Nuclear structure studies at the Institute explore a wide range of single-particle and collective properties of the nucleus. The most extensive study in this area is centered about the determination of the nuclear compressibility with measurements of the properties of giant resonance states in a variety of nuclei. The nuclear compressibility is a quantity of great importance to the understanding of the nuclear equation of state and plays a critical role in the evolution of heavy-ion induced reactions and of supernovae.
The dependence of nuclear compressibility on mass and neutron number is being explored through studies of the behavior of the Isoscalar Giant Monopole Resonance (breathing mode) excited by inelastic alpha particle scattering. The extension of these studies to unstable nuclei through inverse reactions is also being explored. The MDM spectrometer and the National BaF2 Array are employed in these experiments.
