Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

In two (d,3He) transfer reactions with MUST2 at GANIL and the split-pole at Orsay, we have determined the position of the proton-hole states in the neutron-rich 71Cu (N = 42) and 69Cu (N = 40) isotopes. We have found that in 71Cu the hole strength of the πf7/2 orbital lies at higher excitation energies than expected. From β-decay and laser spectroscopy, the πf5/2 first excited particle state in these isotopes was known to come down rapidly in energy when passing N = 40 and even become the ground state in 75Cu. This sudden energy shift has been explained in a number of theoretical works. The prediction for the f7/2 spin-orbit partner was that it would change in energy too through a related effect. Experimentally, the πf-17/2 proton-hole state is not known for N > 40. In 71Cu two 7/2- states around 1 MeV are candidates to be a proton-hole. The experiment at GANIL took place in March 2011. A secondary beam of 72Zn at 38 AMeV was produced by fragmentation and purified through the LISE spectrometer. The transfer reaction in inverse kinematics was studied with the MUST2 detectors plus four 20 µm silicon detector to identified the 3He of low kinetic energy. The excitation spectrum of 71Cu was reconstruct thanks to the missing mass method and the angular distributions were extracted and compared with a reaction model using the DWUCK4 and DWUCK5 code. From this work no states have been populated around 1 MeV concluding that the centroid of the πf7/2 lies at higher excitation energy. We then remeasured the single-particle strength in 69Cu in the corresponding (d,3He) reaction at Orsay in March 2013 in order to extend the existing data where 60% of the πf7/2 strength is missing and make sure that there is a consistent analysis of spectroscopic factors between both isotopes in order to well understood and well quantify the evolution of the f7/2 orbital when we start filling the vg9/2 orbital. In this second experiment we have performed the reaction in direct kinematics using a deuteron beam at 27 MeV provided by the tandem and a target of 70Zn of 18.7 µg/cm2. In this work we were able to extract three new angular distributions and we have measured a new part of the_πf7/2 strength. Finally in order to interpret the results we have obtained from those two experiments, state-of-the-art shell-model calculations have been carried out in collaboration with the Strasbourg group using the Antoine code. The valence space consists in a core of 48Ca with the valence orbitals for protons f7/2, p3/2, f5/2, p1/2 and the orbitals p3/2, f5/2, p1/2, g9/2, d5/2 for neutrons. The calculations have been done allowing 8p-8h and show that the strength is indeed at high energy and no f7/2 proton-hole state lies around 1 MeV in 71Cu.

There is a large effort in the U.S. neutrino physics community to develop the technologies necessary to build a 10 kiloton scale liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) detector for a long baseline neutrino facility (LBNF) that would have a broad physics reach, including a search for CP violation in the neutrino sector. To support this effort, a short baseline neutrino program based on LArTPC technology is being planned at Fermilab in the coming years, starting with the MicroBooNE experiment. Liquid argon scintillation light collection is an essential component of this R&D effort, as it can be used to determine event timing, reject cosmic backgrounds, and complement TPC-based particle reconstructions. In this talk we give the status of the US-based LAr program, highlighting the recently-built MicroBooNE detector. We will also discuss recent efforts to understand and improve liquid argon scintillation light collection efficiencies, and their implications for both the neutrino and dark matter communities.

Next generation radioactive ion beam facilities are being planned and built across the globe, and with them an incredible new array of exotic isotopes will be available for study. To keep pace with the state of nuclear physics research, both new detector systems and new target systems are needed. The Jet Experiments in Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics (JENSA) gas jet target is one of these new target systems, providing a target of light gas that is localized, dense, and pure. The JENSA system involves nearly two dozen pumps, a custom-built industrial compressor, and vacuum chambers designed to incorporate large arrays of both charged-particle and gamma-ray detectors. The JENSA gas jet target was originally constructed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for testing and characterization, and has now moved to the ReA3 reaccelerated beam hall at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University for use with radioactive beams. Details of the JENSA design, construction, commissioning, and future plans will be given.

Recent results have shown that neutron-rich nuclei become increasingly sensitive to three-nucleon forces, which are at the forefront of theoretical developments based on effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics. This includes the formation of shell structure, the spectroscopy of exotic nuclei, and the location of the neutron dripline. Nuclear forces also constrain the properties of neutron-rich matter, including the neutron skin, the symmetry energy, and the properties of neutron stars. We first discuss our understanding of nuclear forces based on chiral effective field theory and show how this framework makes unique predictions for many-body forces. Then, we survey results with three-nucleon forces in neutron-rich oxygen and calcium isotopes and for neutron-rich matter, which have been explored with a range of many-body methods. This shows that there is an exciting connection of three-nucleon forces with the exploration of extreme neutron-rich nuclei at rare isotope beam facilities and with forefront observations in astrophysics. Finally, we give an outlook on opportunities with chiral effective field theory for nuclei.

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars with phenomenal rotational stability that can be used as celestial clocks in a variety of fundamental physics experiments. One of these experiments involves using an array of precisely timed millisecond pulsars to detect perturbations due to gravitational waves. The gravitational waves detectable through pulsar timing will most likely result from an ensemble of supermassive black hole binaries. I will describe the efforts of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), a collaboration which monitors an array of over 40 millisecond pulsars with the Green Bank Telescope and Arecibo Observatory. The most recent limits on various types of gravitational wave sources will be presented, and I will show how these limits are already constraining models for galaxy formation and evolution and the tension of cosmic strings. I will then describe the dramatic gains in sensitivity that are expected from discoveries of millisecond pulsars, more sensitive instrumentation, improved detection algorithms, and international collaboration and show that detection is possible before the end of the decade.

Progress in experimental particle physics depends crucially on being able to carry out experiments at high energies and high luminosities, which implies that future experiments will take place in very high radiation areas. In order to perform these complex and expensive experiments new radiation tolerant technologies are being developed. Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) diamond is being studied as one such material. As a detector for high radiation environments CVD diamond benefits from its very low leakage current, low dielectric constant, fast signal collection and ability to operate at room temperature. I will present the state-of-the-art in diamond sensors and their radiation tolerance. I will give examples of their use in the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider as well as and their planned use for future energy frontier detectors.

The investigation of nuclear reactions from first principles is fundamental in order to bridge nuclear physics with the underlying QCD regime. Nowadays this valuable information is not only accessible for few-nucleon systems, but novel approaches are being developed also for medium-mass nuclei. Nuclear reactions induced by electromagnetic probes turn out to be very useful as the electromagnetic current is well known and a clean comparison with experimental data can be performed. I will present some of the recent highlights in the calculations of electromagnetic response functions, including applications to the pigmy resonance in neutron-rich oxygen isotopes and the studies of nuclear structure corrections in muonic atoms, aimed at shedding light on the proton-radius puzzle.

