Day of Research Area G

On 30 April 2008 the members of the Excellence Cluster's Research Area G (Heavy Elements) met to discuss the latest research results in this area. The day focused on experimental projects in Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Astrophysics related to reactions of astrophysical importance and the structure nuclei far outside the valley of stability. Several of the projects presented deal with the investigation of modifications of nuclear shell structure in short lived nuclei at the radioactive beam facilities at GSI Damstadt and REX-ISOLDE/CERN and the future NuSTAR experiments at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt.

In her talk PhD student Katrin Eppinger presented preliminary results of a recent GSI experiment in which several new isotopes along the proton dripline were discovered. The new Cluster Post Docs Iris Dillmann and Anuj Parikh provided an overview on AMS studies for nuclear astrophysics at the MLL tandem accelerator and sensitivity studies for the rp-process and the alpha-rich freeze responsible for the 44Ti production, respectively. Besides the projects in the TUM group of Reiner Krücken also a project in LMU group of Dieter Habs to study fission barriers in heavy nuclei was presented. At the following lunch snack in the inner courtyard of the MLL accelerator building the more than 50 participants took advantage of the sunny weather for lively discussions.

by B. Wankerl