ChPT.

This rich scientific program was supplemented by a number of well-received social events. Hopes are high that meson physics will continue to be a fast developing part of physical science and that the next edition of the MESON conference, planned for May/June 2014 in Cracow, will gather the meson physics community once again in their fully flourishing activity.

Carlo GuaraldoINFN-LNF Frascati

StaniSław KiStrynJagiellenian University

Hans ströHerFZ Jülich

feature article


IntroductionThe search for new nuclides has been one of the driv-

ing forces for discoveries of new phenomena in nuclear physics for over a hundred years. In order to understand the nuclear force acting between neutrons and protons it is nec-essary to explore a large range of possible configurations of neutrons and protons forming a specific nuclide. The first step in studying properties of these nuclides is always their formation in the laboratory. Over the years new discover-ies have been made with the innovation of new techniques, primarily new accelerators or significant improvements in accelerator techniques.

A few years ago we began a project to document the discovery of all isotopes of all known elements, which is being published in a series of papers in Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables. The first paper on the discovery of the cerium isotopes was published in 2009 [1]. The definition of what constitutes a nuclide or an isotope of a specific ele-ment is not well defined [2]. While for very neutron-rich nuclides the timescale differences between the lifetimes of β– decaying nuclides and nuclides unstable with respect to neutron emission allows for a precise definition of the neutron “drip-line” the situation is more complicated for proton-rich nuclides. Nuclei that are unbound with respect to proton emission can have significant lifetimes because of the Coulomb barrier so that in some cases β+-decay or electron-capture can compete or even dominate the decay.

In order to avoid an arbitrary lifetime for the definition of the existence of a nuclide, all nuclides where distinctive, identifying features have been observed were included. These include very short-lived resonance states, for exam-ple the di-neutron where a scattering length of –16.4 ± 1.9 fm [3] was measured demonstrating an attractive interac-tion between the two neutrons.

At the other end of the mass spectrum, the recognition for the discovery of a new element is regulated by the In-ternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). A joint working group (JWP) recommends the acceptance of new elements based on strict criteria [4,5]. Such rigorous and elaborate reviews are not practical for

the documentation for the discovery of nuclides where less stringent criteria were applied: (1) clear identification, ei-ther through decay-curves and relationships to other known nuclides, particle or γ-ray spectra, or unique mass and Z-identification, and (2) publication of the discovery in a ref-ereed journal. Thus the discovery of a specific isotope of an element does not necessarily imply the discovery of the element itself.

With these criteria, 3104 nuclides were discovered until the end of 2011.

Compilation of DiscoveriesThe project was recently completed with the acceptance

of the last paper on the discovery of the astatine, radon, francium, and radium isotopes. An overview of the project and an up-to-date publication status can be found at Ref. [6]. The project resulted in a large database with detailed information about the discoveries. For each nuclide it in-cludes the production method, year, laboratory, and country of discovery as well as well as all authors of the first pub-lication.

In a preliminary analysis the relationship between the number of discoveries and the development of new accel-erators and techniques over time was shown [7]. The evo-lution of the chart of nuclides can be followed in a short video [8].

In addition to the 3104 nuclides included in the compi-lation presently 25 nuclides have been observed but have only been reported in conference proceedings or internal reports.

LaboratoriesOver 120 different laboratories in 25 countries contrib-

uted to the discovery of the nuclides and the top 25 are listed in Table 1. Four laboratories—Berkeley, GSI, Cambridge, and Dubna—account for almost half of all discoveries. The dominance of these laboratories can be directly related to the innovation and development of new production mecha-nisms [9,10].

The Discovery of the Nuclides

Michael Thoennessen

National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Department of Physics & Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

feature article


1970s mostly utilizing fusion-evaporation, spallation, and deep-inelastic reactions. More recently, Dubna has been the dominant laboratory for the discovery of new elements that automatically resulted in the observation of new nuclides. The construction of the velocity filter SHIP utilizing fusion-evaporation reactions and later the fragment separator FRS for projectile fragmentation/fission reactions resulted in the leading position of the Gesellschaft für Schwerionen-forschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, for the last three decades. In addition to these four laboratories, the new ra-dioactive ion beam facility RIBF at RIKEN (also included in Figure 1) came recently online and has already produced a significant number of new nuclides.

The number of facilities that have discovered new nu-clides has decreased from a maximum of 55 in the 1960s to only 15 during the last ten years. This demonstrates the increased complexity needed to reach further and further away from the stable nuclides.

It should be mentioned that the last time period in Figure 1 covers only 2 years (2010 and 2011) in which already 117 nuclides were discovered compared to 180 during the whole previous decade (2000–2009).

CountriesNot surprisingly, the countries that discovered the most

nuclides correspond to the countries of the leading labo-ratories. Overall 25 different countries contributed to the discovery of all nuclides, and they are listed in Table 2. The top five countries: the United States, Germany (including West Germany from 1949–1990), the United Kingdom, USSR/Russia, and France account for over 80% with the

Figure 1. Number of nuclides discovered per decade at the top four laboratories, Berkeley, GSI, Cambridge, and Dubna. In addition, RIKEN is included because of the sig-nificant number discovered during the last decade.

Rank Laboratory Nucl. % Years

1 Berkeley 635 20.39 1928–2010 2 GSI 372 11.95 1977–2011 3 Cambridge 222 7.13 1913–1940 4 Dubna 220 7.06 1957–2010 5 CERN 119 3.82 1965–2009 6 Argonne 116 3.73 1947–2006 7 GANIL 85 2.73 1985–2005 8 Oak Ridge 78 2.50 1946–2006 9 Orsay 73 2.34 1959–198910 RIKEN 71 2.28 1972–201011 MSU 62 1.99 1967–201112 Los Alamos 54 1.73 1948–199013 Chicago 45 1.45 1920–195614 Brookhaven 44 1.41 1952–198615 Grenoble 40 1.28 1965–199516 Ohio State 35 1.12 1941–1960 Studsvik 35 1.12 1971–1993 Jyväskylä 35 1.12 1972–2010 Berlin 35 1.12 1907–200020 McGill 34 1.09 1900–198121 Amsterdam 29 0.93 1934–197622 Mainz 26 0.83 1950–197623 Lanzhou 23 0.74 1993–200424 Harwell 22 0.71 1949–1971 Rochester 22 0.71 1937–1972 U. of Michigan 22 0.71 1937–1969

Table 1. Top 25 of laboratories. The total of number of nuclides discovered, the percentages, and the range of years when nuclides were discovered are listed.

Figure 1 shows the number of nuclides discovered at these four laboratories as a function of time. Aston’s mass spectrographs at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, UK led the efforts in the 1920s and 1930s. Berkeley was the leading laboratory for the next three decades due to signifi-cant accelerator developments. Beginning with Lawrence’s first cyclotron accelerating light particles accelerator physicists at Berkeley built new accelerators with increas-ing beam energies higher and the capability to accelerate heavy ions leading to the discovery of almost 40% of all isotopes during this time period. Berkeley also pioneered the target- (spallation) as well as projectile fragmentation reactions. The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research JINR at Dubna made significant contributions in the 1960s and

feature article


United States contributing almost half (42%) of all nuclides discovered so far.

Figure 2 displays the number of nuclides discovered per decade for these five countries. In addition, Japan is also shown demonstrating the most recent contributions. Dur-ing the 1940s and 1950s about 80% of all nuclides were discovered in the United States. However, during the last decade (2002–2011) the United States fell behind Germany and Japan with less than 20%.

While the number of individual facilities producing new nuclides dropped dramatically over the last 50 years the overall interest of the international community remained strong. The number of countries discovering new nuclides has remained fairly constant around 12 during the last 90

years with a maximum of 16 during the 1960s and 1970s. During the last decade (2002–2011) 9 different countries reported the observation of new nuclides.

AuthorsThe discovery of the nuclides was published in 1,508

papers by almost 900 different first authors and over 3,300 different coauthors.

Four researchers coauthored papers discovering over 200 nuclides. G. Münzenberg from GSI leads the list with 218 nuclides followed by H. Geissel (GSI, 210), F.W. Aston (Cambridge, 207), and P. Armbruster (GSI, 201). Münzen-berg’s research covered a remarkablely broad range from the very light (unbound) 12Li produced in proton removal reactions with radioactive beams to 277Cn formed in fu-sion–evaporation reactions. The impressive careers of G. Seaborg (LBL, 94) and A. Ghiorso (LBL, 117) spanned 57 and 48 years of discovering nuclides, respectively.