Noble gas solids (NGS) are a promising medium for the capture, detection, and manipulation of atoms and nuclear spins. They provide stable and chemically inert confinement for a wide variety of guest species. Because NGS are transparent at optical wavelengths, the guest atoms can be probed using lasers. Detection of single molecule emitters embedded in solids is now a mature field. Our goal is to develop this technique specifically for the purpose of measuring rare nuclear reactions. Such reactions are expected to produce tens to hundreds of nuclei which are subsequently captured within a NGS. In this talk, I will explore the prospects of studying the Ne-22(alpha,n)Mg-25 reaction, which is the rate determining step in the stellar nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclides produced via slow neutron capture.

This talk will discuss the synthesis of large-area, high-quality monolayers of nitrogen-, silicon- and boron-doped graphene sheets on Cu foils using ambient-pressure chemical vapor deposition (AP-CVD). Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) reveal that the defects in the doped graphene samples arrange in different geometrical configurations exhibiting different electronic and magnetic properties. Interestingly, these doped layers could be used as efficient molecular sensors and electronic devices. In addition, the synthesis of hybrid carbon materials consisting of sandwich layers of graphene layers and carbon nanotubes by a self-assembly route will be discussed. These films are energetically stable and could well find important applications as field emission sources, catalytic supports, gas adsorption materials and super capacitors. Beyond graphene, the synthesis of other 2-Dimensional materials will be described. In particular, we will discuss the synthesis of WS2 and MoS2 triangular monolayers, as well as large area films using a high temperature sulfurization of WOx clusters deposited on insulating substrates. We will show that depending on the substrate and the sizes of the oxide clusters, various morphologies of layered dichalcogenides could be obtained. In addition, photocurrent measurements on these materials will be presented. Our results indicate that the electrical response strongly depends on the laser photon energy. The excellent response observed to detect different photon wavelengths in MoS2, WS2 and WSe2 materials, suggest these materials could be used in the fabrication of novel ultrafast photo sensors. We have found using first principles calculations, that by alternating individual layers of different metal chalcogenides (e.g. MoS2, WS2, WSe2 and MoSe2) with particular stackings, it is possible to generate direct band gap bi-layers ranging from 0.79 eV to 1.157 eV. Interestingly, in this direct band gap, electrons and holes are physically separated and localized in different layers. Recent experimental results will be shown along this line. It is clear that the alternation of chalcogenide layers would result in the fabrication of solids materials with unprecedented optical and physico-chemical properties.

We carry out a programmatic study of the fission process in nuclei, based on the nuclear density functional theory and its extensions, focusing on the actinide and transactinide regions. Our principal goal is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the nuclear fission process by taking advantage of state-of-the-art theoretical techniques, going far beyond the existing mean-field methods, and advanced computational tools, including the leadership-class computers. In this presentation, we will discuss our recent results for fission pathways in multidimensional spaces of collective coordinates, evaluation of the collective inertia, and the minimization of the collective action for fission.

As theoretical calculations of nuclear structure and reactions become more accurate and precise, there is increasing awareness of the need for better uncertainty quantification (UQ). Theory errors are usually systematic rather than statistical. Examples are the errors from using a finite harmonic oscillator basis and the errors from omitted higher-order terms in an effective field theory (EFT) expansion. I will focus on UQ in nuclear EFT calculations and illustrate how a Bayesian framework can be used to avoid overfitting of EFT constants, propagate EFT truncation errors, and diagnose whether the EFT is working as advertised.

The superconducting in-flight separator BigRIPS [1-3] at the RIKEN RI Beam Factory (RIBF) [4,5], which became operational in March 2007, has been used to produce a variety of rare isotope (RI) beams by using in-flight fission of a 238U beam as well as projectile fragmentation of various heavy-ion beams such as 18O, 48Ca, 70Zn, 124Xe, etc. Its major features are large ion-optical acceptances, two-stage structure, and excellent performance in particle identification [6,7]. These features of the BigRIPS separator have made it possible to efficiently produce RI beams, allowing us to expand the region of accessible rare isotopes and advance studies on exotic nuclei significantly. In this talk I will overview the search for new isotopes and new isomers that we conducted exploiting the features of the BigRIPS separator. The talk will be organized as follows: 1) Brief introduction of the RIKEN RIBF 2) Overview of the BigRIPS separator 3) Search for new isotopes using a 238U beam and a 124Xe beam at 345 MeV/u 4) Search for new isomers using a 238U beam at 345 MeV/u 5) Neutron drip-line search using an intense 48Ca beam at 345 MeV/u 6) Summary and perspectives [1] T. Kubo: Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 204 (2003) 97. [2] T. Kubo et al.: IEEE Trans. Appl., Supercond. 17 (2007) 1069. [3] T. Kubo et al.: Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 03C003 (2012). [4] Y. Yano: Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 261 (2007) 1009. [5] H. Okuno et al.: Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 03C002 (2012). [6] T. Ohnishi et al., J. Phys. Soc. Japan 79 (2010) 073201. [7] N. Fukuda et al.: Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 317 (2013) 323.

Core-collapse supernovae are the luminous explosions that herald the death of massive stars. Neutron stars, pulsars, magnetars, and black holes are all born in these explosions. Supernovae are the drivers of galactic chemical evolution, being responsible for the synthesis of most of the heavy elements throughout the universe. Additionally, a Galactic supernova should be detectable by neutrino and gravitational wave detectors, opening entirely new windows on the observable universe. Despite the importance of CCSNe to our understanding of many aspects of astrophysics, the mechanism that reverses stellar core collapse and drives these explosions is not fully understood. I will discuss the revolution underway in supernova theory made possible by high-fidelity 3D simulations. In particular, I will focus on my work revealing the paradigm-shifting importance of turbulence in aiding neutrino-driven supernova explosions, and how this turbulence is influenced by realistic 3D progenitor structure as well as magnetic fields. These new developments at the frontier of core-collapse supernova theory may lead to a solution for the long-standing problem of how massive stars explode.

The r-process, or rapid neutron capture process, of nucleosynthesis is responsible for about half the elements with mass number greater than 100. The astrophysical site of the production of the r-process elements remains a mystery. I will discuss two approaches to this problem. The first is to look at certain aspects of the abundance pattern and associate these with combinations of specific astrophysical conditions and patterns of nuclear data. The second is to examine a particular environment, black hole accretion disks, and to see how a special type of neutrino oscillation phenomenon produces very neutron rich.

