HIRFL today

HIRFL was upgraded from beginning 2000. Besides of researches on nuclear physics, atomic physics, irradiative material and biology, the cancer therapy by heavy ion and hadron physics are being developing. The injector system of SFC+SSC can provide all ions from proton to uranium with higher intensity. The Cooling Storage Ring (CSR) has accelerated beams successful. The ions C-12(6+), Ar-36(18+), Xe-129(27+) have been accelerated up 1000MeV/u, 235MeV/u with about 10(9)similar to 10(8) ions per spill respectively. The beam momentum dispersion was measured from 4x10(-3) to 2x10(-4) after cooling by the electron cooler or similar to 4x10(-4) after accelerated to 1000MeV/u without cooling. In order to improve the nuclear structure and heavy isotope research in SFC+SSC energy domain, A Wien filter was added in front of RIBLL and gas was filled in first section of RIBLL; a new spectrometry SHANS has being installed. Presently, there are two starting version experimental setups at CSR.

Production cross-section of Ra-230 in the reaction of 60 MeV/u O-18 ions with U-238

A thick natural uranium target was bombarded with a 60 MeV/u O-18 beam. The neutron-rich isotope Ra-230 as the target residue was produced through the multinucleon transfer reaction (U-238-4p-4n). The barium and radium fraction as BaCl2 precipitate were radiochemically separated first from the mixture of uranium and reaction products. Then, the radium fraction was separated from BaCl2 precipitate by using cation exchange technique. The gamma-ray spectra of the Ra fraction were measured using an HPGe detector. The production cross sections of Ra-230 were obtained by a combination of the radiochemical separation technique and off-line gamma-ray spectroscopy. The cross section of Ra-230 has been determined to be 66 +/- 20 mu b.

Production cross section of Th-236 in the interaction of U-238 with 60 MeV/u O-18 ions

The neutron-rich target-like isotope Th-236 has been produced in the U-238-2p multinucleon transfer reaction between a 60 MeV/u O-18 beam and natural U-238 targets. The activities of thorium were determined after radiochemical separation of Th from the mixture of uranium and reaction products. The Th-236 isotope was identified by the characteristic gamma-rays of 642.2, 687.6 and 229.6 keV. The production cross section of Th-236 was determined to be 250 +/- 50 mu b.

Production cross-section of Th-236 in the interaction of U-238 with 60MeV/u O-18 Ions

The neutron-rich target-like isotope Th-236 was produced in U-238-2p multinucleon transfer reaction between a 60MeV/u O-18 beam and nature U-238 targets. The thorium activities were radiochemically separated from the mixture of uranium and reaction products. The isotope Th-236 was identified by 642.2keV, 687.6keV and 229.6keV characteristic gamma-rays. The production cross section of Th-236 has been determined to be 250 +/- 50 mu b.

Pb isotope shifts in the relativistic mean field theory

The ground state properties of the Pb isotopic are studied by using the axially deformed relativistic mean field (RMF) calculation with the parameter set TM1. The pairing correlation is treated by the BCS method and the isospin dependent pairing force is used. The 'blocking' method is used to deal with unpaired nucleons. The theoretical results show that the relativistic mean field theory with non-linear self-interactions of mesons provides a good description of the binding energy and neutron separation energy. The present paper focus on the physical mechanism of the Pb isotope shifts.

Theoretical study on properties of new isotope (265)Bh

The properties of nuclei belonging to the newly observed a-decay chain starting from (265)Bh have been studied. The axially deformed relativistic mean-field calculation with the force NL-Z2 has been performed in the blocked BCS approximation. Some ground state properties such as binding energies, deformations, spins, and parities, as well as Q-values of the alpha-decay for this decay chain have been calculated and compared with known experimental data. Good agreement is found. The single-particle spectrum of the nucleus (265)Bh is studied and some new magic numbers are found, while the magnitudes of the shell gaps in superheavy nuclei are much smaller than those of nuclei before the actinium region, and the Fermi surfaces are close to the continuum. Thus the superheavy nuclei are usually not stable. The alpha-decay lifetimes in the (265)Bh decay chain are evaluated by different formulae, and compared with experimental data. The methods which give good agreement with the data are selected.

beta(+)/EC-decay study of Ir-176 neutron-deficient isotope

The beta(+)/EC decay of doubly odd Ir-176 has been investigated using Nd-146(Cl-35, 5n gamma)Ir-176 heavy ion fusion evaporation reaction at 210MeV bombarding energy. With the aid of a helium-jet recoil fast tape transport system, the reaction products were transported to a low-background location for measurements. Based on the data analysis, the previously published gamma rays in Ir-176 decay were proved, moreover, 3 new levels and 10 new gamma rays were assigned to Ir-176 decay. The new level scheme of Os-176 with low excitation energy has been established. The time spectra of typical gamma rays clearly indicate a long-lived low-spin isomer in Ir-176 nuclide.

