Abstract: Baryon-to-meson Transition Distribution Amplitudes (TDAs) encoding valuable new information on hadron structure appear as building blocks in the collinear factorized description for several types of hard exclusive reactions. In this paper, we address the possibility of accessing nucleon-to-pion (pi N) TDAs from (p) over barp -> e(+)e(-)pi(0) reaction with the future PANDA detector at the FAIR facility. At high center-of-mass energy and high invariant mass squared of the lepton pair q(2), the amplitude of the signal channel (p) over barp -> e(+)e(-)pi(0) admits a QCD factorized description in terms of pi N TDAs and nucleon Distribution Amplitudes (DAs) in the forward aid backward kinematic regimes. Assuming the validity of this factorized description, we perform feasibility studies for measuring (p) over barp -> e(+)e(-)pi(0) with the PANDA detector. Detailed simulations on signal reconstruction efficiency as well as on rejection of the most severe background channel, i.e. (p) over barp -> pi(+)pi(-)pi(0) were performed for the center-of-mass energy squared s = 5 GeV2 and s = 10 GeV2, in the kinematic regions 3.0 < q(2) < 4.3 GeV2 and 5 < q(2) < 9 GeV2, respectively, with a neutral pion scattered in the forward or backward cone vertical bar cos theta(pi 0)vertical bar > 0.5 in the proton-antiproton center-of-mass frame. Results of the simulation show that the particle identification capabilities of the PANDA detector will allow to achieve a background rejection factor of 5 . 10(7) (1 . 10(7)) at low (high) q(2) for s = 5 GeV2, and of 1 . 10(8) (6 . 10(6)) at low (high) q(2) for s = 10 GeV2, while keeping the signal reconstruction efficiency at around 40%. At both energies, a clean lepton signal can be reconstructed with the expected statistics corresponding to 2 of integrated luminosity. The cross sections obtained from the simulations are used to show that a test of QCD collinear factorization can be done at the lowest order by measuring scaling laws and angular distributions. The future measurement of the signal channel cross section with PANDA will provide a new test of the perturbative QCD description of a novel class of hard exclusive reactions and will open the possibility of experimentally accessing pi N TDAs.

Abstract: A new experimental setup to measure prompt-delayed gamma-ray coincidences from isotopically identified fission fragments, over a wide time range of 100 ns-200 μs, is presented. The fission fragments were isotopically identified, on an event-by-event basis, using the VAMOS++ large acceptance spectrometer. The prompt gamma rays emitted at the target position and corresponding delayed gamma rays emitted at the focal plane of the spectrometer were detected using, respectively, thirty two crystals of the AGATA gamma-ray tracking array and seven EXOGAM HPGe Clover detectors. Fission fragments produced in fusion and transfer-induced fission reactions, using a U-238 beam at an energy of 6.2MeV/u impinging on a Be-9 target, were used to characterize and qualify the performance of the detection system.

Abstract: We have performed a calculation of the gamma(p) -> pi(+) p-p reaction, where the two pions have been separated in D-wave producing the f(2)(1270) resonance. We use elements of the local hidden gauge approach that provides the interaction of vector mesons in which the f(2)(1270) resonance appears as rho-rho. molecular state in L = 0 and spin 2. The vector meson dominance, incorporated in the local hidden gauge approach converts a photon into a rho(0) meson and the other meson connects the photon with the proton. The picture is simple and has no free parameters, since the parameters of the theory have been constrained in the previous study of the vector-vector states. In a second step we introduce new elements, not present in the local hidden gauge approach, adapting the rho propagator to Regge phenomenology and introducing the rho NN tensor coupling. We find that both the differential cross section as well as the t dependence of the cross section are in good agreement with the experimental results and provide support for the molecular picture of the f(2)(1270) resonance in the first baryonic reaction where it has been tested.

Abstract: Lifetimes of high-spin states have been measured in the semi-magic (N = 50) nucleus Ru-94. Excited states in Ru-94 were populated in the Ni-58(Ca-40, 4p)Ru-94* fusion-evaporation reaction at the Grand Accelerateur National d'Ions Lourds (GANIL) accelerator complex. DSAM lifetime analysis was performed on the Doppler broadened line shapes in energy spectra obtained from gamma-rays emitted while the residual nuclei were slowing down in a thick 6 mg/cm(2) metallic Ni-58 target. In total eight excited-state lifetimes in the angular momentum range I = (13-20)h have been measured, five of which were determined for the first time. The corresponding B(M1) and B(E2) reduced transition strengths are discussed within the framework of large-scale shell model calculations to study the contribution of different particle-hole configurations, in particular for analyzing contributions from core-excited configurations.