The change from small single author papers to large collaborations working at large facilities that occurred in nuclear physics in general is also reflected in the number of authors per paper in the discovery papers. Figure 3 dem-onstrates the rapid increase over the last few years. For ex-ample, Aston was the single author of 38 of his 39 papers reporting his discoveries of stable nuclides in the 1920s and 1930s. In contrast, the recent observation of 47 nuclides at RIBF at RIKEN was coauthored by 60 researchers [11].

It is thus also not surprising that Aston leads the list of first-author publications (207), followed by M. Bernas

Figure 2. Number of nuclides discovered per decade at the top five countries: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, USSR/Russia, and France, as well as Japan. Japan is included because of the large number discovered during the last decade.

Rank Country Nucl. % Years

1 USA 1311 42.09 1907–2011 2 Germany 492 15.79 1898–2011 3 UK 300 9.63 1900–1994 4 USSR/Russia 245 7.87 1957–2010 5 France 214 6.87 1896–2005 6 Switzerland 129 4.14 1934–2009 7 Japan 126 4.04 1938–2010 8 Sweden 62 1.99 1945–1993 9 Canada 61 1.96 1900–199810 Finland 37 1.19 1961–201011 Netherlands 36 1.16 1934–197612 China 26 0.84 1991–200413 Belgium 17 0.55 1967–199114 Denmark 14 0.43 1935–199415 Argentina 12 0.39 1954–196316 Italy 11 0.35 1934–201017 Austria 6 0.19 1936–1966 Israel 6 0.19 1972–197919 Norway 2 0.06 1956 India 2 0.06 1935 Australia 2 0.06 1985–198822 New Zealand 1 0.03 1968 Brazil 1 0.03 1956 Poland 1 0.03 1934 Hungary 1 0.03 1973

Table 2. List of all countries where nuclides were discovered. The total of number of nuclides discovered, the percentages, and the range of years when nuclides were discovered are listed.

feature article


(110), T. Ohnishi (49), and Yu. Ts. Oganessian (47), who performed their experiments at GSI, RIKEN, and Dubna, respectively.

The number of nuclides reported per paper is another indicator for the changing technologies involved in the dis-covery of nuclides and is shown in Figure 4. The number is fairly constant around the overall average of two nuclides per paper. The increase during the 1920s is due to Aston’s mass spectrograph experiments, which allowed him to measure and report several elements fairly quickly. The recent rapid increase is due to the discoveries at projectile fragmentation facilities that are able to identify many nuclides simultane-ously at a given setting of the fragment separator. The most new nuclides reported in a single paper were published by M. Bernas et al. with 58 and was based on an experiment performed at the fragment separator at GSI [12].

SummaryThe documentation of the discovery of nuclides is an

ongoing project. While most of the discoveries are not con-troversial some cases are certainly debatable. Some of the assignments can change when new measurements demon-strate that earlier reported results were incorrect.

Complete tables of the data presented here as well as fur-ther details and links to all discovery papers can be found at Ref. [6]. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are always welcome and should be sent to [email protected].

AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by the National Science Foun-

dation under grant Numbers PHY06–06007 and PHY11–02511 (NSCL), PHY07–54541 and PHY10–62410 (REU), the High School Honors Science Program (HSHSP) pro-gram, and the Professorial Assistantship Program of the Honors College (PAPHC) at MSU.

I thank the many undergraduates who worked on the compilation of individual nuclides: S. Amos (REU, 2009), A. Bury (HSHSP, 2008), J. Claes (MSU, 2010), A. Frit-sch (REU, 2008), C. Fry (REU, 2011), K. Garofali (MSU, 2010), J.Q. Ginepro (PAPHC, 2007–2008), J.L. Gross (MSU, 2009–2011), M. Heim (REU, 2008), J. Kathawa (MSU, 2010–2011), E. May (PAPHC, 2010–2011), D. Mei-erfrankenfeld (MSU, 2009), A. Nystrom (REU, 2010), A. Parker (REU, 2010), R. Robinson (MSU, 2010–2011), A. Schuh (REU, 2008), A. Shore (REU, 2008), T. Szymanski (MSU, 2009)

References 1. G. Q. Ginepro, J. Snyder, and M. Thoennessen, At. Data Nucl.

Data Tables 95 (2009) 805. 2. M. Thoennessen, Rep. Prog. Phys. 67 (2004) 1187. 3. R.P. Haddock et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 14 (1965) 318. 4. B.G. Harvey et al., Science 193 (1976) 1271. 5. IUPAC Transfermium Working Group, Pure Appl. Chem. 63

(1991) 879. 6. http://www.nscl.msu.edu/~thoennes/isotopes 7. M. Thoennessen and B.M. Sherrill, Nature 473 (2011) 25. 8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRkc521no94 9. E. S. Reich, Nature News, 4 October 2011. doi: 10.1038/

news.2011.57110. Trend Watch: Isotope ranking reveals leading labs, Nature

478 (2011) 160.11. T. Ohnishi et al., J. Phys. Soc. Japan 79 (2010) 073201.12. M. Bernas et al., Phys. Lett. B 415 (1997) 111.

Figure 3. Number of authors per paper.

Figure 4. Number of nuclides per paper.

facilities and methods


Since the dawn of the nuclear age, access to the most recent nuclear data has played a crucial role in nuclear physics research and application de-velopment. These data were originally disseminated as paper copies for select users and eventually evolved into the present-day computer files distributed over the World Wide Web. The Na-tional Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) has always been one of the pioneers in nuclear data collection and dissemi-nation. It has been providing remote electronic access to its databases and other information since 1986. The Center is committed to providing nuclear data services and operates the most widely used nuclear data website (http://www.nndc.bnl.gov) [1]. The NNDC Web Services user interface is shown in Figure 1.

Nuclear data activities started at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with a group of physicists in 1951, and became the National Nu-clear Data Center in 1977 [2]. The data program is the longest-running group at BNL, highlighting the vital role nuclear data has played in over 60 years of nuclear physics. The Cen-ter’s objective is to compile, evalu-ate, and disseminate nuclear physics data for basic nuclear research and applied nuclear technologies. The NNDC maintains and contributes to evaluated and experimental nuclear structure (ENSDF, XUNDL), reaction (ENDF, EXFOR/CSISRS), and bibli-ography (NSR) databases, as well as several others derived from these pri-mary databases. The Center prepares photo-ready copies of evaluations for the Nuclear Data Sheets Journal and publishes the Nuclear Wallet Cards booklet and neutron cross-sections

reference books, formerly known as BNL-325. It provides coordination and operates databases for the Cross Section Evaluation Working Group (CSEWG) and United States Nuclear Data Program (USNDP).

Development of nuclear data has always been a dominant part of NNDC activities including a variety of data libraries, separate evaluations, and codes. Here, we briefly mention two main databases or libraries: Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data File (ENSDF) [3] and Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF). Both databases are updated on a regular basis and provide the evaluated (recommended) data for

nuclear structure and reaction physics research and application development.

The ENSDF library is completely based on evaluated experimental re-sults. The structure and decay data for the popular Table of Isotopes, 8th edi-tion (1996) was derived from the infor-mation in ENSDF. In the field of neu-tron-induced reactions, measurements may be lacking on specific quantities relevant for a particular application. For this reason, neutron evaluations incorporate a significant amount of nuclear theory. Dedicated tools, such as the code EMPIRE [4], have been developed for advanced modeling of nuclear reactions to incorporate theory

National Nuclear Data Center: A Worldwide User Facility

Figure 1. NNDC Web interface (http://www.nndc.bnl.gov).



in the evaluation process. The ENDF data sets were originally developed for the nuclear industry and national security needs, and are also used in transport codes such as MCNP and GEANT. All nuclear power reactor operations are governed by the ENDF data files that are maintained by U.S., Japanese, European, Chinese, and Russian nuclear programs, in collabo-ration with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna.

