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Background: Heavy-ion induced two-nucleon transfer reactions are powerful tools to reveal peculiar aspects of the atomic nucleus, such as pairing correlations, single-particle and collective degrees of freedom, and more. Also, these processes are in competition with the direct meson exchange in the double charge exchange reactions, which have recently attracted great interest due to their possible connection to neutrinoless double-beta decay. In this framework, the exploration of two-nucleon transfer reactions in the 20Ne+116Cd collision at energies above the Coulomb barrier is particularly relevant since the 116Cd nucleus is a candidate for the double-beta decay. Methods: We measured the excitation energy spectra and absolute cross sections for the two reactions using the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer to detect the ejectiles. We performed direct coupled reaction channels and sequential distorted wave Born approximation calculations using the double folding S\~ao Paulo potential to model the initial and final state interactions. The spectroscopic amplitudes for two- and singleparticle transitions were derived by different nuclear structure approaches: microscopic large-scale shell model, interacting boson model-2 and quasiparticle random phase approximation. Results: The calculations are able to reproduce the experimental cross sections for both two-neutron and twoproton transfer reactions. The role of couplings with the inelastic channels are found to be important in the two-proton transfer case. A competition between the direct and the sequential process is found in the reaction mechanism. For the two-proton transfer case, the inclusion of the 1g7/2 and 2d5/2 orbitals in the model space is crucial.

In un passo della Periegesi (i, 33, 2-4), Pausania riferisce che la statua di Nemesis, nel demo attico di Ramnunte, era opera di Fidia ed era stata scolpita da un blocco di marmo pario che i Persiani portarono con loro all’epoca della battaglia di Maratona per farne un trofeo. Essi erano infatti convinti che avrebbero conquistato Atene. Il Periegeta descrive nel dettaglio l’agalma della dea, definendola la più implacabile contro gli hybristai. La statua portava sulla testa una corona decorata con cervi e piccoli agalmata di Nike. Nella mano sinistra aveva un ramo di melo, mentre nella destra una phiale sulla quale erano rappresentati degli Etiopi. Pausania dice di non essere stato in grado di scoprire il motivo di tale decorazione, ma afferma di non condividere la spiegazione di coloro che sostengono che la ragione sia da ricercare nel fatto che gli Etiopi vivono presso la corrente del fiume Oceano che sarebbe, a sua volta, il padre di Nemesis. Il Periegeta procede poi a un excursus di sapore tipicamente erodoteo per dimostrare che gli Etiopi non abitano sull’Oceano e che quest’ultimo non è affatto un fiume, ma la parte estrema del mare navigato dagli uomini. Egli accetta dunque la versione locale che Nemesis sia la figlia di Oceano e la ripete ancora nel vii libro (5,1-3) dove, parlando delle due Nemesis di Smirne, precisa che gli Smirnei invece assegnano alla divinità Notte come madre, mentre gli Ateniesi dicono che sia Oceano il padre. Pausania insiste su questa doppia genealogia, che fa riferimento tanto alla Teogonia di Esiodo (vv. 211-225), quanto alla tradizione ateniese. Questo articolo si propone di esplorare le origini e i termini di questa tradizione locale che descrive Nemesis sia come una divinità che sanziona implacabilmente, sia come la figlia di Oceano: quest’ultimo, a sua volta, figura liminale che marca i limiti spaziali dell’azione umana. According to a passage of Pausanias’ Periegesis (i, 33, 2-4), the statue of Nemesis in Rhamnous was made by Phidias from a piece of Parian marble, which the Persians had brought along at the time of the battle of Marathon to build a trophy, sure as they were that they were going to conquer Athens. The Periegete describes in detail the agalma of Nemesis, defining her as the most implacable against the hybristai. The statue has a crown with deer and small images of Nike. In the left hand, she carries an apple branch, and in the right hand a phiale on which Aethiopians are carved. Pausanias reports that he was not able to guess the reasons why Aethiopians were represented on the phiale, and he does not accept the statement of those who give as an explanation the fact that they live near the river Ocean, and Ocean is the father of Nemesis. Pausanias then proceeds with an excursus in a Herodotean manner to demonstrate that the Aethiopians never dwelled on a river Ocean, and he adds that in any case Ocean is not a river, but rather the extreme part of the sea navigated by men. He thus accepts the genealogy that makes Nemesis Ocean’s daughter. He repeats it in Book 7 (5, 1-3) where, speaking about the two Nemeseis of Smyrnai, he specifies that the dwellers of Smyrnai assign them Night as mother, while the Athenians say Ocean is the father of Nemesis. Pausanias insists upon this double genealogy for Nemesis, referring to the Hesiodic Theogony (211-225) and the Athenian tradition, respectively. This paper aims at exploring the origins and the terms of the Athenian tradition, describing Nemesis, who implacably sanctions the overwhelming of the limit, as a child of Ocean, himself a liminal figure who marks the spatial borders of human action.

