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The 6He nucleus is an ideal candidate to study the weak interaction. To this end we have built a high-intensity source of 6He delivering ~10^10 atoms/s to experiments. Taking full advantage of that available intensity we have performed a high-precision measurement of the 6He half-life that directly probes the axial part of the nuclear Hamiltonian. Currently, we are preparing a measurement of the beta-neutrino angular correlation in 6He beta decay that will allow to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model in the form of tensor currents.

The DRAGON recoil separator facility, designed to measure the rates of radiative proton and alpha capture reactions important for nuclear astrophysics, is now operational at the TRIUMF‐ISAC radioactive beam facility in Vancouver, Canada. We report on first measurements of the 21Na(p,γ)22Mg reaction rate with radioactive beams of 21Na.

The new DRAGON recoil separator facility, designed and built to measure directly the rates of radiative proton and alpha capture reactions important for nuclear astrophysics, is now in operation at the TRIUMF‐ISAC radioactive beams facility in Vancouver, Canada. Experiments have been conducted for the first time on the 21Na(p,γ)22Mg reaction. The evolution of nova explosions, and particularly their 22Na abundance, depends sensitively on this reaction rate. The radioactive 21Na beam with an intensity of up to 5 × 108 /s was directed onto a windowless hydrogen gas target (3.8 × 1018 H atoms/cm2). Prompt reaction gamma rays were detected using a BGO array and separated reaction products detected using a silicon strip detector at the end of the 20.8 m recoil mass separator. Yield measurements recording simultaneously singles and coincident signals were performed by scanning in energy over the known resonance reported previously in 22Mg at Ecm = 212 keV, and in addition, over a strong resonance observed at Ecm...