Conveners
Parallel: Parallel 1A
- There are no conveners in this block
Parallel: Parallel 1B
- Aaron Couture (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Parallel: Parallel 2A
- Thibault Laplace (University of California, Berkeley)
Parallel: Parallel - 2B
- Benjamin Crider (Mississippi State University)
Parallel: Parallel 3A
- Bertis Rasco (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Parallel: Parallel 3B
- Erin Peters (University of Kentucky)
Parallel: Parallel 4A
- John Kelley (Duke University)
Parallel: Parallel 4B
- Paul Fallon
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Taiki Tanaka (Japan Atomic Energy Agency)16/06/2026, 13:30Oral Presentations
It has now been 15 years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, and we are still working toward our mission of achieving safe decommissioning, which is expected to require approximately 40 years. One of the most difficult challenges is the presence of approximately 880 tons of nuclear fuel debris in the reactors that melted during the accident. Key questions include: (1) how...
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Prof. Stefan Frauendorf (University Notre Dame)16/06/2026, 13:30Oral Presentations
Understanding the global Z-N-dependence of the ฮณ strength functions (ฮณsf) is important for reliably predicting reaction rates in astrophysical and technical applications. For this reason, the Notre Dame-HZDR-Kashmir collaboration has calculated the M1 and E2 ฮณsf for extended series of the Sn, Ge, Gd and Sm isotopes using the conventional spherical shell model (SSM) and, as a new tool, the...
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Bastian Hesbacher (Institut fรผr Kernphysik, Technische Universitรคt Darmstadt)16/06/2026, 13:50Oral Presentations
The all-electromagnetic $(e,e^\prime\gamma)$ reaction provides an exclusive access to nuclear properties. It had first been used for nuclear structure measurements in the 1980s [1]. Since then, very few experiments were based on this reaction. One of its challenges lies in the coincident bremsstrahlung, which - apart from the angular distribution - cannot be distinguished from the...
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Ingrid Knapova (Los Alamos National Laboratory)16/06/2026, 13:50Oral Presentations
Level density (LD) and photon strength functions (PSFs) are fundamental quantities describing $\gamma$ decay in the statistical regime, where individual nuclear levels cannot be experimentally resolved. When neutron-capture cross sections -- crucial inputs for heavy element nucleosynthesis calculations -- are unavailable, LD and PSFs provide essential inputs for Hauser-Feshbach calculations....
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Adriana Sweet (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)16/06/2026, 14:10Oral Presentations
For exotic nuclei, theoretical predictions of the $ \gamma $-ray strength function ($ \gamma $SF) exhibit large variations, which represent the dominant uncertainty in Hauser Feshbach calculations of neutron capture reaction rates. In particular, constraining the $ ^{146} $La(n,$ \gamma $)$ ^{147} $La and $ ^{147} $La(n,$ \gamma $)$ ^{148} $La reactions through experimentally determined...
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Josรฉ Enrique Garcรญa Ramos (University of Huelva)16/06/2026, 14:10Oral Presentations
The shape coexistence phenomenon is related with the presence in the same energy region of eigenstates with different deformations. Shape coexistence appears almost everywhere in the mass table, but its presence is specially remarkable in the Pt-Hg-Pb or in the Sr-Zr-Mo regions [1,2].
On the other hand, the concept of quantum phase transition (QPT), which has gained a lot of attention in...
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KONSTANTINOS BOSMPOTINIS (Michigan State University)16/06/2026, 14:30Oral Presentations
There are 35 proton-rich stable isotopes, known as p-nuclei. Their existence is attributed to the $\gamma$ process, primarily consisting of a network of photodisintegration reactions on s- and r-process seed nuclei. The abundances of p-nuclei can be obtained based on simulations of this network, with most of the isotopes involved being radioactive. For this reason, direct measurements of these...
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Ashwin Nagarajan16/06/2026, 14:30Oral Presentations
The 37Ar(p,ฮณ)38K reaction plays a critical role in determining the abundances of several stable isotopes at the endpoint of rp-process nucleosynthesis in novae. To inform the astrophysical reaction rate of proton capture on 37Ar and guide any future direct measurements, a better understanding of the 38K energy levels above the 37Ar+p threshold is essential. Experimentally, these excited states...
