Formation of superheavy nuclei in cold fusion reactions

Within the concept of the dinuclear system (DNS), a dynamical model is proposed for describing the formation of superheavy nuclei in complete fusion reactions by incorporating the coupling of the relative motion to the nucleon transfer process. The capture of two heavy colliding nuclei, the formation of the compound nucleus, and the de-excitation process are calculated by using an empirical coupled channel model, solving a master equation numerically and applying statistical theory, respectively. Evaporation residue excitation functions in cold fusion reactions are investigated systematically and compared with available experimental data. Maximal production cross sections of superheavy nuclei in cold fusion reactions with stable neutron-rich projectiles are obtained. Isotopic trends in the production of the superheavy elements Z=110, 112, 114, 116, 118, and 120 are analyzed systematically. Optimal combinations and the corresponding excitation energies are proposed.

Isotopic dependence of production cross sections of superheavy nuclei in hot fusion reactions

The dinuclear system model has been further developed by introducing the barrier distribution function method in the process of heavy-ion capture and fusion to synthesize superheavy nuclei. The capture of two colliding nuclei, formation and de-excitation process of compound nucleus are decribed by using empirical coupled channel model, solving master equation numerically and statistical evaporation model, respectively. Within the framework of the dinuclear system model, the fusion-evaporation excitation functions of the systems Ca-48(Am-243, 3n-5n) (288-286)115 and Ca-48(Cm-248, 3n-5n)(293-291)116 are calculated, which are used for synthesizing new superheavy nuclei at Dubna in recent years. Isotopic dependence of production cross sections with double magic nucleus Ca-48 bombarding actinide targets U, Np, Pu, Am, Cm to synthesize superheavy nuclei with charged numbers Z=112-116 is analyzed systematically. Based on these analysis, the optimal projectile-target combination and the optimal excitation energy are proposed. It is shown that shell correction energy and neutron separation energy will play an important role on the isotopic dependence of production cross sections of superheavy nuclei.

Study on dynamic fusion barrier in heavy-ion fusion reactions

By means of the improved quantum molecular dynamics model, the incident energy dependent dynamical fusion potential barriers for heavy nucleus reaction systems are investigated. It is found that with decrease of incident energy the lowest dynamic barrier is obtained which approaches to the adiabatic static barrier and with increase of the incident energy the dynamic barrier goes up to the diabatic static barrier. Based on the dynamical study a microscopic understanding of the extra-push in fusion reactions of heavy systems and a new explanation of tunneling process for the fusion at the incident energy below the static and above the lowest dynamic barrier are presented. In order to understand the energy dependence of the dynamical barrier we also pay a great attention to study the neck formation and shape deformation during the dynamic lowering of the barrier.

Single and double pi(-)/pi(+) ratios in heavy-ion reactions as probes of the high-density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy

Based on the isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model IBUU04, effects of the nuclear symmetry energy on the single and double pi(-)/pi(+) ratios in central reactions of Sn-132+Sn-124 and Sn-112+Sn-112 at a beam energy of 400 MeV/nucleon are studied. It is found that around the Coulomb peak of the single pi(-)/pi(+) ratio the double pi(-)/pi(+) ratio taken from the two isotopic reactions retains about the same sensitivity to the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy. Because the double pi(-)/pi(+) ratio can significantly reduce the systematic errors, it is thus a more effective probe for the high-density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy.

Recent Progress in Constraining the Equation of State of Dense Neutron-Rich Nuclear Matter with Heavy-Ion Reactions

The nuclear symmetry energy E-sym(rho) is the most uncertain part of the Equation of State (EOS) of dense neutron-rich nuclear matter. In this talk, we discuss the underlying physics responsible for the uncertain E-sym(rho) especially at supra-saturation densities, the circumstantial evidence for a super-soft E-sym(rho) from analyzing pi(-)/pi(+) ratio in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and its impacts on astrophysics and cosmology.

Production of Superheavy Nuclei in Massive fusion reactions

A master equation is constructed to treat the nucleon transfer process in heavy ion fusion reactions to form superheavy nucleus. The relative motion concerning the energy, the angular momentum and the fragment deformation relaxations is explicitly treated to couple with the diffusion process. The nucleon transition probabilities, which are derived microscopically, are thus time dependent. The calculated evaporation residue cross-sections for both cold and hot fusion are in good agreement with the known experimental data.

