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Latest results concerning the study of central collisions in 58Ni+48Ca reactions at Elab(Ni)=25 AMeV are presented. The experimental data, collected with the CHIMERA 4π device, have been analyzed in order to investigate the competition among different reaction mechanisms for central collisions in the Fermi energy domain. The method adopted to perform the centrality selection refers to the global variable “flow angle”, that is related to the event shape in momentum space, as it is determined by the eigenvectors of the experimental kinetic-energy tensor. The main features of the reaction products were explored by using different constraints on some of the relevant observables, such as mass and velocity distributions and their correlations. Much emphasis was devoted to the competition between fusion-evaporation processes with subsequent identification of a heavy residue and a prompt multifragmentation mechanism. The reaction mechanism was simulated in the framework of transport theories (dynamical stochastic BNV calculations, followed by sequential SIMON code) and further comparison with dynamical calculations from transport model (QMD, CoMD) are in progress. Moreover, an extension of this study taking into account for the light particles has been envisaged.

The 48Ti on 40Ca reactions have been studied at 300 and 600 MeV focusing on the fusion-evaporation (FE) and fusion-fission (FF) exit channels. Energy spectra and multiplicities of the emitted light charged particles have been compared to Monte Carlo simulations based on the statistical model. Indeed, in this mass region (A ~ 100) models predict that shape transitions can occur at high spin values and relatively scarce data exist in the literature about coincidence measurements between evaporation residues and light charged particles. Signals of shape transitions can be found in the variations of the lineshape of high energy gamma rays emitted from the de-excitation of GDR states gated on different region of angular momenta. For this purpose it is important to keep under control the FE and FF processes, to regulate the statistical model parameters and to control the onset of possible pre-equilibrium emissions from 300 to 600 MeV bombarding energy.

The detection of the 1809 keV emission line associated with the decay of 26Al in the interstellar medium provides a direct evidence of recent nucleosynthesis events in our galaxy. 26Al is thought to be mainly produced in massive stars, but in order to have a quantita- tive understanding of the 26Al distribution, the cross section of all the nuclear reactions involved in its production should be accurately known. A recent sensitivity study demonstrated that the 25Mg(α,n)28Si is the reaction with the strongest impact on the synthesis of 26Al during explosive Neon and Carbon burning [4]. In order to improve the experimental knowledge of the 25Mg(α,n)28Si cross section, a new direct measurement has been performed at Legnaro National Laboratories. The experimental setup, the data analysis and preliminary results are discussed.

Odd-even effects in fragment production have been studied since a long time and never quantitatively understood. The odd-even anomaly was reported in the literature [1,2] to be more pronounced in reactions involving Ni projectile and targets, in particular in n-poor systems. In some experiments [1, 2] the magnitude of the odd-even effect is found to be related to the isospin of the projectile and/or the target. From a theoretical point of view, odd-even effects in fragmentation reactions are clearly linked to the pairing residual interaction and its dependence on temperature.

The reactions 32S+58,64Ni are studied at 14.5 A MeV. Evidence is found for odd-even effects in isotopic observables of the decay of a projectile-like source. The influence of secondary decays on the staggering is studied with a correlation function technique, showing that odd-even effects are due to interplay between pairing effects in the nuclear masses and in the level densities.