RBI (HR)
Laboratory for nuclear physics at RBI - experimental nuclear physics group at multidisciplinary research institute
Rudjer Boskovic Institute (RBI) is the largest research institute in Croatia with almost 900 employees of which are more than 350 permanent scientists and more than 250 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Research activities comprises physics, chemistry, molecular biology, molecular medicine, marine and environment research and computing. The RBI cooperate with universities in national educational system on postgraduate and graduate level.
The Laboratory for Nuclear Physics (LNP) has 6 permanent researchers, 2 postdocs and 5 PhD students. It is one of the most internationally recognized and competitive research groups at RBI having strong links with leading European research groups in experimental nuclear physics. The main areas of research include structure of nuclei, particularly clustering in the light nuclei and structure of very neutron-rich nuclei, as well as mechanisms of nuclear reactions, mainly for production of the neutron-rich medium mass and heavy nuclei. The LNP research activities also include measurements of resonant contributions in astrophysically relevant nuclear reactions using various indirect approaches. The LNP staff work in international collaborations on experiments at accelerator complexes with radioactive and stable beams around the world as well as on the RBI accelerator facility. The group possesses silicon detector arrays consisted of strip detectors of various types and dimensions, read-out electronics and Data Acquisition System.
LNP is part of Division of Experimental Physics, the most prominent and most internationally competitive RBI division which also hosts the largest research infrastructure in Croatia, accelerator facility, the only infrastructure in Croatia providing TNA access in the FP7/H2020 projects.
The accelerator facility includes scattering chamber dedicated to nuclear structure and reaction experiments using large silicon detector arrays. It was constructed and built in 1992 for measurements with 1D position sensitive detectors and solid targets, and upgraded in 2010 and 2013 for measurements with gas targets and large area double sided silicon strip detectors by funding of two FP7 REGPOT projects (ID 203200 CLUNA and ID 256783 Particle Detectors). Current experimental setups consist of up to four silicon detector telescopes assembled from the thin single side and the thick double side strip detectors of type W1 manufactured by Micron Semiconductor Ltd, and readout electronics and VME based data acquisition system for processing up to 192 detector signals.
This facility has been used for a number of experiments performed in collaborations with international partners from Italy, UK and Spain. The primary lines of research at the facility are: 1) structure of light nuclei and 2) reactions for nuclear astrophysics.
The first research topic is focused on cluster and molecular structures in neutron-rich isotopes of beryllium, boron and carbon. Despite limitation of the facility to stable ion beams and stable targets, results of some experiments attained large impact in international community. For example, the measurement of the 7Li + 7Li → α + α + 6He reaction provided the first strong indication for the molecular α +2n+α structure in 10Be (N. Soić et al, Europhysics Letters 34 (1996) 7). This result initiated a series of experiments at accelerator facilities worldwide which confirmed this exotic structural mode in light nuclei. Another successful study was measurements of the 9Be + 4He resonant scattering (M. Freer et al, Physical Review C 84 (2011) 034317) whose results confirm strong 9Be + 4He clustering in the 13C nucleus.
The second research topic includes measurements of the three-body quasi-free reactions as tool for indirect studying of nuclear reactions in astrophysical environments by use of the Trojan Horse Method. This method enables determination of the bare astrophysical factor for two-body nuclear reactions at very low energies typical for astrophysical sites through measurements of the three-body reaction in quasi-free conditions at typical beam energies for small accelerators. Some key measurements for the development of this technique were performed at our facility leading to large impact of these results (see C. Spitaleri et al, Physical Review C 63 (2001) 055801 and A. Musumarra et al, Physical Review C 64 (2001) 068801). The method is nowadays in regular usage at the number of international and our facility (C. Spitaleri et al, Physical Review C 91 (2015) 024612, R.G. Pizzone et all, Astrophysical Journal 836 (2017) 57, G. D'Agata et al, Astrophysical Journal 860 (2018) 61).
Apart of its research role, this facility is of prime importance for training of young researchers and testing and development of new research instrumentation for large international accelerator facilities.
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ChETEC contact person
- Igor Gasparic (igaspar
irb.hr)