Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics

Dr. James deBoer, Associate Research Professor from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, presented new experimental results and evaluation work at a consultancy meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the Vienna International Center. One of the group’s main objectives is to obtain an improved understanding of the reactions that are used by physics and engineers all over the world to design next generation nuclear energy facilities.

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Michael Wiescher, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Physics, presented the German edition of the biography he published on Arthur E. Haas at a symposium organized by the Erwin Schrödinger Institute (ESI) of the University of Vienna. Haas was an Austrian theoretical physicist of Jewish descent who came to University of Notre Dame in 1936 with the recommendation of Albert Einstein.

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From June 6 to 10, 2022 the Exotic Beam Summer School (EBSS) attracted 40 graduate students and a post doc from around the country as well as internationally to the University of Notre Dame. This 19th edition of the school, one of the most valued in the low-energy nuclear physics community, was the first after a three years’ hiatus due to the pandemic. Needless to say the students were excited to participate in the series of hands-on activities offered in the afternoon (a unique feature of the EBSS), the morning lectures, as well as the evening social activities.

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Bryce Frentz successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on measurements related to one of the slowest reactions within the CNO cycle advised by Professors Ani Aprahamian and Michael Wiescher…

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Dr. Jaspreet Randhawa, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Nuclear Science Laboratory, has been awarded the 2022 FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers "for his work utilizing a diverse set of tools to understand the nuclear physics of outer layers of accreting neutron stars in X-ray binaries."

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Michael Wiescher, Freimann Professor of Physics, has published the German edition his book on the biography of Arthur Haas titled "Arthur E. Haas - Ein verborgener Pioneer der Modernen Physik" and printed by the LIT Verlag in Vienna. The book describes the fate and science of an Austrian Jewish physicist during the first half of the 20th century.

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As part of the Notre Dame International Security Center (NDISC), Profs. Mike Desch, Dan Lindley, and Dan Bardayan lead annual Spring Break student trips to visit sites of National Security Interest.  NDISC seeks to educate exceptional undergraduate students in the area of international security, broadly defined.  This purpose of the trip is twofold: 1) To expose students to the history of the nuclear age through direct immersion in one of the central foci of the development of U.S. nuclear weapons  2) To expose students to the state-of-the-art facilities and capabilities that exist at national defense related sites.
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Freimann Professor of Physics Ani Aprahamian was invited to take part in the 131st session of the Joint Institute of Nuclear Reactions (JINR) Scientific Council in Dubna (Russian Federation) on February 23-25, 2022. The science council was examining the 7-year development plans of the main laboratories of JINR which include Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Condensed Matter Physics.

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The 2022 Cornelius P. Browne Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics is shared between two graduate students. Orlando Olivas-Gomez was recognized for his work on searching for branching points in the p-process nucleosynthesis path, and August Gula for the measurements of nuclear reaction processes of interest for first stellar burning.…

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Adam Clark received the 2022 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 Adam’s work and dedication to the maintenance and operations of the SNICS source and the FN accelerator.…

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On February 7, 2022, John T. Wilkinson successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Novel Nuclear Reactions for Medical and Environmental Applications” advised by Professor Graham Peaslee. 

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Congratulations to Orlando Olivas-Gomez for successfully defending his Doctoral Dissertation on February 3, 2022. His thesis titled "CONSTRAINING THE γ-PROCESS USING HECTOR" advised by Professor Anna Simon-Robertson…

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Freimann Professor of Physics Michael Wiescher has published book Radioactivity - Volume II: Developments and Applications in the Modern Industrial Age…

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Daniel Burdette successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation on November 4, 2021. The title of his thesis is "Precision tests of the standard model at low energy via nuclear beta decay." advised by Professor Maxime Brodeur…

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The elements that make up our world were produced in various astrophysical environments. Some are produced in the cores of stars and some in violent cataclysmic explosions such as supernovae. Notre Dame researchers have now unlocked a key piece of a puzzle in understanding how some rare-earth nuclei, such as Mo and Ru, are produced in the cosmos. Among supernovae researchers, there has been a long-standing debate on whether the production of elements heavier than Cu is terminated by what is called the Ni-Cu cycle. This new experimental result hints that this is not actually the case, as it found that the (p,α) reaction that produces the isotope ⁵⁶…

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Professor Ani Aprahamian has been elected to become the Chair of the IUPAP Commission on Nuclear Physics (C12). She replaces Professor Claes Faehlander of the University of Lund in Sweden. The commission that she chairs works closely with the OECD efforts globally.…

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Michael Wiescher, Freimann Professor of Physics published the biography “Arthur E. Haas – The Hidden Pioneer of Quantum Mechanics” at Springer. A German version is being published by the LIT Verlag in Vienna. Arthur E. Haas came to ND as a professor of physics in 1936 on the recommendation of Albert Einstein. At the time, he was a well known theoretical physicist who escaped from the growing dangers of fascism in Austria/Germany to the United States to build a new life.

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Prof. Anna Simon will lead a project to develop a neutron irradiation station (NIS) at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. NIS will utilize a high-intensity proton beam from the 5U accelerator to produce a flux of neutrons at energies up to a few MeV via nuclear reactions on low-Z targets. First of its kind in the U.S., NIS will deliver monoenergetic neutron beams with intensities of the order of 10⁸…

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Profesor Michael Wiescher, Freimann Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics (ISNAP) at the University of Notre Dame and founding director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) received the prestigious Wolfson Fellowship of the British Royal Society.

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Samuel Henderson successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation on June 22, 2021. The title of his thesis is "Studies of Nuclear Structure Via B(E2) Measurements in ⁷Be and ⁸Li" advised by Prof. Tan Ahn…

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Over the last few years CASPAR has driven forward with its for researching experimental plan. Work has continued through a global pandemic and underground blasting of nearby cavities. Students and faculty have pressed hard to complete crucial experiments before having to pause for extensive nearby excavations. Currently CASPAR has now been mothballed, but still has much to do.

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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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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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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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Nuclear Physics Professors Ani Aprahamian, Manoel Couder, James deBoer, Daniel Robertson and Anna Simon as well as research associate Dr. Xilu Wang and a fifth year graduate student Erika Holmbeck presented their research at the 9th Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics conference that took place from September 15^th to 20^th in Budenheim, Germany. 

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