On the origin of low-lying M1 strength in even-even nuclei
The 2+2 state in 132Te is identified as the one-phonon MSS in a projectile Coulomb excitation experiment presenting a firm example of a MSS in unstable, neutron rich nuclei. The results of shell-model calculations based on the low-momentum interaction Vlow−k are in good agreement with experiment demonstrating, the ability of the effective shell-model interaction to produce states of mixed symmetry character.

title: β -decay study of neutron-rich bromine and krypton isotopes
abstract: Short lived neutron rich nuclei including 93 Br, 93 Kr and 94 Kr were produced in proton induced fission of 238 U at the HRIBF in Oak Ridge. Their beta decay was studied by means of a high resolution on line mass separator and beta gamma spectroscopy methods. The half life of 93Br T1/2 = 152(8) ms and delayed branching ratio of Pn = 53-8+11 may be compared to the previously reported values of T1/2 = 102(10) ms and Pn = 68(7)%. At the same time the half life of 94Kr T1/2 = 227(14) ms and B delayed branching ratio of Pn = 1.9+0.6 0.2 % of 93Kr are in very good agreement with literature values. The decay properties of 93Br include four new gamma transitions following beta delayed neutron emission.

title: Search for inverse fission of uranium
abstract: There is a long-term interest in running the fission reaction backward, i.e., studying the 'inverse fission' of uranium. The recent availability of beams of n-rich fission fragments has stimulated interest in this endeavor. The purpose is to search for inverse fission in the reactions {sup 124,132}Sn + {sup 100}Mo. In the {sup 124}Sn + {sup 100}Mo reaction, evaporation residues were searched for using in-beam detection of evaporation residues, in-beam {alpha} spectroscopy, and post-irradiation {alpha} spectroscopy, while in the {sup 132}Sn + {sup 100}Mo reaction, the evaporation residue {sup 230}U was searched for using post-irradiation {alpha} spectroscopy. No evidence for the occurrence of the inverse fission reactions was found. The upper-limit cross section for the latter reaction is  nb. The intensity of suitable radioactive beams is not high enough at present to detect inverse fission. For the {sup 124}Sn + {sup 100}Mo reaction, the observed upper limits are below the estimates of current models for these reactions, probably due to fusion hindrance.

title: Neutron Single Particle Strengths from the (d,p) Reaction on 18F
abstract: The 19F nucleus has been studied extensively. However, there have been no comprehensive experimental studies of 18F+n single-particle components in 19F, and no measure of neutron vacancies in the 18F ground state, as such experiments require a (radioactive) 18F target or beam. We have used the 2H(18F,p)19F reaction to selectively populate states in 19F that are of 18F+n character. The 108.5-MeV radioactive 18F+9 beam was provided by the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Proton-recoil coincidence data were taken for both -decaying and particle-stable final states. Angular distributions and spectroscopic factors were measured for nine proton groups, corresponding to 13 states in 19F. The results are compared to shell model calculations.

title: Spectroscopy of element 115 decay chains.
abstract: A high-resolution α, x-ray, and γ-ray coincidence spectroscopy experiment was conducted at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung. Thirty correlated α-decay chains were detected following the fusion-evaporation reaction 48Ca + 243Am. The observations are consistent with previous assignments of similar decay chains to originate from element Z=115. For the first time, precise spectroscopy allows the derivation of excitation schemes of isotopes along the decay chains starting with elements Z>112. Comprehensive Monte Carlo simulations accompany the data analysis. Nuclear structure models provide a first level interpretation.

title: First Observation of the Drip Line Nucleus 140Dy: Identification of a 7 Mu s K-isomer Populating the Ground State Band
abstract: A new $7 \ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$ isomer in the drip line nucleus ${}^{140}\mathrm{Dy}$ was selected from the products of the ${}^{54}\mathrm{Fe}$ $(315 \mathrm{MeV}{)+}^{92}\mathrm{Mo}$ reaction by a recoil mass spectrometer and studied with recoil-delayed $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ coincidences. Five cascading $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ transitions were interpreted as the decay of an ${I}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}{=8}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ ${\ensuremath{\nu}{9/2}^{\ensuremath{-}}[514]\ensuremath{\bigotimes}\ensuremath{\nu}{7/2}^{+}[404]}$ K isomer $({T}_{1/2}=7.0(5) \ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s})$ via the ground-state band. The probability of proton emission from ${}^{141}\mathrm{Ho}$ to the ${0}^{+}$ ground state and to the ${2}^{+}$ excited state in ${}^{140}\mathrm{Dy}$ is discussed.

title: The ‘Higgs’ amplitude mode at the two-dimensional superfluid/Mott insulator transition
abstract: Spontaneous symmetry breaking plays a key role in our understanding of nature. In relativistic quantum field theory, a broken continuous symmetry leads to the emergence of two types of fundamental excitation: massless Nambu–Goldstone modes and a massive ‘Higgs’ amplitude mode. An excitation of Higgs type is of crucial importance in the standard model of elementary particle physics, and also appears as a fundamental collective mode in quantum many-body systems. Whether such a mode exists in low-dimensional systems as a resonance-like feature, or whether it becomes overdamped through coupling to Nambu–Goldstone modes, has been a subject of debate. Here we experimentally find and study a Higgs mode in a two-dimensional neutral superfluid close to a quantum phase transition to a Mott insulating phase. We unambiguously identify the mode by observing the expected reduction in frequency of the onset of spectral response when approaching the transition point. In this regime, our system is described by an effective relativistic field theory with a two-component quantum field, which constitutes a minimal model for spontaneous breaking of a continuous symmetry. Additionally, all microscopic parameters of our system are known from first principles and the resolution of our measurement allows us to detect excited states of the many-body system at the level of individual quasiparticles. This allows for an in-depth study of Higgs excitations that also addresses the consequences of the reduced dimensionality and confinement of the system. Our work constitutes a step towards exploring emergent relativistic models with ultracold atomic gases.

