Héctor Álvarez Pol

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Santiago de Compostela

The observation of a weak proton-emission branch in the decay of the 3174-keV 53mCo isomeric state marked the discovery of proton radioactivity in atomic nuclei in 1970. Here we show, based on the partial half-lives and the decay energies of the possible proton-emission branches, that the exceptionally high angular momentum barriers, lp=9\documentc...

We present a two-target measurement method to determine the interaction cross section of hypernuclei with a target nucleus. The method allows to extract from two independent measurements the production cross section of a given hypernucleus as well as its interaction cross section on a specific target. The latter is then further analyzed to deduce t...

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of ¹⁶O into ⁴He and ¹²C within the FAIR Phase-0 program at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt, Germany. From this we will extract the photon dissociation cross section ¹⁶O(α,γ)¹²C, which is the time reversed reaction to 12C(α,γ)¹⁶O. With this indirect method, we aim to improve on the accurac...

We present the design, prototype developments and test results of the new time-of-flight detector (ToFD) which is part of the R3B experimental setup at GSI and FAIR, Darmstadt, Germany. The ToFD detector is able to detect heavy-ion residues of all charges at relativistic energies with a relative energy precision $$\sigma _{\varDelta E}/{\varDelta E...

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of ¹⁶ O into ⁴ He and ¹² C at the R ³ B setup in a first campaign within FAIR Phase 0 at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt. The goal was to improve the accuracy of the experimental data for the ¹² C( α,γ ) ¹⁶ O fusion reaction and to reach lower center-ofmass energies than measured so far....

The inverse kinematics technique, applied to radioactive beams and combined to the Coulomb excitation method, is a powerful tool to study low-energy fission. A novel experimental set-up was developped within the R3B/SOFIA (Reactions with Relativistic Radioactive Beams / Studies On FIssion with Aladin) collaboration to identify in mass and atomic nu...

The production cross sections of neutron-rich fission residues in reactions induced by 238U projectiles at 950A MeV impinging on Pb and Be targets were investigated at the Fragment Separator (FRS) at GSI. These two targets allowed us to investigate fission processes induced by two reaction mechanisms, Coulomb- and nuclear-excitations, and to study...

Fission at low excitation energy, is a process in which both macroscopic and microscopic aspects are involved. Some features in the total kinetic energy and in the N/Z distributions of the fragments, commonly associated with shell effects, came out in a series of recent experiments with high excitation energy fusionfission reactions in inverse kine...

Background: For many years, quasifree scattering reactions in direct kinematics have been extensively used to study the structure of stable nuclei, demonstrating the potential of this approach. The RB3 collaboration has performed a pilot experiment to study quasifree scattering reactions in inverse kinematics for a stable C12 beam. The results from...

Quasifree one-proton knockout reactions have been employed in inverse kinematics for a systematic study of the structure of stable and exotic oxygen isotopes at the R3B/LAND setup with incident beam energies in the range of 300–450 MeV/u. The oxygen isotopic chain offers a large variation of separation energies that allows for a quantitative unders...

The n_TOF neutron time-of-flight facility at CERN is used for high quality nuclear data measurements from thermal energy up to hundreds of MeV. In line with the CERN open data policy, the n_TOF Collaboration takes actions to preserve its unique data, facilitate access to them in standardised format, and allow their re-use by a wide community in the...

Production cross sections of residual nuclei obtained by knockout and fragmentation reactions of different tin isotopes accelerated at 1A GeV have been measured with the fragment separator (FRS) at GSI, Darmstadt. The new measurements are used to investigate the neutron-excess dependence of the neutron- and proton-knockout cross sections. These cro...

Background: Odd-odd nuclei, around doubly closed shells, have been extensively used to study proton-neutron interactions. However, the evolution of these interactions as a function of the binding energy, ultimately when nuclei become unbound, is poorly known. The F26 nucleus, composed of a deeply bound π0d5/2 proton and an unbound ν0d3/2 neutron on...