Recently released by the CSEWG, the ENDF/B-VII.1 library [5] repre-sents the most advanced set of all rel-evant information for neutron-induced reaction physics and its applications. It incorporates many updates, includ-ing cross-section covariance data de-veloped for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. In addition to its original scope, ENDF data could be valuable for non-traditional applications such as astrophysics, isotope production, or reactor antineutrino spectrum cal-culations. As an example, the nu-clear astrophysics application for the ENDF/B-VII.1 neutron capture cross-sections and low-fidelity covariance data is shown in Figure 2. Maxwellian- averaged cross-sections combined with solar system abundances repli-cate the famous s-process two-plateau plot and provide a complementary data source for the KADoNiS nuclear astrophysics library [6].

An important part of the NNDC mission is to serve as a worldwide re-source for nuclear data. Presently, the Center provides access to its data us-ing graphical Web interfaces. NNDC Web Services are based on a commer-cial relational database and Java Web application software installed on pow-erful Linux servers [1]. The current system has proven to be a robust, scal-able platform for nuclear database ap-plications support and development. NuDat (Chart of Nuclides), Sigma Web interface, and NSR Java Web

Figure 2. Product of the ENDF/B-VII.1 Maxwellian-averaged capture cross sections and solar system abundances for s-process only nuclides at kT=30 keV. ENF data and equilibrium fit are shown as green points and red line, respectively.

Figure 3. Electronic retrievals of nuclear data (in millions).

applications are worldwide leaders in nuclear structure, reaction and bibliog-raphy data dissemination, respectively. Over 13,500 scientific, industrial, and educational organizations use our Web Services every year. Statistics for elec-tronic retrievals (data downloads) are shown in Figure 3.

The recorded rate of retrievals in-dicates exponential growth of world-wide nuclear data usage over the last 25 years. The growing trend in Web retrievals fueled by the rapid evolu-tion of World Wide Web technologies and increasing demands for easy, pa-perless data access.



A detailed analysis of Web server logs provides additional information on nuclear data users and their pref-erences. The analysis of the 10 GB log file indicates a broad geography of nuclear data usage, major national nuclear physics programs, and nuclear physics R&D trends over the years as shown in Figure 4. Figures 3 and 4 provide the best evidence of increas-ing nuclear data and nuclear physics research efforts worldwide and strong connections between research and data activities.

Further growth of Web dissemi-nation is expected from the Cloud computing developments, data usage in public education, and stronger col-laboration with the American Physical and Nuclear Societies, nuclear theory and astrophysics communities. Pres-ently NNDC and nuclear theory com-munity are working together to cre-ate a central repository for the major physics model codes and calculation results. In the near future, NNDC Web users will be able to conduct increas-ingly high-level calculations and nu-clear data set checks using our servers.

Figure 4. Geographical distribution of NNDC Web users.

Figure 5. Nuclear Data 2013 conference (http://www.bnl.gov/nd2013) poster.

The Center is heavily involved in nuclear data activities and interna-tional collaborations. It organizes an-nual USNDP and CSEWG meetings, conducts a large number of small workshops and mini-symposiums and actively interacts with its users. In March of 2013, NNDC is organizing the International Conference on Nu-clear Data for Science and Technology (ND2013). The aim of this conference is to create a worldwide forum for the presentation and discussion of all as-pects of nuclear data and their applica-tions. The ND2013 poster is shown in Figure 5.

There are many historical exam-ples in which nuclear data played a de-cisive role. Insufficient knowledge of



nuclear constants hampered the Ger-man nuclear project in the 1940s [7], while modern polonium-210 decay data helped to uncover an assassina-tion plot in Great Britain [8]. Nowa-days nuclear data files are frequently used in archeology, nuclear medicine, space exploration, higher education, and energy generation. This is why the nuclear data field and Web dissemi-nation of major results provide great benefits for people and positively af-fect human lives.

Throughout its 60-year history, the National Nuclear Data Center has evolved from the compilation of neu-tron physics results to a more com-plete line of nuclear physics products and services. NNDC mastered World Wide Web technologies, broke in-ternational barriers, and established worldwide connections between nu-clear data programs and users. The Center’s databases and expertise rep-resent a treasure trove of knowledge that has accumulated over the past six decades. The Center scientists actively communicate with users, provide data and consultations for nuclear phys-ics research projects, and work on new application developments, such as the next generation of nuclear re-actors that would supply safe, zero-carbon emission energy. Finally, the

National Nuclear Data Center always will maintain service commitments and support cutting-edge nuclear data user facilities.

AcknowlegmentThe authors are grateful to V. Un-

ferth (Viterbo University) and L. Mc-Cutchan (BNL) for a careful reading of the manuscript and valuable sug-gestions.

This work was funded by the Of-fice of Nuclear Physics, Office of Science of the US Department of En-ergy, under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC.

References1. B. Pritychenko et al., Annals of Nucl.

Energy 33 (2006) 390. 2. S. Pearlstein, Nucl. News 13 (1970) 11. 3. F. G. Kondev, A. L. Nichols, and J. K.

Tuli, Nucl. Phys. News 17 (2007) 19.4. M. Herman et al., EMPIRE: Nuclear

Reaction Model Code System for Data Evaluation, Nuclear Data Sheets 108 (2007) 2655.

5. M. B. Chadwick et al., Nucl. Data Sheets 112 (2011) 2887.

6. I. Dillmann, M. Heil, F. Käppeler, et al., AIP Conf. Proc. 819 (2006) 123; http://www.kadonis.org.

7. German nuclear energy project, http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki /German_atomic_bomb.

8. Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning _of_Alexander_Litvinenko.

B. Pritychenko

NNDC, Brookhaven National Laboratory

M. W. herMan

NNDC, Brookhaven National Laboratory



The AGATA Demonstrator Array at LNL

In the past 20 years, a wealth of nu-clear structure information has been ob-tained with γ spectroscopy techniques, by using arrays of Compton-suppressed hyperpure germanium (HPGe) detec-tors. In these devices, large detection volumes and full peak efficiencies of the order of a few percent (up to 10% for arrays such as EUROBALL and GAMMASPHERE [1]) are obtained by combining together several crys-tals. The crystals are generally placed far enough from the source of radiation in order to limit the Doppler broaden-ing of photons emitted from nuclei in motion with typical recoil velocity of a few percent of the speed of light. The peak-to-total (P/T) ratio of the re-sulting spectra is maximized by using veto detectors (Compton-suppression shields) to detect photons that made only a partial energy deposition within the germanium crystals. The germa-nium detectors are typically collimated to operate at fixed distance from the source, which improves the P/T ratio by limiting the scattering of photons in between crystals.

The devices described above are not well suited to the experimental conditions at the planned and under construction radioactive ion beam fa-cilities such as SPES [2], SPIRAL-2 [3], and FAIR [4]. Higher full peak ef-ficiency, of the order of 30–40%, will be needed to cope with the low beam intensities. In case of fragmentation facilities with high-energy beams, the nuclei emitting the radiation will move with relativistic velocities. In order to limit Doppler broadening effects to acceptable values, arrays with very high granularity are needed, with the detectors placed far from the source. This would lead to detection systems composed of thousands of crystals,

which would hardly be manageable and, most likely, economically unfea-sible.

In the early 2000s an innovative ap-proach to this problem was proposed, namely to use the germanium crystals in position-sensitive mode. The energy and position of each interaction within the crystals is extracted by dividing the outer electrode into a number of segments, by equipping them with digital electronics, and by comparing the observed signal shapes with a ref-erence set of signals that represent the response of the system to a single-in-teraction event in a grid of known lo-cations inside the crystal. This process is known as signal decomposition or pulse shape analysis (PSA). Once the full set of interaction points seen in all detectors fired by the specific event is determined, the energy and direction of each photon can be disentangled (or tracked) by means of computer al-

gorithms, which, as a side effect, can also identify and discard partial en-ergy depositions. In other words, the process of γ-ray tracking provides as well efficient Compton suppression. Indeed, the performance of a 4p track-ing array of HPGe detectors, as esti-mated by realistic Monte Carlo simu-lations, can be extremely good, with a full-peak efficiency of 50% and a P/T ratio of 60%. Furthermore, since each interaction point is determined with a precision of a few millimeters, hence much smaller than the typical crystal size, the Doppler correction can be performed with a much better quality than in case of “conventional” Comp-ton-suppressed arrays.

Presently, the construction of a tracking array inspired by the above mentioned principles is pursued by two projects, both using encapsulated 36-fold segmented crystals closely packed into multi-crystal cryostat

Figure 1. Photo of the AGATA Demonstrator array placed at the target position of the PRISMA magnetic spectrometer.



