Nuclear Physics News

International
Volume 23, Issue 3
JulySeptember 2013

FEATURING:
The Radioactive Ion Beams in Brazil (RIBRAS) Facility
Double Beta Decay Experiments: Beginning of a New Era

10619127(2013)23(3)
 Nuclear Physics News
Volume 23/No. 3

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Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 1

Nuclear
Physics Volume 23/No. 3

News
Contents
Editorial
The International Dimension of FAIR
by Boris Sharkov...................................................................................................................................... 3
Laboratory Portrait
The Radioactive Ion Beams in Brazil (RIBRAS) Facility
by A. Lpine-Szily, R. Lichtenthler, and V. Guimares........................................................................... 5
Feature Articles
Double Beta Decay Experiments: Beginning of a New Era
by Alexander Barabash and Fabrice Piquemal....................................................................................... 12
Facilities and Methods
Pushing In-Beam Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy to the Shores of the Island of Stability
by Benot Gall and Paul Greenlees.......................................................................................................... 19
Impact and Applications
Neutron Capture Therapy: A Highly Selective Tumor Treatment
by Saverio Altieri...................................................................................................................................... 24
Crystal Deflectors for High Energy Ion Beams
by W. Scandale and A. M. Taratin............................................................................................................ 29
Meeting Reports
Nuclear Structure 2012
by F. G. Kondev and T. Lauritsen............................................................................................................. 33
FB20: The 20th International Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics
by Kenshi Sagara..................................................................................................................................... 34
VI International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei EXON-2012
by Yu. Penionzhkevich.............................................................................................................................. 35
News and Views
IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Nuclear Physics, 2013
by Hideyuki Sakai..................................................................................................................................... 37
Nuclear Physics Research: An International Perspective
by Willem T. H. van Oers.......................................................................................................................... 38
Obituary
In Memoriam: Enrico Farnea (19702013)
by Dino Bazzacco and Andres Gadea...................................................................................................... 40
Calendar................................................................................................................................ Inside Back Cover

Cover Illustration: The RIBRAS facility is installed in the Open Laboratory for Nuclear Physics. The stable beam comes from the
left, the production target is located on the left side of the first solenoid. Between the two solenoids one can see the intermediate
scattering chamber. At the right extremity, after the second solenoid, the new, large scattering chamber can be seen (see article on
page 5).

2 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013


The International Dimension of FAIR
The starting shot for the construc-
tion of a new international accelerator
facility for the research with antipro-
tons and ions in Europe (FAIR) was
been given on 4 October 2010 in Wies-
baden, wherethe international owners
founded the FAIR GmbH. On this day
science ministers and state secretaries
from Germany, Finland, France, India,
Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia,
and Sweden signed the international
agreement on the construction of the
accelerator facility FAIR, which will
be located in Darmstadt, Germany. The
United Kingdom joined FAIR later as
an associated partner.
FAIR is being built in cooperation
with an international community of
countries and scientists. The participat-
ing countries contribute their technical
and scientific expertise to the project,
in addition to their financial and in-kind
input. The construction of the facility is
financed by a joint international effort
of so far ten member states. The inter-
national agreement has cleared the way
for its realization. Germany together
with the State of Hesse is the major
contributor to the construction; other
international partners bear ca. 30% of
the total construction costs of approxi-
mately 1.6 billion EUR.
The Mission of the FAIR GmbH is
to coordinate the construction of the
accelerator and experiment facilities
and their subsequent exploitation dur-
ing the operation phase after.
The FAIR accelerator center is one
of the largest projects for fundamental
research in physics and the most so-
phisticated accelerator center world-
wide. FAIR will generate antiproton
and ion beams of a previously unpar-
The views expressed here do not represent the views and policies of NuPECC except where explicitly identified.
alleled intensity and quality. When
completed, FAIR will comprise eight
ring accelerators of up to 1,100 meters
in circumference, two linear accel-
erators, and around 3.5 kilometers of
beam-lines. The existing GSI accel-
erators will serve as pre-accelerators
for the new facility.
FAIR will make it possible to con-
duct a wider range of experiments than
ever before, enabling scientists from
all over the world to gain new insights
into the structure of matter and the
evolution of the universe since the Big
Bang. It will be a host laboratory for
basic research for about 3,000 scien-
tists from about 50 countries all over
the world who are already working on
the preparation of the experiments and
the development of accelerator com-
ponents. Therefore FAIR becomes a
new and fascinating opportunity for
qualified science and international co-
operation.
FAIR will provide worldwide
unique accelerator and experimental
facilities allowing for a large variety
of unprecedented fore-front research
in physics and applied science. Indeed,
it is the largest basic research project
on the roadmap of the European Strat-
egy Forum of Research Infrastructures
(ESFRI), and it is a cornerstone of the
European research area. FAIR offers
to scientists from the whole world an
abundance of outstanding research op-
portunities, broader in scope than any
other contemporary large-scale facil-
ity in the world.
In order to enable an expeditious
start of the FAIR construction, the
FAIR Joint Core Team and the Sci-
entific and Technical Issues Working
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 3
editorial
Group were mandated by the Interna-
tional Steering Committee in 2007 to
prepare a proposal for a start version
accounting for recent cost estimates
and the firm funding commitments
while securing top scientific excel-
lence and outstanding discovery po-
tential of the facility. This Modular-
ized Start Version (MSV) secures a
swift start of FAIR with outstanding
science potential for all scientific ar-
eas of FAIR within the current funding
commitments.
The outstanding scientific value of
the research program within the MSV
was recently reevaluated thoroughly
and confirmed by the Scientific Coun-
cil of FAIR.
The FAIR facility construction pe-
riod will last several years, with the
completion of construction projected
for 2018. However, the commence-
ment of research on several subsys-
tems of the accelerator complex is
planned for 2017.
The start of the real construction
activities on the FAIR construction
site end of 2012 has constituted a very
important and highly visible signal to
the scientific community worldwide.
Partner countries are involved in
making contributions to the project in
the form of delivery of high-technol-
ogy equipment and components of ex-
perimental facilities, as well as in the
form of cash payments.
In the course of wide international
co-operation in the framework of the
FAIR project, the main investments by
the partner countries will be made in
the support of the national research in-
stitutes involved in the project, as well
as in the national high-technology in-
editorial
dustry. During the construction of the
accelerator complex, numerous Rus-
sian, Indian, Polish, Slovenian, and
French research institutions and in-
dustrial companies received contracts
for the development and manufactur-
ing of high-technology components of
experimental detectors and accelerator
components.
The FAIR core facility embraces
the 14 experiments that have been
approved by the International Steer-
ing Committee already in 2006.
These approved experiments form
the four scientific pillars of the FAIR
research program and allow for am-
bitious fore-front studies in hadron,
nuclear, and atomic physics and ap-
plied sciences. Already today, over
2,500 scientists and engineers are
involved in the design and prepara-
tion of the FAIR experiments. They
are organized in the experimental
collaborations and coordinated by the
Board of FAIR Collaborations (BFC)
in close contact with the research di-
vision of the FAIR GmbH. Members
of international collaborations are
widely involved nowadays in design
and development of the components
for experimental detectors. Respec-
tive Technical Design Reports (TDR)
are being evaluated by the newly es-
tablished Expert Committee Experi-
ments.
The FAIR project is of significant
scientific and practical interest to the
international scientific community
and opens the possibility for acquiring
new fundamental knowledge about
the structure and properties of mat-
ter, educating young scientists and
engineers, and developing computing
technologies.
The FAIR project is of great sci-
entific and practical interest for the
international scientific community,
giving a new impetus/momentum to
4 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
the development of high technology
in various sectors of the economy, the
training of young scientists, engineers,
development of IT-technologies, and
further the active integration into the
world and European scientific and
technological space.
It provides also a unique scientific
and technological environment for
educating the next generations of stu-
dents and preparing them for careers
in basic research and industry. In view
of tough international competition,
this is of great importance for all FAIR
partners. In this context the German
Helmholtz Association and the Rus-
sian State Atomic Energy Corporation
(ROSATOM) created the FAIR-
Russia Research Centre (FRRC) in
2008, at the site of the Institute of
Theoretical and Experimental Phys-
ics (ITEP) in Moscow. An ambitious
community of ca. 60 highly qualified
young Russian scientists involved
in FAIR-related research has been
formed through the program of FRRC.
Several of these young scientists have
great potential to become leaders in
Russian FAIR science.
The main strategic aims of FRRC
are approved and will remain valid
in the future for other FAIR partner
countries:
Coordination of national FAIR-
research activities and work
packages, such as development
of new detectors and accelerator
technologies and contributions
toward physics issues to be ex-
plored at FAIR;
Spreading the scientific atmo-
sphere and spirit from the FAIR
site to Russia in order to generate
a creative environment similar
to the one at other research and
teaching beacons, promoting
cross-fertilization and competi-
tion for both scientists from re-
search laboratories and for staff
and students from universities;
Support for masters and Ph.D.
students as well as for post-docs
from excellent Russian univer-
sities in various fields of funda-
mental and applied sciences and
technology;
Funding for Russian students in
the form of grants in addition to
their salaries, offering flexible
pay schemes, and promoting sci-
entific excellence.
Many FAIR-related workshops
were organized or supported. Espe-
cially important were: international
workshops on physics programs
of CBM, NUSTAR, PANDA, and
SPARC collaborations, on Heavy Ion
Stopping, High energy Proton Mi-
croscopy and Non-Ideal Plasma re-
searches; Meetings of Russian groups
of CBM and PANDA collaborations;
and seminars for young researchers.
We intend to use the FRRC as a
role model that should be emulated
by other member countries of FAIR.
India, for example, has expressed her
interest in a similar national center. It
is quite difficult to organize coherent
and consistent research efforts in large
countries like Russia and India due to
large distances. Bundling the minds of
bright young scientists will optimize
the science output as well as the edu-
cation of themselves.
Boris Sharkov
FAIR Darmstadt

The Radioactive Ion Beams in Brazil
(RIBRAS) Facility
Introduction
The availability of radioactive
beams provides new opportunities in
nuclear physics [1]. On the one hand,
they provide a probe of the nuclear
structure in unusual conditions of ex-
citation energy and isospin. Many ex-
periments have been performed with
beams such as 6He, 8He 11Li, 11Be,
among others (see references in Ref.
[1]). At energies near the Coulomb bar-
rier or above, these experiments provide
valuable information on the structure
of exotic nuclei and on the dynamics
of the nuclear reactions between them.
On the other hand, recent experiments
involving radioactive beams have been
very successful in nuclear astrophysics,
where many stellar scenarios involve
short-lived nuclei [2].
The Radioactive Ion Beams in
Brazil (RIBRAS) [3] system was con-
ceived in a workshop organized in Sao
Paulo in 1998 to extend the capabili-
ties of the Pelletron Tandem accelera-
tor by producing secondary beams of
unstable nuclei. The decision for the
solenoid solution was partly taken by
the successful example of the TWIN-
SOL facility [4] installed at Notre
Dame University. However, due to the
future perspective of a LINAC post-
accelerator of maximum energy of 10
MeV/nucleon, the superconducting
solenoids were designed to cope with
ion beams of this higher energy.
In operation since 2004, RIBRAS
is the most recent experimental facil-
ity of the Open Laboratory of Nuclear
Physics (OLNP) at the Physics Insti-
tute of the University of Sao Paulo
(IFUSP), in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It is the
first radioactive ion beam facility in
the Southern Hemisphere and the only
one in Latin America. A picture of this
facility is shown in the cover photo.
The OLNP is the main nuclear
physics laboratory in Brazil. It has
about a dozen active local researchers
and about the same number of techni-
cal staff. It has also a large number of
undergraduate and graduate students
as well as post-doctoral fellows. The
average number of Ph.D. and masters
theses realized in the OLNP is about
5 theses/year. Seven Ph.D. and two
masters theses have been defended
using the RIBRAS facility and the
number of post-docs is similar. The
RIBRAS is open to local and exter-
nal users. The number of external us-
ers of OLNP from other institutions
of Brazil or Argentina, but also from
other countries, such as India, Italy,
is about 20 persons. The OLNP has a
Program Advisory Committee (PAC)
which meets once a year: 264 days
were proposed and 212 days were ap-
proved by the PAC during the latest
meeting in 2012. The Users Group is
composed of all users with approved
proposals in the two latest PAC meet-
ings, including students. The OLNP is
organized around the 8MV Pelletron
Tandem, installed in 1972 [5]; it is the
first large Pelletron Tandem built by
the National Electrostatic Corpora-
tion (NEC). Since its installation, the
accelerator has been running continu-
ally. Recently, resistors were installed
in the charging system, improving
its performance, stability, and beam
intensities, at the maximum terminal
potential of 8 MV.
Facility Description
The 8UD Pelletron Tandem ac-
celerates continuous stable beams:
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 5
laboratory portrait
protons, deuterons, Li, Be, B, C, O, F,
Si isotopes and heavier ions up to Cu,
with typical intensities around Ae.
The maximum energies are between
25 MeV/nucleon. The OLNP has a
superconducting LINAC in installa-
tion, which will raise the energy of
the stable beams to 10 MeV/nucleon.
Pulsed beams of Li, Be, B, C, O iso-
topes and heavier beams will be
available with the completion of the
LINAC post-accelerator.
For the production of unstable
beams, the RIBRAS system uses the
so called in-flight method. In this
technique, the radioactive beams are
produced on-line by a nuclear reaction
(one- or two-nucleon transfer reac-
tions), triggered by a stable primary
beam on a stable target. Usually, many
different species are produced with
similar intensities and the beam of in-
terest has to be selected and focused
by an electromagnetic selector device.
If the production reaction occurs in
inverse kinematics with a heavier pri-
mary beam hitting a light production
target, the kinematic focusing is bet-
ter. The main advantages are: (i) this
production mode can be used for very
short lived species; (ii) depending on
the reaction mode, intense beams can
be produced; (iii) the secondary beam
can be of very low energy, depending
on the energy of the primary beam,
which is an advantage for nuclear as-
trophysics. The disadvantages are the
beam quality and purity, which are not
excellent, and the limitation to radio-
active species not very far from the
stability valley.
The secondary beams already pro-
duced with RIBRAS are presented in
Table 1, together with the nuclear re-
laboratory portrait

Table 1. Secondary beams produced at the RIBRAS facility together with the the second solenoid. The experimental
nuclear reaction used for their production. Their intensities obtained in the in- set-up, with the production target, the
termediate chamber, the FWHM of the beams and their energies are also shown. W beam stopper, the two solenoids,
Resolution and both scattering chambers is pre-
Secondary beam Production reaction Intensity (pps) (keV)/energy sented in Figure 1.
8Li 9Be(7Li,8Li)8Be 105106
The first solenoid makes an in-
500/25.8 MeV
6He 9Be(7Li,6He)10B 105 flight selection by the magnetic rigid-
1,000/22 MeV
7Be 3He(6Li,7Be)d 104105 800/18.8 MeV
ity of the reaction products emerging
7Be 7Li(6Li,7Be)6He 104 600/21 MeV from the primary target in the forward
8B 3He(6Li,8B)n 104 >1,000/15.6 MeV angle region. As the first magnet fo-
10Be 9Be(11B,10Be)10B 105 1,000/23.2 MeV cuses all ions with the same magnetic
rigidity, the beam of interest can be
accompanied by many contaminant
action used for their production. Their which consists of a gas cell, mounted beams of the same magnetic rigidity,
intensities obtained in the intermediate in an ISO chamber, before the first but different charges, masses and en-
chamber, between the two solenoids solenoid. The primary target can be ergies. A collimator at the entrance of
and their energy resolutions are also a gas, or a solid target, such as a 9Be the first solenoid limits the maximum
indicated in the table. The energy reso- foil, which is mounted on the gas cell angular acceptance to 6 degrees, so
lution quoted depends also on the beam window. A few centimeters behind the in this set-up the angular acceptance
energy and target thickness, since it gas cell there is a tungsten rod with of the first solenoid is 4 degrees, be-
was determined from the full width at electron suppression and a cylindrical tween 2 and 6 deg. The beam profile
half maximum (FWHM) of the elas- hole to stop and collect the primary in the center of the intermediate cham-
tic peaks on a gold target, measured beam particles (Faraday cup). The W ber was measured using an x-y posi-
at forward angles. The table gives the beam stopper cuts the primary beam, tion sensitive parallel plate avalanche
FWHM of the beam and its energy. but also the secondary beams in the counter (PPAC), and more recently by
The most important components of angular region between zero and 2 de- using a position sensitive (PSD) Si de-
this facility, which provide the selec- grees. The system has an intermediate tector. The beam spot has a diameter
tion and focusing of the beam of inter- target chamber (25 cm diameter ISO between 3.5 and 4 mm. The angular
est, are two superconducting solenoids chamber) between the two solenoids. divergence of the secondary beam in
that were manufactured by Cryomag- Recently a new, large (70 cm diame- the intermediate chamber is 3.2 de-
netics Inc. (USA). They have a 6.5 T ter) target chamber was installed after grees, between 1.3 and 4.5 degrees.
maximum central magnetic field (5 Tm
axial field integral) and the supercon-
ducting coil is immersed in a vessel,
which contains a maximum of 250 l of
liquid Helium (LHe), with a boil-off
rate of 23 liters/day. The LHe ves-
sel is surrounded by a liquid Nitrogen
vessel of 130 l. The solenoid has no
external iron choke, so there is a weak
external magnetic field. The second-
ary beam passes through an evacuated
tube with 27 cm diameter, installed in
the 30 cm clear warm bore of the so-
lenoids. The solenoids are installed on
the 45 degree beam-line in the experi-
mental area of the Pelletron Tandem. Figure 1. The experimental set-up, from the left, with the production target,
The primary beam accelerated by the W beam stopper, the first solenoid followed by the intermediate scattering
the Pelletron Tandem arrives at the chambers, with the secondary target and detectors installed in it, followed by
production system (primary target), the second solenoid and the large scattering chamber.

