Experimental Studies of the Neutron Deficient Atomic Nuclei 88Ru and 87Tc, and the Diagonalization of the General Pairing Hamiltonian
Time: Mon 2021-06-14 14.00
Location: Via Zoom https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/67990107320?pwd=TTZ4UHRWR3hxYk1ORkJ5Q0g0T0N0Zz09, (English)
Subject area: Physics, Atomic, Subatomic and Astrophysics
Doctoral student: Xiaoyu Liu , Kärnfysik
Opponent: Doctor Jelena Vesic, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenien
Supervisor: Professor Bo Cederwall, Kärnfysik; Universitetslektor Chong Qi, Kärnfysik
Abstract
This doctoral thesis consists of two parts: the experimental study of the neutron-deficient atomic nuclei 88Ru and 87Tc, and the computational study on the diagonalization of general pairing Hamiltonian. In the first part, which constitutes the main content of the thesis, the low-lying excited states in the N = Z nucleus 88Ru and N = Z + 1 nucleus 87Tc were studied via fusion-evaporation reactions induced by 115 MeV 36 Ar ions bombarding6 mg/cm 2 thick metallic 54 Fe target foils at the Grand Accélérateur Nationald’Ions Lourds (GANIL), Caen, France. The prompt γγ-neutron and charged-particle coincidences from the de-excitation of the reactions were measured by the AGATA γ-ray spectrometer coupled to the auxiliary NEDA, Neutron Wall, and DIAMANT detector arrays. The results for 88 Ru confirmed and extended the previous level scheme to a tentative (14+) state. The constructed level structure exhibits a moderately deformed rotational behavior but shows a band crossing at a significantly higher rotational frequency compared with neighboring nuclei with N > Z. Such band crossings are associated with quasiparticle alignment within the standard isovector pairing scheme. The observation of a “delayed” rotation alignment in the deformed N = Znucleus is consistent with theoretical predictions related to the existence of strong isoscalar neutron-proton pair condensate. The yrast band in 87 Tc from the (9/2+) state to the (33/2+) state was established based on six mutually coincident γ-ray transitions. The constructed yrast band exhibits a sharp backbending at ~ω ≈ 0.50 MeV. In the odd-A isotonic chains around N = 44, approaching the N = Z line, the observed decrease in alignment frequency and increase in alignment sharpness were proposed as an effect of the enhanced isoscalar neutron-proton interactions. In addition to the yrast band in 87 Tc, six new mutually coincident γ-ray transitions were identified by comparing the γ-ray intensities in the spectra gated under different reaction channel selection conditions. The constructed level scheme was compared with shell model and TRS calculations. The results indicate that these low-lying states exhibit spherical behavior different from the previously identified oblate yrast band, and the band might be built on a (7/2 +1 ) ground state.
In the second part, an OpenMP parallel Fortran program, PairDiag, for the diagonalization of the general pairing Hamiltonian in deformed systems was developed. In the program, the ‘01’ inversion algorithm is used to generate the seniority-zero basis vectors; all the non-zero Hamiltonian matrix elements are evaluated “on the fly” by the scattering operators and a search algorithm; the matrix diagonalization is achieved by the Lanczos + QR algorithm. The PairDiag program is packaged in a Fortran module and can be easily used to replace the BCS approximation in other nuclear structure programs.