After nearly four decades, the axion, a hypothetical elementary particle, still represents the best solution to the Strong-CP problem, i.e. why the neutron has a vanishingly small electric dipole moment. Should the axion exist, it would be extremely light, and possess extraordinarily feeble couplings to matter and radiation, far beyond the reach of conventional particle physics experiments. Very light axions would also have been produced abundantly during the Big Bang, and thus the axion represents a well-motivated dark matter candidate. This talk will describe the development of the world’s most sensitive spectral radio receiver to detect the axion, and related searches for axions in the laboratory and from the Sun’s burning core.

Thermonuclear supernovae are some of the most spectacular explosive events in the Universe, converting about a solar mass of C/O-rich white dwarf material into intermediate mass (Si, Ca, etc) and iron-group (Fe, Ni, etc) elements in roughly a second. The kinetic energy imparted by the blast wave to the plasma is enough to unbind the entire white dwarf, which expels enriched material into the surrounding interstellar space at mildly relativistic speeds ( 0.1c). The fact that the majority of thermonuclear supernovae explode with similarly-shaped lightcurves allows them to be used as standardizable distance indicators; this enabled a Nobel Prize in 2011 by showing that the Universe's expansion is accelerating. In spite of their observational standardization, we still don't know the exact progenitor systems for these explosions as archival data has not shown a direct detection of the progenitor, but only placed constraints on particular models. I will discuss some of my recent work with collaborators on simulating the so-called "Single-Degenerate, Chandrasekhar-Mass" (MCh) model, whereby accretion of material onto a white dwarf from a non-degenerate companion star heats and compresses the core of the white dwarf to the point of carbon fusion. I will emphasize the different computational techniques one uses to study the problem from end-to-end, including the difficulty of linking each phase of the evolution. In particular, I will show the results of our linking the low Mach number convective evolution resulting from core carbon fusion to the evolution of a turbulent thermonuclear flame as it burns its way toward the surface of the white dwarf. These high-resolution simulations are at the forefront of three-dimensional thermonuclear supernova modeling, especially for the MCh model, but still leave room for improvement both in terms of the nuclear physics and models of turbulence-flame interactions.

The ARIEL project at TRIUMF is a ten year initiative to provide a three-fold increase in the RIB delivery hours for the existing ISAC I & II experimental facilities. In brief the project consists of augmenting the present 500MeV (50kW) proton driver beam from the cyclotron and associated ISAC target stations with the addition of a new superconducting electron linac driver of 50MeV (0.5MW) and a second 500MeV (50kW) proton beam driver from the cyclotron together with two new target stations and low energy RIB delivery systems. An initial phase of the ARIEL installation including a 30MeV stage of the e-Linac is now complete. The first acceleration of electrons crowns a successful five year development program in 1.3GHz accelerator technology within the TRIUMF Superconducting RF Department. The seminar will highlight aspects of the developments leading up to the initial beam tests. The SRF Department also engages in external collaborations in both technical and fundamental investigations to directly benefit an active student program. Recent progress includes technical support for the RISP project in Korea and SRF material studies in collaboration with Cornell, FNAL and PKU. In particular the muSR facility at TRIUMF has been used to characterize RRR Nb, doped Nb and Nb3Sn. Results and future plans of this program will be presented.

The anomalous abundances that can be found in the most metal-poor stars reflect the evidently large diversity of nuclear production sites in stars and stellar explosions, and the cosmological conditions of their formation. Significant progress in our predictive understanding of nuclear production in the early universe is finally made through advancing capabilities to perform large-scale 3D stellar hydrodynamic simulations of the violent outbursts of advanced nuclear burning. When complemented with comprehensive nucleosynthesis simulations we can characterize the chemical evolution of stellar populations. These are the underpinnings to decipher the messages from the early universe hidden in the anomalous abundances of metal poor stars. However, to exploit the full potential the multiple layers and pillars of this research must be integrated by complex computational approaches.

About half of all elements heavier than iron are synthesized by the slow neutron capture process (s-process). The main site of the s-process is confirmed both observationally and theoretically to be evolved red giant stars on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). Even so we are still a long way from having accurate, quantitative theoretical predictions of s-process production from AGB stars covering the full range of mass. That is, stars with initial masses between about 0.8 to 8 solar masses and perhaps up to 10 solar masses (the super-AGB stars). In this talk I will focus on recent highlights of my research including a discussion of important problems and modeling uncertainties. I will look at how the initial helium abundance effects stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis in surprising ways, at the clues emerging from observations of post-AGB stars, and how small changes in nuclear physics data can profoundly affect stellar nucleosynthesis and our understanding of the origin of the elements.

Our present knowledge of atomic nuclei suggests that some 6000 to 7000 distinct nuclear species live long enough to be created and studied. A large majority of them are unstable and decay by beta disintegration. As a result it is very often through beta decay studies that we gain our first knowledge of the first of a nucleus. Beta decay studies are of particular interest far from the stability where the Q-beta values are large and many states are energetically accessible. However it is in these very interesting cases where beta decay probabilities are most difficult to determine experimentally. The reason is the “Pandemonium Effect”, which introduces systematic errors in measurements carried out with standard techniques. In this colloquium I will introduce the Total Absorption Spectroscopy (TAS) technique, the experimental remedy for, “Pandemonium”. I will present applications of the method to problems of very different nature such as the first clear observation of the Gamow Teller Resonance in beta decay, deducing the shape of the ground state of a nucleus from its beta decay, solving part of the long standing discrepancy in the gamma component of fission reactor decay heat and contribution to a better determination of the reactor antineutrino spectra.

With their remarkable structural, thermal, mechanical, optical, chemical, and electronic properties, carbon nanomaterials cross many disciplinary boundaries. For example, a graphene sheet can be made into a high-performance transistor, but it is also the ultimate realization of a thin mechanical sheet. Such sheets, first studied in detail by August Föppl over a hundred years ago, are notoriously complex, since they can bend, buckle, and crumple in a variety of ways. The problem gets more interesting with graphene and nanotubes, as they undergo thermal fluctuations that completely alter their emergent “macro” properties. In this talk, we will discuss experiments to probe these unusual materials. First, individual carbon nanotubes are picked up and strained with micron-sized tweezers, allowing us to simultaneously study their optical, electronic, and vibrational properties, including recording the “sound” of a single nanotube. Similar tricks are performed with graphene to probe decades-old predictions of the stiffness of 2D membranes. Finally, we discuss how the Japanese paper art of kirigami (kiru = ‘to cut’, kami = ‘paper’) applied to graphene offers a route to mechanical metamaterials and opens the door to meeting Feynman’s last, as yet unmet, challenge: the construction of nanoscale machines.