6 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013


Figure 2. Bidimensional energy spectra obtained using a Si telescope at
lab =10, in the large chamber after the second solenoid, with the secondary
beams focused on a gold target. Spectrum A was obtained without a degrader
and spectrum B with a degrader.
The presence of the two magnets is
important to produce pure secondary
beams. With two solenoids it is pos-
sible to use a degrader at the crossover
point between them, where the differ-
ent ions have different energy losses
and their magnetic rigidities change.
Choosing the magnetic field in the
second solenoid to focus only the
secondary beam of interest, the con-
taminant ions are no longer focused.
The system also has several blockers,
which are circular obstacles, which
can be moved along the beam axis.
The position of the blocker is chosen
at the crossover point of the main con-
taminant beams. Several collimators
can also be installed along the beam-
line, allowing only the beam particles
that hit the degrader and the secondary
target. A recent measurement shows
that the purity of the 8Li beams after
the second solenoid was about 99%,
to be compared with a purity of 65%,
without the use of degrader (Figure 2).
The beam profile was measured after
the second solenoid with a PSD detec-
tor mounted in the center of the large
chamber and the diameter of the beam
spot was 6.57 mm.
The vacuum in the system is 106
torr, obtained using a turbo pump be-
fore the first solenoid, a cryogenic-
pump between the two solenoids
and an orbitron pump on the stable
beam-line before the solenoids. The
measurement of the time of flight
(TOF) could help to clean the sec-
ondary beams. We have built a time
detector, based on a micro-channel
plate (MCP), which is installed in the
intermediate target chamber. The ef-
ficiency of the detector is 85%, using
5.486 MeV alpha-particles of a 241Am
source.
The large scattering chamber has
two plates, where detectors can be
mounted, and they move indepen-
dently, allowing angular distribu-
tion and kinematical coincidence
measurements. Recently, large area
(5050 mm) double sided strip de-
tectors were purchased. This makes
it possible to mount simultaneously
three large area telescopes, with seg-
mented Delta E detectors of 20 and 40
m and E detectors of 1,000 m.
Research Program
Elastic Scattering and Total Reaction
Cross-Section Measurements
The first radioactive beams from
RIBRAS were delivered in February
2004, during the XIII J. A. Swieca
Summer School on Experimental
Nuclear Physics. At that time only the
first solenoid was used, and contami-
nant beams were focused together with
the selected beam of interest. In these
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 7
laboratory portrait
conditions, our research program was
mainly directed to the measurement
of the elastic scattering of radioactive
beams on different targets, the analy-
sis of the angular distributions using
optical model (OM) or continuum dis-
cretised coupled channels calculations
(CDCC) [6].
Radioactive nuclei that have small
separation energies have a large prob-
ability of breaking up when the collid-
ing nuclei approach each other. Halo
nuclei (6,8He, 11,12Be, 11Li, etc.) pres-
ent not only low separation energies,
but larger radii, which can lower the
Coulomb barrier. Also, important cou-
plings to the continuum, that may be
present in the case of halo nuclei with
quite different proton and neutron dis-
tributions, do not occur for normal nu-
clei. The correlation between the two
neutrons of the halo is also an impor-
tant feature as recent measurements on
the Coulomb dissociation of 11Li have
demonstrated [7]. Break-up effects
are also expected to play an important
role in the scattering mechanism, af-
fecting the imaginary part of the inter-
action potential. One of the important
questions is whether the effect of the
break-up is essentially to increase the
total reaction cross-section, instead
of affecting the fusion cross-section
[8]. When investigating the break-up
process of weakly bound nuclei, one
of the important questions that can be
addressed is about the nature of the
main interaction that produced the
break-up: the Coulomb or the nuclear
interaction and the importance of the
interference between them [9]. We
expect that nuclear break-up would
be dominant for a lighter target, while
Coulomb effects are expected to be
dominant for heavier-mass targets.
Therefore, it is essential to investigate
the dependence of the break-up and
total reaction cross-sections on the
break-up threshold energy of different
projectiles and on the target mass.
laboratory portrait

The 6He nucleus has a two-neutron
halo, and its elastic scattering has been
studied previously on several targets
[1]. Some works were aiming to ob-
tain detailed information on the inter-
action potential and the halo, while
others were seeking spectroscopic
information. In our measurements, we
obtained angular distributions at sev-
eral energies near the Coulomb barrier
and analyzed them with optical model
(OM) and Continuum Discretised
Coupled Channels (CDCC) calcula-
tions. These latter include the cou-
pling to unbound states, resonances,
and continuum, which describe the
break-up of the projectile.
We have performed elastic scat-
tering measurements of 6He on 27Al
[10], 51V [11], 120Sn [1214], and 9Be
[15] targets at several energies near
the Coulomb barrier. The results com-
pared to theoretical calculations can
be observed in Figure 3.
For the 6He + 27Al system [10], the
angular distributions, measured at Elab
= 9.5, 11.0, 12.0, and 13.4 MeV, were
fitted by optical model calculations
3b-CDCC
4b-CDCC
10
1 3b: no continuum
RIBRAS data
/Ruth
using the Sao Paulo Potential (SPP)
[16]. The real part of the SPP is a pa-
rameter-free, double-folding optical
potential, where the non-locality due
to the Pauli exclusion principle is taken
into account and transformed into en-
ergy dependence. The nuclear densi-
ties of the colliding partners are taken
from systematic Dirac-Hartree-Bogo-
liubov calculations and thus the poten-
tial can be used for any system over
any energy region. It has been tested
for many systems and energy regions
with very good agreement between
the data and the calculations. Usually,
the imaginary part has the same form
E=16.2 MeV
factor with a normalization factor
NI = 0.78, but it can also be a Woods-
Saxon potential obtained from fits to

0
10

the data.
10
-1
For the 6He + 120Sn system, the
(a) angular distributions measured at
10 0
-2
30 60 90 120 Elab = 17.4, 18.0, 19.8, and 20.5 MeV
E=21.3 MeV
[12] were fitted by optical model
10
1
calculations using Woods-Saxon po-
tentials and also compared to CDCC
/Ruth

0
10 calculations. The OM analysis indi-
cated long range absorption. Both ex-
-1
10 act four-body CDCC (target + 3-body
(b) 6He ( + n + n)) and the 3-body CDCC
-2
10 0 30 60 90 120 (two-body projectile plus a target) cal-
c.m. (deg)
culations were performed. In the case
of 3-body CDCC, 6He is assumed as
( + 2n) but its binding energy was
adjusted to reproduce the rms radius
of 6He [17]. They gave quite similar
results, reproducing well the experi-
mental angular distributions at all four
energies. The -particle production
was also measured [13] and its cross-
section compared to a direct 2n-trans-
fer process and to CDCC break-up
calculations. The energy spectra and
the cross-section seem to indicate that
the main source of -particles is the
2n-transfer reaction.
For the 6He + 9Be system, the elas-
Figure 3. The elastic scattering angular distributions of 6He + 27Al [10] (top tic scattering angular distributions
left), 6He + 120Sn [12] (bottom), and 6He + 9Be [15](top right) systems com- were measured at Elab = 16.2 and 21.3
pared to OM and CDCC calculations. MeV [15]. The couplings to the low-

8 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013


lying rotational states of 9Be and the
low-lying 2+ resonance of 6He were
included in coupled channels calcula-
tions, with the SPP for the real part of
the interaction. To take into account
all couplings including the continuum,
3-body and 4-body CDCC calculations
yielded good agreement with the data.
Both OM and CDCC calculations
yield total reaction cross-section val-
ues for all systems measured and
analyzed. These can be compared to
values obtained for other projectiles,
which can be: no-halo, stable, weakly
or tightly bound. In order to eliminate
size and charge effects, when compar-
ing total reaction cross-sections of dif-
ferent projectiles, such as 6He, 6,7Li,
9Be, 16O, we make the transformation
sred = sreac/(Ap1/3 + At1/3)2 and Ered =
Ecm(Ap1/3 + At1/3)/ZpZt, where Zp (Zt)
and Ap (At) are the charge and mass
of the projectile (target), respectively.
This reduction procedure was sug-
gested by Gomes et al. [18].
The reduced reaction cross-sec-
tions for the 6He + 27Al system were
similar, within experimental errors, to
those of stable, weakly bound projec-
tiles and larger than the tightly bound
16O. This result is very different from
the conclusions of the 6He + 120Sn and
6He + 51V systems, where the reduced
total reaction cross-sections were
higher than those of stable, weakly
bound, non-halo projectiles, such as
6,7Li,9Be, or of tightly bound projec-
tiles such as 4He or 16O. These phe-
nomena have been observed also for
6He both on heavy targets (i.e., 197Au,
209Bi,208Pb) [1921] and on interme-
diate mass (i.e., 64Zn, 65Cu) [22, 23]
targets. This enhancement was attrib-
uted to 1 and 2n transfer reactions and
to break-up of the projectile. The lack
of enhancement with the 27Al target
(Z = 13) was credited to lower Cou-
lomb break-up cross-sections. For the
6He + 9Be system, some enhancement
is verified but in this case both colli-
laboratory portrait
Figure 4. Comparison of the reduced reaction cross-sections of different projec-
tiles on targets with A ~ 120. The dotted lines are to guide the eye. The tightly
bound projectiles, 4He and 16O are below, the weakly bound stable or non-halo
radioactive projectiles ( 6,7,8Li) in the middle, and the 2n-halo nucleus 6He has
the highest reaction cross-section. The ref. for (a) is [12] and (b) is [24].
sion partners are weakly bound. The light target do not produce an impor-
enhancement seems to be mainly due tant enhancement in the total reaction
to nuclear break-up. In Figure 4, we cross-section compared to the tightly
present a comparison of reduced reac- bound nuclei. The strongly bound nu-
tion cross-sections for the mass region clei (4He and 12C), on the other hand,
Atarget ~ 120. present a reduction of the total reac-
Besides 6He, other light radioac- tion cross-section, probably due to
tive beams have been produced by their alpha structure that causes reac-
RIBRAS, such as 7Be, 8Li, 8B, and tion channels to be closed. We have
10Be. The reactions used to produce also performed CDCC calculations to
these beams and their respective in- investigate more explicitly the role of
tensities are listed in Table 1. Using the continuum in the scattering. In all
these beams we have performed the the works, it was shown that nuclear
following elastic scattering measure- break-up and/or transfer reactions are
ments: 7,10Be + 12C [25] (Figure 6), relevant for these systems in the en-
8Li + 12C [26], 7Be + 51V [27], 8Li + ergy region measured but not respon-
51V, and 8Li + 9Be [28]. sible for enhancement of total reaction
As for 6He, the idea of the above cross-section when compared with
measurements was to explore the in- tightly bound nuclei. In particular, a
fluence of nuclear dynamic effects, comparison of break-up for 6He and
such as break-up. Optical model 8B on 12C was performed by Paes et
analysis with the Woods-Saxon and al. [29] and the conclusion was that
Sao Paulo Potentials were applied in the break-up of the proton halo nu-
these works and total reaction cross- cleus 8B is significantly different from
sections were derived. The conclusion the break-up of the neutron halo pro-
of this systematic is that the exotic and jectile 6He. It would be interesting to
weakly bound nuclei scattered on a investigate whether the same holds for
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 9
laboratory portrait
Figure 5. The elastic scattering angular distributions of 7Be + 12C [25] (left)
and 10Be + 12C [25] (right) systems compared to OM and CDCC calculations.
the elastic scattering cross-section of
neutron rich isotopes of boron projec-
tiles such as 12B and 13B on 12C and
58Ni targets. These measurements are
being planned.
Resonant Transfer Reaction and
Elastic Scattering
The measurement of the 1H(8Li,
5 are being tested also, to increase the
) He cross-section [30] at low ener-
gies was performed at RIBRAS with
a 8Li beam. This transfer reaction
could be measured in the intermedi-
ate chamber due to its very high posi-
tive Q-value (Q = +14.42 MeV). We
have obtained the excitation function
of the 8Li + p 4He + 5He reaction
[30] between Ecm = 0.22.1 MeV in
inverse kinematics, by detecting the
energetic -particles at forward angles
with four Si telescopes. We used a
thick polyethylene target (CH2)n of
6.8 mg/cm2 and a secondary beam of
8Li at four different incident energies:
13.2, 14.5, 17.4, and 19.0 MeV. The
contribution of the -particles from
the decay of the 5He was calculated
by a Monte-Carlo simulation and was
subtracted from the energy spectra; it
mainly contributed to the background.
The reaction populated high lying
resonances in the compound nucleus
9Be. The thick target method allows
the simultaneous measurement of all
9Be resonances populated while the
projectile is slowing down in the tar-
get. Thus, the energy spectrum of the
10 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
-particles represents the excitation
function of the reaction and peaks in
the energy spectrum correspond to
resonances in the excitation function.
We present in Figure 6 the excitation
function measured at cm = 156 with
an R-matrix fit to the data. This result
indicates that the 8Li(p, )5He reaction
is much faster than the 8Li(,n)11B re-
action. The reaction 8Li(,n)11B [31]
could have importance in the nonstan-
dard primordial nucleosynthesis [32]
and could also affect the r-process nu-
cleosynthesis [33].
In our more recent measurements,
we are using both solenoids, a de-
grader, and the secondary target and
detectors installed in the large cham-
ber [34]. The resonant elastic scat-
tering of, respectively, 6He and 8Li
beams, on proton targets ((CH2)n
polyethylene foil) was measured re-
cently in these conditions. Good beam
purity was guaranteed and the recoil-
ing protons could be measured with-
out contamination. These data are still
being analyzed.
Future
The installation of the large scat-
tering chamber following the second
solenoid opens a new and bright fu-
ture for RIBRAS. With the purifica-
tion of the secondary beam, by the
use of a degrader between the two
solenoids, the realization of fusion,
break-up, or transfer reactions, us-
ing radioactive projectiles, becomes
feasible. The installation of the new,
large area (5050 mm), double sided
strip detectors, constituting three
large area telescopes, with segmented
Delta E detectors of 20 and 40 m
and E detectors of 1,000 m will in-
crease our detection efficiency and
reduce the angular dispersion of our
data. In the OLNP, we also have two
large area, position sensitive neutron
walls, not used for some time, which
are being renovated and will be in op-
eration soon.
With a second time detector, based
on a micro-channel plate (MCP), in-
stalled at the entrance of the large
chamber, the TOF of the secondary
beams will be measured in an effi-
cient way, improving the beam selec-
tion purity. New production reactions
available radioactive beams. All these
improvements, summed with the fact
that we have plenty of beam time
available, indicate a bright future for
RIBRAS in the field of low-energy,
light radioactive ion beams.
The LINAC post-accelerator will
raise the energy of the stable beams to
10 MeV/nucleon and pulsed beams of
Li, Be, B, C, O isotopes and heavier
beams will be available with its com-
Figure 6. The excitation function of
the 8Li(p,)5He reaction [30] with the
R-matrix fit.

pletion. At the present time, the
RIBRAS system is installed in the ex-
perimental area of the Pelletron Accel-
erator, on the 45 beam-line; however,
it was designed to cope with higher
energy beams. After the completion of
the LINAC it can move to the LINAC
experimental area, to make use of the
higher beam energy, more beam vari-
ety, which can produce a much larger
list of more energetic radioactive
beams. With all these perspectives,
we are optimistic about the future of
RIBRAS.
Conclusions
The RIBRAS system is the most
recent experimental facility of the
OLNP at the IFUSP, in Sao Paulo,
Brazil. It is the first radioactive ion
beam facility in the Southern Hemi-
sphere and the only one in Latin
America. The most important com-
ponents of this facility, which pro-
vide the selection and focusing of
the beam of interest, are two super-
conducting solenoids with 6.5 T
maximum central magnetic field (5
Tm axial field integral). The beams,
which have already been tested and
used, are 6He, 8Li, 7,10Be, 8B with
intensities around 104106 pps. The
radioactive beams produced by the
in-flight method can be purified by
the use of a degrader between the two
solenoids. Several elastic scattering
reactions have been measured, us-
ing 9Be, 12C, 27Al, 51V, 58Ni, 120Sn
targets and the above-quoted beams
[1015, 2528, 30, 34]. The mea-
surement of the Coulomb excitation
of 8Li is one of the planned experi-
ments. The excitation functions of the
resonant elastic scattering and trans-
fer reactions such as 1H(8Li,p)8Li
and 1H(6He,p)6He, and 1H(8Li,)5He
[30], were measured using inverse ki-
nematics and the thick target method
and are being analyzed. TOF mea-
surements and new detection sys-
tems will further improve the beam
purity and the detection efficiency.
With these improvements the re-
search program will be extended to
fusion, break-up, and transfer reac-
tions, making use of the beam purity,
the better detection systems, and the
beam availability.
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R. Lichtenthler
V. Guimares
Instituto de Fsica,
Universidade de So Paulo,
So Paulo, Brazil
feature article

