56. International Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics

Production of neutron-rich nuclei approaching r-process by 238U photofission at ELI-NP

22 Jan 2018, 17:51

3m

Bormio, Italy

Poster Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics Monday Afternoon

Speaker

Dr Bo Mei (Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP))

Description

The investigation of very neutron-rich nuclei are of significant importance for nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. However, so far, only few neutron-rich nuclei near the stability have been measured, while most neutron-rich nuclei have not been experimentally studied due to their small production cross sections and short half-lives. Very brilliant and intense gamma beams planned at ELI-NP provide new opportunities to investigate very neutron-rich fragments, especially those close to the r-process path, produced by photofission of 238U targets at the center of a gas cell. An empirical parameterization has been developed to accurately calculate the production cross sections (rates) of neutron-rich fragments produced by 238U photofission. By doing GEANT4 simulations, the design of the gas cell has been optimized to stop and extract photofission fragments. The extraction time and efficiency of photofission fragments have been optimized by SIMION simulations. According to these simulations, a fast extraction time and a high extract efficiency can be achieved for fragments produced in the 238U targets, which allows one to measure the very neutron-rich fragments with short half-lives.