Study of the nuclear structure far from stability: Coulomb excitation of neutron-rich Rb isotopes around N=60; Production of nuclear spin polarized beams using the tilted foils technique

The underlying structure in the region A ∼ 100, N ∼ 60 has been under intensive and extensive investigation, mainly by β-decay and γ-ray spectroscopy from fission processes. Around N ∼ 60, by adding just few neutrons, protons a rapid shape change occurs from spherical-like to well deformed g.s. shape. Shape coexistence has been observed in the Sr and Zr nuclei, and is expected to take place in the whole region. The mechanisms involved in the appearance of the deformation is not well understood. The interplay between down-sloping and up-sloping neutron Nilsson orbital is evoked as one of the main reasons for the sudden shape change. However, a clear identification of the active proton and neutron orbitals was still on-going. For that purpose, the neutron rich 93;95;97;99Rb isotopes have been studied by Coulomb excitation at CERN (ISOLDE) using the REX-ISOLDE post-accelerator and the MINIBALL setup. The completely unknown structures of 97;99Rb have been populated and observed. Prompt γ-ray coincidences of low-lying states have been observed and time-correlated in order to build level schemes. The associated transition strengths have been extracted with the GOSIA code. The observed matrix elements of the electromagnetic operator constituted new inputs of further theoretical calculations giving new insight on the involved orbitals. The sensitivity of such experiment can be increased using nuclear spin polarized radioactive ion beam. For that purpose the Tilted Foils Technique (TFT) of polarization has been investigated at CERN. This technique consists to spin polarize the ion beam, passing through thin foils tilted at an oblique angle with respect to the beam direction. The initially obtained atomic polarization is transferred to the nucleus by hyperfine interaction. This technique does not depend on the chemical nature of the element. Short lived nuclei can be polarized in-flight without any need to be stopped in a catcher. It opens up the possibility to post-accelerate such polarized RIB. A new TFT polarizer with a β-NMR setup has been created and installed after REX-ISOLDE. The uncompleted knowledge of the polarization process associated to the technique needs to be investigated. Conclusive preliminary tests have been performed on 8Li in order to determine the potential of the present setup