Double Beta Decay Experiments:

Beginning of a New Era
Alexander Barabash
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25,
Moscow 117218, Russia
Fabrice Piquemal
CNRS/IN2P3, CENBG, UMR 5797, Gradignan F-33175, France

Introduction Current Large-Scale Experiments

Interest in neutrinoless double beta decay (0)
has seen a significant renewal in the recent 10 years
after evidence for neutrino oscillations was obtained from
the results of atmospheric, solar, reactor, and accelerator
neutrino experiments. These results are impressive proof
that neutrinos have a nonzero mass. The detection and
study of 0 decay may clarify the following problems
of neutrino physics: (i) lepton number non-conservation,
(ii) neutrino nature: whether the neutrino is a Dirac or
a Majorana particle, (iii) absolute neutrino mass scale,
(iv) the type of neutrino mass hierarchy (normal, inverted,
or quasidegenerate), and (v) CP violation in the lepton
sector (measurement of the Majorana CP-violating
phases).
Progress in the double beta decay is connected with in-
crease in mass of a studied isotope and sharp decrease in
a background. During a long time (19481980) samples
with mass of isotope ~125 grams were used. So the first
observation of a two neutrino double beta decay in direct
(counting) experiment was done in 1987 when studying 14
g of enriched 82Se [1]. And only in the 80thbeginning of
the 90th the mass of studied isotope increased to a hundred
grams and even to 1 kg. In the 90th Heidelberg-Moscow
[2] and IGEX [3] experiments, containing 11 kg and 6.5
kg of 76Ge, respectively, were started. They were followed
at the beginning of the 2000s by the NEMO 3 [4] and CU-
ORICINO [5] detectors, containing approximately 10 kg of
isotopes.
In 2011 the EXO200 [6] and KamLANDZen [7] in-
stallations in which hundreds of kilograms of 136Xe are
used already were started. Soon it is planned to carry out
the start of several more installations with mass of stud-
ied isotopes ~100 kg (SNO+ [8] and CUORE [9]). And it
means the beginning of a new era in decay experiments
when sensitivity to effective Majorana mass of neutrino
will reach for the first time values m < 0.1 eV. to the hitted calorimetric counters.
In this section the current large-scale experiments are
discussed. The running CANDLES III using CaF2 scintil-
lating crystal is not included in this review because the de-
tector performances and results are not yet presented.
NEMO 3
Since June of 2002 and to January of 2011, the NEMO 3
detector has been operated in the Frejus Underground Lab-
oratory (France) located at a depth of 4,800 m w.e. The final
analysis is ongoing. The detector has a cylindrical structure
and consists of 20 identical sectors (Figure 1). A thin (30
60 mg/cm2) source containing double beta decaying nuclei
and natural material foils is placed at the center of the de-
tector. NEMO 3 can accomodate up to 10 kg of isotope. The
central source foil is sandwiched by drift chambers working
in Geiger mode (6,180 cells) to reconstruct the tracks of the
electrons. The energy of the electrons is measured by plas-
tic scintillators coupled to photomultipliers (PMT) (1940
Figure 1. (left) The NEMO 3 detector without shielding.
(right) Typical event in NEMO 3. The electrons are emit-
ted from the source foil, the circles correspond to the hit
in the tracking volume, the curved line to the recontructed
trajectories with the magnetic field, and the large squares

12 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013

 feature article

100
Mo, 7 kg, Phase 2, 3.49 y 100
Mo, 7 kg, Phase 2, 3.49 y 100
Mo, 7 kg, Phase 2, 3.49 y
Number of events / 0.1 MeV

40000 60000

Number of entries / 0.05 MeV

Number of events
NEMO 3 NEMO 3 40000 NEMO 3
Data Data Data
100Mo 100
Mo 100Mo
30000 Tot bkg Tot bkg Tot bkg
30000
40000

20000
20000

20000
10000
10000

0 0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
ETOT(MeV) Ee(MeV) cos()
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 2. Total energy, individual energy, and angular distributions of the 100Mo 2 events in the NEMO 3 experiment for
the low radon data phase (3.49 years).

individual counters) surrounding both source and tracker No evidence for 0 decay was found for all seven iso-
volume. topes. The associated limits are presented in Table 1. Best
The unique feature of electron identification and track- limit has been obtained for 100Mo, T1/2(0) > 1.1 1024yr (90%
ing combined with time and energy measurements makes it C.L.). Corresponding limit on the neutrino mass is m <
possible to suppress drastically the background. A typical 0.290.7 eV.
event is shown in Figure 1. Using the NEMO 3 detector, Data analysis proceeds and Collaboration hope for re-
7 isotopes 100Mo (6.9 kg), 82Se (0.93 kg), 116Cd (405 g), ceiving final results for all seven isotopes in the near future
150Nd (36.6 g), 96Zr (9.4 g), 130Te (454 g), and 48Ca (7 g) are (20132014).
investigated.
Figure 2 displays the spectrum of 2 events for 100Mo EXO200
collected over 3.49 years. The angular distribution and EXO200 (Enriched Xenon Observatory) has been op-
single electron spectrum are also shown. The total num- erating at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP, 1,585 m
ber of events exceeds 700,000, which is much greater than w.e.) since May 2011. The experiment consists of 175 kg
the total statistics of all of the preceding experiments with of Xe enriched to 80.6% in 136Xe housed in a liquid time
100Mo (and even greater than the total statistics of all pre- projection chamber (TPC). Both ionization and scintilla-
vious 2 decay experiments!). The NEMO 3 results of tion are used to measure the energy with a resolution of
2 half-life measurements are given in Table 1. For all 3.9% (FWHM) at 2,615 MeV. The detector is capable of
the isotopes the energy sum spectrum, single electron en- effectively rejecting rays through topological cuts. EXO
ergy spectrum and angular distribution were measured. The 200 has recently claimed the first observation of 2 in
100Mo double-beta decay to the 0+ excited state of 100Ru 136Xe (Q = 2458.7 keV) [8]. Initial results on 0 decay
1
has also been measured by NEMO 3. together with new result for 2 mode are published in

Table 1. Preliminary results from NEMO 3 (only part of full statistic has been analyzed).
Isotope T1/2(2), yr T1/2(0), yr
100Mo (7.11 0.02 0.54) 1018 >1.1 1024
100Mo (5.7+10..39 0.8) 1020 >8.9 1022
100Ru (0+1)
82Se (9.6 0.3 1.0) 1019 >3.6 1023
130Te (7.0 0.9 1.1) 1020 >1.3 1023
150Nd (9.11+00..2252 0.63) 1018 >1.8 1022
96Zr (2.35 0.14 0.16) 1019 >9.2 1021
116Cd (2.88 0.04 0.16) 1019 >1.3 1023
48Ca (4.4+00..54 0.4) 1019 >1.3 1022

Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 13

 feature article

35 from 25 m thick transparent nylon film and is suspended

30 MS at the center of the KamLAND detector by 12 film straps
25
of the same material. The IB is surrounded by 1 kton of liq-
counts /20keV

uid scintillator (LS) contained in a 13 m diameter spherical

20
Outer Balloon (OB) made of 135 m thick composite film.
15 The outer LS acts as an active shield for external -rays
10 and as a detector for internal radiation from the XeLS or
5 IB. The XeLS contains (2.52 0.07)% by weight of en-
riched xenon gas (full weight of xenon is ~330 kg). The
0
8 isotopic abundances in the enriched xenon were measured
SS by residual gas analyzer to be (90.93 0.05)% of 136Xe.
Scintillation light is detected by 1,325 17-inch and 554 20-
6
inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The energy resolution
counts /20keV

is 9.9% (FWHM) at 2.458 MeV. The energy spectrum of

4
decay candidates is shown in Figure 5. Unexpectedly
detected background (BI 104 counts/keVkgyr) is ~ two
2
order of magnitude higher than estimated background using
previous data of KamLAND detector. Nevertheless, the 2
0 decay of 136Xe has been measured corresponding to a 136Xe
2000 2200 2400 2600 2800 3000 3200
energy (keV) 2 decay half-life of [11]:
Figure 3. Energy spectra in the 136Xe Q
region for mul-
T1/2 (2 , 136Xe) = [2.30 0.02(stat) 0.12(syst)] 1021 yr
tiple-site (top) and single-site (bottom) events. The 1 (2)
(3)
regions around Q are shown by solid (dashed) vertical
lines [10]. This is consistent with the result obtained by EXO200. For
0 decay, the data give a lower limit of T1/2 (0, 136Xe) >
6.2 1024 yr (90% C.L.) [11], which corresponds to limit,
Ref. [10]. The fiducial volume used in this analysis contains
m < 0.22 0.6 eV.
79.4 kg of 136Xe (3.52 1026 atoms), corresponding to 98.5
Now the Collaboration undertakes efforts to understand
kg of active enriched liquid Xe. Background index in the 0
and decrease the background. In principle, it could be low-
region is 1.4 10-3 counts/KeV kg yr (Figure 3). Results
ered approximately by 100. If it will be done, the sensitivity
obtained after 2,896.6 h of measurements are the following:
of the experiment will essentially increase and for 3 years
T1/2 (2 , 136Xe) = [2.23 0.017(stat) 0.22(syst)] 1021 yr
(1)
Chimney
T1/2 (0 , 136Xe) > 1.6 1025 y (2) Corrugated Tube

The last result provides upper limit m < 0.140.38 eV Film Pipe
depending of NME values. With the present background, Suspending Film Strap
the predicted EXO200 sensitivity after 5 years of data tak-
Photomultiplier Tube
ing will be T1/2 ~ 4 1025 yr (m ~ 0.090.24 eV).
ThO2W Calibration Point
This project is also a prototype for a planned 1 ton
sized experiment that may include the ability to identify the
daughter of 136Ba in real time, effectively eliminating all
Xe-LS 13 ton
classes of background except that due to 2 decay. (300 kg 136Xe) Buffer Oil
Outer Balloon
Outer LS
KamLANDZen 1 kton (13 m diameter)
The detector KamLANDZen (Figure 4) is a modifica- Inner Balloon
tion of the existing KamLAND detector carried out in the (3.08 m diameter)
summer of 2011. The source/detector is 13 tons of Xe-
loaded liquid scintillator (XeLS) contained in a 3.08 m di- Figure 4. Schematic diagram of the KamLANDZen detec-
ameter spherical Inner Balloon (IB). The IB is constructed tor [7].

14 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013

 feature article

104 Data 90% C.L. upper limit

2 + B.G. 0
2 (n=5) 00 (n=1)
10 3
Total B.G. 00 (n=2)
00(0) (n=3)
Events/0.05MeV

000 (n=7)
102

10

10-1
1 2 3 4
Visible Energy (MeV)
Figure 5. Energy spectrum of selected decay candidates (a)
(data points) together with the best-fit backgrounds (gray
dashed lines) and 2 decay (purple solid line), and the
90% C.L. upper limit for 0 decay and Majoron-emitting
0 decays for each spectral index. The red line depicts
the sum of the 2 decay and background spectra. Figure
is taken from Ref. [11].

of measurements will be T1/2 ~ 2 1026 yr that corresponds

to a sensitivity to the neutrino mass, m ~ 0.04 0.11 eV.
After the end of the first phase of the experiment a second
phase is planned.

GERDA-I
GERDA is a low-background experiment that searches
for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge, using an
array of high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors isotopi-
cally enriched in 76Ge [12]. The detectors are operated na-
ked in ultra radio-pure liquid argon, which acts as the cool-
ing medium and as a passive shielding against the external
radiation. The experiment is located in the underground
Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of the INFN (Italy,
3500 m w.e.). The Phase I of GERDA recently started
using eight enriched coaxial detectors refurbished from
Heidelberg-Moscow and IGEX experiments (correspond-
ing to approximately 18 kg of 76Ge). The energy resolution
is 4.5 KeV (FWHM) at 2.039 MeV. GERDA-I measure-
ments were started in November 2011. Results of the first
measurement are presented in Figure 6 (6.1 kgyr of data).
The 2 decay signal of 76Ge is clearly visible with a half-
life T1/2 1.88 1021 yr, preliminary result. Background in-
dex in 0 region is ~0.02 c/keVkgyr. Blind analysis will
be applied to the 0 region (which is closed now). The first
result will be reported in the beginning of 2013. Expected
Sensitivity of GERDA-I with present background is ~2
1025 yr for one year of measurement. In 2013 new ~20 kg
(b)
Figure 6. First results from GERDA-I.
of HPGe crystals will be added and the experiment will be
transformed to Phase II (GERDA-II). Description of the full-
scale GERDA experiment is done later in the article. Very re-
cently, data obtained by GERDA-I were analyzed and limit
on 0 decay of 76Ge was obtained, T1/2 > 2.1 yr [16].
Future Large-Scale Experiments
Here seven of the most developed and promising ex-
periments that can be realized within the next few years
are discussed (Table 2). We note the existence of an R&D
project for the development of scintillating bolometers or
Xe TPC that is not included in this review due to article
size contraints.
CUORE
This experiment is installed at the Gran Sasso Under-
ground Laboratory. The plan is to investigate 760 kg of

Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 15

feature article

Table 2. Seven most developed and promising projects. Sensitivity at 90% C.L. for one (GERDA-I), three (1-st step of
GERDA and MAJORANA, SNO+, and KamLANDXe) five (EXO, SuperNEMO and CUORE), and ten (full-scale GERDA
and MAJORANA) years of measurements is presented. M mass of isotopes.
Sensitivity Sensitivity
Experiment Isotope M, kg T1/2, y m, meV Status
CUORE 130Te 200 1026 50130 in progress
GERDA 76Ge 18 2 1025 200700 current
40 2 1026 60200 in progress
1000 6 1027 1040 R&D
MAJORANA 76Ge 2030 1026 90300 in progress
1000 6 1027 1040 R&D
EXO 136Xe ~175 4 1025 90240 current
1000 8 1026 2055 R&D
SuperNEMO 82Se 100200 (12)1026 40110 constraction of first module; R&D
KamLANDZen 136Xe ~330 21026 40110 current
1000 61026 2560 R&D
SNO+ 130TE 80 ~1026 50130 in progress
8000 ~1027 1540 R&D

natTeO 130Te. One thousand low

2, with a total of ~200 kg of
temperature (~8 mK) detectors, each having a weight of
750 g, will be manufactured and arranged in 19 towers. The
expected energy resolution is 57 kev (FWHM) at 2.6 MeV.
The challenge is to reduce the background level by a factor
of about 15 in relation to the background level achieved
in the detector CUORICINO. Upon reaching a background
level of 0.01 c/keVkgyr, the sensitivity of the experiment
to the 0 decay of 130Te for 5 y of measurements and at 90%
C.L. will become approximately 1026 yr (m ~0.050.13
eV). The experiment has been approved and funded. A gen-
eral test of the CUORE detector, comprising a single tower
and named CUORE0, will start to take data in 2013. The
full-scale CUORE will start in ~2015.
GERDA
The experiment is located in the Gran Sasso Underground
Laboratory. The strategy to reduce the background is to place
naked HPGe detectors in highly purified liquid argon (as pas-
sive and active shield). The liquid argon dewar is placed into
a vessel of very pure water. The water plays a role of passive
and active (Cherenkov radiation) shield too. The proposal in-
volves three phases. The first phase was described earlier. In
the second phase, ~40 kg of enriched Ge will be investigated.
In the third phase the plan is to use ~1,000 kg of 76Ge. The
sensitivity of the second phase (for three years of measure-
ment) will be T1/2 ~ 2 1026 yr. This corresponds to a sensi-
tivity for m at the level of ~0.060.2 eV.
The first two phases have been approved and funded.
The first phase will be finished in the end of 2013. The sec-
ond phase setup is in an advanced construction stage and
data taking is foreseen for 2014. The results of these steps
will play an important role in the decision to support the
full-scale experiment.
MAJORANA
The MAJORANA facility will consist of HPGe detec-
tors made of 1,000 kg of enriched 76Ge. The facility is de-
signed in such a way that it will consist of many individual
supercryostats manufactured from low radioactive copper,
each containing HPGe detectors. The entire facility will be
surrounded by a passive shield and will be located at an
underground laboratory in the United States. The use of
HPGe detectors, pulse shape analysis, anticoincidence, and
low radioactivity materials will make it possible to reduce
the background to a value below 2.5 104 c/keVkgyr and
to reach a sensitivity of about 6 1027 y within ten years
of measurements. The corresponding sensitivity to the ef-
fective mass of the Majorana neutrino is about 0.01 to
0.04 eV. In the first step ~2030 kg of 76Ge will be investi-
gated. It is anticipated that the sensitivity to 0 decay for
3 years of measurement will be T1/2 ~ 1026 yr. Sensitivity