Most of the elemental abundances beyond the so-called iron peak of the solar abundance distribution are produced by neutron-capture reactions in the r and s processes. However, there are about 35 isotopes on the proton-rich side of the valley of stability that are shielded against these reaction chains. These isotopes are usually referred to as p nuclei and are thought to be produced by different mechanisms in a number of astrophysical scenarios. One of these scenarios is a thermonuclear or type Ia supernova explosion. Thermonuclear supernovae provide a hot scenario where the p nuclei can be synthesized by the "y" process and also by a series of proton-capture reactions. The reactions producing the most abundant p nucleus 92Mo and their experimental investigation will be presented, e.g., recent results on the investigation of the 90Zr(p,"y") reaction using high-resolution "y"-ray spectroscopy at Cologne, Germany, and steps towards the study of the 91Nb(p,"y") reaction in direct kinematics at FRANZ, Frankfurt, Germany. Future possibilities at different experimental facilities will be discussed in a detailed outlook.

Physicists have been attempting to measure the mass of the neutrino since the first theoretical proposals by Enrico Fermi, with particularly interest emerging since neutrino oscillations confirm that the masses are not zero. Current attempts to measure the neutrino mass require high-precision, high-throughput electron spectrometers to measure tritium beta decay, but known electrostatic techniques are reaching the end of their scalability. Here we show the first single-electron detection in a novel spectrometer. We detect single-electron cyclotron radiation emitted from mildly-relativistic electrons in a gaseous radioactive source. A relativistic shift in the cyclotron frequency provides a precise electron energy measurement, providing proof-of-concept for this technique's utility in future tritium neutrino mass searches.

Merging binaries containing two neutron stars (NSs) or a NS and a black hole (BH) are primary candidates for direct detection in gravitational waves by ground-based interferometers such as Advanced LIGO. These mergers are also thought to be an important site of r-process element generation. Simultaneous detection of gravitational waves with an optical or infrared (IR) counterpart would greatly aid in the localization of these sources, improving parameter extraction from the gravitational wave signal and providing additional information about the system. I will discuss the processes that generate electromagnetic emission in a compact object merger. In particular, I will describe a research program aimed at predicting the properties of a supernova-like optical/IR transient powered by the radioactive decay of r-process elements (a "kilonova").

The collective and single-particle structure of nuclei in the Sn-132 region was studied by Coulomb excitation and heavy-ion induced transfer reactions. Coulomb excitation was used to determine a complete set of electromagnetic moments for the first 2+ states and one-neutron transfer was used to probe the purity and evolution of single-neutron states. The double-magic nature of Sn-132 and the emergence of collectivity will be discussed. These experiments were conducted at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility (HRIBF) at ORNL using a CsI-HPGe detector array (BareBall-CLARION) for scattered particles and gamma rays. A survey of the equipment, techniques, and results will be presented. An emphasis will be placed on unique opportunities with 3-MeV/u beams. *This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics and this research used resources of the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

The explosions at Fukushima were the direct result of interactions between water and the Zr cladding on the fuel that led to the production of hydrogen gas at high temperature. A large research effort to develop accident tolerant fuels for use in light water reactors has been undertaken to attempt to develop fuels that are safer under accident conditions. Our research group has looked at potential claddings such as ZrC, ZrN, and SiC. Specifically, we are using synchrotron radiation techniques to collect data that can be used by modelers to evaluate the performance of reactor components in extreme environments (temperature, neutron flux, chemistry). In our lab, we are growing materials, then studying their behavior under these extreme conditions. We work with theorists to adjust models to better predict the experimental results. This talk will focus on ZrC and SiC that may be used in TRISO fuel applications.

Presolar dust grains are solid samples of stars available for study in the laboratory. They are extracted from old, primitive meteorites and are identified by their exotic isotopic compositions that match the compositions of circumstellar dust grains. Their study provides information regarding nucleosynthesis, mixing, and stellar outflows that can be complementary to what is obtained by observational and theoretical astrophysical studies. Before the grains were incorporated into Solar System materials 4.568 billion years ago, they were exposed to galactic cosmic rays on their trajectories from their stellar sources. The analysis of cosmogenic nuclides in presolar grains provides a way of estimating their ages, the oldest ages of any solid samples determined in the laboratory. In my talk I will give examples of knowledge generated by the study of presolar grains. I will particularly focus on presolar exposure ages and will discuss implications for the understanding of the lifecycle of interstellar dust.

Hot dense neutron stars are formed in the inner most regions of massive stars during core collapse supernovae and during the merger of two neutron stars. Copious numbers of photons, neutrinos, and newly formed nuclei are produced during these events. In particular, the heavy r-process nuclei are likely produced in one or both of these scenarios. In these environments, nuclear physics, hydrodynamics, and gravity play paramount roles in determining the evolution of the dense object itself, what nuclei are synthesized, and the properties of the emitted radiation. I will first discuss the physics of the inner most regions core-collapse supernovae. This part of the talk will focus on my work studying neutrino emission from protoneutron stars, which has constrained both the late time neutrino signal and possible modes of nucleosynthesis in these events. Second, I will discuss nucleosynthesis in material ejected during binary neutron star mergers and my work predicting optical transients powered by the decay of ejected radioactive nuclei. I will highlight some of the uncertainties that exist in both of these scenarios, and how these uncertainties can be reduced with future theoretical and computational work with input from current and next generation observational and experimental facilities.

The nature of neutrino mass is one of the open questions in neutrino physics. Observation of neutrinoless double beta decay is a way to demonstrate the Majorana nature of neutrinos, establish lepton number non-conservation, and determine the effective neutrino mass. The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a double beta decay experiment based on large-scale cryogenic bolometers currently under construction at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. Its primary goal is to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in the region of the so-called inverted mass hierarchy. This talk will review recent results from the CUORE-0 demonstrator experiment and discuss the status and physics potential of CUORE. I will also survey ongoing R&D efforts that aim to extend the reach of bolometer-based detectors for next-generation double-beta decay experiments.

Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA), a MOT-based atom counting method developed in the late 1990s by Zheng-Tian Lu at Argonne National Laboratory, can be used to analyze three noble gas radioisotopes (81Kr, 85Kr, 39Ar) covering a wide range of geological ages and has many important applications including monitoring nuclear proliferation with atmospheric 85Kr, monitoring ocean currents with 39Ar (climate change), ultra-pure noble gas detectors with 85Kr (dark matter), dating underground water with 81Kr (replenishment rates for underground aquifers), and measuring the age of ice core samples with 81Kr (climate history). The isotopic abundances are extremely low, in the range of 10-16 – 10-11. Yet, ATTA can trap and unmistakably detect these rare isotopes one atom at a time. The system at Argonne National Laboratory is currently limited by the excitation efficiency of the RF discharge that produces the metastable atoms needed for laser cooling and trapping. The Smith College Atomic Physics Laboratory plans to build the next version of ATTA by replacing the RF discharge with a photon excitation scheme that employs a two-photon transition at 215 nm. The optical source is a frequency quadrupled Ti-Sapphire laser coupled to a power-build-up optical cavity. The predicted metastable transfer efficiency is 0.9, far larger than current methods that use a discharge source with an efficiency of 10-3. The ATTA built at Smith College will be at least 100 times more sensitive than the current best version of ATTA. This highly effective apparatus will be the only ATTA in the world sensitive enough to measure the age of ice core samples and the only United States based ATTA dedicated to monitoring nuclear proliferation. This talk will cover how atomic physics is used to perform trace analysis, the current state of the field, and plans for the future at Smith College.

