MCLEAN, MORGAN STUART LANCE KENT. A High Resolution Study of the 52Cr(p,p0) and 52Cr(p,p1) Reactions. (Under the direction of Dr. Gary E. Mitchell and Dr. John F. Shriner, Jr.)
High resolution measurements of the 52Cr(p,p0) and 52Cr(p,p1) cross sections were performed at the High Resolution Laboratory (HRL) of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL). Results were obtained for the (p,p0) reaction over the energy range Ep = 2.1039-3.4711 MeV and for the (p,p1) reaction over the energy range Ep = 2.6101-3.4711 MeV. The primary goal was the improvement of the purity and completeness of the level sequences in 53Mn. Excitation functions were generated at five angles for both reaction channels. Fits to the observed cross sections were obtained using the multi-channel, multi-level R-Matrix code, MULTI6. Jπ assignments have been given to 263 resonances. Many resonances were observed for the first time, and many previously observed levels were given new quantum number assignments.
Level sequences of specific Jπ were evaluated for purity and completeness using statistical tests based on random matrix theory. Several Jπ assignments were revised after application of the statistical tests. The resulting nearest-neighbor spacing distributions were compared to the Wigner distribution, and the reduced width distributions were compared to the Porter-Thomas distribution. Estimates of the observed fraction of levels for each sequence were obtained using both the spacing and width distributions. Strength functions and level densities were determined for each J&pi sequence. The data for J=½ allow a test of whether the level density depends on parity; no parity dependence was observed.