16 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013

 feature article

to m will be ~0.090.3 eV. The first module of MAJO-
RANA (demonstrator) is under construction now and mea-
surements are planned to begin in 2013 in Davis Campus.
SuperNEMO
The NEMO Collaboration develops a tracking detector
able to measure 100 kg of 82Se to reach a sensitivity for the
0 decay mode at the level of T1/2 ~ (1 2) 1026 y. The cor-
responding sensitivity to the neutrino mass is 0.04 to 0.11 eV.
In order to accomplish this goal, it is proposed to im-
prove the experimental techniques of the NEMO 3 detector.
The new detector will have planar geometry and will con-
sist of 20 identical modules (57 kg of 82Se in each sector).
A 82Se source having a thickness of about 40 mg/cm2 and a
very low content of radioactive admixtures is placed at the
center of the modules. The detector will again record all
features of double beta decay: the electron energy will be
recorded by counters based on plastic scintillators coupled
to PMT, while tracks will be reconstructed with the aid of
drift chambers working in Geiger. The same device can be
used to investigate 150Nd, 48Ca, and other isotopes. The use
of an already tested experimental technique is an appeal-
ing feature of this experiment. The plan is to arrange the
equipment at the new Frejus Underground Laboratory. The
construction and commissioning of the Demonstrator (first
module) will be completed in 2014.
EXO
In this experiment the plan is to implement Moes pro-
posal of 1991 [13]. Specifically it is to record both ioniza-
tion electrons and the Ba+ ion originating from the double
beta decay process 136Xe 136Ba++ + 2e. In Ref. [14], it
liquid enriched xenon. To avoid the background from the
2 decay of 136Xe, the energy resolution of the detector
must not be poorer than 3.8% (FWHM) at an energy of 2.5
MeV (ionization and scintillation signals will be detected).
In the 0 decay of 136Xe, the TPC will measure the energy
of two electrons and the position of the event to within a
few millimeters. The Ba ions will be extracted from the liq-
uid with a special stick and then will be identified in a spe-
cial cell by resonance excitation. The authors of the project
assume that the background will be reduced to one event
within five years of measurements. Given a 70% detection
efficiency it will be possible to reach a sensitivity of about
81026 yr for the 136Xe half-life and a sensitivity of about
0.02 to 0.06 eV to the neutrino mass. As the first stage of
the experiment EXO200 use 175 kg of 136Xe without Ba
ion identification.
KamLAND-Zen2
The KamLANDZen experiement was described ear-
lier. The second phase KamLAND-Zen2 will use 1,000
kg of the enriched xenon. It is planned to upgrade the exist-
ing detector. It is supposed that in the new inner balloon
more bright liquid scintillator will be used and the number
of PMTs will be increased. All this will allow to improve
essentially energy resolution of the detector and, thereby, to
increase sensitivity of experiment to double beta decay (see
Table 2). KamLAND-Zen2 will start in ~2015.
SNO+
SNO+ is an upgrade of the solar neutrino experiment
SNO (Canada), aiming at filling the SNO detector with
natTe loaded liquid scintillator to investigate the isotope

is proposed to operate with 1t of 136Xe. The actual techni- 130Te. With 0.3% loading SNO+ will use 2.3 ton of tel-

cal implementation of the experiment has not yet been de- lurium and contain 800 kg of 130Te with no enrichment.
veloped. One of the possible schemes is to fill a TPC with SNO+ is in construction phase with natural tellurium. Data

Table 3. Best current results concerning the search for 0 decay. All bounds are given with 90% C.L.
Isotope Q, keV T1/2, yr m, eV
48Ca 4262.9 >5.8 1022 <14
76Ge 2039.0 >2.1 1025 <0.19 0.66
82Se 2997.9 >3.6 1023 <0.77 2.4
96Zr 3350 >9.2 1021 <3.9 13.7
100Mo 3034.4 >1.1 1024 <0.29 0.70
116Cd 2813.5 >1.7 1023 <1.16 2.16
128Te 867 >1.5 1024 (geochemistry) <1.8 4.2
130Te 2527.5 >2.8 1024 <0.35 0.77
136Xe 2458.7 >1.6 1025 <0.14 0.38
150Nd 3371.4 >1.8 1022 <2.2 7.5

Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 17

feature article

taking is foreseen in 2014. After 3 years of data taking sen- tons and to provide almost zero level of a background in the
sitivity will be ~1026 yr (or 0.050.13 eV for m). studied area (see discussion in Ref. [15]).

Conclusion References
Best present limits on 0 decay and on m are pre- 1.S. R. Elliott, A. A. Hahn, and M. K. Moe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59
sented in Table 3. It is visible that the most strong limits (1987) 2020.
are received in experiments with 136Xe, 76Ge, 100Mo, and 2.H. V. Klapdor-Kleingrothaus et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 12 (2001)
130Te. Considering existing uncertainty in values of NME 147.
it is possible to obtain conservative limit m < 0.4 eV. It 3.C. E. Aalseth et al., Phys. Rev. D 65 (2002) 092007.
4.R. Arnold et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. A 536 (2005) 79.
is possible to expect that in the next few years sensitivity to 5.E. Andreotti et al., Astropart. Phys. 34 (2011) 822.
m will be improved by efforts of experiments of EXO 6.N. Ackerman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 (2011) 212501.
200, KamLANDZen, GERDAII, MAJORANADemon- 7.A. Gando et al., Phys. Rev. C 85 (2012) 045504.
strator, CUORE0 several times and will reach values ~0.1 8.J. Hartnell, J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 375 (2012) 042015.
eV. Start of full-scale experiments will allow to reach in 9.P. Gorla, J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 375 (2012) 042013.
20152020 sensitivity to m at the level 0.010.1 eV that 10.M. Auger et al., arXiv:hep-ex/1205.5608.
will allow to begin testing of inverted hierarchy region (~50 11.A. Gando et al., Phys. Rev. C 86 (2012) 021601R.
12.I. Abt et al., arXiv:hep-ex/0404039.
meV). Using modern experimental approaches it will be 13.M. Moe, Phys. Rev. C 44 (1991) R931.
extremely difficult to reach sensitivity to m on the level 14.M. Danilov et al., Phys. Lett. B 480 (2000) 12.
of ~35 meV (normal hierarchy region). For this purpose 15.A. S. Barabash, J. Phys. G 39 (2012) 085103.
it is required to increase mass of a studied isotope to ~10 16.M. Agostini et al., arXiv:nucl-ex/1307.4720.

Filler?

18 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013


Pushing In-Beam Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy
to the Shores of the Island of Stability
Introduction
One hundred years after the discov-
ery of the atomic nucleus by Ernest
Rutherford, the nuclear chart has been
extended far from stability, providing
more and more stringent tests for nu-
clear models. Nuclei at the extremes
of the chart are produced with ex-
tremely low production cross-sections
and one has to ingeniously upgrade
the best experimental devices in order
to reduce the observational limits.
Nuclear spectroscopy is a very
powerful tool to give access to nuclear
structure and properties at excitation
energies up to several MeV. Spectro-
scopic techniques can probe the single-
particle states around the Fermi level
enabling a fruitful dialogue between
experimentalists and theoreticians that
aims to improve predictions of nuclear
properties in nuclei at the ultimate
level of sensitivity of experimental
techniques. Unfortunately, until now,
it has not been possible to study su-
perheavy elements (SHE) by means
of in-beam spectroscopic techniques.
New generations of instruments will
have open access to detailed in-beam
spectroscopy of SHE, complementing
the nuclear structure information on
ground states and low-lying levels ob-
tained in alpha decay studies.
In-beam and decay spectroscopy
has given access to single-particle
states around Fermi level in nuclei
close to 254No, thanks to their rela-
tively high production cross-sections
(up to the level of a few microbarns).
Several rotational structures extending
up to 24 in spin were observed [1],
the configuration of some structures
could be assigned through B(M1)/
B(E2) measurements in odd-mass
facilities and methods
nuclei [2], and high-K isomeric states
have been observed and their configu-
rations deduced [3].
Gathering all these results gives
a reasonable picture of the evolution
of single-particle states with N or Z
in these nuclei, though discrepancies
and inconsistencies still exist[4].
Nuclei in the region of 254No are de-
formed, and the deformation-driven
down-sloping effect brings single-
particle orbitals from Fermi level of
spherical SHE down to the Fermi
level in the very heavy elements
(VHE) deformed nuclei. Of special
importance are the high-j orbitals that
are strongly influenced by rotation.
The observation of such orbitals con-
stitutes valuable information on the
details of the shell correction in SHE
[5]. Such data can help define the ex-
tent and location of the SHE Island
of Stability and provide new high-
mass experimental anchor points for
theoretical descriptions of the atomic
nucleus. It is therefore essential to
employ in-beam g-ray spectroscopic
techniques on SHE and to push the
corresponding observational limit
down to the nano-barn level in the
coming years.
In order to achieve this limit, sev-
eral major improvements in present-
day experimental techniques and
instrumentation must be made. The
observation of such rare events re-
sults from the conjunction of prompt
gamma-ray detection, a high perfor-
mance recoil separator and focal plane
detector systems which allow exploi-
tation of tagging techniques. There-
fore, improvement of each of these
instruments will directly affect the ob-
servational limit.
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 19
In-Beam Spectroscopy
of Heavy Elements
Heavy elements are subject to the
strong influence of the Coulomb force
and are subject to high fission prob-
ability during the process of synthesis.
The principle of in-beam and de-
layed spectroscopy employed in so-
called tagging studies is illustrated
in Figure 1. One can see that, due to
their deformation, nuclei in the region
of 254No exhibit interesting rotational
behavior that can be studied via in-
beam spectroscopy. These nuclei may
also exhibit high-K isomerism that can
be studied by means of delayed spec-
troscopy. The figure also illustrates the
major influence of the fission process
(through quasi-fission or fusion-fission)
on the synthesis of heavy elements.
Because of the high cross-section
for fission with respect to the evapo-
ration channels, in-beam spectroscopy
can only be performed when the ger-
manium array is associated with a re-
coil separator or spectrometer. Several
combinations of germanium detectors
and separators over the world have
had a significant influence on in-beam
spectroscopic studies of heavy ele-
ments. Of note are the germanium ar-
ray GAMMASPHERE [6] coupled to
the Fragment Mass Analyser (FMA)
[7] at Argonne National Laboratory
and the JUROGAM array [8] at the
gas-filled separator RITU [9] and
GREAT focal-plane detection system
[10] at the University of Jyvskyl.
Spectroscopy at the 10 nb
Level in 246Fm
The instrumentation associated
with the K=130 cyclotron at the Ac-
celerator Laboratory of the University
facilities and methods
Figure 1. Illustration of heavy element production including the dominating fis-
sion process. The principle of prompt and delayed spectroscopy is illustrated
with a typical level scheme of a deformed heavy nucleus.
of Jyvskyl has played a significant
role in the spectroscopy of heavy el-
ements. A major improvement in tag-
ging techniques was achieved with
this set-up through implementation
of the Total Data Readout (TDR) data
acquisition system [11]. Any single
detector event is time-stamped with a
resolution of 10ns and the energy is
recorded, resulting in a time-ordered
stream of data from the whole ex-
periment. The approach removes the
problem of common dead time and
the need to employ surrogate reac-
tions to set up timing and triggering of
electronics.
In order to enable experiments
with higher intensity beams, a com-
pact rotating target system was devel-
oped[12]. In parallel, the JUROGAMI
germanium detector array (43tapered
detectors from the EGRSP and EU-
ROGAM loan pool) was upgraded to
the JUROGAM II array consisting of
24clover and 15 tapered Ge detectors
from the EGRSP and EUROGAM
loan pool. This increased the absolute
20 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
gamma-ray detection efficiency from
4.2% [1] to 5.2% [13] at 1.33MeV.
The JUROGAM array was instru-
mented with fully digital electronics,
whereby the preamplifier output is dig-
itized directly. Initial measurements
were made using four-channel TNT2
digital cards [14]. The preamplifier
signals were digitized by 14 bit flash
Analog to Digital Converters (f ADC)
Figure 2. Illustration of the lower threshold and higher statistics of digital elec-
tronics as compared to the analogue system. The non-linearity of the systems is
shown in the insert (adapted from Ref. [16]).
with a sampling rate of 100MHz.
The data were then pipeline threaded
through a Jordanov algorithm [15].
Depending on the trapezoid shaping
time used, these cards can handle an
event rate of up to 100 kHz per chan-
nel with reasonable energy resolution
and pile-up rates (marked during rise
time + plateau) [16]. In the first test
phase, the JUROGAM array ran with
both analogue and digital signal pro-
cessing in parallel. This first validation
phase showed a much better linearity,
lower threshold and 36% higher over-
all collection efficiency through the
digital cards, as illustrated in Figure 2
[16]. An automatic offset adjustment
was implemented in order to counter
the rate dependence of the clover de-
tector dynamic range induced by their
capacitive coupling. Full use of the
fADC range was therefore preserved
and event loss due to over-ranging
was avoided.
Under these conditions 246Fm
(Z=100) could be studied by means
of the 208Pb(40Ar,2n) reaction at a
beam energy of 186 MeV. The 446g/
cm2 208Pb target was covered by car-
bon layers (30 g/cm2 upstream and
10 g/cm2 downstream). The bom-
barding energy was chosen in order to
ensure the maximum of the excitation

function corresponded to the mid-tar-
get energy. The digital instrumenta-
tion of JUROGAMII enabled rates as
high as 40kHz per channel to be used
with a maximum beam intensity on
target of 71 pnA. Ten days of continu-
ous running enabled the detection of
276 recoil-alpha pairs unambiguously
attributed to 246Fm [17].
The observed 246Fm alpha decay
energy (82447)keV and half-life unobserved due to the strong internal
(1.60.2)s were consistent with pre- conversion for these low energy tran-
vious measurements. A total of 190
single gamma-rays could be extracted
by means of delayed coincidence with
the 246Fm recoils. The correspond-
ing spectrum has limited statistics but
shows a sequence of regularly spaced
peaks (Figure 3a) on a very low back-
ground. This suggestion of a rotational
band and corresponding X-rays are
clearly attributed to 246Fm. As the al-
pha-particle detection efficiency is of
order of 55%, a higher statistics spec-
trum can be obtained selecting recoils
of the basis of Time-of-Flight (ToF)
and implantation energy, which basi-
Figure3. Prompt g-ray transitions (a) correlated to a 246Fm alpha decay (b) in
coincidence with a recoil selected on the basis of E-ToF (adapted from Ref. [17]).
facilities and methods
cally doubles the detection efficiency.
One now observes in Figure 3b the
246Fm rotational band with improved
statistics, but also with worse peak-
to-background ratio. One clearly sees
six transitions that could be assigned
through the Harris method [18] as be-
ing transitions decaying in a cascade
from the 16+ state. It is worth pointing
out that the two lowest transitions are
and synthetized at IPHC Strasbourg
[19].
sitions.
The fusion-evaporation cross-sec-
tion was measured to be (112)nb
[17], corresponding to one of lowest
cross-sections in studies using the
recoil-decay tagging technique. This
result paved the way for an attempt at
in-beam spectroscopy of 256Rf with its
cross-section of 17 nb.
First In-Beam Spectroscopy
of a SHE: 256Rf
The nucleus 256Rf (Z = 104) was
studied for the first time in in-beam
spectroscopy by means of the 208Pb
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 21
(50Ti,2n) reaction at a beam energy of
242MeV. The experiment was again
performed at the Accelerator Labo-
ratory of the Department of Physics,
University of Jyvskyl, at the end
2011 using the JUROGAMII/RITU/
GREAT instrumentation. The 50Ti
beam was provided by the K=130 cy-
clotron fed by the ECRIS2 ion source
using a MIVOC compound developed
The germanium detectors were in-
strumented with fully digital electron-
ics in the form of Lyrtech 100MHz
14-bit VHS-ADC cards. The 256Rf nu-
clei were identified by correlation to
spontaneous fission events occurring
after recoil implantation in the focal
plane DSSDs. The high spontaneous
fission branching ratio (>98%), short
lifetime and high efficiency to detect
fission fragments makes 256Rf an ideal
case for recoil-decay tagging. A to-
tal of 2210 recoil-fission pairs were
found and unambiguously attributed
to 256Rf implanted in the DSSDs. The
256Rf half-life of (6.90.2)ms was
measured and the fusion evaporation
cross-section was determined to be
(173)nb [13].
A total of 745 prompt gamma rays
could be associated with these cor-
related pairs through delayed coinci-
dence. The corresponding spectrum is
shown in Figure 4 where a rotational
structure clearly appears on a very low
background, demonstrating the effec-
tiveness of the fission tagging method
[13]. This rotational band, observed
up to a tentative spin of 20, could
unambiguously be attributed to the
Z=104 nucleus 256Rf. As in the case
of 246Fm, the two lowest transitions
could not be observed due to internal
conversion. This represents the first
such measurement in a superheavy
nucleus using state-of-the-art gamma-
ray spectroscopic techniques.
facilities and methods
Figure4. Recoil-fission tagged prompt g-ray spectrum of 256Rf observed in JU-
ROGAMII (adapted from Ref. [13]).
The observed rotational properties
can be compared to those of neigh-
bouring nuclei. Indeed, the similarity
between the N=152 isotones 256Rf and
254No is remarkable. Consequently,
they exhibit quite similar kinematic mo-
ments of inertia (1) (Figure 5, inset).
On the other hand, differences in (1)
for 252No and 250Fm (N=150 isotones)
were interpreted as a signature of a re-
duction in the pairing correlations and
subsequent increase of (1), due to the
Z=100 deformed shell gap. The simi-
larity of (1) for 256Rf and 254No was
therefore interpreted [13] as a sign that
there is no significant deformed shell
gap at Z=104, at variance to what is
predicted in a number of current self-
consistent mean-field models.
The dynamical moment of inertia
(2) provides a sensitive test of shell
structure and the evolution of pairing
due to alignment processes. The align-
ment effects can be emphasized by
plotting the ratio of the experimental
(2) to that determined from the Har-
ris fit: (2)exp./ (2)Harris as a function
of rotational frequency (Figure 5).
While both N=150 isotones exhibit
alignment at a frequency of around
0.15MeV, the N=152 isotones align-
ment occurs at different frequencies.
22 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
opments made possible the first such
measurement of a superheavy nucleus
whose stability is entirely derived
from the shell-correction energy. The
study of rotational properties such
as the kinematic and dynamical mo-
ment of inertia revealed subtle effects
believed to be related to changes in
alignment and pairing correlations.
The experiments can be seen as a
key step in the field enabled by tech-
nological developments. It will be fol-
lowed by spectroscopy of other SHE
on the shores of the long-sought Island
of Stability. Moreover, complemen-
tary and valuable data will come from
new techniques such as the simultane-
ous measurement of gamma-rays and
This is interpreted as being a direct internal conversion electrons using the
consequence of the high-j orbital con- SAGE spectrometer [20] and, at focal
tent around Fermi level [13]. planes of separators, the use of laser
spectroscopic techniques for spin de-
terminations or other instruments such
Conclusion
as SHIPTRAP [21] for precise Heavy
State-of-the-art in-beam gamma-
Elements mass measurements.
ray spectroscopic techniques now en-
able access to nuclei produced at the
cross-section level of ten nanobarns, Acknowledgments
as demonstrated with the experiment This work has been supported
to study 246Fm. The required devel- by the EU-FP7-IA project ENSAR
Figure5. Experimental dynamical moment of inertia as a function of rotational
frequency for N=150 and N=152 isotones normalized to the one calculated
with the fitted Harris parameters for each isotope. (Experimental kinematic mo-
ment of inertia as a function of rotational frequency for N=150 and N=152
isotones is shown in the inset; the lines correspond to the Harris fits (adapted
from Ref. [13])).
 facilities and methods

