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The properties of the Hoyle state in 12C (7.654 MeV, 0+) affect the rate at which carbon, one of the most abundant elements in the Universe, is forged in stars. Recent experiments reported values of its radiative decay branching ratio that are in tension, posing major implications especially in the astrophysical domain. This work reports on an almost background-free measurement of the radiative decay branching ratio of the Hoyle state that exploits charged particle coincidence techniques. The experiment adopts several methodologies to minimize the background and identify the rare signal associated with the radiative decay. Large care is devoted to having under full control two of the major sources of systematic errors in particle-coincidence experiments: the coincidence efficiency and the spurious coincidence rate. We find a radiative decay branching ratio of Γrad/Γtot = 4.2(6) · 10−4. The new finding helps to resolve the tension between recent data published in the literature.

The 4He+4He inelastic scattering was experimentally investigated in an exclusive measurement at the MAGNEX facility of INFN - LNS, aiming at characterizing the 0+2 resonant state of 4He. Both the 4He+4He→4He+4He∗→4He+3H+p and 4He+4He→4He+4He∗→4He+3He+n configurations were measured together with an elastic scattering measurement in a wide angular range. In the present article, the experimental setup, the measurement and the data reduction are briefly described, pointing out the significance of an exclusive inelastic scattering measurement to suppress the background originating from other processes.

Thiago De Marchi,1,2 Fabiano Frâncio,1,3 João Vitor Ferlito,3 Renata Weigert,3 Cristiane de Oliveira,3 Ana Paula Merlo,3 Délcio Luis Pandini,3 Bolivar Antônio Pasqual-Júnior,3 Daniela Giovanella,3 Shaiane Silva Tomazoni,4,5 Ernesto Cesar Leal-Junior2,4,5 1University Center of Bento Gonçalves (UNICNEC), Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; 2Laboratory of Phototherapy and Innovative Technologies in Health (LaPIT), Post-graduate Program in Rehabilitation Sciences, Nove de Julho University, São Paulo, Brazil; 3Hospital Tacchini, Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; 4Physiotherapy Research Group, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; 5ELJ Consultancy, Scientific Consultants, São Paulo, BrazilCorrespondence: Shaiane Silva TomazoniPhysiotherapy Research Group, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Alrek helseklynge, blokk D, Årstadveien 17, Bergen, NO-5020, NorwayEmail shaiane.tomazoni@eljconsultancy.comPurpose: We aimed to investigate the effects of photobiomodulation therapy combined with static magnetic field (PBMT-sMF) on the length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay and mortality rate of severe COVID-19 patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation and assess its role in preserving respiratory muscles and modulating inflammatory processes.Patients and Methods: We conducted a prospectively registered, triple-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of PBMT-sMF in severe COVID-19 ICU patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either PBMT-sMF or a placebo daily throughout their ICU stay. The primary outcome was length of ICU stay, defined by either discharge or death. The secondary outcomes were survival rate, diaphragm muscle function, and the changes in blood parameters, ventilatory parameters, and arterial blood gases.Results: Thirty patients were included and equally randomized into the two groups. There were no significant differences in the length of ICU stay (mean difference, MD = − 6.80; 95% CI = − 18.71 to 5.11) between the groups. Among the secondary outcomes, significant differences were observed in diaphragm thickness, fraction of inspired oxygen, partial pressure of oxygen/fraction of inspired oxygen ratio, C-reactive protein levels, lymphocyte count, and hemoglobin (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Among severe COVID-19 patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation, the length of ICU stay was not significantly different between the PBMT-sMF and placebo groups. In contrast, PBMT-sMF was significantly associated with reduced diaphragm atrophy, improved ventilatory parameters and lymphocyte count, and decreased C-reactive protein levels and hemoglobin count.Trial Registration Number (Clinical Trials.gov): NCT04386694.Keywords: COVID-19, photobiomodulation, intensive care unit, respiratory muscles, ventilatory parameters, mechanical ventilation

The 4He(4He,4He)4He* inelastic scattering was revisited in a new coincidence measurement at the MAGNEX facility of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Laboratori Nazionali del Sud. The 4He + 4He → 4He + 4He* → 4He + 3H + 1H and 4He + 4He → 4He + 4He* → 4He + 3He + n reactions were measured simultaneously by detecting the 4He particles at the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer in coincidence with the 3H and 3He at the OSCAR silicon telescope. The main concept of the experiment is described and the data reduction strategy is reported.