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Tawfik Gaballah (Mississippi state university)16/06/2026, 15:20Oral Presentations
$\beta$-decay spectroscopy of neutron-rich nuclei near the limits of stability provides powerful benchmarks for nuclear structure models [1]. Such measurements rely critically on the ability to correlate implanted ions with their subsequent decay products, including $\gamma$-ray transitions and $\beta$-decay electrons, making implantation detectors a central component of modern $\beta$-decay...
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Erin Peters (Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 USA)16/06/2026, 15:20Oral Presentations
The germanium nuclei have been of recent interest for several reasons. First, $^{76}$Ge is one of the leading candidates for the observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay. Thus, detailed understanding of the structure is important for improving the nuclear matrix element calculation for the process in order for the half-life to be extracted. Knowledge of the entire isotopic chain is...
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Sara Carollo (University and INFN Padova)16/06/2026, 15:40Oral Presentations
About half of the elements heavier than iron are synthesized through the slow neutron capture process, in which the neutron-capture timescales of the nuclei involved are typically longer than their $\beta$-decay lifetimes. In the modeling of this process, significant uncertainties arise from the competition between neutron capture and $\beta$-decay in certain isotopes called โbranching...
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Emma Rice16/06/2026, 15:40Oral Presentations
The region of $N=40$, below the Ni isotopes, is now well-established as a region of deformed ground-states and nuclear collectivity. While the body of spectroscopic information in the so-called N=40 Island of Inversion, centered around $^{64}$Cr, is growing, its boundaries remain undefined, particularly moving from neutron number 40 toward $N=50$. In addition, quantities which more directly...
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Emanuel Chimanski (BNL)16/06/2026, 16:00Oral PresentationsContributed Abstract
Neutron-induced ฮณ-ray cascades provide key signatures for nondestructive assay, active interrogation, nuclear security applications, and nuclear data validation. Modern data needs go beyond capture ฮณ-ray spectra alone and require proper correlations between emissions to be preserved event by event. Existing tools often lack the information needed to reconstruct complete cascades, leading to...
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Johan Emil Linnestad Larsson (Technische Universitรคt Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany)16/06/2026, 16:00Oral Presentations
The low excitation energies of the first excited $2^+$ states in the neutron-rich rare-earth nuclei are an indication of their degree of deformation [1]. Close to the double mid-shell, a subtle evolution seems to take place as the neutron number approaches $N = 104$ [2]. Additionally, recent progress in microscopic nuclear theory are providing alternative interpretations of the established...
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Konstantin Stoychev (University of Guelph)16/06/2026, 16:20Oral Presentations
Magnetic moments of excited nuclear states provide sensitive probes to the contributions of single-particle configurations to the nuclear wave functions. This is especially true close to shell closures where the wave functions are expected to be quite pure, and the magnetic moments should be close to the Schmidt values of the single-particle approximation. However, similarly to the effective...
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Sangeet-Pal Pannu (University Of Guelph)16/06/2026, 16:20Oral Presentations
At the forefront of nuclear structure research is the topic of shape coexistence, which occurs when states within the same nucleus at similar energies possess distinct shapes. Studies of nuclei in the Zr (Z=40) - Sn (Z=50) region have shown evidence for shape coexistence with deformed rotational-like bands coexisting with spherical or weakly-deformed ground state configurations. In the...
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Katarzyna Wrzosek-Lipska (Heavy Ion Laboratory, University of Warsaw Poland)16/06/2026, 16:40Oral Presentations
Mid-shell Cd nuclei were traditionally considered to be the best examples of vibrational nuclei. Recent studies that combined detailed $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy with sophisticated beyond-mean-field calculations had suggested [1,2] that the low-lying 0$^+$ states in $^{110,112}$Cd possessed prolate, triaxial, and oblate shapes with rotational-like bands built upon them. If confirmed, this would...
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A. Aprahamian (University of Notre Dame)18/06/2026, 13:30Oral Presentations
The long term management of high-level nuclear waste will necessarily involve nuclear transmutations of highly radioactive materials by accelerator driving systems converting long lived radioactive waste products to short lived or stable nuclei. $^{243}$Am is the most abundant, long lived radioactive product in high-level nuclear waste while the neutron capture cross section is known with...
