Speaker
Description
High-flux reactors such as the one at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL, Grenoble) provide intense neutron sources for many different physics purposes. In particular, thermal neutron-induced reactions can be used to probe different phenomena in an approach to study the structure of nuclei. Neutron capture reactions on (rare) stable or radioactive targets populate low-spin states below the neutron separation energy. With thermal neutron induced fission on actinides, neutron-rich nuclei are produced at moderately high spin. Those fission products are studied at ILL in the high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy setup FIPPS (Fission Product Prompt gamma-ray Spectrometer). This facility provides access to observables which cannot yet be measured at any other currently existing facility and are needed to validate theoretical models or investigate phenomena as nuclear shape coexistence.
After a general introduction about the nuclear physics activities at the Institut Laue-Langevin, the FIPPS setup will be outlined. Recent results obtained in different experiments will be reported, in particular the ones following campaigns using radioactive targets. The innovative technique of fission tagging using an active liquid target was used for the first time with a neutron beam. The novel use of this device for the measurement of lifetimes of medium-high spin states in neutron-rich nuclei will be shown. The future perspectives for the coupling of the existing FIPPS setup to a fission-fragment identification system based on diamond detectors will also be outlined.