Zakopane 2026 Conference on Nuclear Physics

The study of projectile breakup in heavy-ion interactions has been a topic of interest in recent years. At energies slightly above the Coulomb barrier, reactions are typically characterized by complete fusion (CF) and incomplete fusion (ICF)/breakup fusion (BUF) processes, with their relative contributions varying based on the incident energy. Recent experiments have shown that the breakup...

Since the discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn and Strassmann in 1939, it has remained a subject of sustained research interest. Nuclear fission is a fascinating example of large-scale rearrangement of strongly interacting nucleons within a finite many-body system. Despite decades of extensive experimental and theoretical efforts, several aspects of the fission process are still not fully...

The region of neutron-rich nuclei around the $N=40$ subshell closure and the $Z=28$ proton shell is of particular interest for studying the evolution of nuclear structure, including shape coexistence, collectivity, and decay mechanisms far from stability. While $^{68}$Ni was initially considered a doubly magic nucleus, experimental studies of neighboring isotopes have revealed pronounced...

The concept of nuclear pairing plays a central role in explaining a wide range of nuclear phenomena, including separation energies, the structure of low-lying spectra, and giant resonances. While most theoretical descriptions of pairing rely on phenomenological schematic models or energy density functional approaches, recent developments in chiral interactions open the path toward ab-initio...

The SilCA (Silicon Coulex Array) scattering chamber, developed at the Heavy Ion Laboratory in Warsaw to accommodate various particle detectors, including a CD-like annular DSSD (Double-Sided Silicon Strip Detector) [1], was assembled at HIL Warsaw together with the EAGLE array [2] in late 2023. The setup was commissioned in-beam in November 2024 with the EAGLE spectrometer using the digital...

In recent years, the study of heavy-ion fusion reactions at the sub-barrier energies has attracted considerable attention in both experimental and theoretical investigations. One of the interesting phenomena observed in this energy regime is the sub-barrier fusion enhancement. The enhancement observed in the sub-barrier fusion cross sections over the predictions of one-dimensional barrier...

Electron capture plays an important role in the evolution of massive stars and explosive astrophysical environments. We investigated the shape dependence of Gamow-Teller strength distributions and electron-capture rates in proton-rich nuclei using the deformed QRPA with realistic G-matrix interactions. The nuclear deformation strongly modifies the GT strength distributions, whereas the...

The direct determination of nuclear reaction rates at thermal energies remains a central challenge in nuclear astrophysics and strongly coupled plasma physics, where fusion occuring far below the Coulomb barrier is strongly influenced by electron screening and many-body effects [1]. Deuteron–deuteron (d–d) reactions provide a sensitive probe of these conditions, with relevance for both...

Octupole correlations in barium isotopes have been experimentally reported up to $N$=90 [1,2], with more recent evidence suggesting that this behaviour may persist up to $N$=94 [3]. The same study, together with symmetry-conserving configuration mixing (SCCM) calculations, supports an evolution toward increasingly quadrupole-deformed shapes accompanied by sustained octupole correlations in...

The nuclei around the A ∼ 130 mass region belong to the category of transitional nuclei, where the axial symmetry is broken, and the non-axial degree of freedom plays an essential role in determining the properties of these nuclei. The Xe isotopes in the A∼ 130 region are of particular interest as recent investigations of the excited states of the 125,127Xe have indicated triaxial shapes using...

Neutron-induced fission reaction cross sections are crucial in various fields of nuclear science and technology. Experimental data from these reactions play a key role in understanding nuclear processes at high excitation energies, contributing to the development and refinement of models describing spallation, nuclear fragmentation, and binary fission. Moreover, accurate cross-section data are...

Rare-earth nuclei are known to exhibit a pronounced shape transition from spherical to well-deformed configurations in the vicinity of the N = 104 mid-shell region. Within the ytterbium isotopic chain, the neutron-rich isotopes $^{176}$Yb (N = 106) and $^{178}$Yb (N = 108) lie firmly on the deformed side of this transition, as evidenced by their R$_{4/2}$ = E(4$_1^+$) / E(2$_1^+$) ratios...

One of the most interesting phenomena in the nuclear structure physics is the competing excitation modes of collective and single-particle motions. In recent decades, studies of rotational band structures in transitional nuclei with A$\sim$100 mass number have revealed numerous related phenomena, $e.g.$ signature inversion, band termination, appearance of chiral rotational structures and...

The evolution of nuclear shell structure in exotic nuclei provides key insights into the
fundamental nature of nuclear forces. In nuclei far from stability, conventional magic
numbers can disappear, while new ones may emerge, a phenomenon known as shell evolution [1].
A well-known example is the evolution of the N=28 shell gap from $^{40}$Ca to $^{48}$Ca,
which has been successfully...

The odd--odd iodine isotopes are known to exhibit a rich variety of nuclear structures, particularly high-$K$ isomeric states~\cite{ref1}. These isomers are generally associated with coupled configurations involving the proton intruder $g_{9/2}$ orbital and the neutron intruder $h_{11/2}$ orbital~\cite{ref2}. In particular, an isomeric state with spin--parity $I^{\pi} = 7^{-}$, originating...

Studies of exotic atomic nuclei have shown that the magic nucleon numbers observed near the valley of stability (2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126) can slightly vary. The vast majority of theoretical calculations consider the 100Sn nucleus, with 50 neutrons and protons, to be magic; however, we have not yet found clear experimental evidence for this. Beyond this fundamental question of nuclear...

Light charged particle energy spectra were measured in coincidence with fission fragments in the $^{11}\mathrm{B} + {}^{232}\mathrm{Th}$ reaction at $E_{\mathrm{lab}} = 64$~MeV. The pre-scission proton multiplicity ($\pi_{\mathrm{pre}}$) was determined using the Moving Source Disentangling Analysis (MSDA). A comparison of the obtained $\pi_{\mathrm{pre}}$ and previously reported value for the...