International audience; Background: Heavy-ion induced two-nucleon transfer reactions are powerful tools to reveal peculiar aspects of the atomic nucleus, such as pairing correlations, single-particle and collective degrees of freedom, and more. Also, these processes are in competition with the direct meson exchange in the double charge exchange reactions, which have recently attracted great interest due to their possible connection to neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, the exploration of two-nucleon transfer reactions in the Ne20+Cd116 collision at energies above the Coulomb barrier is particularly relevant since the Cd116 nucleus is a candidate for the double-β decay. Purpose: We want to analyze selected transitions to low-lying 0+ and 2+ states of the residual nuclei in the Cd116(Ne20,Ne22)Cd114 two-neutron pickup and Cd116(Ne20,O18)Sn118 two-proton stripping reactions at 306 MeV incident energy and determine the role of the couplings with inelastic transitions. Methods: We measured the excitation energy spectra and absolute cross sections for the two reactions using the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer to detect the ejectiles. We performed direct coupled reaction channels and sequential distorted wave Born approximation calculations using the double folding São Paulo potential to model the initial and final state interactions. The spectroscopic amplitudes for two- and single-particle transitions were derived by different nuclear structure approaches: microscopic large-scale shell model, interacting boson model-2 and quasiparticle random phase approximation. Results: The calculations are able to reproduce the experimental cross sections for both two-neutron and two-proton transfer reactions. The role of couplings with the inelastic channels are found to be important in the two-proton transfer case. A competition between the direct and the sequential process is found in the reaction mechanism. For the two-proton transfer case, the inclusion of the 1g7/2 and 2d5/2 orbitals in the model space is crucial. Conclusions: The approach presented here, combination of nuclear structure and reaction mechanism ingredients, is a very promising tool for the analysis of two-neutron and two-proton transfer reactions between heavy nuclei.

The NUMEN project aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0v beta beta). In this view measurements of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross sections are performed with high-accuracy. In particular, the (O-18,(18)Nc) and ((20)Nc, O-20) reactions are used as tools for beta(+)beta(+) and beta(-)beta(-) decays, respectively. In the experiments, performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, the beams are accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the reaction ejectiles are detected the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The measured cross sections are challengingly low (a few nb), being the total reaction cross section much larger (a few b), thus a high sensitivity and a large rejection capability are demanded to the experimental set-up. This limits the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is under way in order to increase the experimental dataset of more than two orders of magnitude, still preserving the high sensitivity of the present set-up. When accomplished this effort will make the INFN-LNS as the state-of-the-art research infrastructure for the systematic study of all the cases of interest for 0v beta beta. In this view, frontiers technologies are going to be adopted for the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models are being developed in order to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections

Background: Heavy-ion induced two-nucleon transfer reactions are powerful tools to reveal peculiar aspects of the atomic nucleus, such as pairing correlations, single-particle and collective degrees of freedom, and more. Also, these processes are in competition with the direct meson exchange in the double charge exchange reactions, which have recently attracted great interest due to their possible connection to neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, the exploration of two-nucleon transfer reactions in the Ne20+Cd116 collision at energies above the Coulomb barrier is particularly relevant since the Cd116 nucleus is a candidate for the double-β decay. Purpose: We want to analyze selected transitions to low-lying 0+ and 2+ states of the residual nuclei in the Cd116(Ne20,Ne22)Cd114 two-neutron pickup and Cd116(Ne20,O18)Sn118 two-proton stripping reactions at 306 MeV incident energy and determine the role of the couplings with inelastic transitions. Methods: We measured the excitation energy spectra and absolute cross sections for the two reactions using the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer to detect the ejectiles. We performed direct coupled reaction channels and sequential distorted wave Born approximation calculations using the double folding São Paulo potential to model the initial and final state interactions. The spectroscopic amplitudes for two- and single-particle transitions were derived by different nuclear structure approaches: microscopic large-scale shell model, interacting boson model-2 and quasiparticle random phase approximation. Results: The calculations are able to reproduce the experimental cross sections for both two-neutron and two-proton transfer reactions. The role of couplings with the inelastic channels are found to be important in the two-proton transfer case. A competition between the direct and the sequential process is found in the reaction mechanism. For the two-proton transfer case, the inclusion of the 1g7/2 and 2d5/2 orbitals in the model space is crucial. Conclusions: The approach presented here, combination of nuclear structure and reaction mechanism ingredients, is a very promising tool for the analysis of two-neutron and two-proton transfer reactions between heavy nuclei. © 2020 American Physical Society.

