Some general features of the phonon damping model are presented. It is concluded that the fits performed within this model have no physical content.

We respond to the Comment by Ponomarev. We reconfirm the correctness of our results and conclusions published in Phys. Rev. C 63, 044302 (2001). In particular, we reiterate that the aim of our previous study is to use for the calculations of $E1\mathrm{}$ resonances in neutron-rich isotopes the same set of parameters whose values are chosen to reproduce the giant dipole resonance in the corresponding double closed-shell nuclei.

In this work we calculate the relativistic equation of state of nuclear matter for different proton fractions at zero and finite temperatures within the Thomas-Fermi approach considering three different parameter sets: the well-known NL3 and TM1 and a density-dependent parametrization proposed by Typel and Wolter. The main differences are outlined, and the consequences of imposing $\beta$ stability in these models are discussed.

We have measured the neutron total and elastic scattering cross sections for the ${}^{204}\mathrm{Pb}+n$ reaction over the neutron energy range 35–1000 keV. Neutron resonance widths and energies have been deduced for 1357 resonances from an R-matrix analysis of the total cross section data. Of this number 317, 424, and 617 are due to s-, p-, and d-wave interactions, respectively, with the parity assignments based mainly upon resonance asymmetries observed in the scattering data. The level densities and strengths of all partial waves are uniform up to a neutron energy of 500 keV. The s-, p-, and d-wave strength functions for this energy region are (in units of ${10}^{-4})$ $1.3\pm 0.2,$ $0.19\pm 0.02,$ and $1.0\pm 0.1,$ respectively. If the strengths are calculated over the entire energy range the values for s and d waves are reduced by 35% and 12%, respectively, while that for p waves is increased by 40%. The s-, p-, and d-wave level densities (in ${\mathrm{keV}}^{-1})$ are $0.33\pm 0.03,$ $0.44\pm 0.02,$ and $0.68\pm 0.01,$ respectively.

Angular distributions for the elastic scattering of ${}^{4,6}\mathrm{He}$ on ${}^{58}\mathrm{Ni}$ have been measured at near-barrier energies. The present data, combined with others for the ${}^4\mathrm{He}{+}^{58}\mathrm{Ni}$ system at intermediate energies, allowed the determination of the ${}^{4,6}\mathrm{He}$ ground-state nuclear densities through an unfolding method. The experimentally extracted nuclear densities are compared with the results of theoretical calculations.

We study the hydrogen and muonic hydrogen within an effective field theory framework. We perform the matching between heavy baryon effective theory coupled to photons and leptons and the relevant effective field theory at atomic scales. This matching can be performed in a perturbative expansion in $\alpha ,{1/m}_p,$ and the chiral counting. We then compute the ${O(m}_{l_i}^3{\alpha }^5{/m}_p^2\times \mathrm{logarithms})$ contribution (including the leading chiral logarithms) to the hyperfine splitting and compare with experiment. They can explain about 2/3 of the difference between experiment and the pure QED prediction when setting the renormalization scale at the $\rho$ mass. We give an estimate of the matching coefficient of the spin-dependent proton-lepton operator in heavy baryon effective theory.

The $\omega$ production in nucleon-nucleon collisions is described through decays of intermediate nucleon resonances. The near-threshold $p\overrightarrow{p}\mathrm{pp}\omega$ cross section is found to be dominated by the off-shell production of $\omega$ mesons with masses far below the physical $\omega$ mass. The $N^{*}\mathrm{}\left(1535\right)\mathrm{}$ resonance plays thereby a crucial role. As a result of a strong $N\omega$ coupling, this resonance leads to an off-shell contribution which is about one order of magnitude larger than the experimentally measured contribution from the $\omega$ peak. After a subtraction of the theoretical “background” from the off-shell $\omega$ production, the available data are accurately reproduced over the entire energy range from 5 MeV up to several GeV above the threshold. The scenario of a weaker $N^{*}\mathrm{}\left(1535\right)\mathrm{}\to N\omega$ decay mode which is still consistent with electro- and photoproduction data is discussed as well. In the latter case, the off-shell contribution to the $p\overrightarrow{p}\mathrm{pp}\omega$ cross section is substantially reduced but the description of the experimental cross section is poor above threshold.

Spectral functions in the $\sigma$ channel are investigated near the chiral critical end point (CEP), that is, the point where the chiral phase transition ceases to be first ordered in the $(\mu ,T)$ plane of the QCD phase diagram. At that point the $\sigma$ meson becomes massless in spite of explicit breaking of the chiral symmetry. It is expected that experimental signatures peculiar to the CEP can be observed through spectral changes in the presence of abnormally light $\sigma$ mesons. As a candidate, the invariant-mass spectrum for diphoton emission is estimated with the chiral quark model incorporated. The results show the characteristic shape with a peak in the low energy region, which may serve as a signal for the CEP. However, we find that the diphoton multiplicity is highly suppressed by infrared behaviors of the $\sigma$ meson. Experimentally, in such a low energy region below the threshold of two pions, photons from ${\pi }^0\to 2\gamma$ are major sources of the background for the signal.

