Pulse shape discrimination of charged particles with a silicon strip detector

Abstract A simple and effective pulse shape discrimination technique is applied to a silicon strip detector array. Excellent charge identification from H up to the Ni projectile has been obtained and isotope separation up to N has also been observed. The method we systematically studied is essentially based on a suitable setting of the constant fraction discriminators, and its main advantage is that no additional electronic modules are needed compared to the ones used in the standard TOF technique

Noncommutative Symmetries and Gravity

Spacetime geometry is twisted (deformed) into noncommutative spacetime geometry, where functions and tensors are now star-multiplied. Consistently, spacetime diffeomorhisms are twisted into noncommutative diffeomorphisms. Their deformed Lie algebra structure and that of infinitesimal Poincare' transformations is defined and explicitly constructed. This allows to construct a noncommutative theory of gravity.Comment: 26 pages. Lectures given at the workshop `Noncommutative Geometry in Field and String Theories', Corfu Summer Institute on EPP, September 2005, Corfu, Greece. Version 2: Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant MERG-CT-2004-006374 acknowledge

Noncommutative deformation of four dimensional Einstein gravity

We construct a model for noncommutative gravity in four dimensions, which reduces to the Einstein-Hilbert action in the commutative limit. Our proposal is based on a gauge formulation of gravity with constraints. While the action is metric independent, the constraints insure that it is not topological. We find that the choice of the gauge group and of the constraints are crucial to recover a correct deformation of standard gravity. Using the Seiberg-Witten map the whole theory is described in terms of the vierbeins and of the Lorentz transformations of its commutative counterpart. We solve explicitly the constraints and exhibit the first order noncommutative corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action.Comment: LaTex, 11 pages, comments added, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Production of α\alpha-particle condensate states in heavy-ion collisions

The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction $^{40}Ca$ + $^{12}C$ at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce excited states candidates to $\alpha$-particle condensation. The experiment was performed at LNS-Catania using the CHIMERA multidetector. Accepting the emission simultaneity and equality among the $\alpha$-particle kinetic energies as experimental criteria for deciding in favor of the condensate nature of an excited state, we analyze the $0_2^+$ and $2_2^+$ states of $^{12}$C and the $0_6^+$ state of $^{16}$O. A sub-class of events corresponding to the direct 3-$\alpha$ decay of the Hoyle state is isolated.Comment: contribution to the 2nd Workshop on "State of the Art in Nuclear Cluster Physics" (SOTANCP2), Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), May 25-28, 2010, to be published in the International Journal of Modern Physics

Correlations between isospin dynamics and Intermediate Mass Fragments emission time scales: a probe for the symmetry energy in asymmetric nuclear matter

We show new data from the $^{64}$Ni+$^{124}$Sn and $^{58}$Ni+$^{112}$Sn reactions studied in direct kinematics with the CHIMERA detector at INFN-LNS and compared with the reverse kinematics reactions at the same incident beam energy (35 A MeV). Analyzing the data with the method of relative velocity correlations, fragments coming from statistical decay of an excited projectile-like (PLF) or target-like (TLF) fragments are discriminated from the ones coming from dynamical emission in the early stages of the reaction. By comparing data of the reverse kinematics experiment with a stochastic mean field (SMF) + GEMINI calculations our results show that observables from neck fragmentation mechanism add valuable constraints on the density dependence of symmetry energy. An indication is found for a moderately stiff symmetry energy potential term of EOS.Comment: Talk given by E. De Filippo at the 11th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (NN2012), San Antonio, Texas, USA, May 27-June 1, 2012. To appear in the NN2012 Proceedings in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS

Freeze-out configuration properties in the 197Au + 197Au reaction at 23 AMeV

Data from the experiment on the 197Au + 197Au reaction at 23 AMeV are analyzed with an aim to find signatures of exotic nuclear configurations such as toroid-shaped objects. The experimental data are compared with predictions of the ETNA code dedicated to look for such configurations and with the QMD model. A novel criterion of selecting events possibly resulting from the formation of exotic freeze-out configurations, "the efficiency factor", is tested. Comparison between experimental data and model predictions may indicate for the formation of flat/toroidal nuclear systems