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.
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.
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.
124799624
Fusion probabilities in the reactions 40, Ca-48 + U-238 at energies around the Coulomb barrier
120867520
Separation of actinide-made transurania by a gas-filled magnetic separator
The performance of the gas-filled magnetic separator HECK at the UNILAC at GSI Darmstadt is described. The system consists of a 30°-dipole magnet and a quadrupole doublet of wide aperture. The separator is operated with helium at pressures between 0.1–1 hPa. It is used to investigate heavy ion induced fusion products in-flight. The recoils emerging from a thin target are separated with high efficiency of 10–50%. The suppression factor of primary beam particles and transfer products is 1015 and 103, respectively. 
 
In this application of a gas-filled separator to synthesize transuranium elements using 238U-targets, isotopes of the elements fermium and nobelium were identified in irradiations with 16O- and 20Ne-beams.
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.
33743720
Small-scale structure of cold dark matter
Abstract We investigate the clumping of cold dark matter (CDM) at small scales. If the CDM particle is the neutralino, we find that collisional damping during its kinetic decoupling from the radiation fluid and free streaming introduce a small-scale cut-off in the primordial power spectrum of CDM. This cut-off sets the scale for the very first CDM objects in the Universe, which we expect to have a mass of ∼10 −12 M ⊙ . For non-thermal CDM candidates, such as axions, wimpzillas, or primordial black holes, the cosmological QCD transition might induce features in the primordial spectrum at similar mass scales.
39970498
Difficulty of detecting minihalos via gamma rays from dark matter annihilation.
Analytical calculations and recent numerical experiments have shown that a sizable amount of the mass of our Galaxy is in a form of clumpy, virialized substructures that, according to Diemand et al., can be as light as 10(-6)M(.). In this work we estimate the gamma-ray flux expected from dark matter annihilation occurring within these minihalos, under the hypothesis that the bulk of dark matter is composed by neutralinos. We generate mock sky maps showing the angular distribution of the expected gamma-ray signal. We compare them with the sensitivities of satellite-borne experiments such as GLAST and find that a possible detection of minihalos is indeed very challenging.
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.
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.
1364874
The First wimpy halos
Dark matter direct and indirect detection signals depend crucially on the dark matter distribution. While the formation of large scale structure is independent of the nature of the cold dark matter (CDM), the fate of inhomogeneities on subgalactic scales, and hence the present day CDM distribution on these scales, depends on the microphysics of the CDM particles. We study the density contrast of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) on subgalactic scales. We calculate the damping of the primordial power spectrum due to collisional damping and free streaming of WIMPy CDM and show that free streaming leads to a CDM power spectrum with a sharp cut-off at about 10(-6) M-circle dot. We also calculate the transfer function for the growth of the inhomogeneities in the linear regime, taking into account the suppression in the growth of the CDM density contrast after matter-radiation equality due to baryons and show that our analytic results are in good agreement with numerical calculations. Combining the transfer function with the damping of the primordial fluctuations we produce a WMAP normalized primordial CDM power spectrum, which can serve as an input for high resolution CDM simulations. We find that the smallest inhomogeneities typically have comoving radius of about 1 pc and enter the nonlinear regime at a red-shift of 60 +/- 20. We study the effect of scale dependence of the primordial power spectrum on these numbers and also use the spherical collapse model to make simple estimates of the properties of the first generation of WIMP halos to form. We find that the very first WIMPy halos may have a significant impact on indirect dark matter searches.