We have extended an earlier phase-shift analysis of $p{-}^3\mathrm{He}$ scattering data by including additional low-energy measurements in the dataset. The $p{-}^3\mathrm{He}$ zero-energy scattering lengths obtained from this analysis depend sensitively on a group of cross section and analyzing power measurements at proton energies below 1 MeV. When this group of measurements is included in the dataset, two possible phase-shift solutions are found. The first solution yields a singlet scattering length of $a_s=15.1\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm}$ and a triplet scattering length of $a_t=7.9\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm},$ while the second solution yields values of $a_s=7.2\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm}$ and $a_t=10.4\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm}.$ Without this group of measurements, the best-fit scattering lengths are $a_s=10.3\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm}$ and $a_t=8.2\mathrm{}\mathrm{fm}.$ We believe that the scattering lengths are currently not well determined experimentally and that additional low-energy $p{-}^3\mathrm{He}$ data are needed in order to clarify the situation.

Picosecond lifetimes in ${}^{46}\mathrm{V}$ and ${}^{46}\mathrm{Ti}$ were determined using the recoil distance Doppler-shift technique with a plunger device coupled to a setup of five HP Ge detectors enhanced by one EUROBALL CLUSTER detector. The experiment was carried out using the ${}^{32}\mathrm{S}{(}^{16}\mathrm{O},pn)$ reaction at 38 MeV at the Cologne FN TANDEM facility. The differential decay curve method in coincidence mode was employed to derive lifetimes for five excited states in each nucleus. The resulting $E2\mathrm{}$ transition probabilities are compared with existing shell model calculations and a comparison within the $T=1\mathrm{}$ isospin triplet is given. Absolute $E1\mathrm{}$ strengths of the $2^{-}$ decay in ${}^{46}\mathrm{V}$ are discussed.

We have studied the mass and energy distributions of fission fragments from the two reactions ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{+}^{204}\mathrm{Pb}$ and ${}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}{+}^{168}\mathrm{Er}$ that lead to the same compound nucleus ${}^{216}{\mathrm{Ra}}^{*}.$ Despite the fact that the excitation energy was around 40 MeV in both cases, the contribution from asymmetric fission in the first reaction is only around 1.5% but is about 30% in the second. This marked increase in the yield of asymmetric products is connected to the quasifission process, in which important shell effects become evident. The mass-energy distributions are interpreted in terms of an independent decay mode competing with the normal fusion-fission process and possibly leading to a significant suppression of the fusion cross section itself.

We demonstrate a breakdown in the macroscopic (classical-like) dynamics of wave-packets in complex microscopic and mesoscopic collisions. This breakdown manifests itself in coherent superpositions of the rotating clockwise and anticlockwise wave-packets in the regime of strongly overlapping many-body resonances of the highly-excited intermediate complex. These superpositions involve $\sim {10}^4$ many-body configurations so that their internal interactive complexity dramatically exceeds all of those previously discussed and experimentally realized. The interference fringes persist over a time-interval much longer than the energy relaxation-redistribution time due to the anomalously slow phase randomization (dephasing). Experimental verification of the effect is proposed.

High-spin states have been populated in ${}^{176}\mathrm{Ir}$ using the ${}^{149}\mathrm{Sm}{(}^{31}\mathrm{P},4n)$ reaction. Gamma-gamma coincidence techniques have allowed numerous bands up to a maximum spin of 32 to be identified. Configurations have been assigned based on spectroscopic properties such as $B\left(M1\mathrm{}\right)/B\left(E2\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{}$ values and aligned angular momenta. Signature inversions are observed in bands based on the $\pi h_{9/2}\otimes \nu i_{13/2}$ and $\pi i_{13/2}\otimes \nu i_{13/2}$ configurations. These inversions are compared with particle-rotor model calculations and are qualitatively reproduced when a residual proton-neutron interaction is included. The shape evolution of the bands has been studied using diabatic potential energy surface calculations. A strong configuration dependence is predicted.

A systematic study of two-quasiparticle bands of the proton-rich odd-odd nuclei in the mass $A\sim 70–80$ region is performed using the projected shell model approach. The study includes Br, Rb, and Y isotopes with $N=Z+2\mathrm{}$ and $Z+4.\mathrm{}$ We describe the energy spectra and electromagnetic transition strengths in terms of the configuration mixing of the angular-momentum projected multi-quasiparticle states. Signature splitting and signature inversion in the rotational bands are discussed and are shown to be well described. A preliminary study of the odd-odd $N=Z$ nucleus ${}^{74}\mathrm{Rb},$ using the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking is also presented.

