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IDS Collaboration(Olaizola, B. et al), Algora, A., & Nacher, E. (2025). The 76Cu conundrum remains unsolved. Phys. Lett. B, 866, 139551–8pp.
Abstract: Near the doubly-magic nucleus Ni-78 (Z = 28, N = 50), there has been a decades-long debate on the existence of a long-lived isomer in Cu-76. A recent mass measurement claimed to have settled the debate, by measuring the energy of the isomer and shedding light on the structure of the nucleus. In this work, we present new, more accurate, and precise values of the half-lives of the isomeric and ground states in Cu-76. Our findings suggest that both states have very similar half-lives, in the 600-700 ms range, in disagreement with the literature values, implying that they cannot be differentiated by their decay curves. These results raise more questions than they answer, reopening the debate and showing that the structures in Cu-76 are still not fully understood.
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Alicki, R., Barenboim, G., & Jenkins, A. (2025). The irreversible relaxation of inflation. Phys. Lett. B, 866, 139519–6pp.
Abstract: Based on the results of a previous analysis of the Markovian master equation for the irreversible evolution of an open system embedded in de Sitter space [7], we include in the cosmological Friedmann equations a contribution from the presence of a physical bath at temperature T-dS = h//2 pi, where h is the Hubble parameter. We show that this provides a mechanism for the irreversible relaxation of the cosmological constant and a graceful exit to inflation, without need for subsequent reheating. Thermal particle production during inflation gives adiabatic, Gaussian, and approximately scale-invariant cosmological perturbations. We thus obtain the main features of inflation without any inflaton potential. To clarify the thermodynamic interpretation of these results, we consider the analogy of this irreversible relaxation to superfluorescence in quantum optics.
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Tolosa-Delgado, A. et al, Tain, J. L., Agramunt, J., Algora, A., Domingo-Pardo, C., Morales, A. I., et al. (2025). Impact of Newly Measured β-Delayed Neutron Emitters around 78Ni on Light Element Nucleosynthesis in the Neutrino Wind Following a Neutron Star Merger. Phys. Rev. Lett., 134(17), 172701–11pp.
Abstract: Neutron emission probabilities and half-lives of 37 /3-delayed neutron emitters from 75Ni to 92Br were measured at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan, including 11 one-neutron and 13 two-neutron emission probabilities and six half-lives for the first time that supersede theoretical estimates. These nuclei lie in the path of the weak r process occurring in neutrino-driven winds from the accretion disk formed after the merger of two neutron stars synthesizing elements in the A 80 abundance peak. The presence of such elements dominates the accompanying kilonova emission over the first few days and have been identified in the AT2017gfo event, associated to the gravitational wave detection GW170817. Abundance calculations based on over 17 000 simulated trajectories describing the evolution of matter properties in the merger outflows show that the new data lead to an increase of 50%-70% in the abundance of Y, Zr, Nb, and Mo. This enhancement is large compared to the scatter of relative abundances observed in old very metal poor stars and thus is significant in the comparison with other possible astrophysical processes contributing to the light-element production. These results underline the importance of including experimental decay data for very neutron-rich /3-delayed neutron emitters into r-process models.
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Pilotto, E., Ferrer, F. J., Akhmadaliev, S., Fernandez, A., Gadea, A., Gomez Camacho, J., et al. (2025). Comparing 3He content in magnetron sputtered and implanted targets for nuclear studies. Eur. Phys. J. A, 61(5), 117–8pp.
Abstract: He-3 targets are a valuable tool in nuclear physics, particularly for studying nuclear structure and dynamics via direct reactions in inverse kinematics. However, they are often prone to degradation under intense beam irradiation and have insufficient He-3 content for use with lowintensity exotic beams. In a recent AGATA experiment at LNL, designed to study the astrophysically relevant lifetime of a O-15 excited state, two types of He-3 targets were tested. One was produced using ion implantation and the other with a novel magnetron sputtering technique, in both cases on Au substrates. Following irradiation with a stable O-16 beam, they were characterized using Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA) and Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA). Results demonstrated that, under the here used fabrication conditions, sputtered targets present a higher He-3 content, while implanted ones exhibit thinner profiles. This highlights the possibilities and complementarity of these targets, suggesting their tailored use for future experimental campaigns.
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Algora, A. et al, Rubio, B., Agramunt, J., Guadilla, V., Montaner-Piza, A., Morales, A. I., et al. (2025). Isospin Symmetry Breaking in the 71Kr and 71Br Mirror System. Phys. Rev. Lett., 134(16), 162502–9pp.
Abstract: Isospin symmetry is a fundamental concept in nuclear physics. Even though isospin symmetry is partially broken, it holds approximately for most nuclear systems, which makes exceptions very interesting from the nuclear structure perspective. In this framework, it is expected that the spins and parities of the ground states of mirror nuclei should be the same, in particular for the simplest systems where a proton is exchanged with a neutron or vice versa. In this Letter, we present evidence that this assumption is broken in the mirror pair 71Br and 71Kr system. Our conclusions are based on a high-statistics /3 decay study of 71Kr and on state-of-the-art shell model calculations. In our work, we also found evidence of a new state in 70Se, populated in the /3-delayed proton emission process which can be interpreted as the long sought coexisting 0 & thorn; state.
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