(clusters) and digital electronics that samples all signals every 10 ns with a resolution of 14 bits. The US-based array GRETA [5] will be built out of 120 crystals, arranged into 30 quadru-ple clusters, while the European array AGATA [6] will be composed of 180 crystals, arranged into 60 triple clus-ters. The two projects are very ambi-tious, technically challenging and economically compelling. Therefore, they will be completed in stages, start-ing with the realization of a sub-set of the full array to prove, or “demon-strate” the soundness and feasibility of the chosen technical solutions. A key point in both projects is the capabil-ity of reducing the huge data flow (200 MB/s/segment, i.e., ~8 GB/s/crystal, out of the digitizers; ~100 MB/s/de-tector out of the preprocessing elec-tronics at a trigger rate of 10 kHz) to values that can be handled by the available computer technology. For the full arrays, it will be impossible to store the original digitized data, rather pulse shape analysis and γ-ray track-ing should be performed in real time, and only the final results of the track-ing process should be stored.

The AGATA Demonstrator at LNL

The AGATA Demonstrator has been the goal of the initial R&D phase of the AGATA project, and consists of five AGATA triple clusters, arranged in the compact configuration shown in the cover of the present issue. Given that this configuration lacks spherical symmetry and that, contrary to con-ventional arrays, the detectors are not bound to a single source-detector dis-tance, the performance of the AGATA Demonstrator depends on its position relative to the source. According to the Monte Carlo simulations reported in Ref. [7], the full peak efficiency of the array for 1 MeV photons ranges between 3% and 7% with a P/T ra-

tio close to 60%. These values, later confirmed by the experimental data, are comparable to existing arrays of Compton-suppressed detectors. There-fore, in the initial phase, the emphasis to prove that AGATA will be a much superior device is put on the quality of the spectra, in other words on the quality of the Doppler correction. For this reason, the AGATA Demonstrator is best exploited in combination with devices to track the incoming beam or the recoiling nuclei.

The AGATA Demonstrator has been first installed at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL), Italy, at the target point of the large-accep-tance magnetic spectrometer PRISMA [8] as shown in Figure 1, starting in 2009 with the basic infrastructure, one triple cluster and the associated electronics and reaching the full con-figuration in mid-2011 when the 5th cluster became available. The em-phasis of its operation moved gradu-ally from technical commissioning to actual Physics experiments, which became the dominant activity upon completion of the system. The initial goal of the campaign was to prove that indeed PSA and γ-ray track-ing could be successfully performed in real time, on the most demanding conditions achievable in a low-energy stable-beam facility, that is, with reac-tions with velocities of the γ-emitting products up to β ~ 10% and with rela-tively high-intensity beams. Once this was achieved, the Demonstrator was mostly used in coupled operation with PRISMA and with the array of MCP detectors DANTE [9] to study moder-ately neutron-rich nuclei populated by multi-nucleon transfer or deep inelas-tic collisions with the stable beams de-livered by the Tandem-PIAVE-ALPI accelerator complex. AGATA was also successfully coupled with other complementary detectors in order to exploit experimental possibilities such

as direct, Coulomb excitation or fu-sion-evaporation reactions. The tech-nical details on the installation of the Demonstrator at LNL can be found in Ref. [10].

Performance of the AGATA Demonstrator at LNL

The AGATA Demonstrator was commissioned during 2009, through a series of source and in-beam tests. The following campaign of experiments, which covered several topics both in moderately neutron-rich and in pro-ton-rich nuclei, will be discussed in a later section. The overall performance of the device was quite satisfactory and has been the subject of technical reports [11, 12]. Here we will just dis-cuss the quality of the Doppler correc-tion.

The spectra shown in Figure 2 were obtained with the 17O(340 MeV)+ 208Pb reaction, detecting the projectile-like 16O nuclei in the 4 mm × 4 mm pads of the silicon detectors of TRACE [10]. In this particular example, the velocity corresponding to the scattering of a 16O nucleus into the centre of the firing pad was used for the Doppler correction. When the AGATA crystals are con-sidered as a whole, no peaks are vis-ible, but they clearly start standing out when the segmentation information is used and most importantly when the full information from PSA and track-ing is available. The final FWHM for the 6130 keV line in 16O is “only” 58 keV, still far from the intrinsic energy resolution of the germanium detec-tors but fully consistent with the ki-nematics of the reaction, as verified with Monte Carlo simulations. The good Doppler correction quality re-flects the underlying performance of the pulse shape analysis, which, as shown in Ref. [13], reaches a posi-tion resolution slightly better than 4 mm FWHM for energies above 1 MeV.



The Physics Campaign at LNLThe AGATA Demonstrator has

been exploited in a two-year experi-mental campaign at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy. A total of 20 PAC-approved measurements were performed, plus 3 in-beam tests, for a grand total of 148 days of beam time. The experimental campaign is visu-ally summarized in Figure 3. Given the possibilities offered by the cou-pling with PRISMA, the campaign has focused mainly on the study of moderately neutron-rich nuclei popu-lated via multi-nucleon transfer or deep-inelastic reactions. However, the proton-rich side of the nuclides chart has been explored as well by coupling AGATA with other complementary devices such as the silicon detectors of TRACE or the scintillators of HEL-ENA [14] and HECTOR+ [15]. Due to the novelty and relative complexity of the PSA and g-ray tracking methods, the experiments are still in the analysis phase. Here, we will just review a few preliminary results.

A large fraction of the AGATA-PRISMA experiments aimed at mea-

suring transition probabilities of neutron-rich nuclei populated in multi- nucleon transfer reactions, apply-ing the recoil distance doppler shift method [16] with the differential plunger device developed at IKP Köln [10]. As a matter of fact, the technique was previously tested at LNL dur-ing the CLARA-PRISMA campaign [17]. We report here on an experiment

aimed at studying the onset of collec-tivity in the zinc isotopes. There are experimental indications that 68Ni is doubly magic, namely it has a first ex-cited 2+ state with a high energy and a low B(E2; 2+ → 0+) while, at the same time, the iron and zinc N = 40 isotopes show a collective behavior. The systematics of B(E2; 2+ → 0+) for the even neutron-rich zinc isotopes was measured with Coulomb excita-tion experiments at the REX-ISOLDE facility [18]. Since the statistics in these experiments was not sufficient to extract the angular distribution of the ejectiles, an independent evalua-tion of the B(E2) via lifetime measure-ment is needed to derive the deforma-tion of the involved isotopes. The measurement was performed with the 76Ge(577 MeV)+238U reaction. Sam-ple spectra for the relevant peaks are shown in Figure 4. The preliminary value for the B(E2; 2+ → 0+) in 72Zn, obtained via differential decay curve method [19] analysis, is ~22 W.u., in agreement with the literature. Instead, for 74Zn we obtain ~19 W.u.. Accord-ing to these results, the maximum of B(E2; 2+ → 0+) for the Zn chain is now at N = 42.

Figure 2. Quality of the Doppler correction obtained with the AGATA Demon-strator coupled to the segmented silicon detectors of the TRACE project. Spectra obtained in coincidence with a 16O nucleus detected within TRACE are shown, performing Doppler correction under different conditions. See text for details.

Figure 3. Visual summary of the first experimental campaign of the AGATA Demonstrator, performed at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy.



As a second example, we report on a lifetime measurement to gather nuclear structure information of astrophysical interest related to the solar composition problem [20], namely the core metallic-ity of the Sun. The carbon and nitrogen content in the center of the Sun can be deduced from the CNO neutrino fluxes, provided that all the relevant reaction cross sections are known. In particular, the 14N(p,γ)15O reaction determines the overall energy production rate, be-ing the slowest of the CNO cycle. The width of the sub-threshold resonance corresponding to the 6.79 MeV excited state in 15O plays a crucial role in the evaluation of the total astrophysical S-factor at zero energy, as discussed in Ref. [21]. To improve the accuracy of such value, a new direct measurement of the lifetime τ = Γ/ℏ of the 6.79 MeV level in 15O was performed by means

of the Doppler Shift Attenuation Method (DSAM) [16]. The technique was pushed to the fs range (in which the lifetime of the level of interest is ex-pected to lie) by populating the excited level in 15O in inverse kinematics, pro-ducing the 14N beam at 32 MeV energy with the Tandem accelerator and using a deuterated gold target. The Dem-onstrator, used in standalone mode, consisted of 4 triple clusters. The gain stability of the spectra was monitored during the whole experiment by means of a high-energy g source placed close to target. Exploiting the position reso-lution of the AGATA crystals, it was possible to construct energy versus angle matrices and to perform DSAM with an almost continuous angular dis-tribution. An example of these matrices is shown in Figure 5, where a 2-degree binning was used for the angles. The

resulting peak shape reflects closely the kinematics of the reaction process, which is mostly direct nucleon transfer with an admixture of fusion-evapora-tion. The present plan is to extract the level lifetime through a comparison with detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the experimental setup and of the reaction process. The method was vali-dated with a known level in 15N, popu-lated during the same run. Presently the results on 15O are not yet conclusive and they point to a very short lifetime of the order of 1 fs [22], in agreement with the literature.

