119438146
The discovery of the heaviest elements
120695709
Strong influence of the entrance channel on the formation of compound nuclei Th216,222* and their evaporation residues
The dynamical effects of the entrance channel on the formation of the evaporation residues are studied by analyzing the $^{40}\mathrm{Ar}+^{176}\mathrm{Hf}$, $^{86}\mathrm{Kr}+^{130,136}\mathrm{Xe}$, $^{124}\mathrm{Sn}+^{92}\mathrm{Zr}$, and $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}+^{174}\mathrm{Yb}$ reactions leading to the $^{216}\mathrm{Th}{}^{*}$ and $^{222}\mathrm{Th}{}^{*}$ compound nuclei. We find that the difference between the evaporation residue cross sections for the reactions leading to the same compound nucleus is caused by the different angular momentum distributions of the partial fusion cross sections ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{fus}}^{\ensuremath{\ell}}({E}_{c.m.})$. The strong dependence of the fusion angular momentum distribution on the mass (charge) asymmetry and shell structure of reactants is demonstrated. The effect of the $A/Z$ ratio for the $^{86}\mathrm{Kr}+^{130,136}\mathrm{Xe}$ reactions is discussed. The dynamical conditions of capture affect the competition between complete fusion and quasifission and, consequently, the shape of the angular momentum distribution of the compound nucleus. By this way the peculiarities of the entrance channel also affect the fission-evaporation competition of the excited intermediate nuclei along the deexcitation cascade of the compound nucleus and, consequently, the evaporation residue formation.
117172489
alpha decay of At-194
Detailed {alpha}-decay studies of the neutron-deficient isotope {sup 194}At have been performed in the complete fusion reaction {sup 56}Fe+{sup 141}Pr{yields}{sup 194}At+3n at the velocity filter SHIP. Two {alpha}-decaying isomeric states with half-lives of T{sub 1/2}({sup 194}At{sup m1})=310(8) ms and T{sub 1/2}({sup 194}At{sup m2})=253(10) ms were identified in this nucleus. Their complex decays to the states in the daughter nucleus {sup 190}Bi are discussed in the article. We propose that similar to the case of the neighboring {sup 191,192,193,195}At isotopes, the oblate-deformed configurations based on the proton 1/2{sup +}[440] and/or 7/2{sup -}[514] Nilsson orbitals become important in {sup 194}At. A new isomeric state with the half-life of 175(8) ns was observed in {sup 190}Bi.
123473601
STUDIES OF SUPERHEAVY ELEMENTS AT SHIP
An overview of present experimental investigation of superheavy elements is given. The data are compared with theoretical descriptions. Results are reported from an experiment to confirm production of element 112 isotopes in irradiation of 238UF4 with 48Ca. One spontaneous fission event was measured, which agrees with three events of previously measured data which had been assigned to the decay of 283112. However, more experimental work is needed in order to obtain an independent and unambiguous confirmation of previous results.
121183473
Observation of rotating nuclear molecules and determination of their lifetimes
Long-living rotating nuclear molecules (or “dinuclear systems”) have been observed at the velocity filter SHIP at GSI in reactions of 64Ni + 207Pb at Coulomb barrier energies. The rotation was directly revealed by the velocity spectra of deep inelastic target-like transfer products which are formed during the lifetime of the nuclear molecule and emitted after its breakup. The corresponding rotation angles were about 180 degree pointing to long nuclear interaction times or lifetimes of the system, respectively. We deduced the lifetimes from the lines in the velocity spectra originating from two different rotation angles. Further, the unambiguous correlation of a certain transfer product with its individual velocity spectrum allowed us to study the lifetimes as a function of the number of transferred protons.
