Speaker
Description
Beta decay increases in importance as a probe of nuclear structure as one moves towards the proton and neutron driplines. The decay energies increase so that more of the beta strength is available, and separation energies decrease leading to an increasing number of beta-delayed decay modes. I shall present an overview of which types of information have been extracted in light nuclei, here somewhat arbitrarily taken to be nuclei up to 40Ca.
Precision studies of the weak interaction often employs nuclei in this region. This is also where cluster structures and the halo structure have been probed in detail. More exotic beta-delayed decay modes (i.e. beyond emission of one nucleon or an alpha particle) can be studied here in detail. I shall give examples of all of this with a special focus on the role (for proton-rich nuclei) on the Isobaric Analogue State, as well as on the practical issues met when broad levels (with widths approaching the MeV scale) are populated. A discussion of how such decays may be described will lead to the suggestion that beta decays may proceed directly to continuum states.
Some material on these topics can be found in M. Pfützner et al, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84 (2012) 567 and my paper on beta decay of halo nuclei in Handbook of Nuclear Physics, eds I. Tanihata, H. Toki, T. Kajino.