Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R F Casten.
A direct correlation between experimental values of proton-neutron interaction strengths and experimental measures of the growth of collectivity in nuclei is found. In particular, differences in the p-n interaction strengths and differences in growth rates of collectivity in particle-particle (or hole-hole) and particle-hole regions are found to correspond.
Coulomb activation of the four quasiparticle Kpi=16+ 178Hf isomer (t1/2=31 y) has led to the measurement of a set of Elamda matrix elements coupling the isomer band to the ground band. The present data combined with earlier 178 Hf Coulomb excitation data have probed the components in the wave functions and revealed the onset and saturation of K mixing in low-K bands, whereas the mixing is negligible in the high-K bands. The implications can be applied to other quadrupole-deformed nuclei.
Double differences of masses can be used to isolate specific nucleonic interactions. With the new 2003 mass tabulation a significant increase in the number of empirical average proton-neutron interactions of the last nucleons can be extracted. It is shown that they exhibit dramatic and distinctive patterns, especially near doubly magic nuclei, that these patterns can be interpreted with a simple ansatz based on overlaps of proton and neutron orbits, and that the trends in p-n interactions across entire shells can be understood if they are correlated with the fractional shell filling. It is shown how these empirical interactions can be sensitive to changes in shell structure in exotic nuclei. Finally, these results are used to suggest criteria for future mass measurements with new exotic beam facilities.
It is shown that strong 0(+)(2)-->0(+)(1) E0 transitions provide a clear signature of phase transitional behavior in finite nuclei. Calculations using the interacting-boson approximation (IBA) show that these transition strengths exhibit a dramatic and robust increase in spherical-deformed shape transition regions, that this rise matches well the existing data, that the predictions of these E0 transitions remain large in deformed nuclei, that they arise from the specific d-boson coherence in the wave functions, and do not necessarily require the explicit mixing of normal and intruder configurations from different IBA spaces.
Evidence is presented to show that a group of nuclei, spanning a range of structures, corresponds to a previously proposed isolated region of regular behavior between vibrational and rotational structures that was never before observed empirically. Nuclei predicted to show such regular spectra correspond to Hamiltonian parameters that lie amidst those giving more chaotic spectra. We identify a key observable that has a one-to-one correspondence to this arc of regularity and which therefore provides both an empirical signature for it and a clue to its underlying nature.
We present a simple method for discerning the evolution from vibrational to rotational structure in nuclei as a function of spin. The prescription is applied to the yrast cascades in the A approximately 110 region and a clear transition from vibrational to rotational motion is found.
We show that the second-order phase transition between spherical and deformed shapes of atomic nuclei is an isolated point following from the Landau theory of phase transitions. This point can occur only at the junction of two or more first-order phase transitions which explains why it is associated with one special type of structure and requires the recently proposed first-order phase transition between prolate and oblate nuclear shapes. Finally, we suggest the first empirical example of a nucleus located at the isolated triple-point.
Lifetimes of states in 150Nd were measured using the recoil distance method following Coulomb excitation of 150Nd by a 132 MeV 32S beam. The experiment was performed at the Yale Tandem accelerator, employing the SPEEDY gamma-ray detector array and the New Yale Plunger Device. Reduced transition probabilities in 150Nd are compared to the predictions of the critical point symmetry X(5) of the phase/shape transition that occurs for the N = 90 rare earth isotones. Very good agreement was observed between the parameter-free (apart from scale) X(5) predictions and the low-spin level scheme of 150Nd, revealing this as the best case thus far for the realization of the X(5) symmetry.
We examine a quantum phase transition in gamma-soft nuclei, where the O(6) limit is simultaneously a dynamical symmetry of the U(6) group of the interacting boson model and a critical point of a prolate-oblate phase transition. This is the only example of phase transitional behavior that can be described analytically for a finite s,d boson system.
It is shown that (152)Sm and other N = 90 isotones are the first empirical manifestation of the newly predicted analytic description of nuclei at the critical point of a vibrator to axial rotor phase transition.