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 kinematics. In the latest experiment of this campaign, a study of high-energy fission and quasi-fission between a 238U beam and a series of light targets was carried out by using the aforementioned technique, in order to probe the role of the shell structure in these processes.

Clustering structural properties in medium-mass systems have been investigated studying the competition between the evaporation and pre-equilibrium particle emission in central collisions. At variance with light nuclei, in the case of heavier nuclei there are no experimental evidences of such structure effects, since the determination of pre-formed clusters within nuclear matter is less obvious. The two systems 16O + 65Cu and 19F + 62Ni, leading to the same compound system 81Rb*, have been studied at the same beam velocity (16 AMeV). The experiments have been performed using the GARFIELD + RCo multi-detection system at the Legnaro National Laboratories. Recent results of the data analysis and of the comparison of the experimental data with different statistical and dynamical model calculations are reported in this contribution.

In the recent years, cluster structures have been evidenced in many ground and excited states of light nuclei [1, 2]. The decay of highly excited states of 24Mg is studied in fusion evaporation events completely detected in charge in the reactions 12C+12C and 14N+10B at 95 and 80 MeV incident energy, respectively, and compared to the results of a pure statistical model [3, 4]. Inclusive variables are in general well reproduced by the model. We found clear deviations from the statistical model if we select emission channels involving multiple α particles which are more probable than expected from a purely statistical behavior. Data from 12C+12C reaction have been analyzed in order to study the decay of the Hoyle state of 12C* with two different selections: peripheral binary collisions and 6α decay channel in central events. To continue the investigation on light systems, we have recently measured the 16O+12C reaction at three different beam energies, namely Ebeam = 90, 110 and 130 MeV. Preliminary results are presented.

The present status and the perspectives of the FAZIA project are presented. The main achievements in terms of identification thresholds and isotopic resolution are discussed, together with the adopted technical solutions. The detector is particularly well suited for the investigation of isospin transport phenomena at intermediate beam energies; perspectives to reduce the identification thresholds to cope with lower energy ISOL beams are briefly introduced. Some experimental results concerning isospin transport effects obtained with a test telescope are presented. The study of isospin transport phenomena can give information on the symmetry energy term of the nuclear equation of state by comparing the experimental results on isospin related observables with the predictions of transport codes.

A study of the identification properties and of the energy response of a Si-Si-CsI(Tl) ΔE-E telescope exploiting a partially depleted second Si stage has been performed. Five different bias voltages have been applied to the second stage of the telescope, one corresponding to full depletion, the others associated with a depleted layer ranging from 60% to 90% of the detector thickness. Fragment identification has been obtained using either the ΔE-E technique or the Pulse Shape Analysis (PSA). Charge collection efficiency has been evaluated. The ΔE-E performance is not affected by incomplete depletion. Isotopic separation capability improves at lower bias voltages with respect to full depletion, though charge identification thresholds increase.

The study of nuclear states built on clusters bound by valence neutrons in their molecular configurations is a field of large interest. Clustering becomes particularly important at the dripline, where weakly bound systems prevail. For light nuclei, at an excitation energy close to the particle separation value, there are experimental evidences of such structure effects, but this is still not the case for heavier nuclear systems. Several theoretical efforts have been done in the development of pre-formation alpha-clustering models, but there is still a lack of experimental data capable to give a direct feedback. The search of alpha-cluster evidences in medium-mass systems is therefore a new challenge which can give new hints in this field of research.

The decay of highly excited states of 24Mg is studied in fusion evaporation events completely detected in charge in the reactions 12C+12C and 14N+10B at 95 and 80 MeV incident energy respectively. The comparison of light charged particles measured spectra with statistical model predictions suggests that the dominant reaction mechanism is compound nucleus (CN) formation and decay. However, in both reactions, a discrepancy with statistical expectations is found for α particles detected in coincidence with Carbon, Oxigen and Neon residues. The comparison between the two reactions shows that this discrepancy is only partly explained by an entrance channel effect. Evidence for cluster correlations in excited 24Mg CN is suggested by the comparison between the measured and calculated branching ratios for the channels involving α particles.

