This grant supports experimental research on the physics ofnuclei at extreme rotational velocities. The nucleons inside such a rapidly rotating system are subject to centrifugal and Coriolis interactions which introduce significant changes in nuclear structure, including changes in nuclear shape and moment of inertia. These interactions also cause transitionsbetween superfluid and rigid behaviour and between collective and single-particle motion. These phenomena will be studiedin nuclei with 60 to 90 nucleons using an array of gamma ray detectors. Rapidly rotating neutron-rich systems produced by means of heavy ion induced deep inelastic collisions will also be studied with this array. Another set of experiments will search for thetheoretically expected electric monopole transitions betweenstates with different shapes, using an array of sixelectronspectrometers in combination with a gamma detector array at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