(No. 262010), the Academy of Fin-
land (CoE in Nuclear and Accelera-
tor Based Physics), the European Re-
search Council through the project
SHESTRUCT (Grant Agreement No.
203481), and the UK STFC. The Eu-
ropean Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy
Pool (EGRSP) is thanked for the loan
of detectors for JUROGAMII. The
PhD students Julien Piot and Jrme
Rubert who performed the analysis,
Zouhair Asfari who prepared the 50Ti
MIVOC compound, the JYFL cyclo-
tron group, the IPHC nuclear chemis-
try group, the IPHC workshop and the
input of our colleagues Olivier Dor-
vaux, Farid Khalfallah, Panu Rahkila,
Rodi Herzberg, Juha Uusitalo, Mikael
Sandzelius and Pete Jones are grate-
fully acknowledged.
References
1.R.-D. Herzberg and P.T. Greenlees,
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3. For example A. Lopez Martens et
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M. C. Clark, Nucl. Phys. News 21(3)
(2011) 13.
4.D. Seweryniak et al., Nucl. Phys. A
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haudt et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 26 (2005) (2007) 39; M. Block et al., Nature 463
227; S.K.Tandel et al., Phys. Rev. (2010) 785; Minaya Ramirez E. et al.
Lett. 97 (2006) 082502. Science 337 (2012) 1207.
5.M. Bender et al., Phys. Lett. B 515
(2001) 42; M.Bender et al., Nucl.
Phys. A 723 (2003) 354.
6.I. Yang Lee, Nucl. Phys. A 520 (1990)
641c.
7.B.B. Back et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. A
379 (1996) 206.
8.R. Julin, Nucl. Phys. A 834 (2010)
15c.
9. J. Uusitalo et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth.
B204 (2003) 638. Benot Gall
10.R.D. Page et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth. Institut Pluridisciplinaire
B204 (2003) 634. Hubert Curien,
11.I. Lazarus et al., IEEE Trans. Nucl. University of Strasbourg, France
Sci. 48(3) (2001) 567.
12.F. Khalfallah, PhD Thesis, Strasbourg
University, IPHC 07-010 / ULP 5425.
13.P.T. Greenlees et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.
109 (2012) 012501.
14.L. Arnold et al., IEEE Trans. Nucl.
Sci. 53 (2006) 723.
15.V. Jordanov and G. Knoll, Nucl. Inst.
Meth. A345 (1994) 337.
16.J. Piot et al., to be published and PhD
Thesis, Strasbourg University IPHC
10-013 / UdS 760. Paul Greenlees
17.J. Piot et al., Phys. Rev. C 85 (2012) JYFL, Physics Department,
041301(R). University of Jyvskyl, Finland
18.S. Harris, Phys. Rev. 138 (1965) B509.
19. J. Rubert et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth.
B276 (2012) 33.
20.P. Papadakis et al., Journal of Physics:
Conference Series 312 (2011) 052017,
INPC 2010.

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Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 23

impact and applications
Neutron Capture Therapy:
A Highly Selective Tumor Treatment
The ability to selectively kill the
tumor sparing the normal tissue is an
essential characteristic required for ra-
diotherapy, especially when the tumor
is close to very radiosensitive tissues
or when it spreads inside vital organs.
Boron Neutron Capture Therapy
(BNCT) is an experimental radio-
therapy that is selective at a cellular
level, and for this reason it can be very
effective in treating disseminated tu-
mors. It is based on the neutron cap-
ture reaction 10B(n,)7Li, with a posi-
tive Q-value (2.78 MeV) and with a
high cross-section at thermal energies
(3840 b). The treatment is delivered
by the energy emitted in the reaction
and transported by the alpha particles
and the recoiling lithium ions; these
light ions have a range in tissues com-
parable with a cell diameter (10 and 6
m) and thus they deposit their energy
with a high stopping power (hundreds
of keV/m) inside the cell where the
reaction occurs.
The treatment takes place in two
phases: first a substance able to carry
10B selectively into the tumor cells is
administrated to the patient, and then
the tumor target is irradiated with ther-
mal or epithermal neutrons, according
to the depth of the area to be treated.
The selective destruction of the tumor
depends primarily on the selective ab-
sorption of boron into the tumor cells
and does not require a particular neu-
tron beam configuration.
The clinical application of BNCT
has been conducted in different cen-
ters in Japan, the United States, Ar-
gentina, Taiwan, and Europe and
there are presently active clinical tri-
als in Finland, Japan, Argentina, and
Taiwan. They are essentially Phase I/
II trials dedicated to the study of the
24 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
tolerance of healthy tissues with the
possibility to draw some conclusions
on the efficacy in tumor reduction [1].
The first target to be treated was
Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and
it was the only one for many years
[2]. The first attempts were conducted
by Sweet at the Massachusetts Gen-
eral Hospital (MGH) and Brownell
at MIT and Farr at the Brookhaven
National Laboratory (BNL) in New
York employing non-selective boron
carriers and thermal neutron beams
poorly effective for deep-seated tu-
mors. Starting from the 1990s, BNCT
trials have been carried out using
more selective boron formulations
and epithermal collimated neutron
beams in the United States at BNL
Medical Research Reactor (BMRR)
and at Harvard-MIT using the MITR
(79 patients), in Japan at JRR-4 and at
KURR (89 patients), in Europe at the
High Flux Reactor, JRC Petten, The
Netherlands (30 patients), at FiR-1,
VTT Technical Research Centre, Es-
poo, Finland (52 patients), at LVR-15
Reactor, Nuclear Research Institute
Rez, Czech Republic (5 patients),
at R2-0 Reactor, Studsvik Medical,
Nykping, Sweden (43 patients) for a
Figure 1. Pavia BNCT physicists group with David W. Nigg from INL, USA
(third from left).
total of 298 patients that demonstrated
the tolerability of BNCT and its po-
tentiality also in terms of quality of
life improvement. In particular, these
studies [35] have led to a median sur-
vival time of 15.6 months in patients
with newly diagnosed GBMs (95%
confidence interval (CI): 12.223.9
months), significantly longer than
10.3 months of historical controls
treated with surgery followed by ra-
diation therapy and chemotherapy [6].
More favorable responses were ob-
tained in patients treated with surgery
and BNCT followed by fractionated
X-ray irradiation; the median survival
time was 23.5 months in this case.
More recently, attention has been
focused on other tumors, in particu-
lar recurrent cancers of the head and
neck region, which had failed all
other therapies. From 2001 to 2011,
165 patients [2] have been treated at
KURR, JRR-4, THOR, and FIR-1. In
this last center, which with almost 300
patients with different pathologies [7]
is the most active BNCT center in Eu-
rope, 45% of head and neck patients
achieved a complete clinical response,
31% achieved a partial response, re-
sulting in an objective response rate

of 76%; 21% had disease stabilization
for a median of 8.5 months (range,
5.120.3 months) and only 3% pro-
gressed. In general, the trials con-
ducted to date show that BNCT is ef-
fective for the treatment of inoperable
locally recurrent, previously irradiated
patients with head and neck cancer;
with some responses durable and with
progression in other cases.
Another field of clinical applica-
tion of BNCT is the malignant mela-
noma, started by Mishima at the Kobe
University, Japan [8] who stimulated
the initiation of various trials among
which the BNCT of skin melanoma
in extremities conducted at the RA-6
reactor in Bariloche, Argentina [9] in
a cooperative effort of the Argentine
Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA)
and the Oncology Institute Angel H.
Roffo (IOAHR).
BNCT can be also applied to dis-
seminated tumors; an example is the
treatment performed in Pavia, Italy,
to a liver completely invaded by me-
tastases from colon carcinoma, thanks
to research funded by INFN [10]. The
organ, after the administration of the
boron agent, was explanted and irradi-
ated for about 10 min in a dedicated
neutron field obtained in the thermal
column of the reactor TRIGA Mark
II of the University of Pavia. At the
end of the irradiation the organ was
re-implanted in the patient. Due to
the selective uptake of boron in the
tumor, also the small nodules with
dimensions lower than 1 mm and that
could not be diagnosed by the imag-
ing methods were also treated. The pa-
tient, who had undergone all possible
conventional treatments and whose
life expectation was only few months,
was able to live a normal life for 44
months after the BNCT treatment.
In order to deliver a therapeutic
dose to the tumor it is necessary to
achieve a 10B concentration in tumor
of the order of 30 g/g (30 ppm) and
impact and applications
a thermal neutron fluence of the or-
der of 1013 cm2. Higher concentra-
tion would allow a lower fluence (and
therefore a desirably lower non-selec-
tive background neutron dose) for the
same result. To perform a neutron irra-
diation in time intervals acceptable for
the patient (tens of minutes) the col-
limated neutron flux at the entrance of
the target must be of the order of 109
cm2s1. In case of superficial tumors
the neutrons must be thermal, while
for deep seated tumors epithermal
neutrons are required, with energies of
the order of 1 keV. The ideal situation
would be the possibility to combine
both the components in order to opti-
mize the thermal flux distribution as a
function of the depth of the treatment.
To date, these conditions have been
obtained only in facilities built in re-
search centers equipped with thermal
nuclear reactors of low or medium
power (from hundreds of kW to some
MW) [11], as for example: Musashi
Institute of Technology reactor in Ja-
pan; Brookhaven Medical Research
reactor at the Brookhaven National
Laboratory (BNL) in Upton, Long Is-
land, NY; Massachusetts Institute of
Technology reactor (MITR); Studsvik
Medical AB in Sweden; FiR1 reactor
in Helsinki, Finland; R2-0 High Flux
Reactor at Petten in the Netherlands;
Kyoto University Research reactor in
Kumatori, Japan; JRR4 at the Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute,
RA-6 CNEA reactor in Bariloche,
Argentina; Triga Mark II, Pavia, Italy
[10]; South Korea; and Beijing, China.
A peculiar example is the Tapiro reac-
tor, at ENEA (Casaccia, Rome, Italy),
which is a fast reactor where an epi-
thermal beam has been built for the
treatment of patients despite the low
power (5 kW). This beam has not been
employed for clinical trials yet.
The present facilities for BNCT
treatment have the disadvantage of
being hosted in multipurpose centers,
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 25
dedicated to other research or to radio-
isotope production, thus the beams for
BNCT are obtained exploiting exist-
ing access ports and reshaping part of
the laboratory structures to make them
suitable to receive patients. In these
centers, BNCT represents only a part
of the activities performed and when
the centers are closed due to various
unrelated reasons, BNCT activity also
suffers a sudden stop, even if the treat-
ments are successful. It is important
that a BNCT center is started ex-novo,
designing the beams on purpose to-
gether with the other patient facilities,
and that it is integrated in a hospital
environment in a way that the source
is completely independent from other
experiments.
Technically it is possible to em-
ploy a small nuclear research reactor
as a neutron source totally dedicated
to BNCT, tailored from the beginning
for this use. However, nuclear reactors
are not well accepted in the hospital
environment, and for this reason there
has been a significant effort by the sci-
entific community to design and con-
struct neutron sources with intensities
(~10131014 s1) and energy ranges
(few keV) suitable to obtain thermal-
epithermal collimated neutron beams
with fluxes of at least 109 cm2s1
using charged particle accelerators
[1213]. The reactions exploited are
primarily 7Li(p,n) and 9Be(p,n).
In order to reach the required in-
tensity (~1014 s1) the proton cur-
rents needed are of the orders of tens
of mA, thus among the technological
problems to be solved there is also the
necessity to cool the target (the power
density to be dissipated is of the order
of kW cm2) and to deal with the dam-
age caused by proton bombardment
of the target itself. With the reaction
on Li the neutrons produced are in an
energy range more similar to the one
required for BNCT, but the disad-
vantages are the low melting point of
impact and applications
Li and the production of radioactive
7Be, which emits an undesired back-
ground. To overcome these difficulties
studies for the realization and test of
liquid Li targets as a windowless flow-
ing lithium jet are underway. Another
path that may be worth investigating
is to exploit the reaction (Li,p) using a
beam of Li ions as a hydrogenus target
(i.e., water).
Various projects are being devel-
oped in Russia, the United Kingdom,
Italy, Japan, Israel, and Argentina
based on electrostatic or electrodin-
amic machines or cyclotrons. Kyoto
University and Sumitomo Heavy In-
dustries have developed a cyclotron
(HM-30) neutron source for BNCT
(30 MeV proton at 1 mA on Be) [14],
an RFQ+DTL type Linac (J-PARCs
Technology and Mitsubishi heavy in-
dustry Co.) as proton accelerator was
designed and developed by High En-
ergy Accelerator Research Organiza-
tion (KEK) (8 MeV proton at 5mA on
Be) [15]; the BNCT facility is being
installed in Tokai. In Israel a super-
conducting linac is under construc-
tion at the Soreq research center (2
MeV, 24 mA on a liquid Li target).
The Argentinian project is based on
a Tandem Electrostatic Quadrupole
(TESQ) accelerator (2.4 MeV proton
at 30 mA on Li) [16]. BNCT R&D is
conducted with a 3 MV Dynamitron
accelerator operating at the School
of Physics and Space Research at the
Birmingham University [17]; the high
voltage is generated through recti-
fied RF power (2.8 MV, 2mA on Li);
a current upgrade to 20 mA is needed
to start clinical research. Electrostatic
systems are under development at the
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in
Novosibirsk (1.9 MeV, 10mA on Li)
and at Obninsk, Russia.
In Italy at the INFN-National
Laboratories of Legnaro (LNL) a ma-
chine based on a high-intensity RFQ
(5 MeV proton at 30 mA on Be) is
26 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
almost completed [18]. An agreement
between National Institute of Nuclear
Physics (INFN) and University of Pa-
via foresees that such an accelerator
will be installed in Pavia close to the
National Centre for Hadrontherapy
(CNAO). In this way there will be a
national reference center for the treat-
ment of tumors: the localized ones
can be treated by hadron (proton and
Carbon ions) beams at CNAO, while
the disseminated ones as pulmonary
metastases or mesothelioma will be
addressed to BNCT.
A crucial component of BNCT
treatment is the boron carrier. The sub-
stances presently used in clinical trials
[19] were developed in the 1960s: the
sodium mercaptoundecahydro-closo-
dodecaborate Na2B12H11SH, com-
monly known as sodium borocaptate
(BSH) and (L)-4-dihydroxy-boryl-
phenylalanine, an amino acid known
as boronophenylalanine or BPA. GB-
10 (Na2 B10H10) is a formulation de-
veloped in the 1950s and synthesized
under an improved process developed
by the INL in the 1990s. It is an FDA-
approved (for biodistribution research
only) delivery agent in the United
States, even if is presently out of pro-
duction [20]. With BPA and BSH the
concentrations obtained in tumor are
on the order of 3060 ppm with con-
centration ratios between tumor and
healthy tissues ranging from 2 to 6 [1].
Another important branch of
BNCT research is the development
of new boron delivery agents, able
to ensure higher tumor to normal tis-
sues boron concentration ratios, hav-
ing higher selectivity than BPA and
BSH. Higher boron concentration in
tumor would allow shorter irradiation
or less intense neutron fluxes to obtain
the same therapeutic effects, with a
smaller background neutron dose as
noted earlier.
Recent efforts to improve the se-
lectivity of boron delivery agents
has involved incorporating them into
tumor targeting molecules, such as
peptides, proteins, antibodies, nucleo-
sides, sugars, porphyrins, liposomes
and nanoparticles [2]. The low mo-
lecular weight boron delivery agents
include boronated natural amino acids
(i.e., BPA derivatives with higher per-
centage of boron by weight) as well as
boronated derivatives of other amino
acids, such as aspartic acid, tyrosine,
cysteine, methionine, and serine. Of
particular interest are peptide ligands
for overexpressed receptors on tumor
cells, such as the vascular endothelial
growth factor receptor (VEGFR), so-
matostatin receptors and the epidermal
growth factor receptor (EGFR), en-
zyme substrates, and intracellular de-
livery sequences. Among the high mo-
lecular weight boron delivery agents,
monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs), lipo-
somes, and nanoparticles are the most
common. MoAbs are a very promising
class of tumor-targeting agents due to
their high specificity for molecular
targets such as EGFR and VEGFR.
Also in Pavia, NETTUNO (Neutron
Capture Therapy of Thoracic Tumors
with New fOrmulations) collabora-
tion, funded by INFN, is working on
this field (http://www.bnct.it) [2123].
Figure 1 shows the Pavia BNCT phys-
icists group.
A characteristic that a good carrier
should exhibit is a mechanism for im-
aging of its biodistribution directly in
vivo. The measurement of boron con-
centration is in fact fundamental to the
design of the treatment plan and pre-
scription of the dose. The most impor-
tant component of BNCT dose is due
to the capture reaction 10B(n,)7Li. It
is thus necessary to know the spatial
distribution of the neutron flux and
of the boron concentration at the mo-
ment of the irradiation. On-line moni-
toring of the reaction rate would allow
on-line dosimetry: such monitoring
could be based on the 478 keV prompt

