Collisions induced by ${}^{9,10,11}\mathrm{Be}$ on a ${}^{64}\mathrm{Zn}$ target at the same c.m. energy were studied. For the first time, strong effects of the ${}^{11}\mathrm{Be}$ halo structure on elastic-scattering and reaction mechanisms at energies near the Coulomb barrier are evidenced experimentally. The elastic-scattering cross section of the ${}^{11}\mathrm{Be}$ halo nucleus shows unusual behavior in the Coulomb-nuclear interference peak angular region. The extracted total-reaction cross section for the ${}^{11}\mathrm{Be}$ collision is more than double the ones measured in the collisions induced by ${}^{9,10}\mathrm{Be}$. It is shown that such a strong enhancement of the total-reaction cross section with ${}^{11}\mathrm{Be}$ is due to transfer and breakup processes.

The “island of inversion” nucleus ${}^{32}\mathrm{Mg}$ has been studied by a ($t$, $p$) two neutron transfer reaction in inverse kinematics at REX-ISOLDE. The shape coexistent excited $0^{+}$ state in ${}^{32}\mathrm{Mg}$ has been identified by the characteristic angular distribution of the protons of the $\Delta L=0$ transfer. The excitation energy of 1058 keV is much lower than predicted by any theoretical model. The low $\gamma$-ray intensity observed for the decay of this $0^{+}$ state indicates a lifetime of more than 10 ns. Deduced spectroscopic amplitudes are compared with occupation numbers from shell-model calculations.

The electric form factor of the neutron was determined from studies of the reaction ${\mathrm{}}^3\overrightarrow{\mathrm{He}}(\overrightarrow{e},e^{\prime }n)pp$ in quasielastic kinematics in Hall A at Jefferson Lab. Longitudinally polarized electrons were scattered off a polarized target in which the nuclear polarization was oriented perpendicular to the momentum transfer. The scattered electrons were detected in a magnetic spectrometer in coincidence with neutrons that were registered in a large-solid-angle detector. More than doubling the $Q^2$ range over which it is known, we find $G_E^n=0.0236\pm 0.0017(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.0026(\mathrm{syst})$, $0.0208\pm 0.0024\pm 0.0019$, and $0.0147\pm 0.0020\pm 0.0014$ for $Q^2=1.72$, 2.48, and $3.41{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$, respectively.

In this paper details of the experimental procedure and data analysis of the collision of 11Be+64Zn around the Coulomb barrier are described and discussed in the framework of different theoretical approaches. In a previous work [A. Di Pietro et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 022701 (2010).], the elastic scattering angular distribution of the collisions 9,10Be+64Zn as well as the angular distribution for the quasielastic scattering and transfer/breakup cross sections for the 11Be+64Zn reaction were briefly reported. The suppression of the quasielastic angular distribution in the Coulomb-nuclear interference angular region observed in the collision of the 11Be halo nucleus with respect to the other two beryllium isotopes was interpreted as being caused by a long-range absorption owing to the long decay length of the 11Be wave function. In this paper, new continuum-discretized coupled-channel calculations of the 11Be+64Zn reaction are reported in the attempt to interpret the effect of coupling with the breakup channels on the measured cross sections. The calculations show that the observed suppression of the Coulomb-nuclear interference peak is caused by a combined effect of Coulomb and nuclear couplings to the breakup channels.