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The probabilities for gamma-ray and particle emission as a function of the excitation energy of a decaying nucleus are valuable observables for constraining the ingredients of the models that describe the de-excitation of nuclei near the particle emission threshold. These models are essential in nuclear astrophysics and applications. In this work, we have for the first time simultaneously measured the gamma-ray and neutron emission probabilities of 208Pb. The measurement was performed in inverse kinematics at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of the GSI/FAIR facility, where a 208Pb beam interacted through the 208Pb(p,p') reaction with a hydrogen gas jet target. Instead of detecting the gamma-rays and neutrons emitted by 208Pb, we detected the heavy beam-like residues produced after gamma and neutron emission. These heavy residues were fully separated by a dipole magnet of the ESR and were detected with outstanding efficiencies. The comparison of the measured probabilities with model calculations has allowed us to test and select different descriptions of the gamma-ray strength function and the nuclear level density available in the literature., Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures

Neutron-induced reaction cross sections of short-lived nuclei are imperative to understand the origin of heavy elements in stellar nucleosynthesis and for societal applications, but their measurement is extremely complicated due to the radioactivity of the targets involved. One way of overcoming this issue is to combine surrogate reactions with the unique possibilities offered by heavy-ion storage rings. In this work, we describe the first surrogate-reaction experiment in inverse kinematics, which we successfully conducted at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of the GSI/FAIR facility, using the 208Pb(p,p') reaction as a surrogate for neutron capture on 207Pb. Thanks to the outstanding detection efficiencies possible at the ESR, we were able to measure for the first time the neutron-emission probability as a function of the excitation energy of 208Pb. We have used this probability to select different descriptions of the gamma-ray strength function and nuclear level density, and provide reliable results for the neutron-induced radiative capture cross section of 207Pb at energies for which no experimental data exist., Comment: 10 pages and 5 figures

The pre-equilibrium reaction mechanism is considered in the context of the exciton model. A modification to the one-particle one-hole state density is studied which can be interpreted as a collective enhancement. The magnitude of the collective enhancement is set by simulating the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) pulsed-spheres neutron-leakage spectra. The impact of the collective enhancement is explored in the context of the highly deformed actinide, 239-Pu. A consequence of this enhancement is the removal of fictitious levels in the Distorted-Wave Born Approximation often used in modern nuclear reaction codes., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Comments welcome!

We review recent progress and motivate the need for further developments in nuclear optical potentials that are widely used in the theoretical analysis of nucleon elastic scattering and reaction cross sections. In regions of the nuclear chart away from stability, which represent a frontier in nuclear science over the coming decade and which will be probed at new rare-isotope beam facilities worldwide, there is a targeted need to quantify and reduce theoretical reaction model uncertainties, especially with respect to nuclear optical potentials. We first describe the primary physics motivations for an improved description of nuclear reactions involving short-lived isotopes, focusing on its benefits for fundamental science discoveries and applications to medicine, energy, and security. We then outline the various methods in use today to build optical potentials starting from phenomenological, microscopic, and ab initio methods, highlighting in particular the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We then discuss publicly-available tools and resources facilitating the propagation of recent progresses in the field to practitioners. Finally, we provide a set of open challenges and recommendations for the field to advance the fundamental science goals of nuclear reaction studies in the rare-isotope beam era., Comment: This paper is the outcome of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams Theory Alliance (FRIB - TA) topical program "Optical Potentials in Nuclear Physics" held in March 2022 at FRIB. Its content is non-exhaustive, was chosen by the participants and reflects their efforts related to optical potentials

Specialized computational chemistry packages have permanently reshaped the landscape of chemical and materials science by providing tools to support and guide experimental efforts and for the prediction of atomistic and electronic properties. In this regard, electronic structure packages have played a special role by using first-principledriven methodologies to model complex chemical and materials processes. Over the last few decades, the rapid development of computing technologies and the tremendous increase in computational power have offered a unique chance to study complex transformations using sophisticated and predictive many-body techniques that describe correlated behavior of electrons in molecular and condensed phase systems at different levels of theory. In enabling these simulations, novel parallel algorithms have been able to take advantage of computational resources to address the polynomial scaling of electronic structure methods. In this paper, we briefly review the NWChem computational chemistry suite, including its history, design principles, parallel tools, current capabilities, outreach and outlook., Comment: This article appeared in volume 152, issue 18, page 184102 of the Journal of Chemical Physics. It can be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0004997

Reliable neutron-induced reaction cross sections of unstable nuclei are essential for nuclear astrophysics and applications but their direct measurement is often impossible. The surrogate-reaction method is one of the most promising alternatives to access these cross sections. In this work, we successfully applied the surrogate-reaction method to infer for the first time both the neutron-induced fission and radiative-capture cross sections of 239Pu in a consistent manner from a single measurement. This was achieved by combining simultaneously-measured fission and gamma-emission probabilities for the 240Pu(4He,4He') surrogate reaction with a calculation of the angular-momentum and parity distributions populated in this reaction. While other experiments measure the probabilities for some selected gamma-ray transitions, we measure the gamma-emission probability. This enlarges the applicability of the surrogate-reaction method., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

