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Nuclear Physics

Lund University

PreSPEC

PreSPEC was a collaborative international experiment at the GSI Helmholtzcentre for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt, Germany. PreSPEC was tailored for basic nuclear structure studies of exotic nuclei far from the line of stability by means of high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy of radioactive ion beams produced via fragmentation or fission at relativistic energies. The science case and evolution of the project is guided by an international Steering Committee under the umbrella of a Memorandum of Understanding:

"PreSPEC is a collaborative European project ... to construct and operate detector set-ups at the SIS/FRS facility at GSI for nuclear spectroscopy. It builds upon the successful RISING project and will employ equipment that was used in RISING as long as is appropriate. It is also aimed at preparing for the spectroscopy to be carried out with HISPEC/DESPEC at NUSTAR/FAIR by commissioning and employing components developed for HISPEC/DESPEC already at the SIS/FRS facility. It is also intended that AGATA detectors will be used at the SIS/FRS facility as part of PreSPEC.

This approach will further improve the detection capabilities for both in-beam and decay experiments with rare isotope beams and will enable both a rich physics programme at SIS/FRS before HISPEC/DESPEC are implemented at the Super-FRS facility at FAIR and the development of the HISPEC/DESPEC detector systems."

In 2010 and 2011, the first PreSPEC in-beam experiments with the set-up shown in the picture above were performed, including former EUROBALL Cluster detectors for gamma-ray detection, a suite of gas detectors and plastic scintillators for event-by-event identification of incoming relativistic ions, and the first phase of the LYCCA detection system for outgoing reaction products.

In 2012 and 2014 new bench marks were set by replacing the germanium detector array with contemporary, highly segmented germanium detectors of the Advanced GAmma-ray Tracking Array (AGATA), thereby increasing the gamma-ray sensitivity and thus our nuclear microscope by about two orders of magnitude. See the Lund PhD thesis of Nataša Lalovic for more details.

Starting 2015 and before the new FAIR-NUSTAR facility becomes available for the HISPEC and DESPEC experiments approximately 202x, PreSPEC aims at physics-driven campaigns of newly developed decay-spectroscopy equipment. More information can also be gathered at

 the website of the HISPEC/DESPEC collaboration (new window).

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