Experimental results concerning isospin transport phenomena and odd-even staggering in Z and N distributions are presented. Data refer to 84Kr+112,124Sn collisions at 35AMeV and they were collected with a high resolution FAZIA telescope, able to isotopically resolve ions up to Z ∼ 20. Evidences of isospin diffusion and drift obtained from the < N > /Z behaviour of the detected fragments are discussed. The odd-even staggering both in Z and N is compared with experimental data available in literature, finding that it shows a common trend in different reaction types.

A theoretical approach was developed to describe secondary particle emission in heavy ion collisions, with special regards to pre-equilibrium α-particle production. The probabilities of neutron, proton and α-particle emission have been evaluated for both the equilibrium and pre-equilibrium stages of the process. Effects due the possible cluster structure of the projectile which has been excited during the collisions have been experimentally evidenced studying the double differential cross sections of p and α-particles emitted in the E=250MeV 16O +116Sn reaction. Calculations within the present model with different clusterization probabilities have been compared to the experimental data.

The detection of the 1809 keV emission line associated with the decay of 26Al in the interstellar medium provides a direct evidence of recent nucleosynthesis events in our galaxy. 26Al is thought to be mainly produced in massive stars, but in order to have a quantita- tive understanding of the 26Al distribution, the cross section of all the nuclear reactions involved in its production should be accurately known. A recent sensitivity study demonstrated that the 25Mg(α,n)28Si is the reaction with the strongest impact on the synthesis of 26Al during explosive Neon and Carbon burning [4]. In order to improve the experimental knowledge of the 25Mg(α,n)28Si cross section, a new direct measurement has been performed at Legnaro National Laboratories. The experimental setup, the data analysis and preliminary results are discussed.

The study of the collective properties of nuclear excitations far from stability provides information about the shell structure at extreme conditions. Spectroscopic observables such as the energy or the transition probabilities of the lowest states, in nuclei with large neutron excess, allow to probe the density and isospin dependence of the effective interaction. Indeed, it was recently shown that tensor and three-body forces play an important role in breaking and creating magic numbers. Emblematic is the case of the evolution of the Ni isotopic chain where several features showed up moving from the most neutron rich stable isotope (64Ni) towards the 78Ni nucleus where the large neutron excess coincides with a double shell closure. In this framework, we have recently performed an experiment with the goal to extract the B(E2; 0+ → 2+) value for the 74Ni nucleus in an intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation experiment: preliminary results are discussed.

The european Fazia collaboration aims at building a new modular array for charged product identification to be employed for heavy-ion studies. The elementary module of the array is a Silicon-Silicon-CsI telescope, optimized for ion identification including pulse shape analysis, too. The achievement of top performances imposes specific electronics which has been developed by the FAZIA collaboration and includes high quality charge and current preamplifiers, coupled to fully digital front-end. During the initial R&D phase, original and novel solutions have been tested in prototypes, obtaining unprecedented ion identification capabilities. FAZIA is now constructing a demonstrator array consisting of about two hundreds telescopes arranged in a compact and transportable configuration. In this contribution, we mainly summarize some aspects studied by FAZIA to improve the ion identification. Then we will briefly discuss the FAZIA program focused on experiments to be done with the demonstrator. First results on the isospin dynamics obtained with a reduced set-up demonstrate well the performance of the telescope and represent a good starting point towards future investigations with both stable and exotic beams.

An experimental campaign has been undertaken at Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL INFN), Italy, in order to progress in our understanding of the statistical properties of light nuclei at excitation energies above particle emission threshold, by measuring exclusive data from fusion-evaporation reactions. On the experimental side, a first reaction: 12C+12C at 95 MeV beam energy has been measured, using the GARFIELD + Ring Counter (RCo) apparatuses. Fusion-evaporation events have been exclusively selected out of the entire data set. The comparison to a dedicated Hauser-Feshbach calculation allows us to give constraints on the nuclear level density at high excitation energy for light systems ranging from C up to Mg. Out-of-equilibrium aα emission has been evidenced and attributed both to an entrance channel effect (favoured by the cluster nature of reaction partners), and, in more dissipative events, to the persistence of cluster correlations well above the 24Mg threshold for 6 α’s decay. In order to study the same 24Mg compound nucleus at similar excitation energy with respect to this first reaction a new measurement, 14N + 10B at 5.7 A.MeV, was performed at LNL laboratories with the same experimental setup. The comparison between the two systems would allow us to further constrain the level density of light nuclei in the mass-excitation energy range of interest. In this perspective, deviations from a statistical behaviour can be used as a tool to get information on nuclear clustering, both in the ground-state for projectile and target and in the hot source formed in the collision.