An analysis of neutron and proton scattering off $^{40,48}$Ca has been carried out. Real and imaginary potentials have been generated using the Nuclear Structure Method (NSM) for scattering with the Gogny D1S nucleon-nucleon effective interaction. Observables are well described by NSM for neutron and proton elastic scattering off $^{40}$Ca and for neutron scattering off $^{48}$Ca. For proton scattering off $^{48}$Ca, NSM yields a lack of absorption. This discrepancy is attributed to double-charge-exchange contribution and coupling to Gamow- Teller mode which are not included in the present version of NSM. A recipe based on a Perey-Buck fit of NSM imaginary potential and Lane model is proposed to overcome this issue in an approximate way.

The variational multiparticle-multihole configuration mixing approach (MPMH) to nuclei has been proposed about a decade ago. While the first applications followed rapidly, the implementation of the full formalism of this method has only been recently completed and applied in [C. Robin, N. Pillet, D. Pe\~na Arteaga and J.-F. Berger, Phys. Rev. C 93, 024302 (2016)] to $^{12}$C as a test-case. The main objective of the present paper is to carry on the study that was initiated in that reference, in order to put the MPMH method to more stringent tests. To that aim we perform a systematic study of even-even sd-shell nuclei. The wave function of these nuclei is taken as a configuration mixing built on orbitals of the sd-shell, and both the mixing coefficients of the nuclear state and the single-particle wave functions are determined consistently from the same variational principle. The calculations are done using the D1S Gogny force. Various ground-state properties are analyzed. In particular, the correlation content and composition of the wave function as well as the single-particle orbitals and energies are examined. Binding energies and charge radii are also calculated and compared to experiment. The description of the first excited state is also examined and the corresponding transition densities are used as input for the calculation of inelastic electron and proton scattering. Special attention is paid to the effect of the optimization of the single-particle states consistently with the correlations of the system. Globally, the results are satisfying and encouraging. In particular, charge radii and excitation energies are nicely reproduced. However, the chosen valence-space truncation scheme precludes achieving maximum collectivity in the studied nuclei. Further refinement of the method and a better-suited interaction are necessary to remedy this situation., Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. C

We present our current studies and our future plans on microscopic potential based on effective nucleon-nucleon interaction and many-body theory. This framework treats in an unified way nuclear structure and reaction. It offers the opportunity to link the underlying effective interaction to nucleon scattering observables. The more consistently connected to a variety of reaction and structure experimental data the framework will be, the more constrained effective interaction will be. As a proof of concept, we present some recent results for both neutron and proton scattered from spherical target nucleus, namely 40 Ca, using the Gogny D1S interaction. Possible fruitful crosstalks between microscopic potential, phenomenological potential and effective interaction are exposed. We then draw some prospective plans for the forthcoming years including scattering from spherical nuclei experiencing pairing correlations, scattering from axially deformed nuclei, and new effective interaction with reaction constraints.

We present nucleon elastic scattering calculation based on Green's function formalism in the Random-Phase Approximation. For the first time, the Gogny effective interaction is used consistently throughout the whole calculation to account for the complex, non-local and energy-dependent optical potential. Effects of intermediate single-particle resonances are included and found to play a crucial role in the account for measured reaction cross section. Double counting of the particle-hole second-order contribution is carefully addressed. The resulting integro-differential Schr\"odinger equation for the scattering process is solved without localization procedures. The method is applied to neutron and proton elastic scattering from $^{40}$Ca. A successful account for differential and integral cross sections, including analyzing powers, is obtained for incident energies up to 30 MeV. Discrepancies at higher energies are related to much too high volume integral of the real potential for large partial waves. Moreover, this works opens the way for future effective interactions suitable simultaneously for both nuclear structure and reaction., Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures

A multiconfiguration microscopic method has been applied with the Gogny effective interaction to the calculation of low-lying positive-parity states in even-even $^{26-28}$Si isotopes. The aim of the study is to compare the results of this approach with those of a standard method of GCM type and to get insight into the predictive power of multiconfiguration methods employed with effective nucleon-nucleon force taylored to mean-field calculations. It is found that the multiconfiguration approach leads to an excellent description of the low-lying spectroscopy of $^{26}$Si, $^{28}$Si and $^{32}$Si, but gives a systematic energy shift in $^{30}$Si. A careful analysis of this phenomenon shows that this discrepancy originates from too large matrix elements in the proton-neutron residual interaction supplied by the Gogny interaction. Finally, a statistical analysis of highly excited configurations in $^{28}$Si is performed, revealing exponential convergence in agreement with previous work in the context of the shell model approach. This latter result provides strong arguments towards an implicit treatment of highly excited configurations., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, 11 tables

