The sensitivity of the stellar moment of inertia to the neutron-star matter equation of state is examined using accurately calibrated relativistic mean-field models. We probe this sensitivity by tuning both the density dependence of the symmetry energy and the high-density component of the equation of state, properties that are at present poorly constrained by existing laboratory data. Particularly attractive is the study of the fraction of the moment of inertia contained in the solid crust. Analytic treatments of the crustal moment of inertia reveal a high sensitivity to the transition pressure at the core-crust interface. This may suggest the existence of a strong correlation between the density dependence of the symmetry energy and the crustal moment of inertia. However, no correlation was found. We conclude that constraining the density dependence of the symmetry energy—through, for example, the measurement of the neutron skin thickness in ${}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$—will place no significant bound on either the transition pressure or the crustal moment of inertia.

Excitation function of the quasielastic (QEL) scattering at a backward angle was measured for the weakly bound projectile ${}^9\mathrm{Be}$, which bombarded a ${}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$ target at near-barrier energies. Barrier distribution was extracted by means of the first derivative of the experimental cross sections with respect to the effective energies. Theoretical fusion barrier distribution has been calculated with the coupled-channels model and compared with the experimental barrier distribution. By this comparison, it is shown that the experimental barrier distribution extracted from QEL scattering is shifted to low energy by 1.5 MeV as compared with the theoretical one. This energy discrepancy between the theoretical prediction and the experimental data indicates the breakup is an important reaction mechanism in the colliding processes of the weakly bound projectile ${}^9\mathrm{Be}$ on a spherical target ${}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$.

Radiative capture reactions for low-energy protons have been theoretically studied for Ni and Cu isotopes using the microscopic optical model. The optical potential has been obtained in the folding model using different microscopic interactions with the nuclear densities from relativistic mean field calculations. The calculated total cross sections as well as the cross sections for individually low-lying levels have been compared with measurements involving stable nuclear targets. Rates for the rapid proton capture process have been evaluated for astrophysically important reactions.

We investigate the neutron pair transfer modes associated with the low-lying quadrupole states in neutron-rich Sn isotopes by means of the quasiparticle random phase approximation based on the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mean-field model. The transition strength of the quadrupole pair-addition mode feeding the $2_1^{+}$ state is enhanced in the Sn isotopes with $A⩾132$. The transition density of the pair-addition mode has a large spatial extension in the exterior of the nucleus, reaching to $r~12–13$ fm. The quadrupole pair-addition mode reflects sensitively a possible increase of the effective pairing interaction strength in the surface and exterior regions of neutron-rich nuclei.

We propose a modification of the finite size effects due to the effective bag function in the extended quark quasiparticle model with a running coupling constant. The bag function is associated with the quark chemical potential and the radius of strangelets. Considering the medium effects, the surface tension should be redefined with an additional term described by the surface term of the bag function. With the increasing baryon number of stable strangelets, it is found that the coupling strength becomes stronger while the surface tension decreases in the vicinity of 35 MeV ${\mathrm{fm}}^{-2}$ for strangelets of the baryon number greater than ${10}^3$. The comparison with the bag model is shown and the distinction for smaller strangelets is very clear.

Low-lying collective states of ${}^{130,132}\mathrm{Xe}$ have been investigated by $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy following ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$(Xe,Xe${}^{*}$)${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ projectile Coulomb excitation. The one-phonon $2_{1,\mathrm{ms}}^{+}$ states have been identified: the $2_4^{+}$ state at 2150 keV with $B(M1;2_4^{+}\to 2_1^{+})=0.15(4){\mu }_N^2$ in ${}^{130}\mathrm{Xe}$ and the $2_3^{+}$ state at 1985 keV with $B(M1;2_3^{+}\to 2_1^{+})=0.22(6){\mu }_N^2$ in ${}^{132}\mathrm{Xe}$. The evolution of the one-phonon $2_{1,\mathrm{ms}}^{+}$ states in the even-even stable xenon isotopic chain from the vibrators near $N=82$ to the $\gamma$-soft nuclei toward midshell is discussed.

We have computed energies of ${}^{16}\mathrm{Ne}$ levels in a core plus two-nucleon space, using known ${}^{16}\mathrm{C}$ energies and existing wave functions. We have then used these energies to compute properties of the first three levels of ${}^{17}\mathrm{Na}$. Significant differences are found with results of a recent microscopic-cluster-model formulation.

An expression for stationary fission width is obtained for systems with steep shape-dependent nuclear collective inertia by extending the work of Kramers, which was originally derived for a fixed value of the inertia. The domain of validity of the present expression is examined by comparing its predictions with widths obtained from the corresponding Langevin equations.