Abstract: Over the last thirty years, nuclear spin-polarized noble gases have been used as polarized nuclear targets for electron scattering experiments, sources for signal in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), systems to search for violations of fundamental symmetries & exotic short range forces,and spin filters for neutron scattering experiments. This broad range of applications is due to the many favorable properties of noble gases. They are chemically inert which makes them harmless in biological contexts. Because He-3 and Xe-129 both have a nuclear spin of 1/2,hours long spin precession times are attainable in suitably uniform magnetic fields. Large volumes of highly polarized gas are readily produced using two different but closely related techniques: metastability exchange optical pumping and spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP). In this talk, I will discuss the physics behind SEOP, show some examples of hyperpolarized gas MRI,and describe a new search for the permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of Xe-129. Significant advances in the efficiency of SEOP are due to improvements in laser technology and the increased understanding of the underlying physics. Hyperpolarized gas MRI provides detailed images of, among other things, the void space in lungs, which is used to study diseases such as asthma. Finally, our new search for the EDM of Xe-129 benefits from ultrasensitive magnetometry using superconducting quantum interference devices(SQUIDs) and the world's most quiet magnetic environment which is located in Munich, Germany.

Beam thermalization plays a pivotal role in the ability of projectile fragmentation facilities to produce low-energy ion beams. The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) employs a beam thermalization technique that involves first passing high-energy beams through solid degraders to remove the bulk of the beam’s kinetic energy. The remaining kinetic energy is then dissipated through collisions with the buffer gas atoms of a linear gas cell constructed by Argonne National Lab (ANL). A series of initial commissioning experiments for the gas cell were conducted using 76Ga beams produced at approximately 90 MeV/u in the A1900. The fast beams were delivered to the gas cell in a new momentum compression beam line, and the range distributions, extraction efficiency, and the overall efficiency of the system were measured as a function of the incident intensity. The data were compared to predictions from the LISE++ code [1] and stopping and range of ions in matter (SRIM) code [2]. Particle-in-cell (PIC) [3] calculations were carried out to evaluate the space charge produced by the stopping, and initial SIMION calculations [4] of the ion migration in the cell have been performed. Both the experimental and simulated results for the linear gas cell’s performance will be presented and discussed. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant PHY-11-002511 and by the Office of Nuclear Physics Contract DE_AC02_06CH11357. References: 1. O. Tarasov and D. Bazin, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B 266 (2008) 4657. 2. J.F. Ziegler, M.D. Ziegler, J.P. Biersack, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B 268 (2010) 1818. 3. R. Ringle, Intl. J. Mass Spectr. 303 (2011) 42. 4. D.A. Dahl, Intl. J. Mass Spectr. 200 (2000) 3.

Neutrons have been a useful probe in many fields of science as well as an important physical system for study in themselves. Modern neutron sources provide extraordinary opportunities to study a wide variety of physics topics. Among them is a detailed study of the weak interaction. In this talk, I will present an overview of studies of the hadronic weak (quark-quark) as well as semi-leptonic (quark-lepton) interactions, discussing the results from recently completed experiments as well as upcoming ones at the Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge and the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, MD. Nadia Fomin, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Tennessee

Colloquium March 19th, Thursday 4:10 pm, 1415 BPS Bldg. Recent measurements of higher-momentum back-to-back nucleon pairs from JLAB indicate a strong enhancement of neutron-proton over proton-proton pairs. I will argue that the interactions and currents associated with this enhancement also lead to large effects in inclusive electron and neutrino scattering from nuclei. These processes are crucial to understand the propagation of currents in the nucleus as well as extracting the fundamental properties of neutrinos from accelerator neutrino experiments.

Recent measurements of higher-momentum back-to-back nucleon pairs from JLAB indicate a strong enhancement of neutron-proton over proton-proton pairs. I will argue that the interactions and currents associated with this enhancement also lead to large effects in inclusive electron and neutrino scattering from nuclei. These processes are crucial to understand the propagation of currents in the nucleus as well as extracting the fundamental properties of neutrinos from accelerator neutrino experiments.

Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) are signatures of time-reversal (T), parity (P), and charge-parity (CP) violation. CP-violation beyond the Standard Model is generally believed to be required to explain the observed prevalence of matter over antimatter in the universe. Because of this discovery potential, there is a worldwide effort to search for EDMs in a variety of complimentary systems such as atoms, molecules, and neutrons. Diamagnetic atoms & molecules are primarily sensitive to T- & P-violating interactions originating within the nucleus. The best limits on these kinds of interactions are presently derived from the atomic EDM limit of the stable mercury isotope 199Hg. An attractive alternative are certain radioactive isotopes, such as radium-225 (225Ra), radon-223 (223Rn), and protactinium-229 (229Pa), that have octupole deformed nuclei, which amplify the observable EDM by one to several orders of magnitude compared to nearly spherical nuclei such as 199Hg. In this talk, I will describe our first “proof-of-principle” measurement of the atomic EDM of 225Ra using laser cooling & trapping techniques as well as our plans for future improvements.

In this talk we examine how high performance computing has changed over the last 10-year and look toward the future in terms of trends. These changes have had and will continue to have a major impact on our software. Some of the software and algorithm challenges have already been encountered, such as management of communication and memory hierarchies through a combination of compile--time and run--time techniques, but the increased scale of computation, depth of memory hierarchies, range of latencies, and increased run--time environment variability will make these problems much harder. We will look at five areas of research that will have an importance impact in the development of software and algorithms

Future experiments propose to make precision measurements of parameters in the neutrino mixing matrix, including the possibly maximal mixing angle theta23, and an unknown CP violating phase, dCP, by comparing the event rate of neutrinos and antineutrinos observed close to, and far from the source. Such 'near to far' extrapolation methods must achieve percent level understanding of neutrino and antineutrino interactions, in order to relate experimental observables to the oscillation probability, which depends on the neutrino energy. However, recent developments over the last 5 years demonstrate that our understanding of neutrino interactions is insufficient. In particular, the interaction of neutrinos on correlated pairs of nucleons has only recently been added to neutrino interaction simulations. The misidentification of these processes as interactions on a single nucleon result in significant bias to the measured mixing parameters, even when near detector information is included in the analysis. Furthermore, the rate of this process is not well characterized, with notable differences between models. A novel new near detector technique, nuPRISM can address uncertainties in the neutrino interaction models. The detector combines measurements of multiple neutrino fluxes to create a pseudo mono-energetic neutrino beam. Measurements of this flux provide a direct relationship between the neutrino energy and experimental observables, and minimizes neutrino interaction model dependance. This seminar will discuss the near to far extrapolation methods employed by current oscillation experiments with the T2K experiment as an example, the issues related to neutrino interactions which are relevant to future measurements of theta23 and dCP, and how the nuPRISM technique can be used to mitigate these issues.