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Amiram Leviatan (The Hebrew University)18/06/2026, 13:30Oral Presentations
Unraveling the nature (soft vs. rigid) and origin of triaxiality at low spin in nuclei, is a long standing challenge. Recent experimental and theoretical developments have spurred renewed interest in this topic. A detailed analysis of E2 matrix elements extracted from Coulomb excitation experiments provided evidence for rigid triaxiality in $^{76}$Ge [1,2,3], and data collected in...
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Mr Daniel Araya (Mississippi State University)18/06/2026, 13:50Oral Presentations
Accurate neutron scattering cross sections are essential for both fundamental nuclear
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structure studies and applications in advanced reactor technologies. Vanadium,
particularly 51V, is of significant interest due to its structural and neutronic relevance
in fast-spectrum reactor systems. In this work, we report measurements of elastic and
inelastic neutron scattering cross sections for... -
Andreas Best (University of Naples Federico II and INFN Naples)18/06/2026, 13:50Oral Presentations
The two reactions $^{22}$Ne($\alpha,[n/\gamma])^{[25,26]}$Mg are of high importance for our understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis processes. Knowledge of their low energy cross sections in the region of the alpha and neutron thresholds is crucial for the description of the s processes, branch point populations and more. Indirect probes of near threshold states have delivered a swatch of...
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James Christie (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)18/06/2026, 14:10Oral Presentations
The Hoyle state, the triple-$\alpha$ resonance in $^{12}$C, plays a central role in stellar helium burning and is responsible for the production of nearly all carbon. The formation of $^{12}$C requires the Hoyle state to decay to the ground state through radiative channels, including a cascade of two gamma rays (both E2 transitions) via the first excited 2$^+$ state and internal pair emission...
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Corrigan Appleton (LBNL)18/06/2026, 14:10Oral Presentations
In-beam $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy experiments on the heavy odd-$Z$ nuclei $^{249}$Md and $^{251}$Md were performed at the ATLAS accelerator facility of Argonne National Laboratory using the $^{203}$Tl($^{48}$Ca, 2$n$) and $^{205}$Tl($^{48}$Ca, 2$n$) fusion evaporation reactions, respectively. In both experiments the Argonne Gas-Filled Analyzer (AGFA) was used to separate recoils of interest,...
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Kgashane Malatji (University of California Berkeley, USA)18/06/2026, 14:30Oral Presentations
The electromagnetic dipole response of atomic nuclei is fundamental for understanding nuclear structure and reaction dynamics. Measurements of photon strength functions (PSFs) have revealed phenomena such as Low-Energy Enhancement, significantly affecting astrophysical reaction rates relevant to nucleosynthesis.
To investigate the shape of the PSF and the observed excitation modes below...
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Naomi Marchini (INFN Florence section)18/06/2026, 14:30Oral Presentations
The study of shapes and collective properties of atomic nuclei is a vast area of research, and low-energy Coulomb-excitation is one of the most powerful experimental techniques for such studies. It provides information not only about the reduced transition probabilities, describing the collectivity of the transitions, but also about the spectroscopic quadrupole moments of excited states, as...
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George Zimba (LSU)18/06/2026, 15:20Oral Presentations
One of the defining features of the strong nuclear interaction is its near charge independence: the nuclear components of the proton-proton, neutron-proton, and neutron-neutron interactions are remarkably similar. This symmetry under proton-neutron exchange gives rise to the concept of isospin, in which the proton and neutron are treated as different projections of a single nucleon....
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Darren Bleuel (LLNL)18/06/2026, 15:20Oral Presentations
A THermal Energy Neutron Assembly (ATHENA) is an experimental platform based at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) for performing neutron irradiation experiments. It consists of a cone-shaped assembly deployed as close as 6 cm from the NIF implosion, moderating the neutron flux from a pure 14 MeV DT spectrum to an analogue of a mixed fusion/fission spectrum for materials testing and integral...
