This grant will support a program of studies of nuclear reaction mechanisms and nuclear structure using intermediate energy heavy-ion beams, to be carried out at a number of different accelerator laboratories in the United States and Canada over the next three years. The reaction mechanism studies will probe the transition with increasing beam energy to deep-inelastic and fragmentation reaction modes. In addition, neutron-proton correlation measurements will be undertaken to investigate the thermal properties and space/time extent of the nuclear volume from which nucleons are emitted in heavy-ion reactions, as well as to study the properties of the first excited state of the deuteron. The nuclear structure studies will be carried out using the new Notre Dame/Argonne gamma-ray facility, and will focus on a search for superdeformation in gadolinium and europium isotopes, high-spin states in odd-mass thallium nuclei, and shape transitions in neodymium isotopes.