Light-charged particles emitted in proton-induced fission reactions on $^{208}$Pb have been measured at different kinetic energies: 370A, 500A, and 650A MeV. The experiment was performed by the SOFIA collaboration at the GSI facilities in Darmstadt (Germany). The inverse kinematics technique was combined with a setup especially designed to measure...

SOFIA (Studies On Fission with Aladin) is a novel experimental programme, dedicated to accurate measurements of fission-fragment isotopic yields. The set-up allows to fully identify, in nuclear charge and mass, both fission fragments in coincidence for the whole fission-fragment range. It was installed at the GSI facility, to benefit from the relat...

Cosmic rays originating from extraterrestrial sources are permanently arriving at Earth atmosphere, where they produce up to billions of secondary particles. The analysis of the secondary particles reaching to the surface of the Earth may provide a very valuable information about the Sun activity, changes in the geomagnetic field and the atmosphere...

The study of dissipative effects in fission has been carried out with fusion-fission reactions by using a limited number of observables, such as the fission probabilities, the mass distribution of the fission fragments, or the neutron multiplicities. However, the large angular momenta gained by the compound nucleus in this kind of reaction could af...

The study of dissipative effects in fission has been carried out with fusion-fission reactions by using a limited number of observables, such as the fission probabilities, the mass distribution of the fission fragments, or the neutron multiplicities. However, the large angular momenta gained by the compound nucleus in this kind of reaction could af...

A complete kinematics measurement of the two fission fragments was used for the first time to investigate fission dynamics at small and large deformations. Fissioning systems with high excitation energies, compact shapes, and low angular momenta were produced in inverse kinematics by using spallation reactions of lead projectiles. A new generation...

The fission of a variety of actinides was induced by fusion and transfer reactions between a ²³⁸U beam and ¹²C nuclei, in the active target MAYA. The performance of MAYA was studied, as well as its capability to reconstruct the fission-fragment trajectories. Furthermore, a full characterization of the different transfer reactions was achieved, and...

Light charged particles emitted in proton-induced fission reactions on 208Pb have been measured at different kinetic energies: 370A, 500A, and 650A MeV. The experiment was performed by the SOFIA Collaboration at the GSI facilities in Darmstadt (Germany). The inverse kinematics technique was combined with a setup especially designed to measure light...

The first ever achieved full identification of both fission fragments, in atomic and mass number, made it possible to define new observables sensitive to the fission dynamics along the fission path up to the scission point. Moreover, proton-induced fission of 208Pb at high energies offers optimal conditions for the investigation of dissipative, and...

Neutron-rich light nuclei and their reactions play an important role in the creation of chemical elements. Here, data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment on N20,21 are reported. Relativistic N20,21 ions impinged on a lead target and the Coulomb dissociation cross section was determined in a kinematically complete experiment. Using the detailed b...

Neutron-rich light nuclei and their reactions play an important role for the creation of chemical elements. Here, data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment on $^{20,21}$N are reported. Relativistic $^{20,21}$N ions impinged on a lead target and the Coulomb dissociation cross section was determined in a kinematically complete experiment. Using the...

Background: Models describing nuclear fragmentation and fragmentation-fission deliver important input for planning nuclear physics experiments and future radioactive ion beam facilities. These models are usually benchmarked against data from stable beam experiments. In the future, two-step fragmentation reactions with exotic nuclei as stepping ston...

Background: Models describing nuclear fragmentation and fragmentation fission deliver important input for planning nuclear physics experiments and future radioactive ion beam facilities. These models are usually benchmarked against data from stable beam experiments. In the future, two-step fragmentation reactions with exotic nuclei as stepping ston...

New experimental data for dissociation of relativistic 17Ne projectiles incident on targets of lead, carbon, and polyethylene targets at GSI are presented. Special attention is paid to the excitation and decay of narrow resonant states in 17Ne. Distributions of internal energy in the O15+p+p three-body system have been determined together with angu...

The proton-capture reaction Si26(p,γ)P27 was studied via Coulomb dissociation (CD) of P27 at an incident energy of about 500 MeV/u. The three lowest-lying resonances in P27 have been populated and their resonance strengths have been measured. In addition, a nonresonant direct-capture component was clearly identified and its astrophysical S factor m...

