Speaker
Description
Exploring the heavy neutron-rich region around and beyond $N=126$ is one of the major aims of nuclear facilities worldwide. The foremost reason is understanding the nucleosynthesis of the heaviest elements existing in nature, formed only by the rapid neutron-capture process. At the third waiting point, the only observable measured systematically up to date ---some $\beta$ half-lives near stability--- reveals the largest discrepancies among the models used to calculate nuclear inputs for r-process simulations. Measuring observables better suited to obtain detailed structural information in nuclei with few tens of neutron above $N=126$ or protons below $Z=82$, is key to obtain higher-quality calculated nuclear inputs getting far away from stability, in the inaccessible regions of the r-process reaction path. In this talk, the potential of the TATAKI-Pro setup at RIBF, consisting of the WAS3ABi active stopper and the Decay Total Absorption Spectrometer DTAS, will be discussed. The main advantage of the latter is the possibility to use it simultaneously as a calorimeter to measure $\beta$-strength functions, and as a segmented $\gamma$ array to measure key structural properties such as isomeric states, nuclear lifetimes, decay schemes, and, in combination with WAS3ABi, Meitner-Ellis electrons.
