Multi-fragment decays of 129 Xe, 197 Au, and 238 U projectiles in collisions with Be, C, Al, Cu, In, Au, and U targets at energies between E/A = 400 MeV and 1000 MeV have been studied with the ALADIN forward-spectrometer at SIS. By adding an array of 84 SiCsI(Tl) telescopes the solid-angle coverage of the setup was extended to θ lab = 16 • . This permitted the complete detection of fragments from the projectile-spectator source.The dominant feature of the systematic set of data is the Z bound universality that is obeyed by the fragment multiplicities and correlations. These observables are invariant with respect to the entrance channel if plotted as a function of Z bound , where Z bound is the sum of the atomic numbers Z i of all projectile fragments with Z i ≥ 2. No significant dependence on the bombarding energy nor on the target mass is observed. The dependence of the fragment multiplicity on the projectile mass follows a linear scaling law.The reasons for and the limits of the observed universality of spectator fragmentation are explored within the realm of the available data and with model studies. It is found that the universal properties should persist up to much higher bombarding energies than explored in this work and that they are consistent with universal features exhibited by the intranuclear cascade and statistical multifragmentation models.

The breaking of the N=8 shell-model magic number in the 12Be ground state has been determined to include significant occupancy of the intruder d-wave orbital. This is in marked contrast with all other N=8 isotones, both more and less exotic than 12Be. The occupancies of the [FORMULA: SEE TEXT]orbital and the [FORMULA: SEE TEXT], intruder orbital were deduced from a measurement of neutron removal from a high-energy 12Be beam leading to bound and unbound states in 11Be.

A new approach to the production and detection of bound neutron clusters is presented. The technique is based on the breakup of beams of very neutron-rich nuclei and the subsequent detection of the recoiling proton in a liquid scintillator. The method has been tested in the breakup of 11 Li, 14 Be and 15 B beams by a C target. Some 6 events were observed that exhibit the characteristics of a multineutron cluster liberated in the breakup of 14 Be, most probably in the channel 10 Be+ 4 n. The various backgrounds that may mimic such a signal are discussed in detail.