We study the equation of state and composition of hypernuclear matter within a relativistic density functional theory with density-dependent couplings. The parameter space of hyperon–scalar-meson couplings is explored by allowing for mixing and breaking of SU(6) symmetry, while keeping the nucleonic coupling constants fixed. The subset of equations of state, which corresponds to small values of hyperon–scalar-meson couplings, allows for massive $M\le 2.25M_{\odot }$ compact stars; the radii of hypernuclear stars are within the range 12–14 km. We also study the equation of state of hot neutrino-rich and neutrinoless hypernuclear matter and confirm that neutrinos stiffen the equation of state and dramatically change the composition of matter by keeping the fractions of charged leptons nearly independent of the density prior to the onset of neutrino transparency. We provide piecewise polytropic fits to six representative equations of state of hypernuclear matter, which are suitable for applications in numerical astrophysics.

The nucleus ${}^{203}$Fr has been studied through $\gamma$-ray and electron spectroscopy, using the recoil-decay tagging technique. A 13/2${}^{+}$ state, with a half-life of 0.37(5) $\mu$s, has been observed in ${}^{203}$Fr. Both the $\alpha$-decay branch and the internal de-excitation of the 1/2${}^{+}$ isomer in ${}^{203}$Fr have been studied. Furthermore, the corresponding 1/2${}^{+}$ state, with a half-life of 0.31(8) s, has been found in ${}^{199}$At. In addition, transitions feeding the 9/2${}^{-}$ ground state of ${}^{203}$Fr have been identified. The observed level pattern suggests that the ground state is still spherical.

An approximate Lane-consistent dispersive coupled-channels optical potential is derived that describes nucleon-induced reactions on even iron isotopes. Realistic saturated couplings for ${}^{54,56,58}$Fe nuclei are built using nuclear wave functions of the soft-rotator model with the Hamiltonian parameters adjusted to reproduce the energy of the low-lying collective levels of these isotopes. $E2$- and $E3$-transition probabilities between low-lying collective levels are well reproduced. The comprehensive experimental database used in the fitting process includes all scattering data for neutron and proton scattering up to 200 MeV on iron nuclei. The derived potential is shown to be applicable to Ni and Cr isotopes, assuming the applicability of the soft-rotator model to these nuclei and to the odd ${}^{57}$Fe nucleus within the rigid-rotor model. The approximate Lane consistency of the derived potential is validated by describing the quasielastic $(p,n)$ scattering with excitation of isobaric analog states. Elastic and inelastic analyzing powers for both neutron- and proton-induced reactions are shown to be in good agreement with experimental data, demonstrating the reliability of the derived dispersive spin-orbit potential.

Direct photons have been measured in $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=200$ GeV $d+\text{Au}$ collisions at midrapidity. A wide $p_T$ range is covered by measurements of nearly real virtual photons ($1<p_T<6$ GeV/$c$) and real photons ($5<p_T<16$ GeV/$c$). The invariant yield of the direct photons in $d+\text{Au}$ collisions over the scaled $p+p$ cross section is consistent with unity. Theoretical calculations assuming standard cold-nuclear-matter effects describe the data well for the entire $p_T$ range. This indicates that the large enhancement of direct photons observed in $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions for $1.0<p_T<2.5$ GeV/$c$ is attributable to a source other than the initial-state nuclear effects.

We calculate properties of neutron drops in external potentials using both quantum Monte Carlo and no-core full configuration techniques. The properties of the external wells are varied to examine different density profiles. We compare neutron drop results given by a selection of nuclear Hamiltonians, including realistic two-body interactions as well as several three-body forces. We compute a range of properties for the neutron drops: ground-state energies, spin-orbit splittings, excitation energies, radial densities and rms radii. We compare the equations of state for neutron matter for several of these Hamiltonians. Our results can be used as benchmarks to test other many-body techniques and to constrain properties of energy-density functionals.

The effect of electron screening on the $\alpha$ decay rate of typical nuclei is considered. To this end, the adiabatical approach is exploited, which consecutively takes into account the adiabaticity of the motion of the $\alpha$ particle through the shells. The effect is found to be of the order of 0.1$\%$ to 0.01$\%$ for the considered representative nuclei. The prospects of an experimental study of the effect aimed at a search for the dynamics of $\alpha$ decay are discussed. It is suggested that the presence of a muon in the orbit in muonic atoms should have an effect on the $\alpha$ decay rate that is much stronger than the effect of removing the electron shell.

