Investigations into the structure of exotic atomic nuclei using stateof-the-art techniques of gamma-ray spectroscopy

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Over the years, the investigation into the behaviour of nuclei has been vital to many industries, includingmedicine and nuclear energy. This research has also allowed physicists to develop useful models that explainand predict the properties of some nuclei. However, it is important to investigate whether these models workas well for nuclei with a large difference in protons and neutrons, commonly known as exotic nuclei.Exotic nuclei are of primary interest in this project. When nuclei are in excited states they can releaseenergy by the emission of gamma rays, which can give physicists an insight into the properties of these exoticnuclei. One of the many useful ways in which they can be studied is using a technique known as gamma-rayspectroscopy. High purity germanium semiconductor detectors, such as the large array of detectors knownas Gammasphere at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, can be used to detect gamma rays with highenergy resolution and efficiency. Using large arrays of detectors also means that many gamma rays canbe detected simultaneously. This is known as gamma-ray coincidence spectroscopy and this technique alsoprovides useful information about the behaviour of these nuclei.One of the difficulties encountered in this area of research is that the exotic nuclei have a small probabilityof being produced in reactions. Identifying these nuclei from other more populated nuclei require a techniqueknown as channel selection. This can be done by detecting evaporated particles in coincidence with gammarays.One of the many properties that gamma rays can reveal about the nucleus is its shape. The exotic nucleiof interest at UWS are octupole deformed, otherwise known as pear shaped. Using the aforementionedtechniques, the UWS nuclear physics group plan to study candidates which are predicted to have octupoledeformation and this PhD project will involve analysing data gathered about these nuclei.