Juxtaposition and coexistence in the land of nuclear shapes

by Prof. Theo J. Mertzimekis (Department of Physics, NKUA)

Tuesday 7 Jun 2022, 16:00 → 17:00 Europe/Athens

 Despite the wealth of information accumulated over the past century and the technological advances that facilitated the exploration of the atomic nuclei and their properties, fundamental questions on the nuclear structure still persist. A central piece in nuclear physics, the strong nuclear force shapes a colorful playground of many-body physics at the femtometer scale, offering opportunities for both experimental and theoretical investigations to understand its true nature. To this direction, nuclear spectroscopic studies can be a power horse in providing reliable data across the nuclear chart. In the mid-heavy mass region (A~130-180) collective behavior of nucleons appears to be dominant in the majority of isotopes, especially closer to the valley of stability and for the ground-state bands. However, poorly explored phenomena related to either symmetry aspects of the nuclear potential or coupling of single-particle to collective degrees of freedom are observed, such as shape coexistence and octupole deformation. In this seminar, recent experimental investigations of the NuSTRAP group at the University of Athens are reported. The quest to provide concise information on nuclear structure is discussed in terms of recent spectroscopic studies using state-of-the-art instrumentation and coupling the results with novel theoretical models. 

 

Videoconference via https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86292676487

Theo_Mertzimekis_07062022.mp4