Self-consistent proton-neutron quasiparticle random phase approximation based on the spherical nonlinear point-coupling relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory is established and used to investigate the ${\beta }^{+}$/electron-capture (EC)-decay half-lives of neutron-deficient Ar, Ca, Ti, Fe, Ni, Zn, Cd, and Sn isotopes. The isoscalar proton-neutron pairing is found to play an important role in reducing the decay half-lives, which is consistent with the same mechanism in the $\beta$ decays of neutron-rich nuclei. The experimental ${\beta }^{+}$/EC-decay half-lives can be well reproduced by a universal isoscalar proton-neutron pairing strength.

Spin-1 states in ${}^{60}$Ni were excited with the $(\vec{\gamma },{\gamma }^{\prime })$ reaction, exploiting the High Intensity $\vec{\gamma }$-ray Source at Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory. This facility is capable of providing fully linearly polarized, quasimonochromatic, Compton-backscattered photons in the entrance channel of the reaction. The depopulation of low-lying levels in an energy region far below the incident quasimonochromatic photons allows us to obtain average branching ratios of the excited spin-1 states. Levels within the energy region associated with the PDR showed regular behavior and $\approx$75$\%$ of their decays are direct ground-state decays. The levels in the energy region above the PDR exhibit a statistical decay behavior to a large number of low-lying excited states and have only $\approx$50–60$\%$ branches to the ground state. Within the framework of the quasiparticle phonon model this feature can be explained with the number of quasiparticles contributing to the wave functions of the excited spin-1 states. Quasimonochromatic photon beams provide a new method to test the microscopic nature of $1^{-}$ levels.

The line shapes of giant dipole resonance (GDR) in the decay of the compound nucleus ${}^{88}$Mo, which is formed after the fusion-evaporation reaction ${}^{48}$Ti $+$ ${}^{40}$Ca at various excitation energies $E^{*}$ from 58 to 308 MeV, are generated by averaging the GDR strength functions predicted within the phonon damping model (PDM) using the empirical probabilities for temperature and angular momentum. The average strength functions are compared with the PDM strength functions calculated at the mean temperature and mean angular momentum, which are obtained by averaging the values of temperature and angular momentum using the same temperature and angular momentum probability distributions, respectively. It is seen that these two ways of generating the GDR linear line shape yield very similar results. It is also shown that the GDR width approaches a saturation at angular momentum $J\ge$ 50 $\hslash$ at $T=4$ MeV and at $J\ge$ 70 $\hslash$ at any $T$.

The effects of nuclear superfluidity on antimagnetic rotation bands in ${}^{105}$Cd and ${}^{106}$Cd are investigated by the cranked shell model with the pairing correlations and blocking effects treated by a particle-number-conserving method. The experimental moments of inertia and the reduced $B\left(E2\right)$ transition values are excellently reproduced. Nuclear superfluidity is essential to reproduce the experimental moments of inertia. The two-shears-like mechanism for the antimagnetic rotation is investigated by examining the shears angle, i.e., the closing of the two-proton-hole angular momenta, and its sensitive dependence on nuclear superfluidity is revealed.

We have computed the matter radius of ${}^{17}$N(g.s.), using both the 1$n$ and 2$n$ prescriptions. The two results differ by only 0.02 fm.

Odd-odd ${}^{136}$Cs nuclei have been produced in the ${}^{18}\mathrm{O}+{}^{208}$Pb and ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}+{}^{238}$U fusion-fission reactions and their $\gamma$ rays studied with the Euroball array. The high-spin level scheme was built up to $\sim$4.7 MeV excitation energy and spin $I\sim 16\hslash$ from the triple $\gamma$-ray coincidence data. The configurations of the three structures observed above $\sim$2 MeV excitation energy are first discussed by analogy with the proton excitations identified in the semimagic ${}^{137}$Cs${}_{82}$ nucleus, which involve the three high-$j$ orbits lying above the $Z=50$ gap, $\pi g_{7/2}$, $\pi d_{5/2}$, and $\pi h_{11/2}$. This is confirmed by the results of shell-model calculations performed in this work.

Elastic gluon-gluon-quark (gluon-gluon-antiquark) scattering is studied in perturbative QCD with 123 Feynman diagrams at the tree level. Individually squared amplitudes and interference terms of the Feynman diagrams are derived. With the elastic gluon-gluon-quark scattering and the elastic gluon-gluon-antiquark scattering, transport equations are established. In the thermalization process of initially created quark-gluon matter, this matter is governed by elastic two-to-two scattering and elastic three-to-three scattering. Solutions of the transport equations show that initially created quark-gluon matter takes early thermalization, i.e., thermal states are established rapidly. Different thermalization times of gluon matter and quark matter are obtained.

We study the production of light nuclei, hypernuclei, and their antiparticles in relativistic energy heavy ion collisions from sequential decay of massive resonance states within a Hagedorn resonance gas model. The production yield of these clusters and of the multistrange hypernuclear objects are presented over a wide range of collision energies.