The final highlight from the experi-mental campaign that we are going to present is the study of the high-spin states in 174W using the AGATA Dem-onstrator coupled to the HELENA BaF2 scintillators. The idea was to study the transition from an ordered to a chaotic regime focusing on the K quantum number, namely the projection of the total angular momentum on the nuclear symmetry axis. States at high-spin and high–excitation energy in 174W, popu-lated in the 50Ti(217 MeV)+128Te reac-tion, were selected using the informa-tion from the HELENA scintillators. The HELENA array was also used to select rotational structures with large values of K, by gating on delayed high-fold events. After subtracting the con-tribution from known discrete lines, a statistical fluctuation analysis of the ridge structures in the γγ matrices, shown in Figure 6, was performed in order to evaluate the number and the similarity of the possible deexcitation paths. The preliminary results indicate that the number of high-K and of low-K bands in 174W is roughly the same, in agreement with the theoretical expecta-tions and similarly to previous results for 163Er [23]. Finally, the similarity between decay paths points to a partial conservation of the K quantum number for excitation energies up to 1 MeV.

Figure 4. Sample spectra obtained at several target-degrader distance for the 72Zn and 74Zn nuclei. The AGATA Demonstrator was coupled to the PRISMA spectrometer and to the IKP Köln plunger device. See text for details.



Figure 5. The top panel shows gamma-ray energy sorted according to the first interaction point as reconstructed by the tracking. The narrow straight lines correspond to gamma-rays emitted from nuclei at rest, as it is the case of the radioactive source kept while beam on target. The gamma-rays emitted from short-lived excited nuclear levels are tilted and appear as broad lines in the total projection shown in the lower panel.

Figure 6. Sample ridge structures obtained with a suitable cut in the γγ matrix produced with the AGATA Demonstrator Array in the 50Ti+128Te reaction, once the high-K bands have been selected by putting suitable conditions on the HELENA scintillators. See text for details.

SummaryThe AGATA Demonstrator Array

has recently concluded its campaign of measurements at LNL. The perfor-mance of the device was very satisfac-tory both in standalone operation and coupled to several ancillary devices. The analysis of the performed experi-ments is in progress and preliminary results from some of them have been shown. AGATA is presently being re-assembled at GSI where it will be en-hanced with 5 double clusters in view of an experimental campaign with fast radioactive-ion beams, coupled to the FRS spectrometer and other ancillary devices.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank all of the AGATA

collaboration for the support during the experimental campaign at Leg- naro. In particular, the authors thank



the younger colleagues who shared their preliminary results: Fabio Crespi, Andrea Gottardo, Corinne Louchart, Daniele Mengoni, Caterina Michelag-noli, Roberto Nicolini, Luna Pellegri, Francesco Recchia, Pär-Anders Söder-ström, José Javier Valiente-Dobón, and Valeria Vandone.

References 1. J. Eberth and J. Simpson, Prog. Part.

Nucl. Phys. 60 (2008) 283. 2. http://spes.lnl.infn.it/ 3. http://www.ganil-spiral2.eu/spiral2 4. http://www.gsi.de/portrait/fair.html 5. M. A. Deleplanque et al., Nucl. Instr.

and Meth. A430 (1999) 292. 6. S. Akkoyun et al., Nucl. Instr. and

Meth. A668 (2012) 26. 7. E. Farnea et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth.

A621 (2010) 331.

8. A. M. Stefanini et al., Nucl. Phys. A701 (2002) 217.

9. A. Gottardo et al., Nucl. Phys. A805 (2008) 606.

10. A. Gadea et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A654 (2011) 88.

11. B. Bruyneel et al., INFN-LNL-234 (2011) 64.

12. F. Recchia et al., INFN-LNL-234 (2011) 60.

13. P.-A. Söderström et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A638 (2011) 96.

14. M. Mattiuzzi et al., Nucl. Phys. A612 (1997) 262.

15. R. Nicolini et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A582 (2007) 554; F. G. A. Quarati et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A629 (2011) 157.

16. T. K. Alexander and J. S. Forster, in: M. Baranger and E. Vogt (Eds.), Advances in Nuclear Physics, Vol. 10, Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York, p. 197. 1978.

17. J. J. Valiente-Dobón et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102 (2009) 242502.

18. J. Van de Walle et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 (2007) 142501.

19. A. Dewald et al., Z. Phys. A334 (1989) 163.

20. A. M. Serenelli et al., Astrop. Journ. Lett. 705 (2009) L123.

21. C. Broggini et al., Annu. Rev. Nucl. Sci., 60 (2010) 53 and references therein.

22. C. Michelagnoli et al., Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Origin of Matter and Evolution of Gal-axies, Wako, Saitama, Japan, 2011 (in press).

23. G. Benzoni et al., Phys. Lett. B 615 (2005) 160; S. Leoni et al., Phys. Rev. C 72 (2005) 034307.

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meeting reports


The International Symposium on Physics of Unstable Nuclei 2011 (IS-PUN11), the third meeting of the se-ries following ISPUN02 (Halong Bay) and ISPUN07 (Hoi An) meetings, was held in Hanoi (Vietnam) from 23–28 November 2011. It was just one year after Vietnam’s Capital celebrated its 1,000th anniversary. The meeting was organized by the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technique (INST) in Hanoi and the French counterparts (GANIL and IPN Orsay) in the LIA project between CNRS and CEA (France) and Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam. It was also of-ficially endorsed by the Asian Nuclear Physics Association (ANPhA) as one of its main activities in 2011. Like previous ISPUN meetings, ISPUN11 brought together not only the nuclear physics experts from prestigious insti-tutes and universities around the world but also a significant number of young researchers for the exchange of new ideas, information, and presentation of the latest research results. Despite

the financial difficulties due to the re-search budget cuts at many institutions, the actual attendance of ISPUN11 was high and totaled about 100 partici-pants. Eighty-five foreign participants came to Hanoi from 16 different coun-tries and the rest from Vietnamese in-stitutes and universities. Such a lively attendance at ISPUN11 was possible thanks to the strong encouragement and support from our sponsors, both in Vietnam and abroad: National Founda-tion for Science & Technology Devel-opment (NAFOSTED) and Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, GANIL and IPN Orsay, Helmholtz International Center for FAIR.

The ISPUN11 program was rather tight with a total of 80 oral presenta-tions and a poster display being set up during the meeting. The working atmosphere was nevertheless quite re-laxed and the symposium participants really enjoyed the excellent confer-ence facilities provided by one of the best hotels in Hanoi City as well as the nice weather during the conference

week. A one-day tour to Halong Bay was organized for the participants and accompanying persons. This famous world heritage site was chosen just a few days before the start of ISPUN11 as one of Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

Like previous ISPUN meetings, the facility talks were an essential part of the scientific program of ISPUN11, covering the features and present sta-tus of the new experimental facilities, with the new challenges, problems, and perspectives of the experimental studies of unstable nuclei. The world’s main nuclear physics facilities have been comprehensively presented at ISPUN11, starting with the talk by Hiroyoshi Sakurai on the new results and future plans at RIBF in RIKEN. Thomas Aumann and Peter Egelhof discussed about the current nuclear physics activities at GSI Darmstadt: reactions with relativistic radioactive beams (R3B) and experiments with ra-dioactive beams stored and cooled at heavy ion storage rings, the technical

Figure 1. Participants of the ISPUN11 in front of the 100-year-old Hanoi Opera Theater.