title: Flavorful hybrid anomaly-gravity mediation
abstract: We consider supersymmetric models where anomaly and gravity mediation give comparable contributions to the soft terms and discuss how this can be realized in a five-dimensional brane world. The gaugino mass pattern of anomaly mediation is preserved in such a hybrid setup. The flavorful gravity-mediated contribution cures the tachyonic slepton problem of anomaly mediation. The supersymmetric flavor puzzle is solved by alignment. We explicitly show how a working flavor-tachyon link can be realized with Abelian flavor symmetries and give the characteristic signatures of the framework, including O(1) slepton mass splittings between different generations and between doublets and singlets. This provides opportunities for same flavor dilepton edge measurements with missing energy at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Rare lepton decay rates could be close to their current experimental limit. Compared to pure gravity mediation, the hybrid model is advantageous because it features a heavy gravitino which can avoid the cosmological gravitino problem of gravity-mediated models combined with leptogenesis.

title: De Sitter vacua and inflation in no-scale string models
abstract: This thesis studies the question of how de Sitter vacua and slow-roll inflation may be realized in string-motivated models. More specifically, we consider 4d N = 1 supergravity theories (without vector multiplets) with Kahler potentials which are ‘no-scale’ at leading order. Such theories frequently arise in the moduli sector of string compactifications. We discuss a condition on the scalar geometry (defined by the Kahler potential) and on the direction of supersymmetry breaking in the scalar manifold, which has to be met in order for the average of the masses of the sGoldstinos to be positive, and hence for metastable vacua to be possible. This condition also turns out to be necessary for the existence of trajectories admitting slow-roll inflation. Its implications for certain scalar manifolds which arise from Calabi-Yau string compactifications are discussed. In particular, for two-moduli models arising from compactifications of heteroticand type IIB string theory, a simple criterion on the intersection numbers needs to be satisfied for possible de Sitter phases to exist. In addition, we show that subleading corrections breaking the no-scale property may allow the condition on the scalar geometry to be fulfilled, even when it is violated at leading order. Finally, we develop a procedure to construct superpotentials for a given viable Kahler potential, such that the scalar potential has a realistic local minimum. We propose two-moduli models, with superpotentials which could arise from flux backgrounds and non-perturbative effects, which have a viable vacuum without employing subleading corrections or an uplifting sector.

title: A realistic unified gauge coupling from the micro-landscape of orbifold GUTs
abstract: We consider 5-dimensional supersymmetric field theories where supersymmetry is broken by the Scherk–Schwarz mechanism (or, equivalently, by the F-term VEV of the radion). In such models, the radion effective potential is calculable in terms of the 5d gauge coupling, the UV cutoff of the 5d field theory, and the field content. We provide simple, explicit formulae for the leading part of the two-loop effective potential. Our analysis applies in particular to 5d orbifold GUTs motivated by heterotic orbifold models. We focus on potentially realistic models of this type and make the additional assumption that the UV cutoff scale is identical with the strong-coupling scale of the 5d gauge theory. Given our stabilization mechanism, the 5d radius is now fixed in terms of the 5d gauge coupling and the field content of the model. This implies a prediction for the effective 4d gauge coupling only in terms of the field content of the model. Given the ‘micro-landscape’ provided by the different possible distributions of Standard Model fields between bulk and branes, we find a subset of models with a realistic unified gauge coupling. We also discuss two possibilities for the ‘uplifting’ of our SUSY-breaking AdS vacua: One is based on the possible presence of a weak warping, the other appeals to F-terms in an extra brane-localized SUSY-breaking sector.

title: Constraints on modular inflation in supergravity and string theory
abstract: We perform a general algebraic analysis on the possibility of realising slow-roll inflation in the moduli sector of string models. This problem turns out to be very closely related to the characterisation of models admitting metastable vacua with non-negative cosmological constant. In fact, we show that the condition for the existence of viable inflationary trajectories is a deformation of the condition for the existence of metastable de Sitter vacua. This condition depends on the ratio between the scale of inflation and the gravitino mass and becomes stronger as this parameter grows. After performing a general study within arbitrary supergravity models, we analyse the implications of our results in several examples. More concretely, in the case of heterotic and orientifold string compactifications on a Calabi-Yau in the large volume limit we show that there may exist fully viable models, allowing both for inflation and stabilisation. Additionally, we show that subleading corrections breaking the no-scale property shared by these models always allow for slow-roll inflation but with an inflationary scale suppressed with respect to the gravitino scale. A scale of inflation larger than the gravitino scale can also be achieved under more restrictive circumstances and only for certain types of compactifications.