No abstract

We present a new experimental method to correlate the isotopic composition of intermediate mass fragments (IMF) emitted at mid-rapidity in semi-peripheral collisions with the emission timescale: IMFs emitted in the early stage of the reaction show larger values of isospin asymmetry, stronger angular anisotropies and reduced odd-even staggering effects in neutron to proton ratio distributions than those produced in sequential statistical emission. All these effects support the concept of isospin "migration", that is sensitive to the density gradient between participant and quasi-spectator nuclear matter, in the so called neck fragmentation mechanism. By comparing the data to a Stochastic Mean Field (SMF) simulation we show that this method gives valuable constraints on the symmetry energy term of nuclear equation of state at subsaturation densities. An indication emerges for a linear density dependence of the symmetry energy.

By using well tested standard statistical model for calculating survival probabilities of super-heavy compound nuclei, Psurv, and reliably predicted capture cross sections σcap, "empirical" values of the fusion hindrance Pfus = σsyn/(σcap · Psurv) have been determined from the formation cross sections σsyn for production of super-heavy nuclei of 102 ≤ Z ≤ 113 measured at GSI Darmstadt and RIKEN. So determined fusion hindrance can be well reproduced with a simple model based on the Smoluchowski diffusion equation applied to describe thermal shape fluctuations of the fusing system. An applicability of this model for a wider class of fusing systems could be verified on data from an interesting experiment on the synthesis of isotopes of Hs (Z = 108) in the 136 Xe + 136 Xe reaction, scheduled to be carried out in Dubna this year. Synthesis cross sections for 269-271 Hs isotopes, strongly reduced by the fusion hindrance effect in this symmetric fusion reaction, are predicted.

No abstract

A new reaction mechanism of violent reseparation of a heavy nucleus-nucleus system, 197Au + 197Au, into three or four massive fragments in collisions at 15 MeV/nucleon has been observed. After reseparation, the fragments are almost exactly aligned, thus showing a very short time scale of the reseparation process, of about 70-80 fm/c.