With the R$^{3}$B-LAND setup at GSI we have measured exclusive relative-energy spectra of the Coulomb dissociation of $^{18}$C at a projectile energy around 425~AMeV on a lead target, which are needed to determine the radiative neutron-capture cross sections of $^{17}$C into the ground state of $^{18}$C. Those data have been used to constrain theor...

The neutron-induced fission cross section of Np237 was experimentally determined at the high-resolution and high-intensity facility n-TOF, at CERN, in the energy range 100 keV to 9 MeV, using the U235(n,f) and U238(n,f) cross section standards below and above 2 MeV, respectively. A fast ionization chamber was used in order to detect the fission fra...

Quasi-free scattering reactions of the type (p,2p) were measured for the first time exclusively in complete and inverse kinematics, using a 12C beam at an energy of ∼400 MeV/u as a benchmark. This new technique has been developed to study the single-particle structure of exotic nuclei in experiments with radioactive-ion beams. The outgoing pair of...

The nucleosynthesis of elements beyond iron is dominated by neutron captures in the s and r processes. However, 32 stable, proton-rich isotopes cannot be formed during those processes, because they are shielded from the s-process flow and r-process β-decay chains. These nuclei are attributed to the p and rp process. For all those processes, current...

The time-reversed reaction 15O(2p, γ)17Ne has been studied by the Coulomb dissociation technique. Secondary 17Ne ion beams at 500 AMeV have been produced by fragmentation reactions of 20Ne in a beryllium production target and dissociated on a secondary Pb target. The incoming beam and the reaction products have been identified with the kinematicall...

The nucleosynthesis of elements beyond iron is dominated by neutron captures in the s and r processes. However, 32 stable, proton-rich isotopes cannot be formed during those processes, because they are shielded from the s-process flow and r-process, β-decay chains. These nuclei are attributed to the p and rp process. For all those processes, curren...

The nucleosynthesis of elements beyond iron is dominated by neutron captures in the s and r processes. However, 32 stable, proton-rich isotopes cannot be formed during those processes, because they are shielded from the s-process flow and r-process, β-decay chains. These nuclei are attributed to the p and rp process. For all those processes, curren...

The 235U neutron-induced cross section is widely used as reference cross section for measuring other fission cross sections, but in the resonance region it is not considered as an IAEA standard because of the scarce experimental data covering the full region. In this work, we deal with a new analysis of the experimental data obtained with a detecti...

The 238U fission cross section is an international standard beyond 2 MeV where the fission plateau starts. However, due to its importance in fission reactors, this cross-section should be very accurately known also in the threshold region below 2 MeV. The 238U fission cross section has been measured relative to the 235U fission cross section at CER...

SOFIA (Studies On Fission with Aladin) is a new experimental set-up dedicated to accurate measurement of fission-fragments isotopic yields. It is located at GSI, the only place to use inverse kinematics at relativistic energies in order to study the (γ,f) electromagnetic-induced fission. The SOFIA set-up is a large-acceptance magnetic spectrometer,...

The complete kinematic measurement of the two fission fragments permitted us to investigate dissipative effects at large deformations, between the saddle-point and the corresponding scission configurations. Up to now, this kind of study has only been performed with fusionfission reactions using a limited number of observables, such as the mass dist...

The SOFIA (Studies On FIssion with Aladin) experiment aims at measuring fission-fragments isotopic yields with high accuracy using inverse kinematics at relativistic energies. This experimental technique allows to fully identify the fission fragments in nuclear charge and mass number, thus providing very accurate isotopic yields for low energy fiss...

A novel technique for fission studies, based on the inverse kinematics approach, is presented. Following pioneering work in the nineties, the SOFIA Collaboration has designed and built an experimental set-up dedicated to the simultaneous measurement of isotopic yields, total kinetic energies and total prompt neutron multiplicities, by fully identif...

