Nuclear spectroscopic studies

The Nuclear Physics group at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville is involved in several aspects of heavy-ion physics including both nuclear structure and reaction mechanisms. While our main emphasis is on experimental problems involving heavy-ion accelerators, we have maintained a strong collaboration with several theorists in order to best pursue the physics of our measurements. During the last year we have led experiments at the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility, the SuperHILAC at Berkeley, and Chalk River Tandem Accelerator. Also, we have joined a collaboration to study ultra-relativistic heavy ion physics and one of our group has spent all of 1987 at CERN to work on the WA80 experiment. Our experimental work is in four broad areas: (1) the structure of nuclei at high angular momentum, (2) heavy-ion induced transfer reactions, (3) the structure of nuclei far from stability, and (4) ultra-relativistic heavy-ion physics. These results will be described in this document in sections IIA, IIB, and IID, respectively. Areas (1), (3), and (4) concentrate on the structure of nuclear matter in extreme conditions of rotational motion, imbalance of neutrons and protons, or very high temperature and density. Area (2) pursues the transfer of nucleons to states with high angular momentum, both to learn about their structure and to understand the transfer of particles, energy and angular momentum in collisions between heavy ions. An important component of our program is the strong emphasis on the theoretical aspects of nuclear structure and reactions