Ultrafast electron scattering instrumentation is one of the most powerful tools for understanding the molecular energy conversion process and direct imaging of phonon transport at the nanoscale. SLAC launched the Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging (UED&UEM) initiative with the objective of developing the world leading ultrafast electron scattering instrumentation, complementary to the X-ray Free Electron Laser - Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). The objective of the SLAC initiative is to develop a UED&UEM facility will possess unique capabilities that enable Grand Challenge science in chemistry, material science, physics and biology. In addition, the ability to couple the UED&UEM measurements with linac-based intense THz and X-ray FEL pump pulses will open new scientific opportunities. The SLAC UED&UEM facility will take advantage of the recent developments in high-brightness ultrafast electron sources, high-field magnets and electron detection. It will provide direct access to atomic coordinates with temporal resolution down to 100 fs and even below in the diffraction (UED) mode. The ultrafast imaging capabilities of the SLAC UEM will represent a paradigm shift compared to present day facilities, and it can achieve 10-nanometer and 10-picosecond resolution in single-shot mode. To realize high temporal resolution required for the SLAC UED&UEM facility, a MeV high-brightness electron beam generated by a photocathode RF gun will be employed. This allows more electrons to be packed into each bunch, offering single-shot capabilities similar to those of x-rays from LCLS. A further important advantage of relativistic beams is that they eliminate the velocity mismatch between the electromagnetic pump pulses and the electron probe beam. This mismatch limits the time resolution of ultrafast dynamics for dilute samples, such as gas and liquid samples. In addition to the higher temporal resolution, MeV electrons can penetrate thicker samples. Finally, the higher electron beam energy leads to a larger elastic scattering cross section and a decrease in the inelastic scattering cross sections, increasing the diffraction signal and reducing inelastic scattering. As the first part of this initiative, SLAC developed a MeV Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) setup at the Accelerator Structure Test Area (ASTA) with the goal of providing MeV-, 100-femtosecond-scale electron pulses to support an ultrafast science program - ultrafast material science and gas phase small molecule structure dynamics. The ASTA UED performance and latest ultrafast science experimental results will be discussed.

While Hope College is active in MoNA, roughly 50% of our effort is based in-house with our own accelerator. The Hope College Accelerator is a 1.7 MV tandem accelerator making beams of protons or alpha particles. When combined with experience in detector technology, vacuum technology, data acquisition, data analysis, and some basic nuclear physics, a large variety of interesting questions can be addressed. Because of the smaller size of Hope College, often these questions arise during frequent interactions with sciences other than physics. The work that will be presented will be drawn from forensic characterization of glass and paint samples, testing of consumer products, characterization of metaloprotiens, measurements of electrodeposited thin films, characterization of thin nuclear targets, mineral characterization, industrial measurements, sediment measurements, and others (as time permits and based on audience interest).

The principles of quantum mechanics were introduced about a hundred years ago to explain the properties of microscopic systems like atoms and molecules. Recently, macroscopic systems in the form of electrical circuits containing billions of atoms have attained sufficient perfection that radiofrequency currents circulating in their wires can constitute single photons controllably exchanged with a measurement apparatus. These quantum circuits exploit both the dissipation-less character of superconductivity and the non-linearity of the Josephson effect. It is even now possible to design such macroscopic artificial atoms to perform functions unattainable with natural ones. Superconducting integrated circuits serving as quantum bits illustrate the problem of engineering a quantum electrodynamic system from top to bottom. A simple Lego-like set of three basic elements - linear capacitances, linear inductances and non-linear Josephson inductances - can be combined with almost no limitations. Can circuit architecture mitigate or even eliminate decoherence due to unavoidable defects of basic electrical components? This key question addressed to superconducting quantum bits will be discussed starting from the present entries of their Mendeleev table.

The principles of quantum mechanics were introduced about a hundred years ago to explain the properties of microscopic systems like atoms and molecules. Recently, macroscopic systems in the form of electrical circuits containing billions of atoms have attained sufficient perfection that radiofrequency currents circulating in their wires can constitute single photons controllably exchanged with a measurement apparatus. These quantum circuits exploit both the dissipation-less character of superconductivity and the non-linearity of the Josephson effect. It is even now possible to design such macroscopic artificial atoms to perform functions unattainable with natural ones. Superconducting integrated circuits serving as quantum bits illustrate the problem of engineering a quantum electrodynamic system from top to bottom. A simple Lego-like set of three basic elements - linear capacitances, linear inductances and non-linear Josephson inductances - can be combined with almost no limitations. Can circuit architecture mitigate or even eliminate decoherence due to unavoidable defects of basic electrical components? This key question addressed to superconducting quantum bits will be discussed starting from the present entries of their Mendeleev table.

The proposed Decay-At-rest Experiment for δCP violation At the Laboratory for Underground Science (DAEδALUS) and the Isotope Decay-At-Rest experiment (IsoDAR), search for CP violation in the neutrino sector and sterile (non-interacting) neutrinos, repectively. Both are short baseline experiments that use proton driver beams. In the IsoDAR case, a 60 MeV proton beam will impinge on a high purity lithium/beryllium target to produce isotope decay-at-rest and in DAEδALUS, 800 MeV protons will hit a carbon target to produce pion/muon decay-at-rest. The drivers are cyclotrons, because they are comparatively cheap, compact, and deliver the highest intensities in the considered energy range. In order to obtain the necessary high neutrino fluxes, the primary proton beam current needs to be even higher than current state-of-the-art machines at PSI have demonstrated. This has led to a substantial R&D effort on the accelerator side of DAEδALUS and IsoDAR. Two proposed methods to overcome space-charge and RF capture limitations during cyclotron injection are: Acceleration of H2+ instead of protons and using an RFQ buncher-pre-accelerator. In this seminar I will give a brief introduction to neutrino oscillations, present the proposed layouts of the two experiments, and discuss the latest design choices for our accelerator systems.