Gamma-ray and neutron spectra from the 18O+76Se reaction at 15.3 MeV/u were measured with the EDEN array of liquid scintillators at the LNS. The results were compared to GEANT Hadrontherapy physics list simulations in order to assess the reliability of this model for the development of the NUMEN project. A good agreement with the shape of the experimental gamma-ray spectra and a reasonable agreement with the total count rates were obtained. The gamma spectra originated from the nuclear reactions were selected by time coincidence with the Superconducting Cyclotron radio-frequency reference signal. The random coincidence background rate was appropriately described only when the Faraday Cup, the material and geometry of the experimental hall and its contents were included in the simulation with sufficient detail. The information on the radiation spectra is important for the adequate development of the project of the detector arrays and electronic equipment for the advanced phase of NUMEN. Since orders of magnitude larger beam intensities are planned for this phase, the random coincidence rate is also of significant importance, particularly for the performance of the G-NUMEN gamma calorimeter array. © 2020, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

The MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer is used in the experimental measurements of Double Charge Exchange and Multi-Nucleon Transfer reactions induced by heavy ions within the NUMEN project. These processes are characterized by small cross sections under a large background due to other reaction channels. Therefore an accurate control of the signal to background ratio is mandatory. In this article, the determination of the MAGNEX spectrometer background contribution on cross section measurements is presented by applying a suitable analysis to quantify the limits of the adopted particle identification technique. The method is discussed considering the 116Cd(20Ne, 20O)116Sn Double Charge Exchange reaction data, however it can be applied to any other reaction channel of interest. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Background: Double charge exchange (DCE) nuclear reactions have recently attracted much interest as tools to provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-beta decay. In this framework, a good description of the reaction mechanism and a complete knowledge of the initial and final-state interactions are mandatory. Presently, not enough is known about the details of the optical potentials and nuclear response to isospin operators for many of the projectile-target systems proposed for future DCE studies. Among these, the 20Ne + 76Ge DCE reaction is particularly relevant due to its connection with 76Ge double-beta decay. Purpose: We intend to characterize the initial-state interaction for the 20Ne + 76Ge reactions at 306 MeV bombarding energy and determine the optical potential and the role of the couplings between elastic channel and inelastic transitions to the first low-lying excited states. Methods: We determine the experimental elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions, compare the theoretical predictions by adopting different models of optical potentials with the experimental data, and evaluate the coupling effect through the comparison of the distorted-wave Born approximation calculations with the coupled channels ones. Results: Optical models fail to describe the elastic angular distribution above the grazing angle (9.4{\deg}). A correction in the geometry to effectively account for deformation of the involved nuclear systems improves the agreement up to about 14{\deg}. Coupled channels effects are crucial to obtain good agreement at large angles in the elastic scattering cross section.

International audience; The NUMEN project aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross sections. In particular, the (18O,18Ne) and (20Ne,20O) reactions are used as tools for β+β+ and β−β− decays, respectively. In the experiments, performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, the beams are accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the reaction ejectiles are detected the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The measured cross sections are challengingly low (a few nb), being the total reaction cross section much larger (a few b), thus a high sensitivity and a large rejection capability are demanded to the experimental set-up. This limits the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen in order to increase the experimental yield of at least two orders of magnitude, still keeping the high sensitivity of the present set-up, making it feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest. Frontiers technologies are going to be developed, to this purpose, for the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models are being developed in order to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

International audience; Background: Double charge exchange (DCE) nuclear reactions have recently attracted much interest as tools to provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, a good description of the reaction mechanism and a complete knowledge of the initial and final-state interactions are mandatory. Presently, not enough is known about the details of the optical potentials and nuclear response to isospin operators for many of the projectile-target systems proposed for future DCE studies. Among these, the Ne20+Ge76 DCE reaction is particularly relevant due to its connection with Ge76 double-β decay. Purpose: We intend to characterize the initial-state interaction for the Ne20+Ge76 reactions at 306 MeV bombarding energy and determine the optical potential and the role of the couplings between elastic channel and inelastic transitions to the first low-lying excited states. Methods: We determine the experimental elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions, compare the theoretical predictions by adopting different models of optical potentials with the experimental data, and evaluate the coupling effect through the comparison of the distorted-wave Born approximation calculations with the coupled channels ones. Results: Optical models fail to describe the elastic angular distribution above the grazing angle (≈9.4∘). A correction in the geometry to effectively account for deformation of the involved nuclear systems improves the agreement up to about 14∘. Coupled channels effects are crucial to obtain good agreement at large angles in the elastic scattering cross section. Conclusions: The analysis of elastic and inelastic scattering data turned out to be a powerful tool to explore the initial and final-state interactions in heavy-ion nuclear reactions at high transferred momenta.