The International Symposium on Physics of Unstable Nuclei 2011

meeting reports


developments and future perspectives at FAIR. Sydney Gales reviewed the latest experiments at GANIL and in-troduced the grand project SPIRAL2 that is expected to bring about a new era of nuclear physics with unstable beams; the progress of RI beam facili-ties at CIAE in Beijing and the recent measurement of the nuclear reactions of astrophysical interest were shown by Weiping Liu. Although there was no facility talk on the FRIB project be-ing constructed at MSU, its status and progress were highlighted in the topi-cal talks by Betty Tsang and Remco Zegers. There were also presentations on the future facilities, like the RI beam source at Texas A&M University (Robert Tribble) or the KoRIA proj-ect near Seoul (Seung-Woo Hong). Shoji Nagamiya gave an impressive talk about the quick and efficient re-covery works done at J-PARC and other Japanese facilities affected by the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March 2011. A brief presentation of the Radioactive Ion Beams Facility in Brazil and the studies of reactions with weakly bound nuclei at the near-barrier energies was given by Paulo Gomes.

There were also interesting contri-butions on the experimental studies done or planned at the above facili-ties, for example, the RI-beam induced charge-exchange reactions measure-ment and production of the spin-aligned RI-beam at RIKEN (Hideyuki Sakai, Tomohiro Uesaka, and Yuichi Ichikawa), the astrophysics stud-ies with unstable nuclei at FAIR and FRANZ (Rene Reifarth), the deeply bound nucleon removal and transfer reactions with light exotic nuclei (Al-exandre Obertelli), the gamma decay of the pygmy resonance in stable and radioactive beams (Angela Bracco), the halo structures near N = 20 and N = 28 probed by breakup reactions (Ta-kashi Nakamura), the spin-isospin ex-citations and Gamow-Teller transitions in stable and unstable nuclei (Remco Zegers and Yoshitaka Fujita), and the

future experiment on electron scatter-ing from exotic nuclei (Toshimi Suda). JINR (Dubna) is a leading laboratory in the direct reaction studies with in-tensive exotic He beams, and this time Dubna was represented by Ser-gey Sidorchuk who talked about the new data on the 10He energy spectrum obtained in the reaction 3H(8He,p). The experimental nuclear physics and cosmic ray studies carried out at IPN Orsay was nicely reviewed by Faiçal Azaiez, and further discussed by Elias Khan (the measurement of GMR in unstable nuclei), Didier Beaumel (the studies of transfer reactions using the MUST2 array), and Tiina Suomijarvi (the high-energy cosmic rays: recent results and future plans). The new gen-eration of gamma and particle detectors (built or being constructed) allows ex-tremely high-resolution measurement of nuclear spectrum and identification of reaction products, and we heard about the perspectives with PARIS ar-ray (Adam Maj), the new measurement of the knock-out reactions with the 8He beam (Yanlin Ye), the spectroscopy of 42Si measured at RIBF in RIKEN (Sa-toshi Takeuchi), and so on.

Given a big interest in the nuclear symmetry energy, a special session was held at ISPUN11 on this subject, with the theoretical contributions by Gianluca Colò, Hermann Wolter, and Bao-An Li, and the experimental talks by Betty Tsang and Umesh Garg. The physics of nuclear clusters is a tradi-tional topic of the ISPUN meeting and this time we learned about interesting results on the new decay mode of 252Cf with a collinear cluster tri-partition (Wolfram von Oertzen), the high-res-olution cluster decay measurements in 16O and 12C (Carl Wheldon), and the cluster structures in Be isotopes (Yo-shiko Kanada-En’yo). A new topic was launched at ISPUN11 on the practical aspect of radioactive nuclei (the novel treatment of the radioactive waste from nuclear power plants) with Alex Mueller’s talk about the transmutation

of nuclear waste and the future MYR-RHA demonstrator, and the talk by Sergey Yudintsev on minor actinides (Np, Am, and Cm) inventories derived in the advanced nuclear fuel cycle.

The latest results in theoretical nuclear structure and reaction stud-ies were presented at ISPUN11 in a number of interesting talks. They cov-ered a comprehensive range of topics: the equation of state of dense nuclear matter, based on the Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach (Francesca Sammaruca) or including hyperons (Anthony Thomas); the recent progress in the mean field approaches and be-yond (Hitoshi Nakada, Peter Ring, Jie Meng), the multidimensional relativis-tic mean field calculations (Shan-Gui Zhou). The importance of the tensor interaction was discussed by Hiroyuki Sagawa and Dani Davesne; the nuclear shape transitions in neutron-rich nuclei were discussed by Pedro Sarriguren and Adam Maj. Some interesting ap-plications of the RPA and QRPA ap-proaches were presented: the unitarity of the CKM matrix (Hao-Zhao Liang) or results for the pigmy modes in de-formed neutron-rich nuclei (Kenichi Yoshida). The shell model results of beta transitions in N = 126 isotones were presented by Toshio Suzuki, dy-namical effects of pairing correlations in nuclei were discussed by Denis La-croix, and studies beyond mean field models for correlated nucleons were presented by Marcella Grasso. Several talks showed a strong relationship of nuclear modeling with the astrophysi-cal issues (Jerome Margueron and Wen-Hui Long). Further development of the few-body approaches to the structure and reaction problems was shown by Eduardo Garrido and Ngoc Bich Nguyen.

To conclude the scientific program of ISPUN11, Nicolas Alamanos gave a very illustrative summary talk where he managed to highlight almost all the talks of our symposium with his brief, but quite pedagogical, interpretation

meeting reports


that helped many young participants to better understand the interesting phys-ics presented at ISPUN11.

Last but not least, each ISPUN meeting is also an opportunity for our colleagues from abroad to get ac-quainted with the country Vietnam, its unique culture, beautiful landscapes, and friendly people. Beside the tour to the world’s natural wonder Halong

Bay, the symposium participants and accompanying persons also enjoyed a concert of Vietnamese music given by the artists from the national folks music theater in Hanoi, and that eve-ning will surely remain a long-lasting memory to us all. During a joint meet-ing of the ISPUN11 organizing com-mittee and several members of the in-ternational advisory board it has been

decided that the next ISPUN meeting will take place in the fall of 2014, and we look forward to welcoming every-body in Vietnam again.

Dao Tien Khoa

INST Hanoi

nguyen Van giai

IPN Orsay

The fifth edition of the SPIRAL2 Week was held 23–26 January 2012, at the Centre de Congrès, in Caen, France. The main goal of the confer-ence is to present and discuss the cur-rent status of the SPIRAL 2 project (http://pro.ganil-spiral2.eu/) in front of a large community of scientists and engineers. In five editions since 2007, the SPIRAL2 Week has become one of the largest scientific meetings dedi-cated to a large infrastructure project in Nuclear Physics. About 400 partici-pants from 22 countries attended the conference in January.

During four days, the participants investigated a variety of scientific and technical aspects of the construction of SPIRAL2 and other large research infrastructures—from civil engineer-ing and challenges of high-power accelerators to physics and related instruments with very high-intensity stable and rare-isotope beams.

The two first days were mainly devoted to RTD issues such as de-velopment of radioactive nuclear beams—from neutron converter to beam lines—and construction of high-power linear accelerators—from ion sources, superconducting cavities to cryomodules, and diagnostics. Several presentations were dedicated to the most important safety and civil con-struction issues.

On 25 January the plenary sessions were dedicated to new high-power beam facilities worldwide, bringing together representatives of the main laboratories in nuclear physics. A spe-cial session highlighted the main re-sults of the European FP7 Project SPI-RAL2 Preparatory Phase (No. 212692), ending in March 2012, in matter of in-strumentation, accelerators, and radio-active nuclear beams. In particular, the EU SPIRAL2PP support was essential for organization and funding of the SPIRAL2 Week meetings.

The last day of the conference saw presentations on the status of the new experimental halls, S3, NFS, and DESIR, for SPIRAL2 during the joint Session of the Scientific Ad-visory Committee of SPIRAL2 and of the Scientific Council of GANIL. The committees evaluated also up-dated and new Letters of Intents for the first experiments with Phase 1 of SPIRAL2.

On the same day took place the signing of four international agree-ments: two Collaboration Agreements for the ACTAR detector and DESIR facility and two “Memorandum of Understanding” for the PARIS de-tector and NFS installation. These agreements formalize and strengthen collaborations already working for several years for these projects.

