Exciting Neutron-rich Nuclei

Abstract: Atoms are the building blocks which make up our world. Their stability depends on the atomic nucleus, consisting of protons and neutrons. Nuclei are complex many-body quantum mechanical systems governed by the nucleon-nucleon interaction. The complexity and the intricate nature of the nucleon-nucleon interaction so far prevented the description of all existing nuclei by a single model. Furthermore, nuclei and nuclear reactions in stars and stellar explosions play a key role in astrophysics. This motivates experiments to improve our understanding of nuclei and their role in the cosmos. In this thesis I present results from experiments in complete kinematics performed at the radioactive beam facilities RIKEN and GSI/FAIR. The focus is on the rst measurement of unbound states in 29Ne, that were studied using neutron knockout reactions from 30Ne. The invariant-mass spectrum shows two peaks, one at around 0.5 MeV and another one at 1.3 MeV. Moreover, results from an overview experiment, investigating light neutron-rich nuclei, between 3 < Z < 10, are also presented. The results cover protonremoval cross sections in boron and carbon, important for designing future experiments, and unbound states in 26F where the rst unbound states are observed at the relative energy 323 keV. Furthermore, the structure of the unbound nucleus 13Be, which is important for its bridging role between the bound 12Be and the Borromean halo nucleus 14Be, is studied. Also measurements on Coulomb dissociation of 20;21N and 18C are presented which allow to improve our understanding of r-process nucleosynthesis.