New Horizons in Nuclear Structure and Reaction Studies with Radioactive-Ion Beams at R3B

The radioactive-ion beam facilities at GSI and the future FAIR facility in Darmstadt (Germany) provide unique opportunities to explore nuclear matter far from stability and to investigate how nuclear structure evolves toward the limits of nuclear existence.

Such studies address fundamental questions about the underlying nuclear forces, the emergence and evolution of shell structure and correlations in nuclei, the properties of neutron-rich matter, and the nuclear processes that shape the synthesis of the chemical elements in the Universe. The Reactions with Relativistic Radioactive Beams (R3B) experiment is designed to exploit these opportunities through kinematically complete measurements of reactions with exotic nuclei at relativistic energies. Its versatile experimental setup enables a broad range of reaction studies, including quasi-free scattering, nucleon removal, fission and breakup reactions, providing complementary probes of single-particle structure, correlations, and the properties of weakly bound and unbound nuclear systems.

In this seminar, I will introduce the scientific program and experimental capabilities of R3B and discuss selected recent results illustrating how reaction measurements with radioactive beams provide new insights into the structure of nuclei far from stability. I will conclude with an outlook on the next generation of experiments at FAIR and the new physics opportunities offered by higher beam energies and intensities, access to increasingly exotic isotopes, and advanced detector systems.