123051492
The velocity filter ship, a separator of unslowed heavy ion fusion products
The velocity filter SHIP installed at the UNILAC (GSI Darmstadt) is described. It is used for the investigation of neutron deficient nuclei generated by heavy ion induced fusion. The two stage filter separates unretarded reaction products emerging from a thin target with high efficiency and low background of primary beam particles. For reaction products covering an angular range of 3° in horizontal and vertical directions and a velocity range of 10% the transmission is between 30% and 60%. The separation time is of the order of 10−6s. High suppression of primary particles by factors of 107-1011 permits the investigation of reaction products in the direction of the primary beam. α-active reaction products have been implanted into a surface barrier detector and identified by their decay. 
 
A description of the ion optical principles, technical details and the performance of SHIP is given.
118249724
Newtonian N-body simulations are compatible with cosmological perturbation theory
Contrary to recent claims in the literature, Newtonian N-body simulations of collisionless Dark Matter in a LambdaCDM background are compatible with general relativity and are not invalidated by general relativistic effects at the linear level. This verdict is based on four facts. (1) The system of linearized Einstein equations and conservation laws is well-posed in the gauge invariant formulation and physically meaningful. (2) Comparing general relativity with its Newtonian approximation at a given order in perturbation theory is only meaningful at the level of observables. (3) The dynamics of observables describing a dust fluid in general relativity and its Newtonian approximation agree at the linear level. Any disagreement for observables on the lightcone are well-known, of which the most dominant is gravitational lensing. (4) Large fluctuations in the Hubble parameter contribute significantly only to gravitational lensing effects. Therefore, these fluctuations are not in conflict with Newtonian N-body simulations beyond what has already been carefully taken into account using ray tracing technology.
119225428
Cascading gravity and degravitation
We construct a cascading brane model of gravity in which the behavior of the gravitational force law interpolates from (n+4)-dimensional to (n+3)-dimensional all the way down to 4-dimensional from longer to shorter length scales. We show that, at the linearized level, this model exhibits the features necessary for degravitation of the cosmological constant. The model is shown to be ghost free with the addition of suitable brane kinetic operators, and we demonstrate this using a number of independent procedures. Consequently this is a consistent infrared (IR) modification of gravity, providing a promising framework for a dynamical, degravitating solution of the cosmological constant problem.
209999169
Black Hole Production in Large Extra Dimensions at the Tevatron: New Limit on the Fundamental Scale of Gravity
29630378
Cosmological classicalization: maintaining unitarity under relevant deformations of the Einstein-Hilbert action.
Generic relevant deformations of Einstein's gravity theory contain additional degrees of freedom that have a multifaceted stabilization dynamics on curved spacetimes. We show that these relevant degrees of freedom are self-protected against unitarity violations by the formation of classical field lumps that eventually merge to a new background geometry. The transition is heralded by the massive decay of the original vacuum and evolves through a strong coupling regime. This process fits in the recently proposed classicalization mechanism and extends it further to free field dynamics on curved backgrounds.
118359212
Generic inference of inflation models by non-Gaussianity and primordial power spectrum reconstruction
We present a generic inference method for inflation models from observational data by the usage of higher-order statistics of the curvature perturbation on uniform density hypersurfaces. This method is based on the calculation of the posterior for the primordial non-Gaussianity parameters fNL and gNL, which in general depend on specific parameters of inflation and reheating models, and enables to discriminate among the still viable inflation models. To keep analyticity as far as possible to dispense with numerically expensive sampling techniques a saddle-point approximation is introduced, whose precision is validated for a numerical toy example. The mathematical formulation is done in a generic way so that the approach remains applicable to cosmic microwave background data as well as to large scale structure data. Additionally, we review a few currently interesting inflation models and present numerical toy examples thereof in two and three dimensions to demonstrate the efficiency of the higher-order statistics method. A second quantity of interest is the primordial power spectrum. Here, we present two Bayesian methods to infer it from observational data, the so called critical filter and an extension thereof with smoothness prior, both allowing for a non-parametric spectrum reconstruction. These methods are able to reconstruct the spectra of the observed perturbations and the primordial ones of curvature perturbation even in case of non-Gaussianity and partial sky coverage. We argue that observables like T- and B-modes permit to measure both spectra. This also allows to infer the level of non-Gaussianity generated since inflation.