Online test of the FRS Ion Catcher at GSI

At the FRS Ion Catcher at GSI, relativistic exotic ions produced by projectile fragmentation/fission are range-focused, slowed down and thermalised in a gas-filled stopping cell, extracted and made available to high-precision experiments with ions almost at rest. It is a prototype for a gas cell system at the Low-Energy Branch of the Super-FRS at FAIR. In an online experiment, the FRS Ion Catcher was commissioned successfully with relativistic nickel fragments. The overall efficiency of the system was measured as (1.8 ± 0.3)% and can be divided into a stopping efficiency of (5.0 ± 1.1)% and an extraction and transport efficiency of (35.8 ± 9.4)%. The overall efficiency is hence limited mostly by the stopping efficiency, which could be increased in the future by operating at higher gas cell pressures. From extraction time measurements of polyatomic ions formed in the gas cell extraction times of atomic ions of 20–50 ms can be derived. The potential of the system was illustrated by the half-life measurement of 54Co with a short half-life of 193 ms only.status: publishe

Study of dipole excitations and the single particle structure of neutron rich Ni isotopes

An experiment was performed using the FRS-LAND setup at GSI to study the dipole strength distributions above neutron separation threshold for neutron-rich Ni isotopes. Measurements, using the same experimental setup, were also carried out to extract single particle occupancies via knockout reactions to investigate the structure and magicity of the neutron-rich Ni isotopes. The status of the data analysis and preliminary results are presented

Probing the single particle structure around Ca-54 with one-neutron knock-out

The nuclei Ca-47 and Ti-55 were populated in one-neutron knock-out reactions at relativistic energies. Momentum distributions of the residual nuclei as well as gamma-ray spectra were measured at the GSI fragment separator (FRS). Preliminary results of the ongoing analysis including cross sections and spin/parity assignments are presented

Probing the single particle structure around Ca-54 with one-neutron knock-out

The nuclei Ca-47 and Ti-55 were populated in one-neutron knock-out reactions at relativistic energies. Momentum distributions of the residual nuclei as well as gamma-ray spectra were measured at the GSI fragment separator (FRS). Preliminary results of the ongoing analysis including cross sections and spin/parity assignments are presented

One-neutron knockout from 51-55Sc

Results are presented from a one-neutron knockout experiment at relativistic energies of ____approx 420 A MeV on 51-55Sc using the GSI Fragment Separator as a two-stage magnetic spectrometer and the MINIBALL array for gamma-ray detection. Inclusive longitudinal momentum distributions and cross-sections were measured enabling the determination of the contributions corresponding to knockout from the ____nu p_{1/2} , ____nu p_{3/2} , (L = 1 and ____nu f_{7/2} , ____nu f_{5/2} (L = 3 neutron orbitals. The observed L = 1 and L = 3 contributions are compared with theoretical cross-sections using eikonal knockout theory and spectroscopic factors from shell model calculations using the GXPF1A interaction. The measured inclusive knockout cross-sections generally follow the trends expected theoretically and given by the spectroscopic strength predicted from the shell model calculations. However, the deduced L = 1 cross-sections are generally 30-40% higher while the L = 3 contributions are about a factor of two smaller than predicted. This points to a promotion of neutrons from the ____nu f_{7/2} to the ____nu p_{3/2} orbital indicating a weakening of the N = 28 shell gap in these nuclei. While this is not predicted for the phenomenological GXPF1A interaction such a weakening is predicted by recent calculations using realistic low-momentum interactions $V_{low k}$ obtained by evolving a chiral N3LO nucleon-nucleon potential