The mechanism of incoherent ${\pi }^0$ and $\eta$ photoproduction from complex nuclei is investigated from 4 to 12 GeV with an extended version of the multicollisional Monte Carlo (MCMC) intranuclear cascade model. The calculations take into account the elementary photoproduction amplitudes via a Regge model and the nuclear effects of photon shadowing, Pauli blocking, and meson-nucleus final-state interactions. The results for ${\pi }^0$ photoproduction reproduced for the first time the magnitude and energy dependence of the measured rations ${\sigma }_{\gamma A}/{\sigma }_{\gamma N}$ for several nuclei (Be, C, Al, Cu, Ag, and Pb) from a Cornell experiment. The results for $\eta$ photoproduction fitted the inelastic background in Cornell’s yields remarkably well, which is clearly not isotropic as previously considered in Cornell’s analysis. With this constraint for the background, the $\eta \to \gamma \gamma$ decay width was extracted using the Primakoff method, combining Be and Cu data $[{\Gamma }_{\eta \to \gamma \gamma }=0.476(62)\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{keV}]$ and using Be data only $[{\Gamma }_{\eta \to \gamma \gamma }=0.512(90)\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{keV}]$; where the errors are only statistical. These results are in sharp contrast $(~50$–$60\%$) with the value reported by the Cornell group $[{\Gamma }_{\eta \to \gamma \gamma }=0.324(46)\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{keV}]$ and in line with the Particle Data Group average of 0.510(26) keV.

Distorted-wave impulse approximation calculations of $\Lambda$ hypernuclear production rates in stopped $K^{-}$ reactions on several $p$-shell targets used recently in experiments by the FINUDA Collaboration are reported. Chirally motivated $K^{-}N\to \pi \Lambda$ in-medium transition amplitudes are employed, and the sensitivity of the calculated rates to the initial $K^{-}$-atomic wave functions and final pion distorted waves is studied. The calculated rates are compared with measured rates, wherever available, which confirm earlier observations that (i) the calculated rates are generally lower than the measured rates, and (ii) the deeper the $K^{-}$-nuclear potential, the worse the discrepancy. The $A$ dependence of the calculated $1s_{\Lambda }$ production rates is discussed, providing a useful tool to resolve the issue of depth of the $K^{-}$-nuclear potential near threshold.

We study the temperature dependence of the effective bag constant, the mass, and the radius of a nucleon in the formalism of the simple global color symmetry model in the Dyson-Schwinger equation approach of QCD with a Gaussian-type effective gluon propagator. We obtain that, as the temperature is lower than a critical value, the effective bag constant and the mass decrease and the radius increases with the temperature increasing. As the critical temperature is reached, the effective bag constant and the mass vanish and the radius tends to infinity. At the same time, the chiral quark condensate disappears. These phenomena indicate that the deconfinement and the chiral symmetry restoration phase transitions can take place at high temperature. The dependence of the critical temperature on the interaction strength parameter in the effective gluon propagator of the approach is given.

The effects of the $\alpha$ particles in nuclear matter at low densities are investigated within three different parametrizations of relativistic models at finite temperature. Both homogeneous and inhomogeneous matter (pasta phase) are described for neutral nuclear matter with fixed proton fractions and stellar matter subject to $\beta$ equilibrium and trapped neutrinos. In homogeneous matter, $\alpha$ particles are present only at densities below 0.02 fm${}^{-3}$ and their presence decreases with increase of the temperature and, for a fixed temperature, the $\alpha$ particle fraction decreases for smaller proton fractions. A repulsive interaction is important to mimic the dissolution of the clusters in homogeneous matter. The effect of the $\alpha$ particles on the pasta structure is very small except close to the critical temperatures and/or proton fractions, when it may still predict a pasta phase while no pasta phase would occur in the absence of light clusters. It is shown that for densities above 0.01 fm${}^3$ the $\alpha$-particle fraction in the pasta phase is much larger than that in homogeneous matter.