An implementation of the shell-model to the complex energy plane is presented. The representation used in the method consists of bound single-particle states, Gamow resonances and scattering waves on the complex energy plane. Two-particle resonances are evaluated, and their structure in terms of the single-particle degrees of freedom is analyzed. It is found that two-particle resonances are mainly built upon bound states and Gamow resonances, but the contribution of the scattering states is also important.

Electron capture of ${}^{123}\mathrm{Te}$ from the K shell has been investigated in a new underground search with an array of 340-g ${\mathrm{TeO}}_2$ thermal detectors. We find that some previous indication of this decay could be attributed to electron capture (EC) of ${}^{121}\mathrm{Te}$ resulting from neutron activation of natural tellurium. There is therefore so far no evidence for EC of ${}^{123}\mathrm{Te}$ from the K shell with a 90% C.L. lower limit $t_{1/2}^K>5\mathrm{}\times {10}^{19}$ years on the half lifetime. Taking into account the predicted K EC branching ratio, the corresponding lower limit on the ${}^{123}\mathrm{Te}$ EC half lifetime is $t_{1/2}>9.2\mathrm{}\times {10}^{16},$ which can be theoretically interpreted only on the basis of a strong suppression of the nuclear matrix elements. A complementary analysis based on the expected fraction of EC accompanied by internal bremsstrahlung is discussed.

In this paper we propose a generalization of the density functional theory. The theory leads to single-particle equations of motion with a quasilocal mean-field operator, which contains a quasiparticle position-dependent effective mass and a spin-orbit potential. The energy density functional is constructed using the extended Thomas-Fermi approximation and the ground-state properties of doubly magic nuclei are considered within the framework of this approach. Calculations were performed using the finite-range Gogny D1S forces and the results are compared with the exact Hartree-Fock calculations.

The high spin states of ${}^{103}\mathrm{Ag}$ have been populated through the ${}^{76}\mathrm{Ge}{(}^{35}\mathrm{Cl},\alpha 4n\gamma {)}^{103}\mathrm{Ag}$ reaction using 132-MeV ${}^{35}\mathrm{Cl}$ beam. The presence of a positive parity ground state band and two negative parity bands decaying predominantly by M1 transitions in ${}^{103}\mathrm{Ag}$ has been confirmed. In addition, seven new crossover $E2\mathrm{}$ transitions have been observed in the negative parity bands. The experimental $B\left(M1\mathrm{}\right)/B\left(E2\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{}$ ratios are compared with the values obtained from the Dönau geometric formula for the negative parity bands based on single particle configurations assigned from signature arguments. These ratios are also compared to those obtained from the hybrid version of tilted axis cranking. A systematic study of odd-Ag isotopes seems to indicate that the signature symmetry is retained in ${}^{103}\mathrm{Ag}$ due to the shallow tilted minimum.

We compute the distribution of quasideuterons in doubly closed shell nuclei. The ground states of ${}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ and ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ are described in $\mathrm{ls}$ coupling using a realistic Hamiltonian including the Argonne $v_8^{\prime }$ and the Urbana IX models of two- and three-nucleon potentials, respectively. The nuclear wave function contains central and tensor correlations, and correlated basis functions theory is used to evaluate the distribution of neutron-proton pairs, having the deuteron quantum numbers, as a function of their total momentum. By computing the number of deuteronlike pairs we are able to extract Levinger’s factor and compare to both the available experimental data and the predictions of the local density approximation, based on nuclear matter estimates. The agreement with the experiments is excellent, whereas the local density approximation is shown to sizably overestimate Levinger’s factor in the region of the medium nuclei.

Complete sets of analyzing powers for elastic and inelastic (to the ${1/2}^{-}$ first excited and ${7/2}^{-}$ resonant states of ${}^7\mathrm{Li})$ scattering of polarized ${}^7\mathrm{Li}$ by ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ have been obtained. Relations between the different analyzing powers were determined by applying the invariant amplitude method. A comparison of these relations with the measured analyzing powers suggests that the odd rank tensor analyzing powers arise from higher order quadrupole interactions. The quadrupole interaction also gives rise to the inelastic analyzing powers. Continuum-discretized coupled-channels calculations using $\alpha +t$ cluster-folded potentials confirm this crucial role of the quadrupole interaction in producing the observed ${}^7\mathrm{Li}{+}^4\mathrm{He}$ analyzing powers. Cluster-folded spin-orbit and third rank tensor potentials were found to have negligible effects, in contrast to polarized deuteron elastic scattering where the spin-orbit potential plays the dominant role, even in producing the second rank analyzing powers. Coupling between the excited states of ${}^7\mathrm{Li},$ in particular that between the 0.478 MeV ${1/2}^{-}$ and the 6.68 MeV ${5/2}^{-}$ states, was also found to be important.