Modern Advances in Direct Reactions for Nuclear Structure

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About this Research Topic

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Background

The study of nuclei far away from stability, with large imbalances between the number of protons and neutrons, is a central topic in modern nuclear physics. New experimental facilities provide access to nuclei that were previously inaccessible, revealing new and unexpected behaviors. Older models of nuclear structure fail to explain the properties of such nuclei, spurring major, new theoretical developments. Key to testing these new theories are new data.

Direct reactions have for decades supplied the underpinnings of nuclear structure models. The necessity to use radioactive beams from the new facilities introduces several technical difficulties, including experiment count rates, and complicated kinematics that adversely affect experimental resolutions. Researchers have leveraged new developments in detector and spectrometer technology to confront these challenges that will drive studies in the field into the next decade and beyond.

The problem we seek to address is how scientists use modern experimental techniques to obtain data to gain a better understanding of nuclei, particularly those nuclei far from stability, with a large imbalance between the number of protons and neutrons. The most interesting problems can only be addressed with experiments that utilize unstable nuclear beams (or “rare-isotope beams”) now available at many facilities worldwide. We aim to have articles from theorists providing motivation for studying the experimental observables that are most useful for validating theory, as well as other theoretical approaches that illustrate how observables can be interpreted.

Articles from multiple experimentalists will describe how those observables can be studied, from new techniques that best exploit the opportunities that rare isotopes afford. These approaches include new types of detectors or spectrometers, active-target technologies, or combinations of different approaches that complement each other, providing the greatest insight. We will focus primarily on “direct reactions” that have informed the field of nuclear structure for decades, but which are now experiencing a resurgence in interest.

We will accept the following article types: Original Research, Methods, Review, Mini Review, and Perspective. The aim of the current Research Topic is to explore the most current advances in experimental techniques for using direct nuclear reactions with radioactive beams to explore nuclear structure. Areas of interest for this Topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Theoretical motivations for nucleon-transfer experiments: shifting shell-model orbitals
• Theoretical motivation for pair-transfer experiments: new forms of nucleon pairing and correlations, shape coexistence
• Theory: new ideas on clustering in exotic nuclei
• New developments in reaction theory
• New types of spectrometers for reaction studies (technical article)
• Active-target detectors and time projection chambers (technical article)
• Results from transfer reactions studied with solenoidal spectrometers (physics results)
• Results from transfer/breakup/scattering reactions studied with active-target detectors
• Reactions for nuclear astrophysics
• Results from particle-gamma-ray coincidence studies of direct reactions
• Results from knockout reaction studies at RIKEN
• Very exotic systems: new results on the tetraneutron
• Nuclear structure studies at GANIL

Keywords: Nuclear Structure, Direct Reactions, Instrumentation, Exotic Nuclei, Radioactive Beams

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