The nuclear level density is one of the main ingredients for the statistical description of the fission process. In this work, we propose to constrain the description of this parameter using fission reactions induced by protons and light ions on 208Pb at high kinetic energies. The experiment was performed at GSI (Darmstadt), where the combined use...

Research on cosmic rays is of big interest either for getting a better understanding about their origin and properties or because they offer very valuable information about the galactic, the solar and the Earth's environment. In order to improve our knowledge of all those fields, a high resolution cosmic ray tracking detector, TRAGALDABAS, is being...

The two fragments produced in fission reactions induced by 208Pb projectiles impinging on a liquid hydrogen target at 500A MeV have been fully identified in coincidence. The experiment was performed at GSI Darmstadt, where the combined use of the inverse kinematics technique with an efficient detection setup permitted one to detect and to fully ide...

Proton-induced fission of 208Pb has been investigated at 370, 500 and 650 A MeV in complete kinematic measurements. The experiment was performed at GSI Darmstadt where the combined use of the inverse kinematics technique with an efficient detection setup allowed to measure for the first time the atomic and mass number of both fission fragments. The...

The first SOFIA experiment (Studies On FIssion with Aladin) was performed in August 2012 at GSI. The fission of several neutron-deficient actinides and pre-actinides was induced in flight at 700 A MeV by electromagnetic excitation. The use of inverse kinematics provides both high detection and high geometrical efficiency. The complete identificatio...

Within this paper we will present an entirely new energy reconstruction method iPhos for charged particles detected in CsI(Tl) crystals. Based on pulse shape analysis of CsI(Tl) scintillation signals [1] protons that cannot be stopped within the active detector material can be distinguished from those fully stopped. Due to a special signature of pu...

The 238U to 235U fission cross section ratio has been determined at n_TOF up to ≈1 GeV, with two different detection systems, in different geometrical configurations. A total of four datasets has been collected and compared. They are all consistent to each other within the relative systematic uncertainty of 3–4%. The data collected at n_TOF have be...

Two-proton decay of the unbound Tz = −2 nucleus 16Ne, produced in one-neutron knockout from a 500MeV/u 17Ne beam, has been studied at GSI. The ground state, at a resonance energy 1.388(15)MeV, (Γ = 0.082(15)MeV) above the 14O+p+p threshold, and two narrow resonances at Er = 3.220(46)MeV and 7.57(6)MeV have been investigated. A comparison of the ene...

The emission of e(+)e(-) pairs from C + C collisions at an incident energy of 1 GeV per nucleon has been investigated. The measured production probabilities, spanning from the pi(0)-Dalitz to the rho/omega invariant-mass region, display a strong excess above the cocktail of standard hadronic sources. The bombarding-energy dependence of this excess...

Total fission cross sections of 208Pb induced by protons have been determined at 370A, 500A, and 650A MeV. The experiment was performed at GSI Darmstadt where the combined use of the inverse kinematics technique with an efficient detection setup allowed us to determine these cross sections with an uncertainty below 6%. This result was achieved by a...

Fission fragments play an important role in nuclear reactors evolution and safety. However, fragments yields are poorly known : data are essentially limited to mass yields from thermal neutron-induced fissions on a very few nuclei. SOFIA (Study On FIssion with Aladin) is an innovative experimental program on nuclear fission carried out at the GSI f...

A new phoswich array, for the detection of high-energy protons and gamma rays from nuclear reactions, has been built. This new detector consists of four individual closely packed scintillator detectors, each of them made of 4 cm of LaBr3(Ce) and 6 cm of LaCl3(Ce) in phoswich configuration (optically coupled and with a common readout). In this paper...

The 26Si(p; γ)27P reaction, which might play an important role in the rp process, was studied by the Coulomb Dissociation method. The experiment was performed at GSI, Darmstadt. A secondary 27P ion beam of 500 MeV/nucleon was directed onto a Pb target. From this experiment, the Coulomb Dissociation cross section, σCoulex, will be deduced and then c...

