Fusion cross sections were measured for the exotic proton-halo nucleus ⁸B incident on a ⁵⁸Ni target at several energies near the Coulomb barrier. This is the first experiment to report on the fusion of a proton-halo nucleus. The resulting excitation function shows a striking enhancement with respect to expectations for normal projectiles. Evidence is presented that the sum of the fusion and breakup yields saturates the total reaction cross section.

Carbon and oxygen burning reactions, in particular, 12 C þ 12 C fusion, are important for the understanding and interpretation of the late phases of stellar evolution as well as the ignition and nucleosynthesis in cataclysmic binary systems such as type Ia supernovae and x-ray superbursts. A new measurement of this reaction has been performed at the University of Notre Dame using particle-γ coincidence techniques with SAND (a silicon detector array) at the high-intensity 5U Pelletron accelerator. New results for 12 C þ 12 C fusion at low energies relevant to nuclear astrophysics are reported. They show strong disagreement with a recent measurement using the indirect Trojan Horse method. The impact on the carbon burning process under astrophysical scenarios will be discussed.

Neutrinos are so far the most elusive known particles, and in the last decades many sophisticated experiments have been set up in order to clarify several questions about their intrinsic nature, in particular their masses, mass hierarchy, intrinsic nature of Majorana or Dirac particles. Evidence of the Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (NDBD) would prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles, thus improving the understanding of the universe itself. Besides the search for several large underground experiments for the direct experimental detection of NDBD, the NUMEN experiment proposes the investigation of a nuclear mechanism strongly linked to this decay: the Double Charge Exchange reactions (DCE). As such reactions share with the NDBD the same initial and final nuclear states, they could shed light on the determination of the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NMEs), which play a relevant role in the decay. The physics of DCE is described elsewhere in this issue, while the focus of this paper will be on the challenging experimental apparatus currently under construction in order to fulfil the requirements of the NUMEN experiment. The overall structure of the technological improvement to the cyclotron, along with the newly developed detection systems required for tracking and identifying the reaction products and their final excitation level are described.

Previously reported data for fusion of the 8 B + ( 58 Ni, 28 Si) systems are critically reviewed. New α particle data from the fusion of 8 B + 58 Ni also are reported, but the paper is mostly based on using realistic calculations of well established codes to reanalyze the previous data. The influence of breakup protons on the evaporation proton measurements for the heavier system is found to be small at all energies except for the lowest one measured, and corrections are made for this process. Possible model dependencies in the deduced fusion cross sections are investigated using three different evaporation codes. The data sets for the 58 Ni and 28 Si targets are shown to be consistent with each other and with fusion enhancement up to energies that are greater than the Coulomb barrier V b (E c.m. < ∼ V b + 1.5×hω). This limit corresponds to 6.2 MeV above the barrier for the 58 Ni target. An important difference with the behaviour of neutron-halo systems is thus confirmed.PACS numbers: 25.60. Pj ,

The 40Ca(18O,18F)40K single charge exchange (SCE) reaction is explored at an incident energy of 275 MeV and analyzed consistently by collecting the elastic scattering and inelastic scattering data under the same experimental conditions. Full quantum-mechanical SCE calculations of the direct mechanism are performed by including microscopic nuclear structure inputs and adopting either a bare optical potential or a coupled channel equivalent polarization potential (CCEP) constrained by the elastic and inelastic data. The direct SCE mechanism describes the magnitude and shape of the angular distributions rather well, thus suggesting the suppression of sequential multi-nucleon transfer processes.

Evaporation-proton yields were measured for the fusion of the weakly-bound nucleus 6 Li on a 58 Ni target at six near-or sub-barrier bombarding energies. Effects of the one-neutron transfer reaction were estimated and corrections made. Total-fusion cross sections were deduced using calculated proton multiplicities. The resulting fusion excitation function shows a considerable enhancement with respect to calculations for a bare potential. Inelastic couplings are estimated to have insignificant effects on such fusion. The sum of total fusion plus one-neutron transfer cross sections nearly saturates the total reaction cross section in the energy region measured. Comparison with previous results appropriately scaled for the 6 Li + ( 59 Co, 64 Ni, 64 Zn) systems shows good consistency except for some data spread at the lower energies.

Double charge exchange (DCE) reactions could provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-β decay. To achieve this goal, a detailed description of the reaction mechanism is mandatory. This requires the full characterization of the initial and final-state interactions, which are poorly known for many of the projectile-target systems involved in future DCE studies. Among these, we intend to study the 20Ne + 130Te and 18O + 116Sn systems at 15.3 AMeV, which are particularly relevant due to their connection with the 130Te→130Xe and 116Cd→116Sn double-β decays. We measure the elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions and compare them with theoretical calculations performed in the optical model, one-step distorted wave Born approximation, and coupled-channel approaches using the São Paulo double-folding optical potential. A good description of the experimental data in the whole explored range of transferred momenta is obtained provided that couplings with the 21+ states of the projectile and target are explicitly included within the coupled-channel approach. These results are relevant also in the analysis of other quasi-elastic reaction channels in these systems, in which the same couplings should be included.

Evaporation proton yields were measured for the fusion of the radioactive proton-rich nucleus 7 Be onto a 58 Ni target at six near-barrier energies. Total fusion cross sections were deduced by using calculated proton multiplicities. The resulting fusion excitation function shows a considerable enhancement with respect to calculations for a bare potential, even for energies above the Coulomb barrier. Inelastic couplings can account for the enhancement at the highest energy. Total fusion channels nearly saturate the total reaction cross section in the measured energy region. Comparison with previous results scaled appropriately for 7 Be + ( 27 Al, 238 U) shows good agreement.