Research Projects

Understanding the nature of neutron-rich nuclear matter is crucial for understanding neutron star mergers and the nucleosynthetic r-process. Recent research on the fusion of neutron-rich Carbon isotopes on ¹²C targets suggests that the increase in fusion cross-sections for neutron-rich isotopes is higher than predicted by theoretical models like the Time Dependent Hartree Fock model (TDHF). This highlights the need for more fusion measurements for neutron-rich nuclei to establish this observation and provide experimental data to refine theoretical models. Knowing the fusion of neutron-rich nuclei is important for predicting the composition of neutron stars, which are responsible for the production of high atomic number elements in the universe. The fusion of neutron-rich nuclei is studied using DC-TDHF theory, which predicts fusion enhancement for neutron-rich nuclei. This dynamics has important consequences, such as X-ray super-bursts, which emit energy equivalent to the energy emitted by the Sun in a decade. Recent studies have reported a significant fusion enhancement in ¹⁹O + ¹²C compared to ¹⁸O + ¹²C. The researchers are interested in starting a parallel program to measure the fusion excitation function of neutron-rich nuclei near the fusion barrier and are planning to produce neutron-rich compound nucleus using neutron-rich targets. They propose measuring the fusion excitation function for ²⁷Al/²⁸Si + ⁴⁰,⁴⁴Ca systems to explore the fusion enhancement in mid-mass systems.