Science journals are being transformed by the internet: now their role appears to be to validate research, not to disseminate it. How is PRL in particular adapting in this changing environment? How do its editors determine which papers to publish? What guidelines would be helpful to you as an author and a referee? Why should you submit your work to PRL? I plan to address these and related issues, including changes we have implemented in the journal over recent months.

Type I Xray Bursts (XRBs) have been the focus of relatively successful one-dimensional modeling efforts since their discovery in the mid-70's. The one-dimensional hydrodynamic models reproduce the general luminosities and timescales of the events; more recently, with larger nuclear reaction networks, the nucleosynthesis of the explosive rp-process during the burst has been investigated in detail. Prior to peak luminosity, there is a period of turbulent convection that the one-dimensional models can not accurately treat. Furthermore, ignition is thought to occur in a single location on the neutron star surface and spread around the star as indicated in oscillations in luminosity during the burst rise; again, something that one-dimensional models can not capture. In this talk, I'll give an overview of the multidimensional treatments of XRBs in the literature, including the challenges of low Mach number multidimensional hydrodynamics, the successes and the shortcomings of our current understanding. I will discuss some of our latest results with three-dimensional models and our plans for improvement on modern computer architectures.

Physicists have successfully developed stunning images of the large scale structure of the universe. Can the subatomic world be imaged? For example, can the proton be pictured so that the non-specialist can understand its prominent structural features? Progress, challenges, and future prospects will be described in the talk.

The sensitivity of the upcoming generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors is expected to be predominantly limited by quantum optical noise. I will explore the origins of these quantum limits, and describe experimental progress toward circumventing them.

In both quiescent and explosive stellar burning, radiative capture reactions are inexorably involved in both energy generation and nucleosynthesis at some level. For example, in main sequence and giant-branch stars, and in core collapse supernovae, X-ray bursters and classical novae, these reactions may provide production or destruction mechanisms for important isotopic observables, or be critical ‘bottleneck’ reactions determining explosion energetics. Many of the crucial radiative capture reactions in which large rate uncertainties remain involve short-lived radioactive nuclei fusing with hydrogen or helium. With the advent of radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities in the last two decades, much progress has been made using accelerated RIBs to directly or indirectly measure the important cross sections. The DRAGON recoil separator facility at TRIUMF is built specifically to directly measure radiative capture cross sections at astrophysical energies using RIBs. In this talk I will focus on some reactions of importance and summarize their role in their respective stellar scenarios, and how they link to astronomical observables. I will describe the method behind measuring radiative capture cross sections using RIBs, and the principles of a recoil separator, highlighting some performance characteristics of DRAGON. I will also give examples of recent work with RIBs and their impact on the astrophysics, as well as some planned measurements using novel indirect methods where direct ones are as yet unachievable.

Neutrino-driven winds that follow core-collapse supernova explosions are an exciting astrophysical site for the synthesis of heavy elements. Although recent hydrodynamical simulations of the wind show that the conditions are not neutron-rich enough for the r-process, neutrino-driven winds may be the astrophysical site where lighter heavy elements between Sr and Ag are produced. The p-only nuclides 92,94Mo and 96,98Ru have raised interest since their nucleosynthesis origin in the solar system (SoS) is a long lasting mystery. We have performed systematic nucleosynthesis study to identify the necessary conditions for the synthesis of the Mo and Ru isotopes based on neutrino-driven winds and have investigated whether the wind can explain the SoS abundances of 92,94Mo and 96,98Ru . In neutron-rich winds, (α,n) reactions are key to move matter towards heavier elements. Due to the deficit of experimental information, most of the reactions rates are calculated with statistical models. We will present the impact of uncertainties in (α,n) reaction rates on the nucleosynthesis of elements between Sr and Ag in neutrino-driven winds.

In this talk I will give first a brief review on what we know about neutrino-nucleon and -nucleus interactions. I will then discuss a transport-theoretical framework to describe neutrino-nucleus interactions and give some details on the GiBUU implementation. I will illustrate the effects of these interactions in past (MiniBooNE) and ongoing (MINERvA, T2K) experiments and, finally, discuss some of the effects relevant for oscillation physics at LBNE (DUNE).

MINOS [1, 2, 3] is a new device dedicated to the in-beam spectroscopy of very exotic nuclei in inverse kinematics by proton-induced knockout reactions at the RIBF from spring 2014. The MINOS device, developed at CEA Saclay from 2011, is composed of a thick liquid hydrogen target (5-20cm) [4], surrounded by a hollowed-out cylindrical Time Projection Chamber equipped with a bulk Micromegas pad detection plane [5]. The performance measurements of the MINOS TPC and electronics at the HIMAC facility [7] have been conducted in October 2013 with beams of 20Ne at 250 and 180 MeV/u, impinging on CH2 or C targets each with a 0.5 mm thickness and placed inside the beam pipe instead of the hydrogen target to be used during the physics experiments. This in-beam validation provides a characterization of the TPC, with a determination of the vertex resolution through the development of a tracking algorithm for the TPC. An enhanced collectivity was discovered in the N=40 Cr and Fe isotopes, but its evolution beyond N=40 and the maximum of collectivity remains unknown. The first campaign of the Shell Evolution And Search for Two plus Energies At the RIBF (SEASTAR) scientific program took place in Spring 2014 at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory. It focused on the first spectroscopy of the more neutron-rich attainable nuclei such as Cr and Fe N>40 isotopes via proton-knockout reactions with the unique coupling of the DALI2 gamma array [6] with the MINOS device. The first analysis results of the SEASTAR campaign will be presented with the first spectroscopy of 66Cr and 70,72Fe. 1. [1] A. Obertelli, proceedings in French-Japanese Symposium on Nuclear Structure Problems, Ed. by H. Otsu, T. Motobayashi, P. Roussel-Chomaz and T. Otsuka (2012). 2. [2] A. Obertelli et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 50, 8 (2014). 3. [3] http://minos.cea.fr 4. [4] A. Obertelli and T. Uesaka, Eur. Phys. J. A 47, 105 (2011). 5. [5] I. Giomataris et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. A 376, 29 (1996). 6. [6] S. Takeuchi et al., in RIKEN Accelerator Progress Report (RIKEN, 2005), col. 36, p. 148.

The study of exotic nuclei and their implication for Astrophysics have become a driving force in low-energy nuclear science, nationally recognized by the construction of the FRIB laboratory. To maximize the potential provided by beams of exotic nuclei, novel detector systems and analysis techniques must be developed, a current focus of the FSU group. I will discuss results from the first experiments conducted with the ANASEN active target detector at FSU, the proton elastic scattering off 8B and the 19O(d,p) transfer reaction. The second detector system, ResoNeut, is a compact setup of neutron detectors, coupled to charged particle and gamma-detectors. Using a radioactive 19Ne beam produced by RESOLUT at FSU and the ResoNeut setup, the 19Ne(d,n)20Na(p) reaction was studied. By populating proton resonances in 20Na, we are able to study states that are important for the astrophysically important 19Ne(p,gamma)20Na reaction. The spin-parities for the first two states above the proton threshold have been unambiguously assigned, and the implications on the 19Ne(p,gamma)20Na reaction rate will be discussed.