An updated overview of recent results on Heavy-Ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay is reported in the framework of the NUMEN project. The NUMEN idea is to study heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the aim to get information on the nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay. Moreover, to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half- life of 0νββ decay, the knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is a crucial aspect. peerReviewed

The NUMEN main goal is the extraction from measured cross-sections of “data-driven” information on Nuclear Matrix Elements for all the systems candidate for 0 nu beta beta. The idea is to use as experimental tool Heavy Ions-Double Charge Exchange (HI-DCE) reactions. Crucial for the experimental challanges is the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) facility, made by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The experimental measurements of HI-DCE reactions present a number of challenging aspects, since they are characterized by very low cross sections. Here it is reported the new experimental campaign of NUMEN Project.

The neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay, if observed, has important implications on particle physics, cosmology and fundamental physics. In particular it can give access to the effective neutrino mass. In order to extract such information from the 0νββ-decay half-life measurement, the knowledge of the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) is of utmost importance. In this context the NUMEN and the NURE projects aim to extract information on the NME by measuring the Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross section in selected systems of interest for the 0νββ-decay. The experimental difficulties that have to be faced are the measurements at very forward-angle, the very low cross section of the process to be measured, the requirement of a high energy resolution and, eventually, the unambiguous identification of the DCE reaction from other competing processes. The large-acceptance spectrometer MAGNEX, present at INFN-LNS, Catania fulfills all the requirement above mentioned.

New experimental measurements of charge state distributions produced by a 20 Ne 10+ beam at 15 MeV/u colliding on various thin solid targets are presented. The use of the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer enabled measurements of the 8 + charge state down to fractions of a few 10 −5 . The use of different post-stripper foils located downstream of the main target is explored, showing that low Z materials are particularly effective to shift the charge state distributions towards fully stripped conditions. The dependence on the foil thickness is also studied and discussed. © 2019 The Authors

Background: Double charge exchange (DCE) nuclear reactions have recently attracted much interest as tools to provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, a good description of the reaction mechanism and a complete knowledge of the initial and final-state interactions are mandatory. Presently, not enough is known about the details of the optical potentials and nuclear response to isospin operators for many of the projectile-target systems proposed for future DCE studies. Among these, the Ne20+Ge76 DCE reaction is particularly relevant due to its connection with Ge76 double-β decay. Purpose: We intend to characterize the initial-state interaction for the Ne20+Ge76 reactions at 306 MeV bombarding energy and determine the optical potential and the role of the couplings between elastic channel and inelastic transitions to the first low-lying excited states. Methods: We determine the experimental elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions, compare the theoretical predictions by adopting different models of optical potentials with the experimental data, and evaluate the coupling effect through the comparison of the distorted-wave Born approximation calculations with the coupled channels ones. Results: Optical models fail to describe the elastic angular distribution above the grazing angle (≈9.4). A correction in the geometry to effectively account for deformation of the involved nuclear systems improves the agreement up to about 14. Coupled channels effects are crucial to obtain good agreement at large angles in the elastic scattering cross section. Conclusions: The analysis of elastic and inelastic scattering data turned out to be a powerful tool to explore the initial and final-state interactions in heavy-ion nuclear reactions at high transferred momenta. © 2019 American Physical Society.

International audience; The neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay, if observed, has important implications on particle physics, cosmology and fundamental physics. In particular it can give access to the effective neutrino mass. In order to extract such information from the 0νββ-decay half-life measurement, the knowledge of the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) is of utmost importance. In this context the NUMEN and the NURE projects aim to extract information on the NME by measuring the Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross section in selected systems of interest for the 0νββ-decay. The experimental difficulties that have to be faced are the measurements at very forward-angle, the very low cross section of the process to be measured, the requirement of a high energy resolution and, eventually, the unambiguous identification of the DCE reaction from other competing processes. The large-acceptance spectrometer MAGNEX, present at INFN-LNS, Catania fulfills all the requirement above mentioned.

