Enhanced excitation of Giant Pairing Vibrations in heavy-ion reactions induced by weakly-bound projectiles

The use of radioactive ion beams is shown to offer the possibility to study collective pairing states at high excitation energy, which are not usually accessible with stable projectiles because of large energy mismatch. In the case of two-neutron stripping reactions induced by 6He, we predict a population of the Giant Pairing Vibration in 208Pb or 116Sn with cross sections of the order of a millibarn, dominating over the mismatched transition to the ground state.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Déjà vu and the entorhinal cortex: dissociating recollective from familiarity disruptions in a single case patient

Past research has demonstrated a relationship between déjà vu and the entorhinal cortex in patients with wider medial temporal lobe damage. The aim of the present research was to investigate this crucial link in a patient (MR) with a selective lesion to the left lateral entorhinal cortex to provide a more direct exploration of this relationship. Two experiments investigated the experiences of déjà vécu (using the IDEA questionnaire) and déjà vu (using an adapted DRM paradigm) in MR and a set of matched controls. The results demonstrated that MR had quantitatively more and qualitatively richer recollective experiences of déjà vécu. In addition, under laboratory-based déjà vu conditions designed to elicit both false recollection (critical lures) and false familiarity (weakly-associated lures), MR only revealed greater memory impairments for the latter. The present results are therefore the first to demonstrate a direct relationship between the entorhinal cortex and the experience of both déjà vu and déjà vécu. They furthermore suggest that the entorhinal cortex is involved in both weakly-associative false memory as well as strongly-associative memory under conditions that promote familiarity-based processing

A study of the almost sequential mechanism of true ternary fission

We consider the collinear ternary fission which is a sequential ternary decay with a very short time between the ruptures of two necks connecting the middle cluster of the ternary nuclear system and outer fragments. In particular, we consider the case where the Coulomb field of the first massive fragment separated during the first step of the fission produces a lower pre-scission barrier in the second step of the residual part of the ternary system. In this case, we obtain a probability of about $10^{-3}$ for the yield of massive clusters such as \nuclide[70]{Ni}, \nuclide[80-82]{Ge}, \nuclide[86]{Se}, and \nuclide[94]{Kr} in the ternary fission of \nuclide[252]{Cf}. These products appear together with the clusters having mass numbers of $A = 132$--$140$. The results show that the yield of a heavy cluster such as \nuclide[68-70]{Ni} would be followed by a product of $A = 138$--$148$ with a large probability as observed in the experimental data obtained with the FOBOS spectrometer at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The third product is not observed. The landscape of the potential energy surface shows that the configuration of the Ni + Ca + Sn decay channel is lower about 12 MeV than that of the Ca + Ni + Sn channel. This leads to the fact, that the yield of Ni and Sn is large. The analysis on the dependence of the velocity of the middle fragment on mass numbers of the outer products leads to the conclusion that, in the collinear tripartition channel of \nuclide[252]{Cf}, the middle cluster has a very small velocity, which does not allow it to be found in experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Complementary optical-potential analysis of alpha-particle elastic scattering and induced reactions at low energies

A previously derived semi-microscopic analysis based on the Double Folding Model, for alpha-particle elastic scattering on A~100 nuclei at energies below 32 MeV, is extended to medium mass A ~ 50-120 nuclei and energies from ~13 to 50 MeV. The energy-dependent phenomenological imaginary part for this semi-microscopic optical model potential was obtained including the dispersive correction to the microscopic real potential, and used within a concurrent phenomenological analysis of the same data basis. A regional parameter set for low-energy alpha-particles entirely based on elastic-scattering data analysis was also obtained for nuclei within the above-mentioned mass and energy ranges. Then, an ultimate assessment of (alpha,gamma), (alpha,n) and (alpha,p) reaction cross sections concerned target nuclei from 45Sc to 118Sn and incident energies below ~12 MeV. The former diffuseness of the real part of optical potential as well as the surface imaginary-potential depth have been found responsible for the actual difficulties in the description of these data, and modified in order to obtain an optical potential which describe equally well both the low energy elastic-scattering and induced-reaction data of alpha-particles.Comment: 46 pages, 16 figures. n_TOF Collaboration Annual Meeting, Bari, Italy, 28-30 November 2007 (http://www.cern.ch/ntof/Documents/bari_nov07/bari_slides.php); revised version accepted for publication in ADND

Alpha-cluster Condensations in Nuclei and Experimental Approaches for their Studies

The formation of alpha-clusters in nuclei close to the decay thresholds is discussed. These states can be considered to be boson-condensates, which are formed in a second order phase transition in a mixture of nucleons and alpha-particles. The de Broglie wavelength of the alpha-particles is larger than the nuclear diameter, therefore the coherent properties of the alpha-particles give particular effects for the study of such states. The states are above the thresholds thus the enhanced emission of multiple-alphas into the same direction is observed. The probability for the emission of multiple-alphas is not described by Hauser-Feshbach theory for compound nucleus decay.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures

From the stable to the exotic: clustering in light nuclei

A great deal of research work has been undertaken in alpha-clustering study since the pioneering discovery of 12C+12C molecular resonances half a century ago. Our knowledge on physics of nuclear molecules has increased considerably and nuclear clustering remains one of the most fruitful domains of nuclear physics, facing some of the greatest challenges and opportunities in the years ahead. The occurrence of "exotic" shapes in light N=Z alpha-like nuclei is investigated. Various approaches of the superdeformed and hyperdeformed bands associated with quasimolecular resonant structures are presented. Evolution of clustering from stability to the drip-lines is examined: clustering aspects are, in particular, discussed for light exotic nuclei with large neutron excess such as neutron-rich Oxygen isotopes with their complete spectroscopy.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, Presented at the International Symposium on "New Horizons in Fundamental Physics - From Neutrons Nuclei via Superheavy Elements and Supercritical Fields to Neutron Stars and Cosmic Rays" held at Makutsi Safari Farm, South Africa, December 23-29, 2015. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1402.6590, arXiv:1303.0960, arXiv:1408.0684, arXiv:1011.342

Screening of anxiety and quality of life in people with epilepsy.

PURPOSE: Up to 60% of people with epilepsy (PwE) have psychiatric comorbidity including anxiety. Anxiety remains under recognized in PwE. This study investigates if screening tools validated for depression could be used to detect anxiety disorders in PWE. Additionally it analyses the effect of anxiety on QoL. METHOD: 261 participants with a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy were included. Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDI-E) and Emotional Thermometers (ET), both validated to screen for depression were used. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Anxiety (HADS-A) with a cut off for moderate and severe anxiety was used as the reference standard. QoL was measured with EQ5-D. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value and ROC analysis as well as multivariate regression analysis were performed. RESULTS: Patients with depression (n=46) were excluded as multivariate regression analysis showed that depression was the only significant determinant of having anxiety in the group. Against HADS-A, NDDI-E and ET-7 showed highest level of accuracy in recognizing anxiety with ET7 being the most effective tool. QoL was significantly reduced in PwE and anxiety. CONCLUSION: Our study showed that reliable screening for moderate to severe anxiety in PwE without co-morbid depression is feasible with screening tools for depression. The cut off values for anxiety are different from those for depression in ET7 but very similar in NDDI-E. ET7 can be applied to screen simultaneously for depression and "pure" anxiety. Anxiety reduces significantly QoL. We recommend screening as an initial first step to rule out patients who are unlikely to have anxiety