Nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics at the ISAC-II facility

原子核是一个令人着迷的系统，由称为中子和质子的微小粒子组成。中子和质子的运动受量子力学支配，它们由自然界三种基本力之间的微妙相互作用联系在一起，这使得原子核不同于我们已知的任何其他系统(同时也非常难以理解)。尽管我们知道存在大约7000个不同的原子核，每个原子核都有不同数量的中子和质子，但大自然让我们很难研究这些原子核，因为只有大约300个原子核的寿命足够长，足以在地球上找到它们。这并不是说其他的不能产生，事实上，大自然在恒星内部和新星和超新星等壮观的爆炸地点做到了这一点，但因为它们具有放射性，它们很快就会衰变。在地球上，我们可以通过在用加速器产生的一束快速移动的原子核之间的碰撞中产生这些原子核来模拟自然，我们用加速器产生的原子束指向一个目标，在那里束核与目标中的原子核发生碰撞。最近，由于技术的进步，我们已经发展了不仅能够产生这些放射性原子核，而且能够收集它们并在它们衰变之前重新加速它们的能力。通过这种方式，我们可以产生放射性原子核的束流，通过开放这大约7000个原子核的整个范围来研究，这正在给核物理学带来革命性的变化。此外，它还允许我们研究核物理最令人兴奋的应用之一，即研究在新星、X射线爆发和超新星等令人惊叹的天体物理对象中发生的核反应。进行这些研究的问题之一是，放射性原子核的加速射束非常弱。因此，我们需要建造非常高效的仪器来进行我们想要的测量。我们正计划建造两台新的仪器，我们将安装在一个名为ISAC-II的新放射性束流设施中。

The atomic nucleus is a fascinating system, made up of tiny particles called neutrons and protons. The motion of the neutrons and protons are governed by quantum mechanics and they are held together by a subtle interplay between three of the fundamental forces in Nature, which makes the nucleus unlike any other system we know (and at the same time very hard to understand). Although we know that something like 7,000 different nuclei exist, each having a different number of neutrons and protons, Nature has made it very difficult for us to study these, because only around 300 of them are long lived enough to be found here on Earth. That is not to say that the others can't be made, indeed Nature achieves this inside stars and in the spectacular explosive sites like novae and supernovae, but because they are radioactive they decay quickly. Here on Earth we can mimic Nature by producing these nuclei in collisions between a beam of fast moving nuclei which we produce with an accelerator and which we direct at a target where the beam nuclei collide with nuclei in the target. Recently, because of technological advances, we have developed the ability to not only to produce these radioactive nuclei, but to collect them and re-accelerate them before they decay. In this way we can create beams of radioactive nuclei and this is revolutionising nuclear physics by opening up the whole range of those 7,000 or so nuclei to study. Moreover, it also allows us to investigate one of the most exciting applications of nuclear physics, the study of the nuclear reactions which go on in such amazing astropysical objects as novae, x-ray bursters and supernovae. One of the problems with carrying out these studies is that the accelerated beams of radioactive nuclei are very weak. Hence we need to build very efficient instruments which can make the measurements we want. We are planning to build two new instruments which we will install at a new radioactive beam facility called ISAC-II, bas