The β-decay half-lives of 110 neutron-rich isotopes of the elements from 37 Rb to 50 Sn were measured at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory. The 40 new half-lives follow robust systematics and highlight the persistence of shell effects. The new data have direct implications for r-process calculations and reinforce the notion that the second (A ≈ 130) and the rare-earth-element (A ≈ 160) abundance peaks may result from the freeze-out of an ðn; γÞ ⇄ ðγ; nÞ equilibrium. In such an equilibrium, the new half-lives are important factors determining the abundance of rare-earth elements, and allow for a more reliable discussion of the PRL 114, 192501 (2015) P H Y S I C A L R E V I E W L E T T E R S week ending 15 MAY 2015 0031-9007=15=114(19)=192501 (7) 192501-1 © 2015 American Physical Society r process universality. It is anticipated that universality may not extend to the elements Sn, Sb, I, and Cs, making the detection of these elements in metal-poor stars of the utmost importance to determine the exact conditions of individual r-process events. Introduction.-The origin of the heavy elements from iron to uranium is one of the main open questions in science. The slow neutron-capture (s) process of nucleosynthesis [1,2], occurring primarily in helium-burning zones of stars, produces about half of the heavy element abundance in the universe. The remaining half requires a more violent process known as the rapid neutron-capture (r) process [3][4][5][6]. During the r process, in environments of extreme temperatures and neutron densities, a reaction network of neutron captures and β decays synthesizes very neutron-rich isotopes in a fraction of a second. These isotopes, upon exhaustion of the supply of free neutrons, decay into the stable or semistable isotopes observed in the solar system. However, none of the proposed stellar models, including explosion of supernovae [7][8][9][10][11][12] and merging neutron stars [13][14][15][16], can fully explain abundance observations. The mechanism of the r process is also uncertain. At temperatures of one billion degrees or more, photons can excite unstable nuclei which then emit neutrons, thus, counteracting neutron captures in an ðn; γÞ ⇄ ðγ; nÞ equilibrium that determines the r process. These conditions may be found in the neutrino-driven wind following the collapse of a supernova core and the accreting torus formed around the black hole remnant of merging neutron stars. Alternatively, recent r-process models have shown that the r process is also possible at lower temperatures or higher neutron densities where the contribution from ðγ; nÞ reactions is minor. These conditions are expected in supersonically expanding neutrino-driven outflow in low-mass supernovae progenitors (e.g., 8 − 12 M ⊙ ) or prompt ejecta from neutron star mergers [17]. The final abundance distribution may also be dominated by postprocessing effects such as fission of heavy nuclei (A ≳ 280) possibly produced in merging neutron stars [18].New clues about the r process have come from the discovery of de...

No abstract

Absolute cross sections for isotopically identified products formed in multinucleon transfer in the (136)Xe+(198)Pt system at ∼8  MeV/nucleon are reported. The isotopic distributions obtained using a large acceptance spectrometer demonstrated the production of the "hard-to-reach" neutron-rich isotopes for Z<78 around the N=126 shell closure far from stability. The main contribution to the formation of these exotic nuclei is shown to arise in collisions with a small kinetic energy dissipation. The present experimental finding corroborates for the first time recent predictions that multinucleon transfer reactions would be the optimum method to populate and characterize neutron-rich isotopes around N=126 which are crucial for understanding both astrophysically relevant processes and the evolution of "magic" numbers far from stability.

The half-lives of 20 neutron-rich nuclei with Z ¼ 27-30 have been measured at the RIBF, Atomic nuclei are quantum many-body systems consisting of two distinct types of fermions-protons and neutrons. Analogous to atomic physics, the concept of nuclear shell structure was triggered by the discovery of particularly stable nuclei with specific numbers of proton and neutron, such as 2, 8,20,28, 50, 82, and 126 along the β-stability line [1]. By assuming a strong spin-orbit interaction within a mean field potential, these magic numbers were correctly interpreted and regarded to be immutable throughout the nuclear chart [2,3]. However, with the development of experimental techniques exploiting radioactive ion beams, many nuclei with extreme neutron-to-proton ratios (N=Z), so-called exotic nuclei, have been produced and studied in the last few decades. The results obtained heretofore have demonstrated that the shell structure established for nuclei near the β-stability line may change drastically in these exotic nuclei. For instance, classical magic numbers in 12 Be (N ¼ 8), 32 Mg (N ¼ 20), and 42 Si (N ¼ 28) were found to disappear [4-6], whereas new magic numbers emerged in 24 O (N ¼ 16) and 54 Ca (N ¼ 34) [7][8][9]. To address the origins of shell evolution in heavier mass regions, it is of particular interest to investigate the properties of nuclei in the vicinity of 78 Ni, which has the proton number Z ¼ 28 and the neutron number N ¼ 50 with a large neutron excess N=Z ≈ 1.8.To study the shell evolution around 78 Ni, many experimental efforts have been made. One of the interesting phenomena related to the proton Z ¼ 28 shell gap is the monopole migration in Cu isotopes. A sudden drop of the excited 5=2− state relative to the ground 3=2 − state was observed in 71;73 Cu [10,11]. These two states are characterized by a single-particle nature [12] and their order was