Participants were also invited to organize parallel meetings in order to review in detail technical issues, push forward collaborations, and synergies. Twenty-four meetings were scheduled during the four days of the conference, emphasizing the vitality of the com-munity around the SPIRAL2 project.

An industrial exhibition with 18 booths was open during the whole conference and allowed many fruitful contacts between companies and par-ticipants.

The French government and lo-cal authorities of Basse-Normandie are highly financially involved in the SPIRAL2 project. They again showed their great interest sponsoring and ac-tively participating in the conference.

On 25 January a ceremony in honor of Sydney Galès was held, with the participation of many colleagues and friends.

More information on this event, in-cluding slides of the talks of plenary sessions, can be found at http://pro.ganil-spiral2.eu/events/sp2/spiral2-week-2012.

SPIRAL2 Week 2012

KeTel Turzó anD

MareK lewiTowicz For the Organizing Committee

of the SPIRAL2 Week

meeting reports


For more than twenty years, scien-tists interested in meson physics have been getting together biennially in the beautiful city of Cracow in southern Poland to attend the MESON-confer-ence series. Organized by the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian Univer-sity in Cracow, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (Germany), INFN-LNF Frascati (Italy), and the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN Cracow, the 12th International Workshop on Me-son Production, Properties and In-teraction (MESON 2012) took place from 31 May to 5 June 2012 at the Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiel-lonian University. Nearly 200 experi-mental and theoretical physicists from 20 countries gathered to exchange and discuss latest results of the field and to plan mutual future projects.

The large number of participating young scientists showed that the cov-ered topics are at the focus of current scientific interest and provides confi-dence in the future of meson physics. To promote the work of young scien-tists, a poster session was arranged to present their results, including a com-petition for the best poster presentation.

The intention of the MESON con-ferences is to provide an overview of the present status of meson production in various hadronic and electromag-netic reactions, meson interactions with mesons, nucleons and nuclei, structure and interaction of hadrons, fundamental symmetries, and exotic systems. Also, new developments and a preview of forthcoming investiga-tions were presented and discussed during the meeting. Thus, the con-ference program covered the broad

spectrum of experiments using accel-erators located at CERN, in Germany (COSY, ELSA, SIS, MAMI), Italy (DAFNE), Japan (KEK, J-PARC, SPring-8, RIKEN), Russia (JINR, No-vosibirsk, Protvino), and the United States (RHIC, CEBAF).

A wide spectrum of problems in the light meson sector was presented. The recent studies on meson produc-tion and their properties were re-ported by WASA@COSY collabora-tion—their observation of a striking structure (ABC Effect) in hadronic two pion production was reported. The WASA@COSY collaboration also presented preliminary results and perspectives on tests of fundamental symmetries and the search for phe-nomena beyond the Standard Model in hadronic and leptonic decays of neutral mesons, in particular of the h meson. The COSY-ANKE collabora-

tion reported the first results on double polarized near-threshold pion produc-tion in diproton final states. The first step in the program was to measure the differential cross-section and the vector analyzing power for the pions production in a large angular range. The aim of the experiment is to isolate the four-nucleon-pion contact term appearing in ChPT. This will establish links between the pion production and other low energy phenomena within the ChPT approach. Latest results from Crystal Ball at MAMI from se-lected parts of the physics program were presented. In particular photo-production of pseudoscalar mesons on protons and coherent pion photo-production on nuclei were discussed. Results from LEPS at SPring-8 fa-cility on photoproduction of hadrons containing strange quarks and in particular k meson search in K(890)

Meeting Report on the 12th International Workshop on Meson Production, Properties and Interaction (MESON2012)

Figure 1. Participants of the 12th International Workshop on Meson Production, Properties and Interaction.

meeting reports


S+ photoproduction were presented. Also, future prospects for LEPS-II were shown. Semi-inclusive meson production in electron/positron inter-actions with hydrogen and deuterium obtained in HERMES experiment were discussed, especially results on pion and kaon multiplicities, Sivers and Collins amplitudes and spin-inde-pendent non-collinear cross-section. Results obtained with the upgraded VES setup were reviewed presenting first preliminary results on three and four pseudoscalar meson systems.

Heavier mesons were also exten-sively discussed during the MESON 2012. Results on studies of meson properties with the Belle detector were presented including the first ob-servation of the bottomonium hb(2P) and two exotic charged states Zb. The results in beauty and charmed meson physics and in particular recent results on rare B decays, CP violation, and charm physics were presented from the LHCb experiment. The Charmo-nium physics was covered, report-ing on BESIII experiment, showing among other topics new structures ob-served in J/Y decays.

Kaon physics was another field widely discussed during MESON 2012. New results were shown by dif-ferent groups. On behalf of NA48/2 and NA62 experiments, new preci-sion measurement for the form fac-tors of the semileptonic kaon decays were presented as well as form factor and branching ratio measurements of charged and neutral kaon decays. The latest results on the production of weakly-bound hypernuclei as well as on possible formation of dense ob-jects, strongly bound by the kaonnu-cleon interaction obtained in the FOPI were also discussed. The DIRAC col-laboration showed their investigation of systems consisting of pp- and Kp-atoms. In addition results were shown from SIDDHARTA at DAFNE cover-

ing measurements of the strong inter-action induced shift and the absorption width in kaonic hydrogen, kaonic deu-terium and kaonic helium atoms. Pi-onic atoms from the RI beam factory at RIKEN were discussed, showing new results on precise spectroscopy of pionic atoms. This provides infor-mation on the strong pion-nucleus interaction, leading to the evaluation of the magnitude of the in-medium quark condensate. The observation of light neutron-rich hypernuclei at FI-NUDA (DAFNE) was reported, and hypernuclear spectroscopy via elec-tro-production of strangeness inside the nucleus, performed at JLab Hall C was described.

Studies of mesons using electrons are an important sector of the meson physics. Among others topics, the A1 experiment at MAMI and its most re-cent results and future physics were presented, concentrating on form fac-tor measurements, high-resolution structures, and dark photons. The HA-DES collaboration presented results for the dielectron production in the elementary reactions such as p + p and p + nucleus.

Recent results on baryon reso-nances from double polarization ex-periments performed at CBELSA/TAPS, on the search for spin-exotic mesons and scalar glueballs from COMPASS and on the study of reso-nance transition form factors, transi-tion charge, and magnetization densi-ties from CLAS completed the review of the newest results.

Future facilities, ongoing and planned facility upgrades, and many experimental programs on existing in-stallations were presented. Here one has to mention J-PARC devoted to the strangeness and hypernuclear physics, the study of meson nucleon bound sys-tem and meson properties in nucleus, the KLOE-2 project on study low en-ergy hadronic physics, kaon decays and

tests of the Standard Model, VEPP at Novosibirsk, and GlueX at JLab.

The important part of the MESON 2012 conference was a presentation of the status and perspectives of theo-retical research on mesons. They were discussed in a number of talks includ-ing molecular interpretation of the charmonium-like X, Y, and Z states, a review on recent developments con-cerning the antikaon-nucleon interac-tion and kaonic systems with more baryons in view of possible antikaonic nuclear state, muon anomalous mag-netic moment, results for the spectrum of mesons, as well as charmonium states obtained from lattice QCD or meson electromagnetic formfactors.

The last day of the conference heard nice summaries, which reviewed ex-perimental findings for the in-medium properties of mesons and also pre-sented results for light vector me-sons obtained in photon and proton induced reactions. An overview was given about the applications of Chiral Perturbation Theory to hadron-hadron scattering, hadronic atoms, and Gold-stone boson octet scattering on the D-meson triplet, demonstrating that a consistent analysis of various pro-cesses in the meson sector may be nowadays obtained within ChPT.

This rich scientific program was supplemented by a number of well-received social events. Hopes are high that meson physics will continue to be a fast developing part of physical science and that the next edition of the MESON conference, planned for May/June 2014 in Cracow, will gather the meson physics community once again in their fully flourishing activity.

Carlo GuaraldoINFN-LNF Frascati

StaniSław KiStrynJagiellenian University

Hans ströHerFZ Jülich

news and views


On 30 March 2012 the Council of the American Physical Society, con-vening at the national annual meeting in Atlanta, voted to accept a proposal to originate the Herman Feshbach Prize for Theoretical Nuclear Physics.

