Nuclear alpha-clustering, superdeformation, and quasimolecular resonances

Nuclear alpha-clustering has been the subject of intense study since the advent of heavy-ion accelerators. Looking back for more than 40 years we are able today to see the connection between quasimolecular resonances in heavy-ion collisions and extremely deformed states in light nuclei. For example superdeformed bands have been recently discovered in light N = Z nuclei such as Ar-36, Ca-40, Cr-48, and Ni-56 by gamma-ray spectroscopy. The search for strongly deformed shapes in N = Z nuclei is also the domain of charged-particle spectroscopy, and a number of these nuclei have been studied with the charged particle multidetector array ICARE at the VIVITRON. Recently the search for gamma-decays in Mg-24 has been undertaken in a range of excitation energies where previously nuclear molecular resonances were found in C-12+C-12 collisions. The breakup reaction Mg-24+C-12 has been investigated at an energy which corresponds to a C-12+C-12 resonance. Very exclusive data were collected with the Binary Reaction Spectrometer in coincidence with EUROBALL IV installed at the VIVITRON. Results on the population of specific structures of large deformation will be presented.