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Marco Siciliano (Argonne National Laboratory)18/06/2026, 15:40Oral Presentations
The evolution of nuclear shapes and the phenomenon of shape coexistence lie at the heart of our understanding of nuclear structure and the effective nuclear interaction. While dramatic examples of shape coexistence have long been established near closed shells, semi-magic nuclei have traditionally been regarded as structurally simple systems, dominated by pairing correlations and spherical...
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Mr Pramod Kumar Nayak (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400085 India, and Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai 400094 India)18/06/2026, 15:40Oral Presentations
Experimental observation of 2-phonon gamma vibration in atomic nucleus has been challenging due to their location at excitation energies close to the pairing gap. The observation of such states provides stringent constraints on nuclear models. Although such excitations were proposed earlier in a number of transitional and deformed nuclei, it was later pointed out that many of those suggested...
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Timothy Gray (University of Tennessee, Knoxville/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)18/06/2026, 16:00Oral Presentations
The region of the nuclear chart near the doubly-magic $^{100}$Sn is of crucial importance for understanding the atomic nucleus and an excellent testing ground for state-of-the-art nuclear models. $^{100}$Sn is the heaviest doubly-magic $N = Z$ nucleus, and additionally represents the end of the astrophysical rp-process. Experimental constraints of the single-particle orbits outside $^{100}$Sn...
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Dr Priyanka Choudhary (Tongji University, Shanghai, China)18/06/2026, 16:00Oral Presentations
Bound-state ฮฒโ-decay is a rare radioactive process where the created electron is trapped in an atomic orbital instead of being emitted. It can be observed in highly ionized atoms in particular when normal beta-decay is energetically forbidden, but bound-state decay is still possible. An extremely challenging measurement of the bound-state $\beta^-$ decay of the fully ionized $^{205}$Tl was...
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Michael Armstrong (LBNL)18/06/2026, 16:20Oral Presentations
The photon strength function (PSF) of some near-shell-closure medium and heavy-mass nuclei exhibits anomalous low-energy enhancement (LEE). Angular correlation measurements demonstrate that this LEE is clearly dipole (ฮI = 1) in nature; however, its magnitude and onset at around 3โ4 MeV cannot be explained by extrapolations of known mechanisms, such as the giant dipole resonance, to this...
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Desislava Kalaydjieva (University of Guelph)18/06/2026, 16:20Oral Presentations
The well-accepted view of stable cadmium isotopes as excellent examples of spherical vibrational behaviour was put to question following detailed $\beta$-decay and ($n$,$n'\gamma$) spectroscopy [1-3]. A novel interpretation involving multiple shape coexistence was proposed for $^{110,112}$Cd and recently extended to $^{106}$Cd [4]. Supporting evidence for significant ground-state deformation...
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Aaina Thapa (Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory)18/06/2026, 16:40Oral Presentations
The surrogate reaction method is an alternative to direct measurements of compound nuclear reaction cross sections [1,2]. We introduce new theory tools for extracting capture cross sections from experiments that use proton inelastic scattering as a surrogate reaction mechanism. These extensions including two-step processes in populating the target nucleus in the proton inelastic scattering...
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Miguel Madurga (University of Tennessee)Oral Presentations
The $r$-process sensitivity studies have identified nuclei southeast of the doubly magic $Z=50$ $N=82$ $^{132}$Sn as crucial in calculating the $r$-process nucleosynthesis for almost all astrophysical environments. This is due to the robustness of the $N=82$ and $Z=50$ shell closures, which causes a dramatic discontinuity in proton and neutron separation energy. This feature forces the...
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William B Walters (University of Maryland)Oral Presentations
In a Letter, Brown described the effects on paring and collectivity associated with p1/2 orbitals. [1]. The consequence is to create a collectivity gap at N = 32 as noted for Ca-53. A similar effect was noted for N = 40 where the p-1/2 orbital plays a strong role in the evolution of the observed structure in Zn-69,70,71. In this region, the p-1/2 orbital inhibits collectivity near N = 40...
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Moshe Gai (University of Connecticut)Oral Presentations
We developed a new method for measuring the cross section of gamma capture reactions (that occur in stellar processes) by measuring the time reverse Photodissociation reaction occurring inside TPCs operating in gamma-beams. This measurement of the time reverse process is not an indirect measurement and certainly not a โsurrogate measurementโ. It relies on the well-recognized concept of...
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