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.

Biosorption of uranium by chemically modified Rhodotorula glutinis

The present paper reports the biosorption of uranium onto chemically modified yeast cells, Rhodotorula glutinis, in order to study the role played by various functional groups in the cell wall. Esterification of the carboxyl groups and methylation of the amino groups present in the cells were carried out by methanol and formaldehyde treatment, respectively. The uranium sorption capacity increased 31% for the methanol-treated biomass and 11% for the formaldehyde-treated biomass at an initial uranium concentration of 140 mg/L The enhancement of uranium sorption capacity was investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis, with amino and carboxyl groups were determined to be the important functional groups involved in uranium binding. The biosorption isotherms of uranium onto the raw and chemically modified biomass were also investigated with varying uranium concentrations. Langmuir and Freundlich models were well able to explain the sorption equilibrium data with satisfactory correlation coefficients higher than 0.9. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quantum dynamics study of isotope effect for H+CH4 reaction using the SVRT model

The semirigid vibrating rotor target model is applied to study the isotope effect in reaction H + CH4-->H-2 + CH3 using time-dependent wave-packet method. The reaction probabilities for producing H-2 and HD product channels are calculated. The energy dependence of the reaction probabilities shows oscillating structures for both reaction channels. At low temperature or collision energies, the H atom abstraction is favored due to tunnelling effect. In partially deuterated CHxDy (x + y = 4), the breaking of the C-H bond is favored over that of the C-D bond in the entire energy range studied. In H + CHD3 reaction at high energies, the HD product dominates simply due to statistical factor. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Flow-through room temperature phosphorescence optosensing for the determination of lead in sea water

The chelates formed between the heavy metal ion Pb(II) and the reagents 8-hydroxy-5-quinolinesulphonic acid, 8-hydroxy-7-quinolinesulphonic acid and 8-hydroxy-7-iodo-5-quinolinesulphonic acid exhibit strong room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) if retained on the surface of anion exchange resin beads. Based on the on-line formation, in a flow-injection system, of such RTP lead chelates and their transient immobilization on an anion exchange resin, three flow-through optosensing systems are investigated for lead in sea water. Optimum experimental conditions and the analytical performance characteristics of the three optosensors are discussed. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) of the order of 3% are typical at 100 ng ml−1 Pb(II) and the active sensing phases can easily be regenerated by passing 500 μl of 6 M hydrochloric acid. A lead(II) detection limit of 0.1 ng ml−1 (3×background SD, for 2 ml sample injection volumes) was achieved for the optosensor based on 8-hydroxy-7-quinolinesulphonic acid. Possible interferences present in sea water, including cations and anions which could affect the sensor response, are discussed in detail. Finally, the selected RTP flow-through optical sensor has been successfully tested for the determination of lead in sea water at a few ng ml−1.

Stable Isotope Probing:Linking Functional Activity to Specific Members of Microbial Communities

Linking organisms or groups of organisms to specific functions within natural environments is a fundamental challenge in microbial ecology. Advances in technology for manipulating and analyzing nucleic acids have made it possible to characterize the members of microbial communities without the intervention of laboratory culturing. Results from such studies have shown that the vast majority of soil organisms have never been cultured, highlighting the risks of culture-based approaches in community analysis. The development of culture-independent techniques for following the flow of substrates through microbial communities therefore represents an important advance. These techniques, collectively known as stable isotope probing (SIP), involve introducing a stable isotope-labeled substrate into a microbial community and following the fate of the substrate by extracting diagnostic molecular species such as fatty acids and nucleic acids from the community and determining which specific molecules have incorporated the isotope. The molecules in which the isotope label appears provide identifying information about the organism that incorporated the substrate. Stable isotope probing allows direct observations of substrate assimilation in minimally disturbed communities, and thus represents an exciting new tool for linking microbial identity and function. The use of lipids or nucleic acids as the diagnostic molecule brings different strengths and weaknesses to the experimental approach, and necessitates the use of significantly different instrumentation and analytical techniques. This short review provides an overview of the lipid and nucleic acid approaches, discusses their strengths and weaknesses, gives examples of applications in various settings, and looks at prospects for the future of SIP technology.