New results from the NUMEN project

NUMEN aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. First evidence about the possibility to get quantitative information about NME from experiments is found for the (18O,18Ne) and (20Ne,20O) reactions. Moreover, to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0νββ decay, the knowledge of the NME is a crucial aspect. The key tools for this project are the high resolution Superconducting Cyclotron beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud in Catania (Italy). The measured cross sections are extremely low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen in order to increase the experimental yield of at least two orders of magnitude, thus making feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest. peerReviewe

The multichannel experimental and theoretical study of the 12^{12}C(18^{18}O,18^{18}F)12^{12}B single charge exchange reaction mechanism

International audienceThe study of a network of nuclear reactions populated in the 18O + 12C collision is the main topic of the present paper. It was performed to test nuclear structure and reaction theories in describing the full reaction mechanism occurring in the (18O, 18F) single charge exchange nuclear reaction. From the experimental side, an 18O beam was produced at 275 MeV incident energy by the K800 superconducting cyclotron and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer was used at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare to momentum analyse the ejectiles produced in the nuclear reactions within the same experimental setup. From the theoretical side, the proposed approach consists of analysing the whole network of nuclear reactions in the framework of a unique comprehensive and coherent theoretical calculation. This holistic approach, applied both to the experimental and theoretical analysis, is the main feature and novelty of the work presented here