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A measurement of the β-delayed α decay of 16 N using a set of twin ionization chambers is described. Sources were made by implantation, using a 16 N beam produced via the In-Flight Technique. The energies and emission angles of the 12 C and α particles were measured in coincidence and very clean α spectra, down to energies of 450 keV, were obtained. The structure of the spectra from this experiment is in good agreement with results from previous measurements. An analysis of our data with the same input parameters as used in earlier studies gives S E1 (300) = 86 ± 22 keVb for the E1 component of the S-factor. This value is in excellent agreement with results obtained from various direct and indirect measurements. In addition, the influence of new measurements including the phase shift data from Tischhauser et al. on the value of S E1 (300) is discussed.

We have measured high resolution copper Kα spectra from a picosecond high intensity laser produced plasma. By fitting the shape of the experimental spectra with a self-consistent-field model which includes all the relevant line shifts from multiply ionized atoms, we are able to infer time and spatially averaged electron temperatures (Te) and ionization state (Z) in the foil. Our results show increasing values for Te and Z when the overall mass of the target is reduced. In particular, we measure temperatures in excess of 200 eV with Z ∼ 13-14. For these conditions the ion-ion coupling constant is Γii ∼ 8-9, thus suggesting the achievement of a strongly coupled plasma regime.

The heating of solid targets irradiated by 5 10 20 Wcm ÿ2 , 0.8 ps, 1:05 m wavelength laser light is studied by x-ray spectroscopy of the K-shell emission from thin layers of Ni, Mo, and V. A surface layer is heated to 5 keV with an axial temperature gradient of 0:6 m scale length. Images of Ni Ly show the hot region has 25 m diameter. These data are consistent with collisional particle-in-cell simulations using preformed plasma density profiles from hydrodynamic modeling which show that the >100 G bar light pressure compresses the preformed plasma and drives a shock into the solid, heating a thin layer.

Abstract. The fusion excitation function for the positive-Q-value system 12 C+ 30 Si (Q fus = +14.1 MeV) has been measured in inverse kinematics down to the µb level and compared with standard coupled-channel calculations. The appearance of the fusion hindrance phenomenon and the evidence of a S-factor maximum have been observed. This result can be significant to extrapolate the behavior of lighter astrophysical relevant systems at deep sub-barrier energies, where existing experimental data are still contradicting and affected by large errors.

We report on a study of the structure of the unbound nucleus 7 He utilizing the proton-removal reaction 2 H( 8 Li, 3 He) 7 He. Combining the present results with those of our prior measurements of the neutron-adding reaction 2 H( 6 He, p) 7 He, a consistent picture emerges for the low-lying excitations in 7 He. Specifically, the negative-parity sequence of resonances, in order of excitation energies, is consistent with 3/2 − , 1/2 − , and 5/2 − . The stable-beam reactions 2 H( 7 Li, t) 6 Li and 2 H( 7 Li, 3 He) 6 He were also measured. The results are compared with the predictions of nuclear structure models, including those of ab initio quantum Monte Carlo calculations.

IntroductionSince the construction of the first Petawatt laser on the Nova laser facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory we are witnessing the emergence of similar Petawatt-class laser systems at laboratories all around the world [i]. This new generation of lasers, able to deliver several hundred joules of energy in a sub-picosecond pulse, has enabled a host of new discoveries to be made and continues to provide a valuable tool to explore new regimes in relativistic laser-plasma physics-encompassing high energy X-rays and -rays, relativistic electrons, intense ion beams, and superstrong magnetic fields [ii,iii,iv]. The coupling in the near-future of multi-kiloJoule Petawatt-class lasers with large-scale fusion lasers-including the NIF and Omega EP (US), LIL (France), and FIREX (Japan)-will further expand opportunities in fast ignition, high energy X-ray radiography, and high energy density physics research.

The Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF) format was designed in the 1960s to accommodate neutron reaction data to support nuclear engineering applications in power, national security and criticality safety. Over the years, the scope of the format has been extended to handle many other kinds of data including charged particle, decay, atomic, photo-nuclear and thermal neutron scattering. Although ENDF has wide acceptance and support for many data types, its limited support for correlated particle emission, limited numeric precision, and general lack of extensibility mean that the nuclear data community cannot take advantage of many emerging opportunities. More generally, the ENDF format provides an unfriendly environment that makes it difficult for new data evaluators and users to create and access nuclear data.The Cross Section Evaluation Working Group (CSEWG) has begun the design of a new Generalized Nuclear Data (or 'GND') structure, meant to replace older formats with a hierarchy that mirrors the underlying physics, and is aligned with modern coding and database practices.In support of this new structure, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has updated its nuclear data/reactions management package Fudge to handle GND structured nuclear data. Fudge provides tools for converting both the latest ENDF format (ENDF-6) and the LLNL Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDL) format to and from GND, as well as for visualizing, modifying and processing (i.e., converting evaluated nuclear data into a form more suitable to transport codes) GND structured nuclear data.GND defines the structure needed for storing nuclear data evaluations and the type of data that needs to be stored. But unlike ENDF and ENDL, GND does not define how the data are to be stored in a file. Currently, Fudge writes the structured GND data to a file using the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), as it is ASCII based and can be viewed with any text editor. XML is a meta-language, meaning that it has a primitive set of definitions for representing hierarchical data/text in a file. Other meta-languages, like HDF5 which stores the data in binary form, can also be used to store GND in a file.In this paper, we will present an overview of the new GND data structures along with associated tools in Fudge.