Isospin transport phenomena in dissipative heavy ion collisions have been investigated at Fermi energies with a beam of 84Kr at 35AMeV. A comparison of the 〈N〉/Z of light and medium products forward-emitted in the centre of mass frame when the beam impinges on two different targets, the n-poor 112Sn and the n-rich 124Sn, is presented. Data were collected by means of a three-layer telescope with very good performances in terms of mass identification (full isotopic resolution up to Z ~ 20 for ions punching through the first detector layer) built by the FAZIA Collaboration and located just beyond the grazing angle for both reactions. The 〈N〉/Z of the products detected when the n-rich target is used is always higher than that associated to the n-poor one; since the detector was able to measure only fragments coming from the QuasiProjectile decay and/or neck emission, the observed behaviour can be ascribed to the isospin diffusion process, driven by the isospin gradient between QuasiProjectile and QuasiTarget. Moreover, for light fragments the 〈N〉/Z as a function of the lab velocity of the fragment is observed to increase when we move from the QuasiProjectile velocity to the centre of mass (neck zone). This effect can be interpreted as an evidence of isospin drift driven by the density gradient between the QuasiProjectile zone (at normal density) and the more diluted neck zone.

The reaction 6Li(3He,n)8B was studied at Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro in the framework of the EUROnu Design Study for a Beta Beam facility at CERN. The 8B production cross section was determined through neutron angular distribution by using the time-of-flight technique. Thanks to the high statistics achieved, the neutron angular distribution for the population of the 8B first excited state has been measured for the first time. Discrepancies with other available data sets for 8B ground state population are discussed and interpreted in the framework of DWBA calculations. Further measurements at beam energies above 10 MeV are needed to clarify the behaviour of the angular distribution

The 48Ti on 40Ca reactions have been studied at 300 and 600 MeV focusing on the fusion-evaporation (FE) and fusion-fission (FF) exit channels. Energy spectra and multiplicities of the emitted light charged particles have been compared to Monte Carlo simulations based on the statistical model. Indeed, in this mass region (A ~ 100) models predict that shape transitions can occur at high spin values and relatively scarce data exist in the literature about coincidence measurements between evaporation residues and light charged particles. Signals of shape transitions can be found in the variations of the lineshape of high energy gamma rays emitted from the de-excitation of GDR states gated on different region of angular momenta. For this purpose it is important to keep under control the FE and FF processes, to regulate the statistical model parameters and to control the onset of possible pre-equilibrium emissions from 300 to 600 MeV bombarding energy.

The study of the evolution of nuclear shells far from stability provides fundamental information about the shape and symmetry of the nuclear mean field. Nuclei with large neutron/proton ratio allow to probe the density dependence of the effective interaction. Indeed, it was recently shown that tensor and three-body forces play an important role in breaking and creating magic numbers. Of particular interest is the region of 78Ni where the large neutron excess coincides with a double shell closure. We have recently measured the B(E2; 0+ → 2+) of the 74Ni nucleus in an intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation experiment performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory of the Michigan State University. The 74Ni secondary beam has been produced by fragmentation of 86Kr at 140 AMeV on a thick Be target. Selected radioactive fragments impinged on a secondary 197Au target where the measurement of the emitted γ-rays allows to extract the Coulomb excitation cross section and related structure information. Preliminary B(E2) values do not point towards an enhancement of the transition matrix element and the comparison to what was already measured by Aoi and co-workers in [1] opens new scenarios in the interpretation of the shell evolution of the Z=28 isotopes.

The reactions 32S+58,64Ni are studied at 14.5 A MeV. Evidence is found for odd-even effects in isotopic observables of the decay of a projectile-like source. The influence of secondary decays on the staggering is studied with a correlation function technique, showing that odd-even effects are due to interplay between pairing effects in the nuclear masses and in the level densities.

Odd-even effects in fragment production have been studied since a long time and never quantitatively understood. The odd-even anomaly was reported in the literature [1,2] to be more pronounced in reactions involving Ni projectile and targets, in particular in n-poor systems. In some experiments [1, 2] the magnitude of the odd-even effect is found to be related to the isospin of the projectile and/or the target. From a theoretical point of view, odd-even effects in fragmentation reactions are clearly linked to the pairing residual interaction and its dependence on temperature.