The development of new odd-Z-projectile reactions leading to the production of transactinide elements is described. The cross section of the even-Z-projectile 208Pb(64Ni, n)271Ds reaction was measured at two new energies using the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 88-Inch Cyclotron. In total, seven decay chains attributable to 271Ds were observed. These data, combined with previous results, establish an excitation function for the production of 271Ds. The maximum cross section was 20 +15 -11 pb at a center-of-target energy of 311.5 MeV in the laboratory frame.The data from the 271Ds experiments were used to estimate the optimum beam energy for the new odd-Z-projectile 208Pb(65Cu, n)272-111 reaction using the Fusion by Diffusion theory proposed by Swiatecki, Siwek-Wilczynska, and Wilczynski. A cross section for this reaction was measured for the first time, at a center-of-target energy of 321.1 MeV in the laboratory frame. The excitation energy f or compound nuclei formed at the target center was 13.2 MeV. One decay chain was observed, resulting in a measured cross section of 1.7 +3.9 -1.4 pb. This decay chain is in good agreement with previously published data on the decay of 272-111.The new odd-Z-projectile 208Pb(55Mn, n)262Bh reaction was studied at three different …

Experiments and direct numerical simulations (DNS) have been performed to examine the effects of initial conditions on the dynamics of a Rayleigh-Taylor unstable mixing layer. Experiments were performed on a water channel facility to measure the interfacial and velocity perturbations initially present at the two-fluid interface in a small Atwood number mixing layer. The experimental measurements have been parameterized for use in numerical simulations of the experiment. Two- and three-dimensional DNS of the experiment have been performed using the parameterized initial conditions. It is shown that simulations implemented with initial velocity and density perturbations, rather than density perturbations alone, are required to match experimentally-measured statistics and spectra. Data acquired from both the experiment and numerical simulations are used to examine the role of initial conditions on the evolution of integral-scale, turbulence, and mixing statistics. Early-time turbulence and mixing statistics are shown to be strongly-dependent upon the early-time transition of the initial perturbation from a weakly-nonlinear to a strongly-nonlinear flow.