gamma ray emitted by 7Li in 94% of
the capture reaction, or 511 keV anni-
hilation gammas of a + emitter (PET
imaging) previously bound to the bo-
ron carrier. Today the molecule 18F-
BPA is already employed for a pre-
liminary evaluation of the eligibility
of the patients for a BNCT treatment.
Meanwhile, new agents are being la-
beled with Gd to be visualized through
MRI.
When preclinical research is per-
formed, a fundamental aspect is the
availability of a method for the mea-
surement of boron concentration in
biological samples taken from animal
models or patients. Today different
methods [24] are recognized and em-
ployed with different sensitivity, pre-
cision and spatial resolution: Induc-
tion Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission
Spectrometry (ICP-AES), Inductively
Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
(ICP-MS), Secondary Ion Mass Spec-
trometry (SIMS), Prompt Gamma
Neutron Activation Analysis (PG-
NAA), charged particles spectroscopy
and neutron autoradiography [25]. In
clinical trials, blood samples taken at
different times after the administration
of the boronated drug are taken from
the patient and measured; the boron
concentration in tumor and normal tis-
sues are then inferred basing on previ-
ous pharmacokinetics studies.
Before the treatment, the irradiation
modalities are designed and optimized
by calculation of the dose distribution
by means of a treatment planning sys-
tem (TPS). To date, various TPS have
been set-up for BNCT. The reconstruc-
tion of the anatomical structures to be
irradiated is accomplished using CT or
MRI scans of the patients as usual for
TPS dedicated to photon or charged
particles therapy. The dose is then cal-
culated using a completely different
approach: the interaction of photons
with matter is well estimated knowing
the Z of the material, while neutrons
impact and applications
undergo scattering and capture reac-
tions whose cross-sections can vary
between elements and also between
isotopes. For these reasons TPS dedi-
cated to BNCT employ Monte Carlo
methods for neutron transport. The
dose distribution not only depends on
the primary radiation field, but it is
strictly connected to the spatial distri-
bution of 10B. Moreover the radiation
field is constituted by alpha particles,
Li ions, protons, and photons, thus it is
far more complex than that produced
by photons, which consists principally
of electrons.
The principal TPS for BNCT are
NCTPlan, JCDS, SERA, THORplan
[2629]. NCTPLAN and JCDS recon-
struct the geometry through voxeliza-
tion; the former creates fixed dimen-
sion voxels while the second creates
voxels of variable dimensions. The
materials associated with the vox-
els are determined on the basis of
the Hounsfield numbers from the CT
scans. A collaboration between INEEL
and MSU (Montana State University)
resulted in the development of SERA,
which reconstructs the geometry by
associating to each image pixel a so-
called UNIVEL (Uniform Volume
Element) with a fixed material, and
then employs a specific Monte Carlo
ray tracing algorithm developed for
this type of geometry. Another TPS
is MultiCell, which is being set-up in
Argentina and builds the geometry by
a combination of multiple-sized paral-
lelepiped bodies (or cells) suitable for
MCNP analysis [30].
Even if presently the conditions
for the clinical application of BNCT
exist in many countries, the research
to increase BNCT applicability and
dissemination is pursued with many
efforts. The research is highly in-
terdisciplinary and needs the col-
laboration between medical doctors,
radiotherapists, physicists, chemists,
biologists, each with a fundamen-
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 27
tal role. The young researchers are
strongly encouraged by the scientific
community and every two years a
Young Researcher Meeting is orga-
nized. The next one will be held in
Granada (Spain) in September 2013
(http://www.ugr.es/~porras/7th_
ybnct.html).
Activities related to NCT are pro-
moted by the International Society for
Neutron Capture Therapy (ISNCT),
which organizes a biennial Interna-
tional Congress alternating with the
Young Researcher Meeting. The next
International Congress on Neutron
Capture Therapy (ICNCT-16) will be
organized by the current president of
ISNCT (Leena Kankaanranta) in Hel-
sinki (June 2014). The most recent
past president is Akira Matsumura,
who organized ICNCT-15 in Tsukuba,
Japan (September 2012) and the next
president will be Satish S. Jalisatgi
(Missouri University) who will orga-
nize the congress in 2016.
Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges Dr. Eng.
David W. Nigg, secretary of Interna-
tional Society for Neutron Capture
Therapy, for his valuable help in re-
viewing the article.
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Filler?

Crystal Deflectors for High Energy Ion Beams
The motion of charged particles en-
tering a crystal at small angles with re-
spect to a crystalline plane is strongly
influenced by the average electric
field of the ordered nuclei. For suffi-
ciently small angles the particles can
be captured in channeling states, thus
performing quasi-harmonic oscilla-
tions in the potential well between the
crystal planes. Channeled particles in
a bent crystal are deflected along the
bent planes of the crystal. This pro-
vides a powerful method to steer and
control particle trajectories that has
been investigated and occasionally
exploited for some decades already.
The channeling parameters and the
deflection efficiency are the same for
protons and ions with the same par-
ticle momentum per unit charge pz.
Channeled particles have a reduced
probability of close collisions with the
crystal atoms, thus a reduced probabil-
ity of nuclear interactions. In the case
of channeled heavy-ions, fragmenta-
tion and electromagnetic dissociation
are reduced as well. Heavy-ions not
captured in channeling regime pro-
duce higher loss-rate with respect to
protons because the cross-section of
nuclear interactions is considerably
larger.
The UA9 Collaboration, supported
by CERN, INFN, Imperial College,
LAL, PNPI, IHEP, and JINR, investi-
gates how tiny bent crystals could be
used to assist and improve collimation
process in modern hadron colliders,
such as the LHC, in view of exploiting
ultra-high luminosity operation with
protons and heavy-ions.
Channeling in Bent Crystals
Charged particles entering a crystal
at small angles with respect to a crystal-
line plane follow trajectories strongly
impact and applications
influenced by the average electric
field of the ordered nuclei [1]. If the
impact angle is smaller than the criti-
cal channeling angle c = (2Uo/pv)1/2,
where p and v are the particle momen-
tum and velocity, and Uo is the depth of
the planar potential well, the incoming
particle can be captured into the pla-
nar channeling regime oscillating be-
tween two neighboring crystal planes.
Silicon crystals are widely used for
beam steering because of their crystal-
lographic properties. Along the (110)
planes where the inter-planar distance
dp is 1.92 A, the average electric field
Em approaches the value of 6 GV/cm
and the potential well depth is about
23 eV. Particle channeling is still pos-
sible if the crystal is bent with a radius
larger than the critical one, R > Rc [2].
In a bent crystal channeled particles
are deflected by the bend angle.
Channeling in a bent crystal has
been observed for the first time in the
JINR synchrophasotron [3]. System-
atic experiments have been performed
at CERN, IHEP, and FNAL (see the
reviews [46]). Bent crystals are rou-
tinely used at the IHEP to extract pro-
ton beams from the synchrotron U70
and for beam splitting between the
experiments [7].
The UA9 Collaboration inves-
tigates crystal-assisted collimation
process in view of improving its ef-
ficiency in high-intensity high-energy
hadron colliders, such as LHC. In the
UA9 experiment at the CERN-SPS
[810], a bunched beam with an in-
tensity of 1011 to 1013 particles is
stored at fixed energy to reproduce the
beam dynamics of a hadron collider.
A bent silicon crystal and a tungsten
absorber are used as a two-stage col-
limation system. Halo particles sur-
rounding the circulating beam are
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 29
deflected by the crystal and directed
onto the secondary collimator-ab-
sorber. In contrast to a more standard
amorphous primary collimator, a bent
crystal deflects the channeled par-
ticles far from the absorber edge de-
creasing the probability of their scat-
tering back into the circulating beam.
Channeled particles have a reduced
probability of nuclear interactions in
the crystal and thus a smaller irradia-
tion occurs for sensitive areas of the
accelerator, in particular those with a
high-dispersion downstream the col-
limation system [10]. The efficiency
of halo extraction is improved by
the so-called multi-pass mechanisms
that in a circular accelerator allow a
particle not channeled in its first hit
to interact again with the crystal and
to be eventually channeled in a later
passage [11].
Channeling Peculiarities
of Multi-Charged Ions
The interactions of multi-charged
ions entering a crystal at small angles
with respect to a crystal plane have
distinctive peculiarities. The force
due to the average electric field, the
depth of the potential well, and the
critical transverse energy for chan-
neling are proportional to the charge
Z1. The critical channeling angle, the
oscillation wavelength in the channels
and the probability of capture into
the channeling regime Pc are invari-
ant with respect to the ratio pz = p/Z1.
Channeled particles may leave the
channeling regime because of scat-
tering with the crystal electrons and
nuclei (dechanneling process). The
transverse momentum acquired by a
scattered particle is proportional to its
charge, while the scattering angle is
inversely proportional to pz ( ~ Z1/p).
impact and applications
The dechanneling length is thus in-
variant with respect to pz, as well as
the critical radius Rc, below which
channeling is impossible
pv
Rc = . the extraction of the SPS proton beam
Z1eEm
The invariance with pz of channeling
and dechanneling parameters leads to
the invariance with pz of the deflection
efficiency.
Experiments at JINR, BNL, and
CERN have shown that bent crys-
tals may successfully deflect multi-
charged ions. The CERN experiments
on the SPS beam halo collimation
have demonstrated that the usage of
short crystals may increase the deflec-
tion efficiency by an order of magni-
tude [10].
Heavy-ions have cross-sections
for nuclear interactions significantly
larger than for protons. The interac-
tion may induce fragmentation or
electromagnetic dissociation (ED),
which becomes possible even for
well-channeled heavy nuclei [12].
Because of this, heavy-ions not cap-
tured into channeling regime have
larger losses in the crystal than pro-
tons. The difference is particularly
visible when a bent crystal is used
for extraction or collimation of the
accelerator beam. Besides, the large
ionization energy losses of heavy
ions in the crystal collimator, pro-
portional to Z12, increase the fraction
of particles with large momentum
reduction. This should increase the
loss rate in the dispersive regions be-
cause of the large shift of the particle
orbits.
Crystal-Assisted Extraction
and Collimation of Heavy
Ion Beams at CERN
The RD22 experiment was inves-
tigating the extraction of Pb nuclei
with 270 GeV/c per charge from the
30 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
CERN SPS using 4 cm long silicon
crystal bent along the (110) planes by
the angle 8.5 mrad [13]. The extrac-
tion efficiency was about 10%, which
is about two times smaller than for
with the same crystal [11]. The an-
gular width for ion extraction was of
about 50 rad, considerably smaller
than that for the extraction of protons.
Both these circumstances were caused
by the reduction of the contribution of
multiple passages of nuclei through
the crystal because of the increase of
losses due to nuclear interactions for
particles not captured into the chan-
neling regime.
The good performance of ion ex-
traction in RD22 was one of the steps
toward the use of bent crystals for
beam collimation in hadron colliders.
In this case, a few millimeters long
crystal can provide a small deflection
angle of the order of 100 rad required
to direct particles on the absorber. In
such short crystals, only particles with
large oscillation amplitudes in the
planar channels can be lost from the
channeling regime mainly because of
Coulomb scattering by the crystal nu-
clei.
In the UA9 experiment on the
study of the crystal collimation at
the CERN SPS one of the 2 mm
long silicon crystals with the bend
angle about 170 rad was used as a
primary collimator. The studies were
performed both with protons and Pb
nuclei with pz = 120 GeV/c and 270
GeV/c [910]. Figure 1 shows the de-
pendence of the Pb nuclei losses in
the crystal on its orientation observed
in the experiment [10]. The losses
were reduced more than 7 times in
the aligned case (a deep minimum
near zero). The simulation results
(curve 2) well describe this reduction
in the aligned crystal. The simulation
shows that this reduction value can
Figure 1. Crystal collimation of the
CERN SPS beam of Pb ions with 270
GeV/c per charge. (1) The dependence
of beam losses observed in the crystal
on its angular position normalized to
the value for the amorphous orienta-
tion of the crystal (dot-dashed line).
(2) The dependence of the number of
inelastic nuclear interactions of nuclei
in the crystal on its orientation angle
obtained by simulation.
be provided only when about 90%
of particles hitting the crystal are de-
flected in channeling regime by the
bend angle (channeling efficiency).
On the right of the minimum there
is the angular region with reduced
losses caused by the volume reflec-
tion of particles in the crystal (10 and
refs. therein). The beam loss monitors
installed in the first high dispersion
area behind the absorber showed the
same reduction of the off-momentum
beam fraction. This provides another
strong evidence of the high efficiency
of the crystal collimation. It should
be noted that the studies of the crys-
tal radiation resistance are required to
resolve a question about possibility to
use a crystal primary collimator for
the heavy nuclei beams.
ED Probability for
Channeled Nuclei
The cross-section of inelastic nu-
clear interactions for Pb nuclei with
270 GeV/c per charge in silicon crys-
tal is h = 4.3 b [10], which is about 10