Evaporated light particles carry information of the temperature, angular momentum, deformation, and lifetime of the emitting source. Earlier studies have shown that neutron, proton, and α-particle spectra may carry signatures of dynamical deformation, particularly when the formation and decay time scales of the composite system are comparable. In particular, the slopes of the emitted particle...

We present numerical simulations of the collision and subsequent evolution of two superfluid fermionic systems in one dimension. The study focuses on the dynamics of two initially separated superfluid systems that begin to interact following the removal or modification of a potential barrier. This interaction induces excitations manifested as particle flow and oscillations of both the density...

Chiral rotation has been found in many triaxial nuclei in the $A\sim$ 80, 100, 130, and 190 mass regions [1]. In the $A\sim$ 100 mass region rotational bands in the $^{104}$Rh nucleus have been studied, using the $^{96}$Zr($^{11}$B,3n) fusion-evaporation reaction at a beam energy of 40~MeV with the Gammasphere spectrometer.
Earlier two negative-parity chiral doublets [2,3] were identified...

The ultrarelativistic heavy ions collisions with fixed targets gives opportunity to verify the usability of nuclear models. The high energy particles produced in the participant zone in the Quark-Gluon plasma (QGP) are interacting electromagnetically with charged remnants- spectators and changes trajectories of the charged particles [1,2]. Studying de-excitation processes such as evaporation,...

Octupole correlations, resulting from the long-range, octupole-octupole interaction between nucleons occupying pairs of orbitals with Δj=Δl=3 have been proved to be one of the major cornerstone in nuclear structure physics. However, the evidence for static octupole deformation leading to a heart-shaped nucleus has been rare [1]. The band structure involving alternate parity states and...

Nuclear interactions constitute the fundamental basis for understanding the structure of nuclear matter. However, despite significant theoretical progress—particularly within the framework of chiral effective field theory (ChEFT)—noticeable discrepancies between experimental data and theoretical predictions persist, especially in few-nucleon systems. To expand the experimental database with...

The GADAST detector array [1] is being developed within the EXPERT project [3] of the Super-FRS Experiment Collaboration at FAIR [2]. Its principal task is to tag γ-ray de-excitation of daughter nuclei produced in exotic radioactive decays, and to detect of protons and other light charged particles emitted with sufficiently large transverse momentum. Previous characterization of the GADAST...

Nuclear reaction cross-section data in the medium-mass region are important for applications in medical isotope production, accelerator technology, astrophysics, and reactor design. Proton-induced reactions on Rb–Br isotopes have been investigated using the activation technique. Thin RbBr targets were irradiated with 15 MeV protons at the BARC-TIFR Pelletron Facility, India. The irradiation...

Doubly odd Cs nuclei are of particular interest due to the bands built on low-$\Omega$ $h_{11/2}$proton and high-$\Omega$ $h_{11/2}$ neutron orbitals, which exhibit distinct shape-driving effects [1]. The nuclei $^{124,126,128,130,132}$Cs have been reported to display chiral symmetry in the positive parity band based on the $\pi h_{11/2} \otimes \nu h_{11/2}$ configuration [2,3]. In this...

Exploring the new elements toward the high end of the nuclear chart is one of the most interesting topics in nuclear physics. The key ingredient to stabilize nucleus in this region is a nuclear shell structure and Z=114, 120, N=184 [1-4] are predicted to be new magic numbers. However, the access to such nuclei and study of their shell structure is limited by the very low cross sections. To...

Odd-mass, neutron-deficient nuclei in the vicinity of the Z = 82 closed shell are currently the subject of extensive experimental investigation due to the frequent occurrence of shape coexistence and nuclear isomerism in this region. In 2022, a new isomeric state in ¹⁷⁹Au was identified at an excitation energy of 1743(17) keV, with spin and parity of 19/2⁺ and a half-life of 2.16(8) µs. Due to...

A sudden ground-state shape transition is known to occur at $N=60$ for Sr and Zr isotopes, accompanied by dramatic changes in their energy spectra [1]. In contrast, in Mo isotopes with $A\approx100$ the ground-state shape evolution appears to be more gradual, in accordance with the moderate change in $E_x(2_1^+)$ and mean-squared charge radii across $N=60$ [1]. At the same time, the energy of...

We are developing an emulator for nuclear many-body calculations based on Eigenvector Continuation (EC), a reduced-basis method applicable to both ab initio Hamiltonians and Energy Density Functional (EDF) approaches.

The method exploits the observation that the parametric evolution of low-lying eigenvectors is confined to a low-dimensional manifold embedded within the full Hilbert space. A...

As per the Bohr’s independence hypothesis [1], the formation and decay of a compound nucleus (CN) are independent processes. As such, a nuclear reaction occurs in two steps: (i) the incident particle is absorbed by the target nucleus to form a quasi-stable CN with energy shared among all the nucleons, (ii) the equilibrated CN decays after a long time ($\approx 10^{-16}$ sec.). The CN theory...

Lanthanum ($Z = 57$) and lutetium ($Z = 71$) serve as ideal candidates to study proton-emission effects, which can be used to test nuclear models in extreme conditions. Near the N=82 shell closure, the Lu proton-emitting isotopes display a minor oblate deformation. This is in contrast with the proton-emitting La isotope, which is far from any shell closures and shows a strong prolate...

We report on two recently patented approaches for the determination of hadron beam energy and energy spread. Experimental data used for validation were collected at the Bronowice Cyclotron Center (CCB) and at the AIC-144 cyclotron operated by the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAS in Kraków. The obtained results confirm the applicability of the proposed diagnostic methods for real-time...