International audience; The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 00νββ decay and to compare experiments on different isotopes. In particular, the (18O, 18Ne) and (20Ne, 20O) reactions are performed as tools for β+β+ and β-β- decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield of about two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are going to be developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models will be developed to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

Neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) is considered the best potential resource to access the absolute neutrino mass scale. Moreover, if observed, it will signal that neutrinos are their own anti-particles (Majorana particles). Presently, this physics case is one of the most important research “beyond Standard Model” and might guide the way towards a Grand Unified Theory of fundamental interactions. Since the 0 nu beta beta decay process involves nuclei, its analysis necessarily implies nuclear structure issues. In the NURE project, supported by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), nuclear reactions of double charge-exchange (DCE) are used as a tool to extract information on the 0 nu beta beta Nuclear Matrix Elements. In DCE reactions and beta beta decay indeed the initial and final nuclear states are the same and the transition operators have similar structure. Thus the measurement of the DCE absolute cross-sections can give crucial information on beta beta matrix elements. In a wider view, the NUMEN international collaboration plans a major upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in the next years in order to increase the experimental production of nuclei of at least two orders of magnitude, thus making feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest as candidates for 0 nu beta beta.

The article describes the main achievements of the NUMEN project together with an updated and detailed overview of the related R&D activities and theoretical developments. NUMEN proposes an innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering the expression of the lifetime of the double beta decay by cross section measurements of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. Despite the fact that the two processes, namely neutrinoless double beta decay and DCE reactions, are triggered by the weak and strong interaction respectively, important analogies are suggested. The basic point is the coincidence of the initial and final state many-body wave functions in the two types of processes and the formal similarity of the transition operators. First experimental results obtained at the INFN-LNS laboratory for the 40Ca(18O,18Ne)40Ar reaction at 270MeV give an encouraging indication on the capability of the proposed technique to access relevant quantitative information. The main experimental tools for this project are the K800 Superconducting Cyclotron and MAGNEX spectrometer. The former is used for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy-ion beams and the latter is the large acceptance magnetic spectrometer for the detection of the ejectiles. The use of the high-order trajectory reconstruction technique, implemented in MAGNEX, allows to reach the experimental resolution and sensitivity required for the accurate measurement of the DCE cross sections at forward angles. However, the tiny values of such cross sections and the resolution requirements demand beam intensities much larger than those manageable with the present facility. The on-going upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in this perspective is part of the NUMEN project and will be discussed in the article. © 2018, SIF, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

The NUMEN project proposes to measure the absolute cross sections of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the final goal to get information on the nuclear matrix elements involved in the neutrinoless double beta (0v beta beta) decay. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0v beta beta decay and also to compare experiments on different isotopes. DCE reactions and 0v beta beta decay present some similarities, the initial and final-state wave functions are the same and the transition operators are similar. Many challenges have to be faced for the experimental measurements of DCE reactions induced by heavy ions, since they are characterized by very low cross sections.

The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0v beta beta), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0v beta beta decay and to compare experiments on different isotopes. In particular, the (O-18, Ne-18) and (Ne-20, O-20) reactions are performed as tools for beta(+)beta(+) and beta(-)beta(-) decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield of about two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are going to be developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models will be developed to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

The NUMEN project proposes to study heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the final goal to get information on the nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta (0v beta beta) decay. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0v beta beta decay. DCE reactions and 0v beta beta decay present some similarities, the initial and final-state wave functions are the same and the transition operators are similar. The experimental measurements of DCE reactions induced by heavy ions present a number of challenging aspects, since they are characterized by very low cross sections.

The NUMEN project aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0v beta beta), by high-accuracy measurements of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross sections. In particular, the (O-18,Ne-18) and (Ne-20, O-20) reactions are used as tools for beta(+)beta(+) and beta(-)beta(-) decays, respectively. In the experiments, performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, the beams are accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the reaction ejectiles are detected the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The measured cross sections are challengingly low (a few nb), being the total reaction cross section much larger (a few b), thus a high sensitivity and a large rejection capability are demanded to the experimental set-up. This limits the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen in order to increase the experimental yield of at least two orders of magnitude, still keeping the high sensitivity of the present set-up, making it feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest. Frontiers technologies are going to be developed, to this purpose, for the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models are being developed in order to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

The Muon Portal Project has built a prototype of a real size detector ( 6 m × 3 m × 7 m) for the inspection of containers by muon tomography . This technique may provide 2D and 3D images of the interior of a container, to identify the presence of high- Z materials. In the present Project, 4800 extruded scintillator strips were arranged such as to cover four X–Y detection planes ( 6 m × 3 m), two placed above and two below the container to be inspected. Silicon photomultipliers were used as photosensors , to collect the light transported by Wave Length Shifter (WLS) fibres embedded in the scintillator strips. First tomographic images are here presented.