Direct measurement of three different deformations near the ground state in an atomic nucleus.

Atomic nuclei serve as prime laboratories for investigations of complex quantum phenomena, where minor nucleon rearrangements cause significant structural changes. Pb is the heaviest known neutron-deficient Pb isotope that can exhibit three distinct shapes: prolate, oblate, and spherical, with nearly degenerate excitation energies. Here we report on the combined results from three state-of-the-art measurements to directly observe these deformations in Pb.

In search of nano-materials with enhanced secondary electron emission for radiation detectors.

There has been limited research devoted to secondary electron emission (SEE) from nano-materials using rapid and heavy ion bombardment. Here we report a comparison of SEE properties between novel nano-materials with a three-dimensional nano-structure composed of a mostly regular pattern of rods and gold used as a standard material for SEE under bombardment of heavy ions at energies of a few MeV/nucleon. The nano-structured materials show enhanced SEE properties when compared with gold.

PGAA, PGAI and NT with cold neutrons: test measurement on a meteorite sample.

First comprehensive analysis with PGAA, Prompt Gamma-ray Activation Imaging (PGAI) and neutron tomography (NT) techniques at the research reactor FRM II was tested on a piece of the Allende meteorite. With the PGAA method the bulk elemental composition of the heterogeneous meteorite was determined. Due to the small dimension of the sample, only the 2D elemental distribution of the object was derived with position sensitive PGAI analysis.