A microscopic calculation of reaction cross sections for nucleon-nucleus scattering has been performed by explicitly coupling the elastic channel to all particle-hole excitations in the target and one-nucleon pickup channels. The particle-hole states may be regarded as doorway states through which the flux flows to more complicated configurations, and subsequently to long-lived compound nucleus resonances. Target excitations for $^{40,48}$Ca, $^{58}$Ni, $^{90}$Zr and $^{144}$Sm were described in a random-phase framework using a Skyrme functional. Reaction cross sections obtained agree very well with experimental data and predictions of a state-of-the-art fitted optical potential. Couplings between inelastic states were found to be negligible, while the pickup channels contribute significantly. The effect of resonances from higher-order channels was assessed. Elastic angular distributions were also calculated within the same method, achieving good agreement with experimental data. For the first time observed absorptions are completely accounted for by explicit channel coupling, for incident energies between 10 and 70 MeV, with consistent angular distribution results., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Version of paper accepted on December 1, 2011, for publication in Phys. Rev. C, following work on Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 202502 (2010)

Low-energy dipole excitations in neon isotopes and N=16 isotones are calculated with a fully consistent axially-symmetric-deformed quasiparticle random phase approximation (QRPA) approach based on Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov (HFB) states. The same Gogny D1S effective force has been used both in HFB and QRPA calculations. The microscopical structure of these low-lying resonances, as well as the behavior of proton and neutron transition densities, are investigated in order to determine the isoscalar or isovector nature of the excitations. It is found that the N=16 isotones 24O, 26Ne, 28Mg, and 30Si are characterized by a similar behavior. The occupation of the 2s_1/2 neutron orbit turns out to be crucial, leading to nontrivial transition densities and to small but finite collectivity. Some low-lying dipole excitations of 28Ne and 30Ne, characterized by transitions involving the neutron 1d_3/2 state, present a more collective behavior and isoscalar transition densities. A collective proton low-lying excitation is identified in the 18Ne nucleus.

A microscopic calculation of the reaction cross-section for nucleon-nucleus scattering has been performed by explicitly coupling the elastic channel to all particle-hole (p-h) excitation states in the target and to all one-nucleon pickup channels. The p-h states may be regarded as doorway states through which the flux flows to more complicated configurations, and subsequently to long-lived compound nucleus resonances. Target excitations for 40,48Ca, 58Ni, 90Zr and 144Sm were described in a QRPA framework using a Skyrme functional. Reaction cross sections calculated in this approach were compared to predictions of a fitted optical potential and to experimental data, reaching very good agreement. Couplings between inelastic states were found to be negligible, while the couplings to pickup channels contribute significantly. For the first time observed reaction cross-sections are completely accounted for by explicit channel coupling, for incident energies between 10 and 40 MeV., Comment: Accepted for publication on Physical Review Letters. Article is expected to be published in the November 12, 2010 issue. 4 pages, 4 figures

Information on the equation of state (EOS) of neutron matter may be gained from studies of 208Pb. Descriptions of 208Pb require credible models of structure, taking particular note also of the spectrum. Such may be tested by analyses of scattering data. Herein, we report on such analyses using an RPA model for 208Pb in a folding model of the scattering. No a posteriori adjustment of parameters are needed to obtain excellent agreement with data. From those analyses, the skin thickness of 208Pb is constrained to lie in the range 0.13-0.17 fm., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

The RPA long range correlations are known to play a significant role in understanding the depletion of single particle-hole states observed in (e, e') and (e, e'p) measurements. Here the Random Phase Approximation (RPA) theory, implemented using the D1S force is considered for the specific purpose of building correlated ground states and related one-body density matrix elements. These may be implemented and tested in a fully microscopic optical model for NA scattering off doubly-closed-shell nuclei. A method is presented to correct for the correlations overcounting inherent to the RPA formalism. One-body density matrix elements in the uncorrelated (i.e. Hartree-Fock) and correlated (i.e. RPA) ground states are then challenged in proton scattering studies based on the Melbourne microscopic optical model to highlight the role played by the RPA correlations. Effects of such correlations which deplete the nuclear matter at small radial distance (r $<$ 2 fm) and enhance its surface region, are getting more and more sizeable as the incident energy increases. Illustrations are given for proton scattering observables measured up to 201 MeV for the $^{16}$O, $^{40}$Ca, $^{48}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb target nuclei. Handling the RPA correlations systematically improves the agreement between scattering predictions and data for energies higher than 150 MeV., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) has been developed as a means to lift, transport and remove dust from surfaces for over 18 years in the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at NASA Kennedy Space Center. Resent advances in the technology have allowed large-scale EDSs to be fabricated using roll-to-roll techniques for quick efficient processing. The aim of the current research is to demonstrate the 3-dimensional (3-D) version of the EDS and its applicability to various surfaces of interest throughout the Artemis program that require dust mitigation. The conventional two dimensional (2-D) EDS has been comprised of interdigitated electrodes across a surface of alternating polarity to setup non-uniform electric fields in the location of interest for which the particles need to be removed. The 2-D system can be designed to accommodate various phases. For example, the two phase EDS is comprised of two electrodes 180˚ out of phase, while the 3-phase EDS is 120˚ out of phase with the adjacent leg. 4-phase EDS configurations are also possible but for each square wave a high voltage signal is applied to each leg.