Perspectives for nuclear structure research at GSI—from halo nuclei to superheavy elements

Abstract

Summary.-After a brief overview on recent advances in the investigation of nuclei at the driplines and the upper end of the nuclear table key issues of nuclear structure research as addressed by new theoretical developments will be discussed in context with new developments in heavy-ion accelerators and experimental techniques.PACS 21.10 -Properties of nuclei; nuclear energy levels. PACS 21.60 -Nuclear-structure models and methods. PACS 01.30.Cc -Conference proceedings. -IntroductionIn the past decade significant progress has been made in the exploration of hitherto unaccessible regions of the nuclear chart at the limits of stability and by the further development of nuclear models. Key contributions from GSI were the production of the heaviest elements known today [1,2] with Z = 107 to 112, the discovery of the proton radioactivity from the ground state [3] and the first observation of the doubly magic nuclei [4,5] 100 Sn and 78 Ni. A region covering more than hundred new masses was measured with high precision. In nuclear reactions at relativistic energies the enhancement of matter radii towards the driplines and the halo dynamics in light exotic proton-and neutron rich nuclei [6,7] such as 8 B and 11 Li were investigated ( fig. 1). Prerequisites to these studies were new experimental techniques such as separation ion-flight, beams of exotic nuclei at relativistic energies, 4-detector systems of high efficiency, and storage and cooling.A new access to nuclear structure was opened up by isotope separated projectile fragments at intermediate and high energies. After the first pioneering experiments at Berkeley [8,9] this field started growing fast. At present the existing facilities at NSCL (MSU,USA), GSI (Darmstadt, Germany) and ARENAS (Louvain-la-Neuve) -the pioneering laboratory for post-acceleration of secondary beams -are currently upgraded. A