Starting from the light-cone plasma (LCP) distribution of gluons produced in proton-proton collisions, we derive the invariant charged-particle yield $dN/dy{d}^2{p}_{\perp }$ in heavy-ion collisions. Multiple scattering of partons in the other nucleus leads to $p_{\perp }$ broadening, which depends on the centrality of the collision. The resulting change of the LCP parameters determines the distributions of charged particles. The charged-particle multiplicity $dN/d\eta$ at $\eta =0$ normalized to the number of participating nucleons has a universal centrality dependence, common to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This universal increase is of geometrical origin. Such a universality can be broken by the energy-dependent coherence effect, shadowing, and mutual boosting of the saturation scales. However, we found these effects to essentially compensate each other, leaving the centrality dependence of multiplicity approximately universal.

In this Brief Report we report systematic deviations of the Garvey-Kelson mass relations for different parity combinations of neutrons and protons. A simple argument of such deviations is presented in terms of the pairing interaction.

The controlled transfer of nuclear state population using two x-ray laser pulses is investigated theoretically. The laser pulses drive two nuclear transitions in a nuclear three-level system facilitating coherent population transfer via the quantum optics technique of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. To overcome present limitations of the x-ray laser frequency, we envisage accelerated nuclei interacting with two copropagating or crossed x-ray laser pulses in a three-beam setup. We present a systematic study of this setup providing both pulse temporal sequence and laser pulse intensity for optimized control of the nuclear state population. The tolerance for geometrical parameters such as laser beam divergence of the three-beam setup as well as for the velocity spread of the nuclear beam are studied and a two-photon resonance condition to account for experimental uncertainties is deduced. This additional condition gives a less strict requirement for the experimental implementation of the three-beam setup. Present experimental state of the art and future prospects are discussed.

The decay of the $Z=115$ superheavy nuclear system, formed in the ${}^{243}\mathrm{Am}+{}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$ reaction, is studied by using the dynamical cluster-decay model. The calculated excitation functions of $2n$-, $3n$-, and $4n$-evaporation channels, for the excitation energy range $E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{*}=31$–47 MeV, are compared with the recent experimental data. The deformation effects are included up to ${\beta }_2$, within the hot optimum orientation approach, and a comparative analysis of spherical versus static and dynamic deformations is investigated explicitly for the $2n$-evaporation residue, as only $2n$ decay responds to spherical fragments. The $3n$ and $4n$ decay cross sections could be fitted only after the inclusion of deformation effects. The variation of preformation probability, barrier penetrability, and barrier modification is investigated in order to extract a better picture of the dynamics involved in the reaction under consideration. It is observed that, for the $3n$-evaporation channel, the barrier modification at $E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{*}=36.15$ MeV is the smallest and hence supports the experimental observation of maximum cross section (8.5 pb) at this energy. The role of isospin ($N/Z$ ratio) is also investigated for the decay of various isotopes of $Z=115$ formed in ${}^{48}\text{Ca}+{}^{241,243,245}$Am reactions. Furthermore, the evaporation cross sections of $2n$, $3n,$ and $4n$ channels are also estimated at the Bass barrier by interpolating the neck-length parameters fixed in reference to available data at above-barrier energies. Finally, the $\alpha$-decay chains are analyzed by using the preformed cluster model. It is shown that the present data of $\alpha$-decay half-lives support “hot” optimum orientations of nuclei, rather than the usual “cold” ones, within a constant empirical factor in penetrability.

Using an interaction extracted from the local hidden-gauge Lagrangians, which brings together vector and pseudoscalar mesons, and the coupled channels $\rho N$ ($s$ wave), $\pi N$ ($d$ wave), $\pi \Delta$ ($s$ wave), and $\pi \Delta$ ($d$ wave), we look in the region of $\sqrt{s}=1400–1850$ MeV and find two resonances dynamically generated by the interaction of these channels, which are naturally associated to $N^{*}\left(1520\right)(3/2^{-})$ and $N^{*}\left(1700\right)(3/2^{-})$. $N^{*}\left(1700\right)(3/2^{-})$ appears neatly as a pole in the complex plane. The free parameters of the theory are chosen to fit the $\pi N$ ($d$-wave) data. Both the real and imaginary parts of the $\pi N$ amplitude vanish in our approach in the vicinity of this resonance, which is similar to what happens in experimental determinations and which makes this signal very weak in this channel. This feature could explain why this resonance does not show up in some experimental analyses, but the situation is analogous to that of the $f_0\left(980\right)$ resonance, the second scalar meson after $\sigma \left[f_0\left(500\right)\right]$ in the $\pi \pi$($d$-wave) amplitude. The unitary coupled channel approach followed here, in connection with the experimental data, leads automatically to a pole in the 1700-MeV region and makes this second $3/2^{-}$ resonance unavoidable.