Measurements in the Quasi-Continuum

The density of energy levels in nuclei increases rapidly as the excitation energy increases towards the particle separation energy, creating a quasi-continuum. The density of states (entropy) in a given system depends on excitations across shell gaps and the number of broken nucleon pairs. It is not possible to identify all energy levels in this quasi-continuum experimentally. Instead, average quantities such as the entropy and $\gamma$-ray strength functions are used to describe ``gross'' nuclear properties, critical in calculating nuclear reaction rates in astrophysical processes. I will discuss experimental efforts underway to measure feeding and lifetimes of quasi-continuum states using (d,p) transfer reactions. The protons and $\gamma$-rays from the reactions are detected using the STARS-LIBERACE detector array. Particle energies of detected charged particles will be used to infer the ``entrance'' excitation energy of the residual nucleus. These ``entrance'' energies are used to study feeding to discrete states and lifetimes of regions in the quasi-continuum.