Roberta Spartà

Assegnista di ricerca
dal 01/10/2018 al 30/09/2020
Responsabile scientifico: Stefano ROMANO

Post-doctoral fellow at DFA on cross sections measurement of radioactive ions induced reactions to study light nuclei halo structure and its effect on reaction mechanisms. Editor of the GIANTS (Italian Groups of Experimental and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics) newsletter. Since 2015 is a teacher of Mathematics and Science in italian Secondary School. Since 2008 has scientific association positions at Laboratori Nazionali del Sud - INFN. Often been in Local Organizing Committee of the European Summer School of Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics. Have been referee for EPJ Web of Conference. Strongly involved in scientific dissemination.

Titolo dell'assegno di ricerca: Esperimenti nel campo delle reazioni nucleari indotte da fasci radioattivi presso le facility ISOLDE del CERN e TRIUMF di Vancouver, per lo studio del ruolo giocato dalla struttura ad alone dei nuclei leggeri sui meccanismi di reazione e analisi dei dati provenienti da tali esperimenti.

Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics with stable beams: The activity carried out during the master degree and PhD theses allowed to deeply understand and work on the Primordial Nucleosynthesis scenario, coordinating the experimental runs on measuring d(d,p)t and d(d,n)3He reactions, of which has made data reduction and analysis. Is co-author of a publication on Nature on the measurement of the 12C+12C reaction, in the framework of the massive stellar nucleosynthesis.

Neutron induced reactions: Worked on the project and realization of the measurement of 10B+n reaction, where is Principal Investigator, aimed to the separation of the contributions from the ground state and the first excited state of the 7Li, and worked on the data analysis and reduction. This reaction is relevant for the applications to nuclear physics and medical cures. Preliminary results seem to solve present discrepancies in literature. Working on this analysis developed abilities in the R-matrix calculation.

Cosmological Models: In the AsFiN group, deals with data application to Primordial Nucleosynthesis. For this reason spent a period as visiting scientist to the Texas A&M University – Commerce (TX - US) for a collaboration with prof. C.A. Bertulani, to implement a computational code to simulate this astrophysical scenario, resulting in many publications.

Nuclear structure and reaction mechanism: Partecipated to the group work that verified, as a validity test for the Trojan Horse Method, the polar invariance, in particular applying it to the d(d,p)t case. Also worked on the estimation of the electron screening potential for many of the measured reactions. Now moved to the investigation of the effects of halo structure on reaction dynamics at low bombarding energies around the Coulomb barrier. Specifically, studies the investigation of both proton-halo 8B and neutron-halo 11Li dynamics via the elastic scattering and break-up reactions on 64Zn.

s-process nucleosynthesis: Spokesperson for the measurement of the 25Mg(n,a)22Ne reaction, with whom is possible to obtain the cross section for the inverse reaction 22Ne(a,n)25Mg, among the ones of greatest interest for astrophysics, being crucial in the neutron production inside massive stars, determining evolution of the so-called s-process, with the 13C(a,n)16O (to which also partecipated to the measurement and data reduction). This measurement has been proposed and approved by the LNS Scientific Committee as a primary interest experiment, and then realized at LNS, being now under analysis.