Excitation of Pygmy Dipole Resonance in neutron-rich nuclei via Coulomb and nuclear fields

We study the nature of the low-lying dipole strength in neutron-rich nuclei, often associated to the Pygmy Dipole Resonance. The states are described within the Hartree-Fock plus RPA formalism, using different parametrizations of the Skyrme interaction. We show how the information from combined reactions processes involving the Coulomb and different mixtures of isoscalar and isovector nuclear interactions can provide a clue to reveal the characteristic features of these states.Comment: 9 Pages, 8 figures, contribution to International Symposium On Nuclear Physics, December 8-12, 2009,Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, Indi

Morphological characterization, germination ecology and conservation of narrow endemic plant species of the Aeolian Islands (Sicily)

This stusy is focused on four narrow endemic species of the Aeolian fora: Anthemis aeolica, Erysimum brulloi, Cytisus aeolicus and Silene hicesiae. Morphological characterization of seeds, seed germination and dormancy regulation have been investigated for these species

Many-body correlations in a multistep variational approach

We discuss a multistep variational approach for the study of many-body correlations. The approach is developed in a boson formalism (bosons representing particle-hole excitations) and based on an iterative sequence of diagonalizations in subspaces of the full boson space. Purpose of these diagonalizations is that of searching for the best approximation of the ground state of the system. The procedure also leads us to define a set of excited states and, at the same time, of operators which generate these states as a result of their action on the ground state. We examine the cases in which these operators carry one-particle one-hole and up to two-particle two-hole excitations. We also explore the possibility of associating bosons to Tamm-Dancoff excitations and of describing the spectrum in terms of only a selected group of these. Tests within an exactly solvable three-level model are provided.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

On the Excitation of Double Giant Resonances in Heavy Ion Reactions

The interplay of nuclear and Coulomb processes in the inelastic excitation of single- and double-phonon giant resonances in heavy ion collisions is studied within a simple reaction model. Predominance of the Coulomb excitation mechanism on the population of the single-phonon and, on the contrary, predominance of the nuclear excitation for the double-phonon is evidenced. The effect of the spreading of the strength distribution of the giant resonances on the excitation process is analyzed, showing sizeable modifications in the case of Coulomb dominated processes.Comment: Accepten in Nuclear Physics A. 10 eps figures and source file in an uncompressed tar packag

Microscopic calculations of double and triple Giant Resonance excitation in heavy ion collisions

We perform microscopic calculations of the inelastic cross sections for the double and triple excitation of giant resonances induced by heavy ion probes within a semicalssical coupled channels formalism. The channels are defined as eigenstates of a bosonic quartic Hamiltonian constructed in terms of collective RPA phonons. Therefore, they are superpositions of several multiphonon states, also with different numbers of phonons and the spectrum is anharmonic. The inclusion of (n+1) phonon configurations affects the states whose main component is a n-phonon one and leads to an appreacible lowering of their energies. We check the effects of such further anharmonicities on the previous published results for the cross section for the double excitation of Giant Resonances. We find that the only effect is a shift of the peaks towards lower energies, the double GR cross section being not modified by the explicity inclusion of the three-phonon channels in the dynamical calculations. The latters give an important contribution to the cross section in the triple GR energy region which however is still smaller than the experimental available data. The inclusion of four phonon configurations in the structure calculations does not modify the results.Comment: Revtex4, to be published in PR

Collective transition densities in neutron-rich nuclei

Quadrupole transition densities in neutron-rich nuclei in the vicinity of the neutron drip-line are calculated in the framework of the Random Phase Approximation. The continuum is treated by expansion in oscillator functions. We focus on the states which contribute to the usual Giant Quadrupole Resonance, and not on the low-lying strength which is also expected in such nuclei and whose collective character is still under debate. We find that, due to the large neutron skin in these nuclei, the isoscalar and isovector modes are in general strongly mixed. We further show that the transition densities corresponding to the GQR states can be reasonably well described by the collective model in terms of in phase and out of phase oscillations of neutron and proton densities which have different radii

Microscopic description of Coulomb and nuclear excitation of multiphonon states in 40^{40}Ca + 40^{40}Ca collisions

We calculate the inelastic scattering cross sections to populate one- and two-phonon states in heavy ion collisions with both Coulomb and nuclear excitations. Starting from a microscopic approach based on RPA, we go beyond it in order to treat anharmonicities and non-linear terms in the exciting field. These anharmonicities and non-linearities are shown to have important effects on the cross sections both in the low energy part of the spectrum and in the energy region of the Double Giant Quadrupole Resonance. By properly introducing an optical potential the inelastic cross section is calculated semiclassically by integrating the excitation probability over all impact parameters. A satisfactory agreement with the experimental results is obtained.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, revtex, to be published in Phys. Rev.