times larger than for protons. Already
for this energy the ED cross-section
cannot be neglected, ed = 1.37 b. This
leads to an attenuation crystal length
for Pb nuclei of about 3.5 cm.
For nuclear interactions the impact
parameter of nuclei collisions should
be smaller than the sum of the nuclei
radii, R = RSi + RPb 10 fm. Well-
channeled particles with the whole
trajectories situated in the central part
of the planar channels outside the nu-
clear corridors cannot have nuclear in-
teractions with the crystal nuclei. The
minimal energy required to exciting
the giant dipole resonance of Pb nu-
clei with the emission of one neutron
is En1 = 7.4 MeV. A maximal energy of
virtual photons in collisions with the
impact parameter b can be estimated
according to Ref. [14] as
Em = c/b, (1) magnets, a classical resonant extrac-
where is the relativistic factor of
particles. Em reaches the value of En1
for Pb nuclei with pz = 270 GeV/c (
= 114.3) at b = 0.03 . Thus, in this
case the electromagnetic dissociation
can occur only for a small fraction of
channeled nuclei. On the contrary, at
the LHC energies for Pb nuclei with
pz = 7 TeV/c ( = 2963) the ED is
possible even for channeled particles
moving along the center of the (110)
channels in silicon crystals when the
impact parameter b = dp/2 = 0.96 ,
where dp is the channel width. In the
effective planar potential for Pb nuclei
with pz = 7 TeV/c in the (110) silicon
channel bent with the radius R = 100
m the ED probability per 1 mm path
averaged over the ensemble of well-
channeled particles remains close to
the value for the straight crystal, Ped =
2.8 105. In the silicon crystals with
the length of 35 mm, which should
be used for the LHC beam collima-
tion, the fraction of well-channeled
Pb-ions lost due to ED is of the order
impact and applications
of 0.01%, which should not visibly
change the collimation efficiency.
Conclusive Remarks
Since 2010, the LHC has been suc-
cessfully operating in collider mode at
7 and later at 8 TeV in the center-of-
mass for protons and at 2.76 TeV per
nucleon for lead ion beams produc-
ing an outstanding luminosity in the
four large-scale experiments CMS,
ALTAS, LHCb, and ALICE.
During the LHC project definition
and optimization already, the option
was considered of producing extracted
beams in an underground experimen-
tal area as a possible alternative to
investigate B-physics in collision
mode [15, 16]. Because of the lack
of aperture and of the quite large field
imperfections expected in the LHC
tion was considered not feasible, even
in a dedicated mode of operation. A
non-standard scenario was proposed
in alternative, based on the usage of a
bent monocrystal, located at the edge
of the circulating beam to parasitically
extract the diffusive halo, otherwise
useless for collisions. The possibility
of extracting a flux of at least 108 halo
particles per second, with no visible
perturbation for the beam core was
experimentally demonstrated first in
RD22 at CERN [17, 11] and then in
E853 at FNAL [1820]. Shortly after,
the key technology of short bent crys-
tals was developed, on which crystal-
assisted collimation for modern had-
ron colliders could have been based
[21]. Nonetheless, crystal-assisted ex-
traction and collimation were not fa-
vored as a base-line solution for LHC
and kept as study cases.
The deeper understanding of the
crystalparticle interaction recently
obtained in the frame of the UA9 Col-
laboration opens a new opportunity
for proposing practical application.
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 31
The plans to test crystal-assisted col-
limation in LHC are well assessed and
in progress. More recently, crystal-
assisted extraction was again sug-
gested as a possible way of extending
the physics reach of LHC by means
of fixed-target experiments [22]. The
cooperative existence of crystal-colli-
mation and crystal-extraction in LHC
is eventually the new challenge for
short bent crystals in particle accelera-
tors.
References
1.J. Lindhard and K. Dan, Vidensk.
Selsk. Mat. Fys. Medd. 34 (14) (1965).
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3.A. S. Vodopianov et al., JETP Letters
30 (1979) 474.
4.V. V. Biryukov, Yu.A. Chesnokov, and
V.I. Kotov, Crystal Channeling and its
Application at High-Energy Accelera-
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(1998) 437.
6.A. Baurichter et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth.
B 164165 (2000) 27.
7.A. G. Afonin et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth.
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8.W. Scandale et al., Phys. Letters B 692
(2010) 78.
9.W. Scandale et al., Phys. Letters B 703
(2011) 547.
10.W. Scandale et al., Phys. Letters B 714
(2012) 231.
11.X. Altuna et al., Physics Letters B 357
(1995) 671.
12.W. Scandale, A. M. Taratin, and A.
D. Kovalenko, Phys. Rev. ST AB 16
(2013) 011001.
13.G. Arduini et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79
(1997) 4182.
14.U. I. Uggerhoj et al., Phys. Lett. B 619
(2005) 240.
15.W. Scandale, Experimental insertions
for the LHC, CERN 90-10 Volume
III, pp 760764, ECFA Workshop,
Aachen, 3 December 1990.
16.B. N. Jensen et al., A proposal to test
beam extraction by crystal channeling
at the SPS: A first step towards a LHC
impact and applications
extracted beam, CERN DRDC 91-25,
Geneva, 15 July 1991.
17.H. Akbari et al., Phys. Lett. B 313
(1993) 491.
18.C. Murphy et al., Nucl. Instr. Methods
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19.R. Carrigan et al., Phys. Rev. STAB 1
(1998) 022801.
20.R. Carrigan et al., Phys. Rev. AB 5
(2002) E043501.
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21.A. G. Afonin, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87
(2001) 9.
22.J. P. Lansberg et al., Prospectives for
a fixed target ExpeRiment at the LHC:
AFTER@CERN, 36th International
Conference on High Energy Physics,
Melbourne, Australia, 411 July 2012,
SLAC-PUB 15304.
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research,
Filler?
W. Scandale
CERN, European Organization for
Nuclear Research
Laboratoire de lAccelerateur
Lineaire (LAL), Universite Paris
Sud Orsay
INFN Sezione di Roma
A. M. Taratin
Dubna, Russian Federation
For the UA9 Collaboration

Nuclear Structure 2012
The Nuclear Structure 2012 Con-
ference was held at Argonne National
Laboratory on 1317 August 2012.
This was the 14th in the series of bien-
nial conferences organized by one of
the North American National Labo-
ratories. Previous conferences were
hosted by Argonne National Labora-
tory, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, Chalk River Laboratories,
the National Superconducting Cyclo-
tron Laboratory, and Oak Ridge Na-
tional Laboratory.
The Conference was attended by
200 participants (Figure 1), repre-
senting 19 countries from Africa,
Asia, Australia, Europe, and North
and South America. A large number
Figure 1. Participants of the Nuclear Structure 2012 Conference.
of graduate students and post-docs
were among the participants and, for
some, financial support was provided
by the organizers. The Scientific pro-
gram continued in the general spirit
of this conference series and covered
the latest research and development in
experimental and theoretical Nuclear
Physics. Some of the topics covered
were: nuclear structure and reactions,
physics with rare isotope beams,
heavy and superheavy nuclei, gamma-
ray spectroscopy, nuclear astrophys-
ics, nuclear masses and moments,
recent developments of gamma-ray
tracking arrays, and nuclear physics
instrumentations and facilities. A total
of 72 oral and 81 poster contributions
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 33
meeting reports
were presented. The conference pro-
gram and copies of the presentations
are available at the Nuclear Structure
2012 website: http://ns12.anl.gov.
The next conference will be orga-
nized, for the first time, by TRIUMF,
Canadas National Laboratory for
Nuclear and Particle Physics,on the
campus of the University of British
Columbia from 2025 July 2014. Fur-
ther information is available at http://
ns2014.triumf.ca/.
F. G. Kondev and T. Lauritsen
Argonne National Laboratory,
Argonne, Illinois, USA
meeting reports
FB20: The 20th International Conference on
Few-Body Problems in Physics
The 20th International Conference
on Few-Body Problems in Physics
(FB20) was held in Fukuoka, Japan,
2025 August 2012. The first FB con-
ference was held in London in 1959,
and recent FB conferences have been
held every three years. FB20 was ap-
proved by IUPAP as a type-B confer-
ence, and had 303 participants from
29 countries.
At FB20, theoretical and experi-
mental studies on 3-, 4-, and 10-par-
ticle systems, not only in stable nu-
clei but widely in unstable nuclei,
in hyper nuclei, in cluster-systems,
in atoms and molecules, and others
were reported and discussed. Topics
were 3-nucleon forces other than pp-
exchange 3NF, baryon interactions
based on QCD, structure of exotic
baryons, hyper nuclei, 3-body calcu-
lations and precise experiments on
atomic and molecular systems, and
so on. Studies of physics in few-body
systems are developing and expand-
ing its boundaries. There were many
young participants in FB20. About a
half of the participants were in their
twenties and thirties.
34 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
At FB20, 35 plenary talks in the
morning sessions, 157 parallel talks
including 19 key talks in the afternoon
sessions in 4 rooms, and 59 posters in
a poster session were presented and
discussions were made. Proceedings
of FB20 will be published as special
issues of Few-Body Systems from
Springer.
Intimate discussions were made
also in lunch times of 1.5 hours, be-
cause all the participants enjoyed
lunch boxes in a wide lobby in front
of the main hall and in a wide waiting
room. Many discussions by few-body
persons were made during the lunch
time every day.
It was regrettable that there were
many cancellations45 registrations
and 25 posters. Many of them may be
due to financial problems.
In the evening of 20 August after
all the parallel sessions were closed,
a memorial session was held for Pro-
fessor Walter Gloeckle, who passed
away on 1 August 2012. In the after-
noon of 22 August, some participants
enjoyed a bus tour for an old shrine,
Dazaifu. In the evening of the same
day, a public lecture about Higgs and
on the ILC (International Linear Col-
lider) was made to about 200 citizens.
At the conference dinner on Thursday,
34 participants wore yukata (summer
kimono) and attendants enjoyed a
summer night in Japan.
We thank sponsors of FB20, IU-
PAP, RCNP, Nishina-Center RIKEN,
JIC Fus, Kyushu University, Fukuoka
City, and JEC fund (Expo 70). The
next conference, FB21, is to be held in
2015 at ANL, USA.
Kenshi Sagara
Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

VI International Symposium on
Exotic Nuclei EXON-2012
Figure 1. Participants of the VI International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei EXON-2012.
The International Symposium on
Exotic Nuclei EXON-2012 took
place on 16 October in Vladivostok,
Russia. It was dedicated to one of the
most important and rapidly developing
areas of nuclear physicsthe phys-
ics of exotic nuclear states. The Sym-
posium was jointly organized by five
major research centers, where the dis-
cussed topics are of high prioritythe
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
(Dubna), the Large Heavy Ion Na-
tional Accelerator GANIL (France),
The Institute of Physical and Chemi-
cal Research RIKEN (Japan), The
GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion
Research (Germany), and the National
Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
NSCL (Michigan, USA). This Sympo-
sium, having become a traditional one,
was dedicated to the results of the re-
cent experimental and theoretical stud-
ies on the synthesis and properties of
nuclei far from the valley of stability
from the lightest to the super-heavy
elements. In recent years, this area of
research is rapidly developing, neces-
sitating the regular organization of such
scientific meetings. The previous Sym-
posium EXON-2009 was held in So-
chi in 2009.
At present the most sophisticated
physical experiments that are carried
out at large-scale accelerator facilities
requiring enormous financial invest-
ments can be realized only through
the combined efforts and cooperation
of the leading scientific centers. As an
example we can mention the creation
of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN
and of the heavy ion accelerators at the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
(Dubna), which has about 20 member-
states. Thus the research is done in col-
laboration with the research centers of
several countries. Each country makes
its financial and intellectual contribu-
tion to the creation of the large-scale
facilities, allowing to penetrate deeply
into the mysteries of matter and to
obtain new information not only for
nuclear physics, but also for other sci-
entific fields such as astronomy, con-
densed matter physics, and current
technologies. The fundamental inves-
tigations and methods used in these
centers are of great importance for the
interdisciplinary fields of science and
technology, such as nanotechnology,
medicine, and microelectronics.
Nuclei in exotic states are these,
which have high angular momentum
(madly rotating nuclei), high excita- in 1991 in Foros (the Crimea), and then
tion energy (hot nuclei), large defor-
mation (super- and hyper-deformation,
nuclei with unusual shape), nuclei with
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 35
meeting reports
abnormally large neutron or proton
number (neutron- or proton-rich nu-
clei), and super-heavy nuclei with the
atomic number Z > 110. The studies
of the properties of nuclear matter in
extreme states provide important infor-
mation on the properties of the micro-
cosm, and thus allow the modeling of
the different processes in the Universe.
The leading world centers studding
the nuclei in exotic states are the Joint
Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna),
the Large Heavy Ion National Accel-
erator GANIL (France), The Institute
of Physical and Chemical Research
RIKEN (Japan), The GSI Helmholtz
Centre for Heavy Ion Research (Ger-
many), and the National Supercon-
ducting Cyclotron Laboratory NSCL
(Michigan, USA). The Leaders of
these five centers were the co-chairmen
of the Symposium organizing com-
mitteeAcademician Yu. Oganesyan
(JINR), Professor S. Gales (GANIL),
Professor H. Enyo (RIKEN), Profes-
sor K. Stoecker (GSI), and Profes-
sor K.Gelbke (USA). This is the sixth
Symposium on Exotic Nuclei taking
place in Russia. The first one was held
there was a Symposium at the Baikal
Lake, in Peterhof, in Khanty-Mansiysk,
and in Sochi. All these events aroused
meeting reports
interest not only among the scientists
of the institutesorganizers, but also
of other research centers of the world.
In addition to discussions of scientific
issues and questions on cooperation,
the participants have an opportunity
to get acquainted with the most inter-
esting places in Russia while the local
authorities and universities receive the
latest information about the scientific
achievements of nuclear physics and
about its possible application in the re-
lated fields of science and technology.
About 130 scientists from 24 coun-
tries participated in the Symposium
EXON-2012. A lot of leading scien-
tists of the institutions making research
in the field of nuclear physics were
among them. The most represented
countries were Germany (10 del-
egates), France (12 delegates), Japan
(10 delegates), and the United States
(8 delegates). The scientific centers of
Russia were represented by 28 partici-
pants.
The scientific program included the
invited papers on the most important
areas in the physics of exotic nuclei and
on the new projects of the largest accel-
erator facilities and experimental facili-
ties. In addition the questions on fun-
damental physics and applied research
were discussed at the Symposium. The
representatives of the Far Eastern Fed-
eral University took an active part in
the discussions. This relatively young
University at the Far East of Russia has
powerful scientific potential and good
prospects for scientific research. There
are also plenty of institutions in the Far
East that are members of the Far East-
ern Branch of the Russian Academy
of Sciences under the direction of V. I.
Sergienko. This explains the choice of
place for the Symposium and the par-
ticipation of local institutions in it.
During the Symposium the results
of the recent experiments on the syn-
thesis and properties of the nuclei of
new super-heavy elements were dis-
36 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
cussed, that indicates a high efficiency
of international collaborations. In-
teresting results were obtained in the
joint experiments of FLNR (JINR),
GSI (Germany), and the Paul Scherrer
Institute (Switzerland). These experi-
ments on the chemical identification
of elements 112 and 114 were carried
out in the beams of FLNR cyclotron
U-400. A notable example of such
cooperation is an experiment on the
synthesis of element 117. It is done in
collaboration with the scientists from
the U.S. Laboratories that provided the
target material of 249Bk. The ongoing
experiment is carried out at JINR by a
large group of physicists and chemists
headed by Academician Yu. Oganes-
sian. In October this year, right after the
Symposium, the inauguration of two
elements discovered in Dubna114
(Flerovium) and 116 (Livermorium)
took place in Moscow.
Many interesting results have re-
cently been obtained in the studies of
the interaction of weakly bound nu-
clei, such as 6, 8, 6Li, 11Li, and
so on. The phenomenon of sub-barrier
nuclear fusion was discovered and also
the effect of strengthening of sections
of exchange reactions in the subthresh-
old energy region was obtained. Inter-
pretation of these results was presented
in the theoretical presentations. The
experimental results of search of reso-
nance in the 7 system were presented
for the first time at the session. These
experiments carried out at FLNR JINR
give new interesting results indicating
that the reactions with weakly bound
nuclei look promising for the obtain-
ing of information on the boundaries
of nuclear drip-line in the lightest ele-
ments. The experimental results of the
search of the tetraneutron (4n), 6H, 7H,
and 10, obtained in different research
centers, were presented at the Sympo-
sium. A large amount of new informa-
tion on the properties of nuclei at the
borders of nuclear drip-line was pre-
sented by the physicists from GANIL,
GSI, MSU, and RIKEN.
One day of the Symposium was en-
tirely devoted to the present and future
heavy-ion accelerator complexes and
radioactive nuclei complexes at the
leading research centers of the world.
Five laboratoriesorganizers of the
Symposium are now in the process of
constructing a new generation of ac-
celerators that will make significant
progress in the direction of synthesis
and study of new exotic nuclei prop-
erties. The projects SPIRAL, RIKEN,
FAIR, DRIBs, NIKA, and RIBF were
presented by the project directors.
Since the realization of such large-
scale projects is only possible through
the joint efforts of the leading research
centers of the world, it was an extremely
important aspect of the Symposium to
discuss the possibilities of various col-
laborations in order to create the physi-
cal facilities and to develop the joint
research programs. It was basically the
main objective of the Symposium that
explains the support of this event by the
leading research centers of Europe. The
organizational issues in this area were
discussed and in particular the possi-
bility of cooperation of JINR with the
European physical communities.
There were about 80 oral presenta-
tions and about 40 poster presentations
at the Symposium.
The extensive scientific program
was combined with an equally rich
cultural program. There were trips to
Vladivostok and to the surrounding
area, a boat-trip to the numerous bays
of the Pacific Ocean, and also interest-
ing folk concerts organized for the par-
ticipants.
The next Symposium (EXON-
2015) is expected to be held in the West
of Russia in Kaliningrad.
Yu. Penionzhkevich
Chairman,
Organizing Committee EXON-2012
 news and views

IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in

Nuclear Physics, 2013
The International Union of Pure Conference (INPC2013) in Florence, Citation for Stefano Gandolfi
and Applied Physics (IUPAP) prize Italy, the main conference in the field For developing
was established in 2005 to recog- of Nuclear Physics. Each winner re- a new method of
nize and encourage very promising ceived a monetary prize, a medal, a calculating many
experimental or theoretical research certificate and gave an invited talk on body observables
in nuclear physics, including the ad- their work to their international peers from ab-initio two
vancement of a method, a procedure, a (Figure 1). body and three
technique, or a device that contributes body interactions,
in a significant way to nuclear physics Citation for Rabia Burcu Cakirli which allows one to predict observ-
research. For innovative use able interactions in nuclei beyond 12C
The Commission on Nuclear Phys- of precise nuclear and for extending this work to neutron
ics (C12) of IUPAP received 32 nomi- mass measure- and cold atoms systems.
nations by the deadline of 1 Novem- ments in critical
ber 2012. After a critical evaluation regions of the nu-
Citation for Bjorn Peter Schenke
of these outstanding candidates, the clear chart to ac-
For key contribu-
C12 members chose to give the prizes cess correlations
tions to the theo-
to Rabia Burcu Cakirli, Stefano Gan- that are used to extract empirical sig-
retical understand-
dolfi, and Bjorn Peter Schenke. natures of collective degrees of free-
ing and modeling
The award ceremony was held 5 dom and of shell closures. For stimu-
of the quark gluon
June 2013 during a dedicated session lating a large body of new theoretical
plasma state of
of the International Nuclear Physics and experimental work in these areas.
matter and for pro-
viding an explana-
tion to the observed jet quenching
in relativistic heavy ion collisions that
triggered new theoretical and experi-
mental work in this field.

