| TwinSol is a unique apparatus designed and built as a joint nuclear physics project of the University of Michigan and the University of Notre Dame. TwinSol is installed at the 10 MegaVolt tandem Van de Graaff accelerator facility located on the campus of the University of Notre Dame's Nuclear Structure Laboratory in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. This device employs a pair of in-line, large bore, air-core persistent-mode superconducting solenoids (Bmax = 6 tesla) to produce, collect, transport and focus secondary beams of low-energy (E/A < 10 MeV) radioactive ions. Reactions induced by these radioactive nuclear beams (RNBs) are studied using several particle detection systems. Such reactions are pertinent to the understanding of nucleosynthesis and nuclear astrophysics. They are also important in expanding our basic understanding of the properties of nuclei as these RNB which have N >> Z or Z >> N often exhibit behavior that is very different from ordinary, non-radioactive nuclei (N ≈ Z). This thesis details the design, installation and initial in-beam tests of the TwinSol apparatus as well as the results of several experiments performed with the system. |