The connections between the X(5) models [the original X(5) using an infinite square well, X(5)-${\beta }^8$, X(5)-${\beta }^6$, X(5)-${\beta }^4$, and X(5)-${\beta }^2$], based on particular solutions of the geometrical Bohr Hamiltonian with harmonic potential in the $\gamma$ degree of freedom, and the interacting boson model (IBM) are explored. This work is the natural extension of the work presented in García-Ramos and Arias, Phys. Rev. C 77, 054307 (2008) for the E(5) models. For that purpose, a quite general one- and two-body IBM Hamiltonian is used and a numerical fit to the different X(5) model energies is performed; then the obtained wave functions are used to calculate $B(E2)$ transition rates. It is shown that within the IBM one can reproduce well the results for energies and $B(E2)$ transition rates obtained with all these X(5) models, although the agreement is not so impressive as for the E(5) models. From the fitted IBM parameters the corresponding energy surface can be extracted and, surprisingly, only the X(5) case corresponds in the moderately large $N$ limit to an energy surface very close to the one expected for a critical point, whereas the rest of models are situated a little further away.

A folding potential for the elastic $\alpha +{}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ scattering is constructed based on the $\alpha +{}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ structure model of the ${}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ nucleus. The elastic scattering angular distributions of the $\alpha +{}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ system at incident energies $E_{\alpha }=31.1$, 54.1, and 104.0 MeV have been calculated by using the folding potential. The experimental angular distributions and the anomalous large angle scattering (ALAS) features can be satisfactorily described. The anomaly of the $\alpha +{}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ system is clearly reconfirmed in the present folding model analysis and should be further systematically investigated.

A detailed investigation of the energy loss of gluons that traverse a thermal gluonic medium simulated within the perturbative QCD-based transport model BAMPS (a Boltzmann approach to multiparton scatterings) is presented in the first part of this work. For simplicity the medium response is neglected in these calculations. The energy loss from purely elastic interactions is compared with the case where radiative processes are consistently included based on the matrix element by Gunion and Bertsch. From this comparison, gluon multiplication processes $\mathit{gg}\to \mathit{ggg}$ are found to be the dominant source of energy loss within the approach employed here. The consequences for the quenching of gluons with high transverse momentum in fully dynamic simulations of $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy of $\sqrt{s}=200A\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{GeV}$ are discussed in the second major part of this work. The results for central collisions as discussed in a previous publication are revisited, and first results on the nuclear modification factor $R_{\mathit{AA}}$ for noncentral $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions are presented. They show a decreased quenching compared to central collisions while retaining the same shape. The investigation of the elliptic flow $v_2$ is extended up to nonthermal transverse momenta of $10\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{GeV}$, exhibiting a maximum $v_2$ at roughly $4$ to $5\hspace{0.5em}\mathrm{GeV}$ and a subsequent decrease. Finally the sensitivity of the aforementioned results on the specific implementation of the effective modeling of the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect via a formation-time-based cutoff is explored.

Results on $\Lambda p$ femtoscopy are reported at the lowest energy so far. At a beam energy of $1.76A$ GeV, the reaction $\mathrm{Ar}+\mathrm{KCl}$ was studied with the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES) at SIS18/GSI. A high-statistics and high-purity $\Lambda$ sample was collected, allowing for the investigation of $\Lambda p$ correlations at low relative momenta. The experimental correlation function is compared to corresponding model calculations allowing the determination of the space-time extent of the $\Lambda p$ emission source. The $\Lambda p$ source radius is found to be slightly smaller than the $\mathit{pp}$ correlation radius for a similar collision system. The present $\Lambda p$ radius is significantly smaller than that found for $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}/\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions in the AGS, SPS, and RHIC energy domains but larger than that observed for electroproduction from He. Taking into account all available data, we find the $\Lambda p$ source radius to increase almost linearly with the number of participants to the power of one-third.

We show that the chiral-limit vacuum quark condensate is qualitatively equivalent to the pseudoscalar meson leptonic decay constant in the sense that they are both obtained as the chiral-limit value of well-defined gauge-invariant hadron-to-vacuum transition amplitudes that possess a spectral representation in terms of the current-quark mass. Thus, whereas it might sometimes be convenient to imagine otherwise, neither is essentially a constant mass-scale that fills all spacetime. This means, in particular, that the quark condensate can be understood as a property of hadrons themselves, which is expressed, for example, in their Bethe-Salpeter or light-front wave functions.

The double-$\beta$ decay $Q$ value of ${}^{150}\mathrm{Nd}$ was determined by using the JYFLTRAP Penning trap mass spectrometer. The measured mass difference between ${}^{150}\mathrm{Nd}$ and ${}^{150}\mathrm{Sm}$ is $3371.38(20)$ keV. This new value deviates by 3.7 keV from the previously adopted value of $3367.7(22)$ keV and is a factor of 10 more precise. Accurate knowledge of this $Q$ value is important because ${}^{150}\mathrm{Nd}$ is a primary candidate to be used in the search for neutrinoless double-$\beta$ decay modes in several experiments.