Hideyuki Sakai
Chair C12

Figure 1. Hideyuku Sakai (Chair C12),

Stefano Gandolfi, Bjorn Peter Schenke,
Rabia Burcu Cakirli, and Jean-Michel
Poutissou (Vice-Chair C12) (from
right) at the IUPAP Young Scientist
Prize Session.

Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 37

news and views
Nuclear Physics Research:
An International Perspective
Introduction
A working group set up under the
auspices of the International Union of
Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) is
taking a forward look from an inter-
national perspective at nuclear physics
and the facilities it uses. IUPAP was
established more than 90 years ago (in
1922) to foster international co-oper-
ation in physics. It does this through
the activities of a number of commis-
sions for different areas of research,
including the Commission on Nuclear
Physics (C12), established in 1960.
In addition, through various commis-
sions working groups were set up with
specific mandates. Well known are the
International Committee for Future
Accelerators (ICFA) formed in 1976
with a link to the Commission on Par-
ticles and Fields (C11) and the Work-
ing Group on International Coop-
eration in Nuclear Physics formed in
2005 with a link to Commission C12
(Working Groups WG.1 and WG.9,
respectively).
The membership of IUPAP WG.9
was chosen to constitute a broad rep-
resentation of geographical regions
and nations with expertise in the
various subfields of nuclear physics,
as one would expect for a working
group of the IUPAP. Its membership
consists of the working groups chair,
immediate past-chair, and secretary;
the chairs and immediate past-chairs
of the Asia Nuclear Physics Associa-
tion (ANPhA), of the Nuclear Physics
European Collaboration Committee
(NuPECC), and of the Nuclear Sci-
ence Advisory Committee to the US
DoE and NSF (NSAC); the chair of
the Latin-America Association for
Nuclear Physics and Applications
(ALAFNA); the directors of the large
38 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
nuclear physics facilities (four each
from Asia, Europe, and North Amer-
ica, plus one from South Africa); and
the chair of IUPAP C12. The IUPAP
WG.9 working group meets every
year just prior to the Annual General
Meeting (AGM) of IUPAP C12. In
addition, IUPAP WG.9 has the task to
organize the triennial two-day Sympo-
sium on Nuclear Science and Nuclear
Physics Facilities.
The chief tasks of IUPAP WG.9 are
to answer the three specific questions:
What constitutes nuclear science
from an international perspec-
tive?
Which are the facilities that are
used to investigate nuclear phys-
ics phenomena?
Which are the scientific ques-
tions that need to be addressed at
these and future facilities?
The answers to these questions ap-
pear in IUPAP Report 41, published
in hard copy in 2007 and posted on
the website (http://www.triumf.info/
hosted/IUPAP/icnp/index.html).
However, the document requires
regular updating. IUPAP Report 41
contains entries for all nuclear phys-
ics user facilities that agreed to sub-
mit data. The 92 entries range from
smaller facilities with more restricted
regional usage to the large nuclear
physics accelerator laboratories with
a global users group. The report also
contains an overview of the major sci-
entific questions facing nuclear phys-
ics today, together with a summary
of how these questions are being ad-
dressed by the current nuclear physics
facilities or how these questions will
be addressed by future and planned
facilities. There is also a short account
of the societal benefits stemming from
the basic advances in nuclear physics
with its underlying high technology
developments required towards ex-
perimentation and of the energy ques-
tion of such great importance for the
evolution of society.
IUPAP WG.9 is operating follow-
ing a mandate given by the Organisa-
tion for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) Global Science
Forum (GSF). In 2008, IUPAP WG.9
gave expert advise to the OECD GSF
Working Group on Nuclear Physics.
It became apparent that for science
policymakers in many countries it is
essential to understand how proposals
for future large nuclear physics facili-
ties fit within an international context.
The OECD report provides a global
roadmap for nuclear physics in the
current decade in a format suitable to
science administrators.
The 2013 Nuclear
Science Symposium
In response to the mandate given
to IUPAP WG.9 by the OECD GSF, a
second two-day nuclear science sym-
posium was organized at the Labora-
tori Nazionali di Frascati, 31 May
1 June 2013. The symposium pro-
vided the opportunity for proponents
of nuclear science across the world to
learn about and discuss present and
future plans for research in nuclear
physics, as well as upgraded and new
research facilities that will be required
to realize these plans. Three half-day
presentations were arranged by the ex-
ecutive of IUPAP WG.9.
The presentations at the sympo-
sium focused on seven main topics of
nuclear physics today:

1.Can the structure and interac-
tions of hadrons be understood
in terms of QCD?
2.What is the structure of nuclear
matter?
3.What are the phases of nuclear
matter?
4.What is the role of nuclei in
shaping the evolution of the uni-
verse, with the known forms of
matter only comprising a meager
5%?
5.What is the physics beyond the
Standard Model?
6.What is the role of nuclear phys-
ics in serving society?
7.What is the role of nuclear en-
ergy in the global energy ques-
tion?
The presentations are available at
h t t p : / / w w w. t r i u m f . i n f o / h o s t e d /
IUPAP/icnp/index.html and are briefly
summarized below:
QCD and Hadronic Nuclear Physics
(Hadrons and Nucleons)
Since the last symposium in 2010,
considerable progress has been made
in elucidating the intricate structure of
the nucleon, but there is a wealth of ex-
citing, fundamental questions that need
to be addressed in turn. Experiment,
phenomenology, and lattice QCD ap-
pear to be working together beauti-
fully. It needs to be emphasized that
appropriate investments are needed to
exploit the facilities now operating and
nearing completion. To further the field
an electron-ion collider requires being
built and high power computers are
necessary for lattice QCD.
QCD and Quark Matter
The higher priority for quark matter
research is the full exploitation of the
physics potential in colliding heavy
ions at the LHC. At lower energies
where the highest baryon densities are
reached, there are opportunities for a
new generation of precision measure-
ments that address central questions
about the QCD phase diagram. The
complementarity of LHC and RHIC
is an essential resource in efforts to
quantify properties of the Quark-Gluon
Plasma.
Electroweak Physics and
Fundamental Symmetries
Fundamental symmetry tests probe
new physics at the PeV scale and al-
ready severely constrain the flavor
and CP structures of any scenario ad-
dressing the hierarchy question. If a
positive signal is found it would not
point to a specific theory or model. It
is therefore of paramount importance
to pursue as many different types of
symmetry tests as possible (B, L, LF,
CP, P conservation) and then within
each type of symmetry test study vari-
ous kind of processes, like m e g,
m 3e, m e. conversion, and where
possible deduce final state information,
like spin, flavor, energy. The subfield
is moving toward being the primary
search vehicle for new physics if noth-
ing (except for the Higgs) is discovered
at the LHC.
Low Energy Nuclear Structure
and Nuclear Astrophysics
The study of atomic nuclei provides
the connection between the fundamen-
tal building blocks of matter, complex
nuclear systems, and the cosmos. The
last three years have seen consider-
able progress in the physics of nuclei
and the interconnection with nuclear
astrophysics. Existence of the super
heavy elements with atomic numbers
between 112 and 118 has been found
and confirmed. Great progress has
been made in a comprehensive and
validated theory of nuclei from the
light nuclei to medium-weight nuclei
to heavy nuclei.
Nuclear Physics Serving Society
Nuclear technology, nuclear pro-
cesses, and nuclear data play an es-
sential role throughout modern society.
The use of radioactive nuclei for diag-
nostic purposes or treatment purposes
Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013, Nuclear Physics News 39
news and views
is prevalent in and essential and critical
for modern medicine.
Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy is still perceived as
a clean and economical source of en-
ergy, but a new approach to safety and
sustainability is needed. Developing
countries have taken the lead role in
the construction of new nuclear power
plants. The future of the nuclear fuel
cycle is a most important issue. Accel-
erator driven systems for power gen-
eration and nuclear waste management
has a major window of opportunity.
But economics will drive the future of
nuclear energy and nuclear waste man-
agement.
Nuclear Physics Facilities
The present and near completion
nuclear physics facilities plus those
presently under construction give
great promise to answer the ques-
tions outlined in the above-listed pre-
sentations. For hadrons and nucleons
and QCDJlab (12 GeV), J-PARC,
and FAIR. For quark matterLHC-
ALICE, RHIC, FAIR. For nuclear
structure and nuclear astrophysics
FRIB, RIKEN-RIBF, GANIL-SPI-
RAL2, LNL-SPES, CERN-HIE-
ISOLDE, TRIUMF-ISAC, ALTO at
IPNO, as well as rare isotope beam facil-
ities under construction in ChinaCSR
in Lanzhou, BRIF in Beijing, HIAF in
Lanzhou, and in Korea (RAON-RISP).
There is also the planning stage EURI-
SOL. Tests of fundamental symmetries
range from table-top experiments to ex-
tended experiments at the large nuclear
physics facilities.
The presentations led to extensive
discussions among the various rep-
resentatives. At the symposium, two
separate in camera meetings were
arranged for science administrators/
government representatives.
Willem T. H. van Oers
Secretary of IUPAP WG.9,
TRIUMF
obituary
In Memoriam: Enrico Farnea (19702013)
Enrico Farnea
Not yet aged 43, Enrico Farnea has
died on 14 April 2013, after a tough
fight against a malignant disease,
which was diagnosed shortly after
summer last year.
Born in Verona on 29 August
1970, Enrico studied Physics at the
University of Padova and gradu-
ated in 1995 with a thesis done at
the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro
(LNL) on the development of ISIS, a
4p light charged particle detector for
the gamma-ray detector array GASP.
After the thesis he continued work-
ing with the gamma-ray spectroscopy
group on the EUROBALL project,
taking care in particular of the devel-
opment of the light charged particle
detector ISIS, which was very much
used in the Physics campaigns at LNL
and at IReS (Strasbourg). He was at
IFIC Valencia with a Marie Curie
40 Nuclear Physics News, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2013
fellowship between 1998 and 2000
and made a Ph.D. at the University
of Surrey (UK) in 2001 with the the-
sis Spectroscopic studies of Isospin
Mixing in 64Ge based on experi-
ments performed with EUROBALL
using instrumentation he contributed
to build. The results of this work have
been a substantial contribution to the
complex topic of isospin mixing in
nuclear states.
At the end of 2001 Enrico got a
permanent position at INFN Padova,
reinforcing considerably the strength
of the Padova/LNL Nuclear Spectros-
copy group.
In parallel with the experimental
activity at LNL with GASP, EURO-
BALL, and later on with CLARA, En-
rico was involved since the beginning
in the efforts of the AGATA collabora-
tion to develop the gamma-ray track-
ing paradigm, which is based on the
precise identification of the energy-re-
lease points inside large-volume high-
purity segmented germanium crystals
and the reconstruction of individual
gamma transitions that generated
them. In particular, he developed the
Monte Carlo simulation codes used to
define the geometrical structure and
the basic performance figures not only
of AGATA but also of the US project
GRETA.
Considering the amount of innova-
tive features, the complexity, and the
cost of a gamma-ray tracking array the
AGATA collaboration decided to pro-
ceed in phases, starting with a Dem-
onstrator composed of 15 crystals (out
of the 180 needed for the complete
array) to be constructed and operated
first at LNL. As Local Project Man-
ager and as a member of the AGATA
Management Board (AMB) Enrico
was in charge of the installation of the
Demonstrator at the target point of the
PRISMA spectrometer and of the en-
suing 20102011 experimental cam-
paign. First result of this campaign
have been reported by him in several
conferences and in a recent issue of
this journal (The AGATA Demonstra-
tor Array at LNL, Nuclear Physics
News Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012).
Besides the efforts to develop
AGATA, Enrico has been for many
years the representative of the Padova
group in the INFN Nuclear Physics
Scientific Committee. Since last year
he was Group Leader of the GAMMA
experiment, which involves physi-
cists of the INFN sections of Firenze,
Legnaro, Padova, Milano, and Peru-
gia/Camerino.
An excellent physicist and a won-
derful person with many interests in
literature, music, and movies, Enrico
was fully committed to his research
work and always ready to help, in
particular the younger colleagues.
His premature passing away is a ma-
jor loss for our community both from
the human point of view and for the
activities to which he so strongly and
successfully dedicated his life.
Dino Bazzacco
INFN, Padova, Italy
Andres Gadea
IFIC, Valencia, Spain
calendar
2013
October 611
San Francisco, CA, USA. 14th In-
ternational Conference on Accelera-
tor and Large Experimental Physics
Control Systems (ICALEPCS 2013)
http://icalepcs2013.org/
October 711
Sao Sebastiao, SP, Brazil. Fourth
International Workshop on Com-
pound-Nuclear Reactions and Re-
lated Topics (CNR*13)
http://www.ita.br/CNR2013/
October 812
Moscow, Russia. 63d Interna-
tional Conference on Nuclear Phys-
ics Nucleus2013
http://www.onlinereg.ru/site.
php?go=203&lang=ENG
October 1315
Messina, Italy. Lepton and Had-
ron Physics at Meson-Factories
http://newcleo.unime.it/Events/
LHPMF2013/
October 1317
Berkeley, CA, USA. 11th Inter-
national Conference on the Health
Effects of Incorporated Radionu-
clides (HEIR 2013)
http://actinide.lbl.gov/HEIR2013/
index.html
October 28November 2
Somerset West, South Africa.
iThemba-SASc Spring Workshop
on GEANT4 in low-energy nuclear
physics
http://www.geant4.tlabs.ac.za/
November 58
Acireale (Catania), Italy. IX
Workshop on Particle Correlations
and Spectroscopy WPCF-2013
https://indico.cern.ch/
conferenceDisplay.
py?confId=248321
More information available in the Calendar of Events on the NuPECC website: http://www.nupecc.org/
November 68
Messina, Italy. International Sym-
posium Entrance Channel Effect on
the Reaction Mechanism in Heavy
Ion Collisions
http://newcleo.unime.it/Events/
ECHIC2013/index.html
November 1315
Bern, Switzerland. 2nd Int. Work-
shop on Antimatter and Gravity
(WAG 2013)
http://www.einstein.unibe.ch/
workshops/wag2013.html
December 16
Montevideo, Uruguay. X Latin
American Symposium on Nuclear
Physics and Applications (X-LAS-
NPA)
http://www.fing.edu.uy/if/lasnpa/
December 26
Cape Town, South Africa. The
first African Symposium on Exotic
Nuclei (IASEN-2013)
http://iasen-2013.jinr.ru/
December 813
Dallas, TX, USA. 27th Texas
Symposium on Relativistic Astro-
physics
http://nsm.utdallas.edu/texas2013/
2014
January 1218
Kolkata, India. Third Interna-
tional Conference on Application
of RadiotraCers and Energetic
Beams in Sciences (ARCEBS-14)
http://indico.cern.ch/
conferenceDisplay.
py?confId=232642
January 2731
Bormio, Italy. 52nd International
Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics
http://www.bormiomeeting.com/
February 1922
Bormio, Italy. Second Topical
Workshop on Modern Aspects in Nu-
clear Structure: Advances in Nu-
clear Structure at Extreme Condi-
tions
http://www.mi.infn.it/WSBormio-
Milano2014/
March 1013
Sevilla, Spain. 7th Workshop on
Shape-Phase Transitions and Criti-
cal Point Phenomena in Nuclei
http://atomix.us.es/institucional/
qpt/
May 2530
San Antonio, TX, USA. CAARI
2014
http://www.caari.com/
May 2730
Nis, Serbia. Second International
Conference on Radiation and Do-
simetry in Various Fields of Re-
search (RAD 2014)
http://www.rad2014.elfak.rs/
welcome.php
May 29June 3
Cracow, Poland. MESON2014
http://meson.if.uj.edu.pl/
June 16
Tokyo, Japan. ARIS2014
http://ribf.riken.jp/ARIS2014/
June 913
Kyiv, Ukraine. 5th International
Conference on Current Problems in
Nuclear Physics and Atomic Energy
(NPAE-Kyiv2014)
http://www.kinr.kiev.ua/
NPAE-Kyiv2014/
July 2025
Vancouver, Canada. Nuclear
Structure 2014
http://ns2014.triumf.ca/