The purpose of the prize is to rec-ognize and encourage outstanding re-search in theoretical nuclear physics. The prize will consist of $10,000 and a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient. Once an en-dowment of $100,000 is attained, the prize will be presented bi-annually un-til the endowment is sufficient to sup-port an annual prize. The collection of contributions is now underway.

The drive to establish this prize was led by a committee composed of V. R. Brown (MIT), R. A. Eisenstein (SFAS), B. F. Gibson (LANL), R. Mil-ner (MIT), B. Mueller (Duke), U. van Kolck (UA, Orsay), J. P. Vary (IS), and chaired by Gerald A. Miller (UW). The existence of the prize depends entirely on the contributions of institutions, corporations, and individuals associ-ated with nuclear physics. With MIT leading the way, significant pledges and/or contributions have been made

by Brookhaven Science Associates, the Division of Nuclear Physics, Else-vier Publishing, the Feshbach Family, Jefferson Science Associates/South-eastern Universities Research Asso-ciation, Los Alamos National Labora-tory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Triangle Universities Nuclear Labora-tory, TRIUMF, and many individuals. But more needs to be done.

There has been a broadly based belief in the community of nuclear physicists that there is a need for a prize in Theoretical Nuclear Phys-ics and that it would be appropriate for that prize to recognize Herman Feshbach (1917–2000) who was a dominant force in Nuclear Physics for many years. He co-authored two semi-nal textbooks, provided the theoretical basis for nuclear reaction theory, and originated the “Feshbach resonance” used to control the interactions be-tween atoms in ultra cold gases. He also made many important administra-tive contributions.

The Feshbach Prize would be an addition to the Bonner Prize, which recognizes outstanding experimental research in nuclear physics. About

one-third of the recipients have been theorists. The existence of the Fesh-bach prize can therefore be expected to increase the number of experimen-talists who win the Bonner Prize by about 50%.

Any success in creating the prize depends on contributions from our entire nuclear physics community. Please send questions or sugges-tions to Gerald A. (Jerry) Miller UW, at [email protected]. But, most of all, please make contributions to the Fes-hbach Prize fund as described in the next paragraph.

Contributions can be made online at http://www.aps.org/. Look for the support banner and click APS member or non-member to login. Checks can be made out to “The American Physi-cal Society,” with a notation indicat-ing the purpose is the Feshbach Prize Fund, and sent to Darlene Logan, Director of Development, American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844, USA.

Establishment of the Herman Feshbach Prize in Nuclear Physics

Gerald a. Miller

University of Washington

A new project, named EURICA (EUROBALL RIKEN Cluster Ar-ray) [1], with the goal of perform-ing g-ray nuclei spectroscopy, has been launched, bringing together the world’s largest g-rays detectors (EUROBALL Germanium Cluster-

detectors) [2] and a radioactive beam facility boasting the world’s most in-tense radioisotope beams (the Radio-active Isotope Beam Factory or RIBF at the RIKEN Nishina Center). The EURICA, which was approved by the EUROBALL Owners Committee in

July 2011, is an open project to per-form a research campaign with the main of conducting isomeric and b-delayed g-spectroscopy of nuclei with extreme proton-to-neutron ratios. An international collaboration including members from more than 51 institutes

The EUROBALL RIKEN Cluster Array Project (EURICA)

news and views


across 16 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America, EURICA will explore the structure of nuclei (magic number, deformation) and unravel the mystery of nucleosynthesis in the un-known r-process site.

Central component of the EURICA project is 12 seven-element germa-nium Cluster detectors (84 Cluster capsules) arranged in a spherical shape, which was formerly used as a successful RISING Project at GSI [3]; it has been transported and installed at

the last focal point of BigRIPS-ZDS spectrometer at RIBF. Each energy signal from the Cluster capsule is pro-cessed by fully digital electronics us-ing DGF-4C modules from XIA, with an expected energy resolution of bet-ter than 3 keV at Eg = 1.3 MeV. The photopeak efficiency of the EURICA is about 15% at Eg = 662 keV. An “ac-tive stopper” detector, consisting of double-sided silicon-strip detectors, is placed at the center of the EURICA for the detection of the b-rays and the

implantation of heavy ions. The ad-vantage of EURICA is that it can study the low-lying states of nuclei with one order of magnitude higher detection efficiency for single g-ray detection, that is, two orders of magnitude higher for gg-coincidence, compared to the previous b-decay spectroscopy ex-periment conducted at RIBF [4]. With the upgraded experimental apparatus, EURICA, combined with high-perfor-mance b-ray counting system and ra-dioactive beams from upgraded RIBF, will complete g-spectroscopy of rare radioactive isotopes in only 40 min-utes, a process that would normally take a full month.

Commissioning of the EURICA has been performed in March and April 2012 so that the experimental stage of the project will take place from June 2012 until the end of June 2013, and will make use of the wide range of radioactive beams available at the RIBF.

References1. EURICA, http://ribf.riken.jp/EURICA2. H. J. Wollersheim et al., Nucl. Instr.

Meth. A 537 (2005) 637.3. C. B. Hinke et al., Nature 486 (2012)

341.4. T. Sumikama, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.

106 (2011) 202501; S. Nishimura et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 052502.

Figure 1. EURICA-Workshop participants at RIKEN (top) and GSI (bottom) in 2011.

Figure 2. The EURICA at the last focal point of BigRIPS/ZDS spectrometer.

Shunji niShiMura

RIKEN Nishina Center


calendar

2012September 24–28

Debrecen, Hungary. 10th Inter-national Conference on Clustering Aspects of Nuclear Structure and Dynamics

http://cluster12.atomki.hu/

September 24–28 Saint-Petersburg, Russia. XXIII

Russian Particle Accelerator Con-ference (RuPAC 2012)

http://www.apmath.spbu.ru/rupac2012/

September 25–28Sydney, Australia. ECRIS 2012http:// www.ansto.gov.au/research/

institute_of_environmental_research/news_and_events/ecris_2012

October 1–4 Tsukuba, Japan. International

Beam Instrumentation Conference (IBIC2012)

http://ibic12.kek.jp/index.php/Main/HomePage

October 1–5Barcelona, Spain. 11th Inter-

national Conference on Hypernu-clear and Strange Particle Physics (HYP2012)

http:// icc.ub.edu/congress/HYP2012/

October 1–6Vladivostok, Russia. VI Tradi-

tional International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei (EXON-2012)

http://exon2012.jinr.ru/

October 8–12 München, Germany. Quark

Confinement and the Hadron Spec-trum X

http://www.confx.de/

October 15–18Lisbon, Portugal. EURISOL

Week http://www.eurisol.org/

October 22–26 Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan. 4th

international conference on “Col-lective Motion in Nuclei under Ex-treme Conditions” (COMEX4)

https:// sites.google.com/a/cns.s. u-tokyo.ac.jp/comex4/

November 19–21 Solan, India. International Con-

ference on Recent Trends in Nuclear Physics 2012 (ICRTNP-2012)

http://www.chitkara.edu.in/pdf/ICRTNP_2012.pdf

December 2–6 Rehovot, Israel. Fundamental

Interactions with Atom & Ion Trapshttp://www.weizmann.ac.il/

conferences/WITRAP/

December 2–7 Matsue, Japan. 16th Interna-

tional Conference on Electromag-netic Isotope Separators and Tech-niques Related to their Applications (EMIS2012)

http://ribf.riken.go.jp/emis2012/

December 4–7 Kolkata, India. International

Workshop on Personal Computers and Particle Accelerator Controls (PCaPAC-2012)

http://indico.vecc.gov.in/indico/internalPage.py?pageId=4&confId=13

2013March 4–8

New York, USA. International Conference on Nuclear Data for Sci-ence and Technology (ND2013)

http://www.bnl.gov/nd2013/

June 2–7Firenze, Italy. International Nu-

clear Physics Conference (INPC 2013)

http:// inpc2013.it/

September 19–21Takayama, Japan. 8th Workshop

on the Chemistry of the Heaviest El-ements (CHE 8)

http://asrc.jaea.go.jp/soshiki/gr/schaedel-gr/CHE8/index.html

More information available in the Calendar of Events on the NuPECC website: http://www.nupecc.org/

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Nuclear Physics News - NuPECC · 2019-10-17 · 4 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012 power plants. However, the politicians took initiative to import commercial nuclear power