MSc Thesis Presentation: Investigation of States Populated in the 102Ru(p,t)100Ru Two Neutron Transfer Reaction

MSc Candidate

Samantha Buck

Absract 

One of the foremost goals of nuclear physics, within the context of nuclear structure, is to provide an understanding of how nuclei are assembled from the basic constituent building blocks of protons and neutrons. This initiative continues to present as extraordinarily nontrivial in nature, as nuclei are highly unique many-body systems with a complex array of properties. The investigation herein focuses on the study of the structure of \(^{100}Ru\) via the two-neutron transfer reaction, \(^{102}Ru(p, t)^{100}Ru\), that was performed using the Q3D magnetic spectrograph at the Maier-Leibnitz Laboratory, in Garching, Germany. The experimental procedure employed the use of a \(^{102}Ru\) target which was bombarded with protons, resulting in production of \(^{100}Ru\) via the pick-up of two neutrons from the target. The removal of the pair of particles from the system provides a direct study of the neutron-pair properties of the states that were observed in the reaction, which yields a more robust understanding of the structure of \(^{100}Ru\). This highly selective reaction strongly favours the population of natural parity states, and as such we performed the \(^{102}Ru(p,t)\) reaction to locate the these states in \(^{100}Ru\), with a special focus on the excited \(0^+\) states to examine their relative strengths \(0^ +\) ground state. Furthermore, the \(^{102}Ru(p,t)\) data can establish the spins of the observed excited states, greater aiding with the structure interpretation.

Examination Committee

• Dr. Eric Poisson, Chair
• Dr. Paul Garrett, Advisor
• Dr. Carl Svensson, Advisory Committee
• Dr. Joanne O’Meara, Graduate Faculty