Abstract: ACoulomb-excitation experiment to study electromagnetic properties of Ca-42 was performed using a 170-MeV calcium beam from the TANDEM XPU facility at INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro. gamma rays from excited states in Ca-42 were measured with the AGATA spectrometer. The magnitudes and relative signs of ten E2 matrix elements coupling six low-lying states in Ca-42, including the diagonal E2 matrix elements of 2(1)(+) and 2(2)(+) states, were determined using the least-squares code GOSIA. The obtained set of reduced E2 matrix elements was analyzed using the quadrupole sum rule method and yielded overall quadrupole deformation for 0(1),(+)(2) and 2(1,2)(+) states, as well as triaxiality for 0(1,2)(+) states, establishing the coexistence of a weakly deformed ground-state band and highly deformed slightly triaxial sideband in Ca-42. The experimental results were compared with the state-of-the-art large-scale shell-model and beyond-mean-field calculations, which reproduce well the general picture of shape coexistence in Ca-42.

Abstract: Nuclear-medium effects on the weak structure functions F-2(x, Q(2)) and F-3(x, Q(2)) in charged-current neutrino and antineutrino induced deep-inelastic reactions in Pb-208 have been studied. The calculations have been performed in a theoretical model using relativistic nuclear spectral functions which incorporate Fermi motion, binding, and nucleon correlations. We have also included the pion and rho meson cloud contributions calculated from a microscopic model for meson-nucleus self-energies. Using these structure functions, differential scattering cross sections have been obtained and compared with the CERN Hybrid Oscillation Research Apparatus (CHORUS) data. The results for the ratios 2F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(D), 4F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(He), 12F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(C), 16F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(O), and 56F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(Fe) (i = 2, 3) have also been obtained and compared with some of the phenomenological fits.

Abstract: Models of the beta-delayed neutron emission (beta n) assume that neutrons are emitted statistically via an intermediate compound nucleus post beta decay. Evidence to the contrary was found in an In-134 beta-decay experiment carried out at ISOLDE CERN. Neutron emission probabilities from the unbound states in Sn-134 to known low-lying, single-particle states in Sn-133 were measured. The neutron energies were determined using the time-of-flight technique, and the subsequent decay of excited states in Sn-133 was studied using gamma-ray detectors. Individual beta n probabilities were determined by correlating the relative intensities and energies of neutrons and gamma rays. The experimental data disagree with the predictions of representative statistical models which are based upon the compound nucleus postulate. Our results suggest that violation of the compound nucleus assumption may occur in beta-delayed neutron emission. This impacts the neutron-emission probabilities and other properties of nuclei participating in the r-process. A model of neutron emission, which links the observed neutron emission probabilities to nuclear shell effects, is proposed.

Abstract: Pauli blocking is carefully investigated for the processes of NN <-> N Delta and Delta -> N pi in heavy-ion collisions, aiming at a more precise prediction of the pi(-)/pi(+) ratio which is an important observable to constrain the high-density symmetry energy. We use the AMD + JAM approach, which combines the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics for the time evolution of nucleons and the Jet AA Microscopic transport model to treat processes for Delta resonances and pions. As is known in general transport-code simulations, it is difficult to treat Pauli blocking very precisely due to unphysical fluctuations and additional smearing of the phase-space distribution function, when Pauli blocking is treated in the standard method of JAM. We propose an improved method in AMD + JAM to use the Wigner function precisely calculated in AMD as the blocking probability. Different Pauli blocking methods are compared in heavy-ion collisions of neutron-rich nuclei, Sn-132+Sn-124, at 270 MeV/nucleon. With the more accurate method, we find that Pauli blocking is stronger, in particular for the neutron in the final state in NN -> N Delta and Delta -> N pi, compared to the case with a proton in the final state. Consequently, the pi(-)/pi(+) ratio becomes higher when the Pauli blocking is improved, the effect of which is found to be comparable to the sensitivity to the high-density symmetry energy.

Abstract: We investigate the possibility of probing the hot and dense nuclear matter-created in relativistic heavyion collisions (HICs)-with strange vector mesons (K*, (K) over bar*). Our analysis is based on the nonequilibrium parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees of freedom and describes the full dynamics of HIC on a microscopic level-starting from the primary nucleon-nucleon collisions to the formation of the strongly interacting quark gluon plasma (QGP), followed by dynamical hadronization of (anti)quarks as well as final hadronic elastic and inelastic interactions. This allows us to study the K* and (K) over bar* meson formation from the QGP as well as the in-medium effects related to the modification of their spectral properties during the propagation through the dense and hot hadronic environment in the expansion phase. We employ relativistic Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the K*, (K) over bar* mesons with self-energies obtained from a self-consistent coupled-channel G-matrix approach to study the role of in-medium effects on the K* and (K) over bar* meson dynamics in heavy-ion collisions from FAIR/NICA to LHC energies. According to our analysis most of the final K* /(K) over bar*'s, that can be observed experimentally by reconstruction of the invariant mass of pi + K((K) over bar) pairs, are produced during the late hadronic phase and originate dominantly from the K((K) over bar) + pi -> K*( (K) over bar*) formation channel. The amount of K*/ (K) over bar*'s, originating from the QGP channel is comparatively small even at LHC energies and those K* /(K) over bar*'s can hardly be reconstructed experimentally due to the rescattering of final pions and (anti)kaons. This mirrors the results from our previous study on the strange vector-meson production in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies. We demonstrate that K* /(K) over bar* in-medium effects should be visible at FAIR/NICA and BES RHIC energies, where the production of K* /(K) over bar*'s occurs at larger net-baryon densities. Finally, we present the experimental procedures to extract the information on the resonance masses and widths by fitting the final mass spectra at LHC energies.