Collectivity and configuration mixing in 186,188Pb and 194Po

Lifetimes of prolate intruder states in 186Pb and oblate intruder states in 194Po have been determined by employing, for the first time, the recoil-decay tagging technique in recoil distance Doppler-shift lifetime measurements. In addition, lifetime measurements of prolate states in 188Pb up to the 8+ state were carried out using the recoil-gating method. The B(E2) values have been deduced from which deformation parameters |β2|=0.29(5) and |β2|=0.17(3) for the prolate and the oblate bands, respectively, have been extracted. The results also shed new light on the mixing between different shapes

Lifetimes of intruder states in 186 Pb, 188 Pb and 194 Po

Lifetimes of prolate intruder states in 186Pb and 188Pb and oblate intruder states in 194Po have been determined through recoil distance Doppler-shift lifetime measurements. Deformation parameters of | β2 | = 0.29 (5) and | β2 | = 0.17(3) have been ext

Physics research on the TCV tokamak facility: from conventional to alternative scenarios and beyond

The research program of the TCV tokamak ranges from conventional to advanced-tokamak scenarios and alternative divertor configurations, to exploratory plasmas driven by theoretical insight, exploiting the device’s unique shaping capabilities. Disruption avoidance by real-time locked mode prevention or unlocking with electron-cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) was thoroughly documented, using magnetic and radiation triggers. Runaway generation with high-Z noble-gas injection and runaway dissipation by subsequent Ne or Ar injection were studied for model validation. The new 1 MW neutral beam injector has expanded the parameter range, now encompassing ELMy H-modes in an ITER-like shape and nearly non-inductive H-mode discharges sustained by electron cyclotron and neutral beam current drive. In the H-mode, the pedestal pressure increases modestly with nitrogen seeding while fueling moves the density pedestal outwards, but the plasma stored energy is largely uncorrelated to either seeding or fueling. High fueling at high triangularity is key to accessing the attractive small edge-localized mode (type-II) regime. Turbulence is reduced in the core at negative triangularity, consistent with increased confinement and in accord with global gyrokinetic simulations. The geodesic acoustic mode, possibly coupled with avalanche events, has been linked with particle flow to the wall in diverted plasmas. Detachment, scrape-off layer transport, and turbulence were studied in L- and H-modes in both standard and alternative configurations (snowflake, super-X, and beyond). The detachment process is caused by power ‘starvation’ reducing the ionization source, with volume recombination playing only a minor role. Partial detachment in the H-mode is obtained with impurity seeding and has shown little dependence on flux expansion in standard single-null geometry. In the attached L-mode phase, increasing the outer connection length reduces the in–out heat-flow asymmetry. A doublet plasma, featuring an internal X-point, was achieved successfully, and a transport barrier was observed in the mantle just outside the internal separatrix. In the near future variable-configuration baffles and possibly divertor pumping will be introduced to investigate the effect of divertor closure on exhaust and performance, and 3.5 MW ECRH and 1 MW neutral beam injection heating will be added

Using soil surface temperature to assess soil evaporation in a drip irrigated vineyard

Evaporation from the soil is an important part of the water balance of a crop, when considering water use efficiency. In this paper, a non-intensive method is tested to estimate relative soil evaporation, which is based upon a linear function of soil surface temperature change between a saturated and drying soil. The relative evaporation (RE) method of Ben-Asher et al. (1983) was calibrated using microlysimeters and thermal imaging. Soil surface temperature in a drip irrigated vineyard was then collected using infrared temperature sensors mounted on a quad bike, on several days of the 2009–2010 season. Soil surface temperature in the vineyard ranged from 4.6 °C to 65.5 °C undervine and 6.8 °C to 75.6 °C in the middle of the row. The difference between daily minima and maxima of soil surface temperature ranged from 20.2 °C to 59.7 °C in the inter-row and 13.6 °C to 36.4 °C undervine. Relative evaporation averaged 54% of evaporation from a saturated soil in the inter-row and 97% undervine. Based upon the calculation of RE, the average daily amount of soil evaporation undervine was between 0.64 mm and 1.83 mm, and between 0.69 mm and 2.52 mm inter-row. The soil evaporation undervine and inter-row both exhibited spatial variability across the vineyard, however the undervine area had less spatial variability compared to the inter-row area

Collectivity in neutron-deficient Pb and Po nuclei

Lifetimes of low-lying yrast states in186Pb and194Po have been determined by employing, for the first time, the recoil-decay tagging technique in recoil distance Doppler-shift lifetime measurements. In addition, lifetime measurements of prolate states in188Pb up to the 8+ state were carried out using the recoil gating method. The deformation parameters β2 = 0.29(5) and β2 for the prolate (186,188Pb) and the oblate (194Po) bands, respectively, have been extracted from the measured lifetimes