Orateur
Description
Multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reactions between two heavy ions offer an effective method of producing heavy, neutron-rich nuclei that cannot currently be accessed efficiently using traditional projectile-fragmentation, target-fragmentation or fission production techniques [1]. These nuclei are important for understanding many astrophysical phenomena. For example, properties of the neutron-rich nuclei near the $N=126$ shell closure are critical to the understanding of the $r$-process pathway and the formation of the $A\sim195$ abundance peak [2]. The $N=126$ Factory currently under construction at Argonne National Laboratory's ATLAS facility will make use of these reactions to allow for the study of these nuclei [3]. Due to the wide angular distribution of MNT reaction products, a large-volume gas catcher will be used to convert these reaction products into a continuous low-energy beam. This beam will undergo preliminary separation in a magnetic dipole of resolving power $R\sim10^3$ before passing through an RFQ cooler-buncher and MR-TOF system of resolving power $R>10^5$, sufficient to suppress isobaric contaminants. These isotopically separated, bunched low energy beams will then be available for experimental systems at ATLAS such as the CPT mass spectrometer for precision mass measurements. Results of commissioning the component devices will be presented, as will the status of the final assembly and commissioning of the facility, which is expected to be operational this year.
This work is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357; by NSERC (Canada), Application No. SAPPJ-2018-00028; by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-2011890; by the University of Notre Dame; and with resources of ANL’s ATLAS facility, an Office of Science User Facility.
[1] V. Zagrebaev and W. Greiner. PRL 101, 122701 (2008)
[2] M.R. Mumpower, R. Surman, G.C. McLaughlin, and A. Aprahamian. PPNP 86, 86–126 (2016)
[3] G. Savard, M. Brodeur, J.A. Clark, R.A. Knaack, and A.A. Valverde. NIM-B, 463, 258 – 261 (2020)
