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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/A90862/01
Title: SPECTROSCOPY OF SUPER HEAVY NUCLEI
Principal Investigator: Herzberg, Professor RKM
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Physics
Organisation: University of Liverpool
Scheme: Advanced Fellowship (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 October 1999 Ends: 30 September 2004 Value (£): 222,684
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Nuclear Structure
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
A long standing prediction of the nuclear shell model is the existence of an island of increased stability for spherical super heavy nuclei. Over the space of the last 30 years a vast research programme has been conducted to actually produce these nuclei and study their properties. This has so far been successful up to element 112, discovered 1997 at the GSI in Darmstadt, Germany.However, the study of these nuclei has so far been limited to the determination of the production cross section, the average lifetime of the nuclei, and their decay properties. No spectroscopic information is available for any nucleus beyond Fermium (Z=100).Using a combination of powerful Germanium detector arrays like Gammasphere or SARI in conjunction with recoil detectors to identify the produced nuclei, it has recently been possible for the first time to investigate the structure on the nobelium nucleus 254No (Z=102). Spectroscopic information on this and its neighbouring nuclei will reveal the shape of the nucleus as well as its single particle structure. These studies thus provide a direct test to any nuclear model used to predict the properties for even heavier systems, lead to their refinement and add to our understanding of the largest strongly interacting quantum systems known.
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Organisation Website: http://www.liv.ac.uk