The particle spectrometer SONIC for particle-γ coincidence measurements was commissioned at the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Cologne, Germany. SONIC consists of up to 12 silicon ∆E-E telescopes with a total solid angle coverage of 9 %, and will complement HORUS, a γ-ray spectrometer with 14 HPGe detectors. The combined setup SONIC@HORUS is used to investigate the γ-decay behaviour of low-spin states up to the neutron separation threshold excited by light-ion inelastic scattering and transfer reactions using beams provided by a 10 MV FN Tandem accelerator. The particle-γ coincidence method will be presented using data from a 92 Mo(p,p'γ) experiment. In a 119 Sn(d,X) experiment, excellent particle identification has been achieved because of the good energy resolution of the silicon detectors of approximately 20 keV. Due to the non-negligible momentum transfer in the reaction, a Doppler correction of the detected γ-ray energy has to be performed, using the additional information from measuring the ejectile energy and direction. The high sensitivity of the setup is demonstrated by the results from a 94 Mo(p,p'γ) experiment, where small γ-decay branching ratios have been deduced.

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On August 17, 2017 the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration detected, for the first time, gravitational waves from the binary merger of two neutron stars (GW170817). Unlike the merger of two black holes, the associated electromagnetic radiation was also detected by a host of telescopes operating over a wide range of frequencies -opening a brand new era of multimessenger astronomy. This historical detection is providing fundamental new insights into the astrophysical site for the r-process and on the nature of dense matter. In this contribution, we examine the impact of GW170817 on the equation of state of neutron rich matter, particularly on the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Limits on the tidal polarizability extracted from GW170817 seem to suggest that the symmetry energy is soft, thereby excluding models that predict overly large stellar radii.

The previously observed enhancement between 1100 and 1400 MeV in the Kinr mass spectrum is interpreted as a T=% 9 J& = 1 + resonance at 1280±20 MeV and width of 130 ± 15 MeV which decays into TT + K* and into K+p. Evidence is also presented supporting the existence of the newly reported L meson.