Radioactive beams of B-14,B-15 produced by fragmentation of a primary Ar-40 beam were directed onto a Pb target to investigate the neutron breakup within the Coulomb field. The experiment was performed at the LAND/(RB)-B-3 setup. Preliminary results for the Coulomb dissociation cross sections as well as for the astrophysically interesting inverse r...

This Letter reports on a systematic study of β-decay half-lives of neutron-rich nuclei around doubly magic ^{208}Pb. The lifetimes of the 126-neutron shell isotone ^{204}Pt and the neighboring ^{200-202}Ir, ^{203}Pt, ^{204}Au are presented together with other 19 half-lives measured during the "stopped beam" campaign of the rare isotope investigatio...

We present the analysis of the resolved resonance region for the 234U(n,f) cross section data measured at the CERN n_TOF facility. The resonance parameters in the energy range from 1 eV to 1500 eV have been obtained with the SAMMY code by using the resonance parameters of the JENDL 3.3 evaluation as initial parameters for the fit. In addition, the...

Total fission cross sections of 181Ta induced by protons at different relativistic energies have been measured at GSI Darmstadt using the inverse kinematic technique. These data contribute to solve inconsistencies in previously reported measurements, but also help to benchmark state-of-the-art reaction codes. The energy range covered with these mea...

The neutron-induced fission cross section of U234 has been measured at the CERN n-TOF facility relative to the standard fission cross section of U235 from 20 keV to 1.4 MeV and of U238 from 1.4 to 200 MeV. A fast ionization chamber (FIC) was used as a fission fragment detector with a detection efficiency of no less than 97%. The high instantaneous...

We report on the first observation of the unbound proton-rich nucleus Ne15. Its ground state and first excited state were populated in two-neutron knockout reactions from a beam of 500 MeV/u Ne17. The Ne15 ground state is found to be unbound by 2.522(66) MeV. The decay proceeds directly to O13 with simultaneous two-proton emission. No evidence for...

We have studied one-proton-removal reactions of about 500 MeV/u Ne-17 beams on a carbon target at the (RB)-B-3/LAND setup at GSI by detecting beam-like O-15-p and determining their relative-energy distribution. We exclusively selected the removal of a Ne-17 halo proton, and the Glauber-model analysis of the F-16 momentum distribution resulted in an...

In this work we present the mechanical concept proposed for one of the sections of the detector CALIFA of the R3B experiment for FAIR. The use of an alveolar structure made of carbon-fiber composites allows for a light and robust solution to hold the active elements with an extreme mass ratio below 0.7%. The active core is supported by structural e...

In this paper we describe the DEMONSTRATOR structures and active units (PETALs) developed for the detector CALIFA of the experiment R3B - FAIR. The design is based in the CALIFA BARREL mechanical solutions, but adapted to the characteristics of the PETALs, namely in what concerns the load distribution during setup and service. The R&D; program defi...

The O-15(2p, gamma)Ne-17 cross section has been studied by the inverse reaction, the Coulomb dissociation of Ne-17. The experiment has been performed at the GSI. The Ne-17 excitation energy prior to decay has been reconstructed by using the invariant-mass method. The preliminary differential and integral Coulomb dissociation cross sections (sigma(C...

Fission is an extremely complex mechanism that requires a dynamical approach to describe the evolution of the process in terms of intrinsic and collective excitations of the nuclear constituents. In order to determine these effects a complex experimental setup was mounted at GSI, which allowed us for the first time the full identification in charge...

We performed an experiment dedicated to the accurate isotopic yield measurement of fission fragments over the whole range. SOFIA exploits the inverse kinematics technique: using heavy ion beams at relativistic energies, fission is induced by Coulomb excitation in a high-Z target. The fragments are emitted forward and both of them are identified in...

The E1 strength distribution in ^{68}Ni has been investigated using Coulomb excitation in inverse kinematics at the R^{3}B-LAND setup and by measuring the invariant mass in the one- and two-neutron decay channels. The giant dipole resonance and a low-lying peak (pygmy dipole resonance) have been observed at 17.1(2) and 9.55(17) MeV, respectively. T...