Proceedings of the DAE Symp. on Nucl. Phys.

63 (2018) 1156

VECC-INGA: An exploration of nuclear structure with light ions

Soumik Bhattacharya1,2, R. Banik1,2, S. Nandi1,2, Sajad Ali2,3, S. Chatterjee4, S. Das4,
S. Samanta4, K. Basu4, A. Choudhury1, A. Adhikari5, S. S. Alam1,2, Shabir Dar1,2,
B. Das3, Sangeeta Das3, A. Dhal1, A. Mondal6, K.Mondal6, P. Mukhopadhyay1,
H. Pai3, P. Ray3, A. Saha1, I. Shaik1, C. Bhattacharya1,2, G. Mukherjee1,2, R. Raut4,
S. S.Ghugre4,$, A. Goswami3,#, S. Bhattacharyya1,2,*
1
Variable Energy Cyclotron Center, Kolkata-700064,INDIA
2
HBNI, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai-400094, INDIA
3
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata-700064,INDIA
4
UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata Centre, Kolkata-700098, INDIA
5
Indian Institute of Science and Technology, Howrah - 711103, INDIA
6
Department of Physics, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan - 731235, INDIA
*email:sarmi@vecc.gov.in, #email: asimananda.goswami@saha.ac.in $email: ssg@alpha.iuc.res.in

INGA campaign with light ion beams (electrically segmented planer HPGe) were used.
The Clover detectors were put at different
Since past two decades, the Indian National angles: 4 at 90° (2 in-plane and 2 out-of-plane), 2
Gamma Array (INGA) facility in India has at 125° and 1 at 40° with respect to the beam
exploited unique features and facilities at three direction. This ensures the DCO ratio and
accelerator centres in India to probe the polarization asymmetry measurements. The
fascinating aspects of behavior of an excited LEPS detector, kept at 40o, was used in a few
nucleus, its exotic shapes and the underlying experiments to increase the efficiency of low
symmetries using high-resolution gamma ray
energy γ- and X-ray detection. The detectors
spectroscopy techniques [1]. INGA has been
were placed at a distance of 25 cm from the
conceptualized and implemented in India under
target position. The present setup is expected to
the national collaboration between various
be upgraded with the availability of more
national institutes and universities. numbers of Clover detectors and another LEPS.
The unique feature of the availability of
energetic light ion beams (α, p) from the K-130
cyclotron at VECC, Kolkata, coupled with
advanced state of art detector facilities of INGA,
allowed the access to the unique physics cases
(e.g, horizontal spectroscopy, exotic nuclear
shape at lower spin) in particular regimes of
nuclear chart, which are not possible with heavy-
ion beams. These include the hard-to-reach
nuclei near/around the stability line in heavy
mass region and the neutron-rich part of nuclear
horizon from the spectroscopy of fission
fragments induced by light-ions.
Fig. 1: INGA Setup at VECC
INGA setup at VECC:
The Pre-amplifier pulses from the Clover
In the present paper we report the first and LEPS detectors were processed using 12-bit
successful campaign of INGA with light ion 250-MHz 16-channel PIXIE digitizers [2],
beams from K-130 cyclotron at VECC. In the installed by UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata Centre.
first phase of this campaign, seven Compton The Digital Signal Processing (DSP) has been
suppressed Clover HPGe detectors and a LEPS used to record the Compton suppressed data in
(Low Energy Photon Spectrometer) detector both coincidence (γ−γ) as well as singles mode.

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Proceedings of the DAE Symp. on Nucl. Phys. 63 (2018) 1157

An alternative VME based data acquisition
system with 16-channel analog amplifiers and
other NIM electronics was also setup and tested.
in-beam test data. All the previously reported γ-
rays [4] are clearly visible. No strong peak has
been found from any other nucleus which
indicates that most of the cross-section goes to a
particular channel for suitable beam energy. A
typical LEPS spectrum from one of the
experiments is shown in Fig. 4, showing the
enhanced efficiency and resolution at lower
energy region.

Fig. 2: Relative efficiency of INGA at VECC

along with that of individual Clovers.

The relative efficiency of the present INGA

setup at VECC, which includes a 3 mm thick
Aluminium target chamber, using 152Eu and
133
Ba radioactive sources, is shown in Fig.2. Fig. 3 Total projection spectrum of γ−γ matrix
from the test run.
Performance of INGA at VECC:
In the first phase of the INGA campaign
alpha beams in the range of 28-40 MeV and
proton beams of 7-10 MeV were delivered from
K-130 cyclotron and total 15 experiments have
been performed by the users from different
national and international labs and universities.
These experiments cater to the different regions
of nuclear landscape with varying physics
aspects, like yrast and non-yrast states, shape
coexistence, octupole correlation, mixed
symmetry states, etc. The α-induced fission Fig. 4: Spectrum of LEPS in one experiment.
reaction to study spectroscopy of neutron rich Acknowledgement:
nuclei was also carried out, in which LEPS
detector was useful to identify the products by All member institutes and universities of
X-ray tagging. The main advantage of using light INGA collaboration are gratefully acknowledged
ion reactions are the large production cross for their support and active involvement. We are
section of the nuclei of interest, with almost no thankful to Director, VECC for his keen interest
contamination from neighboring channels, and support and to the cyclotron operators for
minimum energy loss in the target which allows their efforts in providing a good quality beam.
one to use thick targets without compromising INGA is partially funded by DST, Government
the energy degradation, etc. A test run to check of India (No. IR/S2/PF-03/2003-II).
the performance of the array as well the DSP
system was carried out with α beam on 198Pt
References:
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using the IUCPIX [2] package, developed at [2] S. Das et.al., NIM A 893, 138 (2018).
UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata Centre, and analysed [3] D. C. Radford, NIM A 361, 297 (1995).
using RADWARE [3]. Fig. 3 shows a total [4] Soumik Bhattacharya et al., Proc. of the
projection spectrum from the γ−γ matrix of the DAE Symp. on Nucl. Phys. 62, 118 (2017).

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