In beam gamma spectroscopy with a 84 Zr beam: comparison of data with a Monte Carlo simulation

The study of the nuclear structure of exotic nuclei, which lie very far from the stability valley, is fundamental to test many physical theories. It requires the use of nuclear reactions induced by fast radioactive beams and use-of-the-art detectors, such as the gamma-ray tracking array GRETINA. This thesis reports part of the results of an experiment performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University (MSU) during the summer 2020. The main purpose of this work is the numerical simulation of the experimental process to completely reproduce the interaction of an exotic nuclear beam of 84Zr with a 9Be target. All the physical information about the reaction process are extrapolated through comparisons between the experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations, performed with GEANT4. This platform, which contains the experimental geometry and the detectors information, can reproduce the entire interaction mechanism, from the incoming beam distribution in space and momentum to the Doppler corrected gamma-ray spectrum. The analysis consists in finding the optimal parameters necessary to correctly reproduce experimental data. The results of this work are used to analyze other more exotic reaction channels where statistics is scarce. The final goal of this experiment is the measurement of the lifetime of the first excited state in 84Mo.