Production mechanism of superheavy nuclei in massive fusion reactions

Within the concept of the dinuclear system (DNS), a dynamical model is used for describing the formation of superheavy residues in massive fusion reactions, in which the capture of two colliding nuclei, the formation and de-excitation of the compound nucleus are described by using a barrier distribution method, solving master equations numerically and statistical approach, respectively. Using the DNS model, the production cross sections of superheavy nuclei are calculated and compared with the available experimental data. The isotopic dependence of the cross sections to produce the superheavy element Z=116 by the two types of the reactions is discussed and the possible reasons influencing the isotopic trends are analyzed systematically.

Neutron spectroscopic factors of Ar-34 and Ar-46 from (p,d) transfer reactions

Single-neutron-transfer measurements using (p,d) reactions have been performed at 33 MeV per nucleon with proton-rich Ar-34 and neutron-rich Ar-46 beams in inverse kinematics. The extracted spectroscopic factors are compared to the large-basis shell-model calculations. Relatively weak quenching of the spectroscopic factors is observed between Ar-34 and Ar-46. The experimental results suggest that neutron correlations have a weak dependence on the asymmetry of the nucleus over this isotopic region. The present results are consistent with the systematics established from extensive studies of spectroscopic factors and dispersive optical-model analyses of Ca40-49 isotopes. They are, however, inconsistent with the trends obtained in knockout-reaction measurements.

Power law behavior of the isotope yield distributions in the multifragmentation regime of heavy ion reactions

Isotope yield distributions in the multifragmentation regime were studied with high-quality isotope identification, focusing on the intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) produced in semiviolent collisions. The yields were analyzed within the framework of a modified Fisher model. Using the ratio of the mass-dependent symmetry energy coefficient relative to the temperature, a(sym)/T, extracted in previous work and that of the pairing term, a(p)/T, extracted from this work, and assuming that both reflect secondary decay processes, the experimentally observed isotope yields were corrected for these effects. For a given I = N - Z value, the corrected yields of isotopes relative to the yield of C-12 show a power law distribution Y (N, Z)/Y(C-12) similar to A(-tau) in the mass range 1 <= A <= 30, and the distributions are almost identical for the different reactions studied. The observed power law distributions change systematically when I of the isotopes changes and the extracted tau value decreases from 3.9 to 1.0 as I increases from -1 to 3. These observations are well reproduced by a simple deexcitation model, with which the power law distribution of the primary isotopes is determined to be tau(prim) = 2.4 +/- 0.2, suggesting that the disassembling system at the time of the fragment formation is indeed at, or very near, the critical point.

Isobaric yield ratios and the symmetry energy in heavy-ion reactions near the Fermi energy

The relative isobaric yields of fragments produced in a series of heavy-ion-induced multifragmentation reactions have been analyzed in the framework of a modified Fisher model, primarily to determine the ratio of the symmetry energy coefficient to the temperature, a(sym)/T, as a function of fragment mass A. The extracted values increase from 5 to similar to 16 as A increases from 9 to 37. These values have been compared to the results of calculations using the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) model together with the statistical decay code GEMINI. The calculated ratios are in good agreement with those extracted from the experiment. In contrast, the values extracted from the ratios of the primary isobars from the AMD model calculation are similar to 4 to 5 and show little variation with A. This observation indicates that the value of the symmetry energy coefficient derived from final fragment observables may be significantly different than the actual value at the time of fragment formation. The experimentally observed pairing effect is also studied within the same simulations. The Coulomb coefficient is also discussed.

Influence of entrance channels on the formation of superheavy nuclei in massive fusion reactions

Within the framework of the dinuclear system (DNS) model, the production cross sections of superheavy nuclei Hs (Z=108) and Z=112 combined with different reaction systems are analyzed systematically. It is found that the mass asymmetries and the reaction Q values of the projectile target combinations play a very important role on the formation cross sections of the evaporation residues. Both methods to obtain the fusion probability by nucleon transfer by solving a set of microscopically derived master equations along the mass asymmetry degree of freedom (ID) and distinguishing protons and neutrons of fragments (2D) are compared with each other and also with the available experimental data. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PROJECTILE FRAGMENTATION OF Ar-36,Ar-40 INDUCED REACTIONS

Fragment yields for Z >= 5 from projectile fragmentation using primary beams of Ar-36,Ar-40 at 50 MeV/nucleon on Ni-64 target have been measured in RIBLL fragment separator. We compare the fragment cross sections with the predictions of the empirical EPAX parametrization of fragmentation cross-sections and Statistical Abration-Ablation model (SAA) by considering the RIBLL separator transmission rate. Isotope yield ratios between these two reactions were calculated and isoscaling parameters alpha and beta are extracted, their dependences on fragment atomic number Z and neutron number N were presented.