Physics graduate students Kevin Lee (advised by Prof. Ani Aprahamian) and Sethupathy Subramanian (advised by Prof. Dinshaw Balasra) are the recipients of 2021 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Awards from the Kaneb Center. 

This award was created in 1999 to recognize graduate student instructors and TAs who demonstrate commitment to exceptional teaching in lectures, seminars, labs, and across the academic profession. The Graduate School and the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning present the award annually to TAs that are nominated by their departments. The award consists of a certificate from the Kaneb Center and Graduate School, a letter documenting the award for the graduate student’s file, a $100 honorarium, and an invitation to a formal event hosted by the Kaneb Center and the Graduate School.…

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Radioactivity: Origin and effects of a natural phenomenon, Volume I, has been recently published by Freimann Professor of Physics Michael Wiescher. 

Radioactivity is a frequently and hotly debated topic; the discussions usually revolve around the benefits and dangers of nuclear energy. The topic reaches further -- both in terms of natural occurrences and the many and the multiple applications of radioactivity.…

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Orlando Gomez received the 2021 Larry O. Lamm Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics. The award is given annually to the student that was deemed to have provided the most outstanding service and dedication to the Nuclear Science Laboratory. The award recognizes Orlando’s continued efforts in sustaining and driving forward CASPAR experimental campaigns, making experimentation possible during the trying times of the COVID pandemic.…

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Nirupama Sensharma received the 2021 Cornelius P. Browne Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics for her work on wobbling motion in gold nuclei and outstanding outreach effort through her project Nuclear Energy – The Better Energy…

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The Department of Army has awarded a three-year grant to researchers at the University of Notre Dame to develop techniques to prepare some metastable metals for use in extreme conditions.

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In January 2021, researchers at Sanford Underground Research Facility (Sanford Lab) returned a detector to the University of Notre Dame. The detector, which has been collecting data for most of 2020, is officially named the High EffiCiency TOtal absoRption spectrometer (HECTOR). During its residency at Sanford Lab in 2020, the HECTOR Detector helped researchers better understand how stars form elements. Click HERE…

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Dr. James deBoer (UND) and Dr. Michael Febbraro (ORNL) have recently lead a research initiative to make new measurements of the ¹³C(a,n)¹⁶O reaction at energies relevant for background simulations for large volume neutrino experiments. These new measurements were made possible by pairing the Notre Dame Nuclear Science Laboratory’s new high current Sta. ANA accelerator with state-of-the-art deuterated liquid scintillation detectors recently developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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Nuclear physics graduate student Nirupama Sensharma will speak on Tuesday, September 29 at the Michiana Science Cafe on nuclear energy. Her talk "Nuclear Energy -- The Better Energy?" will be a Facebook live event. The United States depends on nuclear power to meet about one-fifth of its demand for electricity. This equals the combined total of the generation capacity of two leading nuclear power producing countries, France and Japan. However, we have been standing still for the last 30 years with absolutely no progress in this sector. Is the halt a result of economic, political or scientific reasons and how is this affecting the ever-escalating climate crises? Do we have an alternative?…

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Experimental nuclear science faculty have published a book that summarizes scientific methods that are currently used to characterize objects of cultural heritage and archaeological artifacts. Authored by Friemann Professor of Physics Michael Wiescher…

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Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprahamian recently presented at two virtual conferences in Armenia. 

The Armenia Medical International Committee (AMIC) virtual course was held July 12 and had over 650 participants. Aprahamian's presentation was "Isotopes for new pharmaceutical applications." The AMIC consists of representatives from Armenian healthcare associations throughout the Diaspora. Its purpose is to improve healthcare in Armenia through coordination of efforts among our member organizations.…

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A team of Notre Dame nuclear physics professors was recently awarded a three-year $8.1M grant from the National Science Foundation to continue operation of the Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL) and to continue their research in nuclear physics. The team consists of Profs. Dan Bardayan, Tan Ahn, Ani Aprahamian, Max Brodeur, Philippe Collon, Manoel Couder, Umesh Garg, Anna Simon, and Michael Wiescher. A particular focus of this proposal entitled "Nuclear Physics at the Notre Dame Nuclear Science Laboratory Providing a Window on the Universe" is the study of nuclei and nuclear reactions that are critical for interpreting observations of multi-messengers in astrophysics.  These messengers provide windows on the Universe and elucidate nuclear astrophysics processes occurring throughout.
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The Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of the Member States of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) has appointed Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprahamian as a new member.

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Graham Peaslee’s team tested more than 30 samples of used and unused PPE from six specialty textile manufacturers in the United States and found them to be treated extensively with PFAS or constructed with fluoropolymers, a type of PFAS used to make textiles oil and water resistant.

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Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprhamian has been elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for Clark University. Aprahamian received her undergraduate degree from Clark in 1980. Aprahamian will serve a six year term starting July 1, 2020. Clark’s trustees draw on their expertise in the fields of business, law, and higher education to shape the policies that guide the University’s growth, enhance its reputation, and ensure its standing as a destination of choice for academically engaged students.…

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Physics graduate students Saurabh Bansal (advised by Prof. Chris Kolda) and Orlando Gomez (advised by Prof. Anna Simon) are the recipients of 2020 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Awards from the Kaneb Center. 

This award was created in 1999 to recognize graduate student instructors and TAs who demonstrate commitment to exceptional teaching in lectures, seminars, labs, and across the academic profession. The Graduate School and the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning present the award annually to TAs that are nominated by their departments. There were fourteen awards given to TAs in the College of Science. The award consists of a certificate from the Kaneb Center and Graduate School, a letter documenting the award for the graduate student’s file, and a $100 honorarium from the Kaneb Center.…

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Ani Aprahamian, Freimann Professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame, is fighting the impact of COVID-19 in Armenia.

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Last week a team from Notre Dame, Dan Robertson and Orlando Gomez, were at the Sanford Underground Research Facility working 4850 feet underground to install HECTOR, Notre Dame’s high-efficiency, gamma-ray summing detector. The combined setup, called CASTOR, is now ready and soon be measuring alpha-capture reactions relevant for a wide and varied range of stellar burning scenarios.

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Nirupama Sensharma's publication Longitudinal Wobbling Motion in ¹⁸⁷Au was recently highlighted in Nature. Click here to see the article.

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The article below was published on February 5, 2020 on APS Physics website, written by Marric Stephens.

Synopsis: Gold Nucleus is Wobbly
A rare kind of nuclear spinning motion has been detected in an isotope of gold.

Planets, footballs, and even some large molecules have something in common: they rotate as rigid, classical bodies. Atomic nuclei are another matter, in that quantum mechanics allows strange new modes of motion. In experiments involving a short-lived isotope of gold, ¹⁸⁷…

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Adam Clark has been awarded as the first recipient of the NSL’s Applied Nuclear Fellowship (funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission). This fellowship was created in 2019 for the purpose of training students in applied nuclear physics and is awarded to senior graduate students who exhibit a clear interest in applied research with broad applications.

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