COMMITTEE: Morten Hjorth-Jensen, Co-chairperson Scott Bogner, Co-chairperson Alexandra Gade Brian O’Shea Piotr Piecuch

Although the overall time-scale for nuclear fission is long, suggesting a slow process, rapid shape evolution occurs in its later stages near scission. Theoretical prediction of the fission fragments and their characteristics are often based on the assumption that the internal degrees of freedom are equilibrated along the fission path. However, this adiabatic approximation may break down near scission. This is studied for the symmetric fission of fermium isotopes. The non-adiabatic evolution is computed using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock method with a BCS approximation of pairing correlations, starting from an adiabatic configuration where the fragments have acquired their identity. It is shown that dynamics has an important effect on the scission configuration and on the kinetic and excitation energies of the fragments. The vibrational modes of the fragments in the post-scission evolution are also analyzed.

You are welcome to attend.

Type I x-ray bursts are the most frequent thermonuclear explosions in the galaxy. Owing to their recurrence from known astronomical objects, burst morphology is extensively documented, and they are modeled very successfully as neutron-deficient, thermonuclear runaway on the surface of accreting neutron stars. While reaction networks include hundreds of isotopes and thousands of nuclear processes, only a small subset appear to play a pivotal role. One such reaction is 30S(alpha,p), which is believed to be a crucial link in the explosive helium burning responsible for the large energy flux. However, very little experimental information is available concerning the reaction rate itself, nor the 34Ar compound nucleus at the relevant energies. We performed the first study of the entrance channel via 30S alpha resonant elastic scattering using a state-of-the-art, low-energy, 30S radioactive ion beam. The measurement was performed in inverse kinematics using a newly-developed active target. An R-matrix analysis of the excitation function reveals previously unknown resonances, including their quantum properties of spin, parity, width, and energy. I then present a newly calculated astrophysical reaction rate.

Characterizing the nature of single-particle states outside of double shell closures is essential to a fundamental understanding of nuclear structure. This is especially true for those doubly magic nuclei that lie far from stability and where the shell closures influence nucleosynthetic pathways. The region around 100Sn is important due to the proximity of the N=Z=50 magic numbers, the proton drip line, and the end of the rp-process. However, owing to low production rates, there is a lack of spectroscopic information and no firm spin-parity assignment for ground states of odd-A isotopes close to 100Sn. Neutron knockout reaction experiments on beams of 108,106Sn have been performed at the NSCL. By measuring gamma rays and momentum distributions of the reaction residues, the spins of the ground and first excited states of 107,105 Sn have been established. The results are compared to eikonal-model reaction calculations. One-neutron knockout reactions from below the N = 50 closed shell have been observed and estimated with the measurement of inclusive and exclusive cross sections. A new level scheme for 107Sn with excitation energies up to 5.5 MeV is proposed and explained in terms of competition between decay and proton emission for the survival of the knockout residues

The search for a finite CP-violating neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) is motivated in order to understand the observed large matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe. It has become a worldwide endeavour which is followed by various research teams setting up experiments for improved measurements. Recently, a novel concept to measure a nEDM has been brought forward [F.M. Piegsa, Phys. Rev. C 88, 045502 (2013)]. It foresees to employ a pulsed neutron beam instead of the established use of storable so-called ultracold neutrons (UCN). The new technique takes advantage of the high peak intensity and the intrinsic time structure of next-generation pulsed spallation sources to directly measure the previously limiting relativistic v×E-effect. Such an experiment, e.g. set up at the planned European Spallation Source ESS in Sweden, would be complementary to planned experiments with UCN and could compete with their sensitivities. In this talk, I will describe this alternative approach including possible systematic effects and first test experiments at the spallation neutron source SINQ at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.

COMMITTEE: Remco Zegers, Chairperson B. Brown E. Brown S. Liddick A. Spyrou THESIS IS ON DISPLAY IN ROOM 1312 BPS BLDG. AND THE NSCL

β-decay angular correlation coefficients are very powerful probes to search for New Physics beyond the Standard Model. The angular correlations can be measured with high precision through kinematic reconstruction of a radioactive decay and their values can be compared to theoretical predictions to test a wide range of extensions of the Standard Model. In this talk I will describe our current effort to measure the beta-neutrino angular correlation coefficient (aβν) with trapped radioactive 8Li and 8B ions. The 8Li-8B radioactive mirror nuclei represent a particularly attractive system for these studies due to their small masses, large Q-value, and a triple- correlation that enhances the sensitivity to detect New Physics. Furthermore, it is possible to search for the existence of Standard Model-forbidden Second-Class Currents and to test the Conserved-Vector-Current hypothesis by comparing measurements of aβν of both species.

Granular matter, also known as bulk solids, consist of discrete particles with sizes between micrometers and meters. When handling granular matter in industries or process engineering, the relation between single particle motion and macroscopic behavior is still not well understood and experimentally challenging. For exploring the microscopic properties on a single particle level, 3D imaging techniques are required. Laser scanning confocal microscopy of fluorescently labelled particles is a versatile method getting insights into 3D structures of bulk solids. To satisfy the requirements for confocal microscopy, new granular model systems in the wet and dry state were designed and prepared. In this work two different model systems, one for dry and one for wet granulates, were examined in 3D while a mechanical load was applied. In dry granulates the particle rotation plays a crucial role, when the bulk solid is sheared. To explore their entire particle motion with all degrees of freedom, a technique to visualize the rotation of spherical micrometer sized particles in 3D was developed. In wet granulates a binding liquid drives the local bulk structure and also the bulk mechanics. To examine the 3D structure of the binding liquid on the micrometer scale independently from the particles, the existing confocal microscope setup was further developed. A second illumination and detection beam path for the simultaneous observation of both phases was implemented. Confocal microscopy in combination with nanoindentation gave new insights into the single particle motions and dynamics of granular systems under a mechanical load. These novel experimental results can help to improve the understanding of the relationship between bulk properties of granular matter, such as volume fraction or yield stress and the dynamics on a single particle level.

Committee: Man-Yee B. Tsang, Chairperson E. Brown P. Danielewicz W. Lynch P. Zhang

Committee: Georg Bollen, Chairperson A. Gade D. Morrissey S. Tessmer V. Zelevinsky

The aim of this proposal is to use the NSCL to study the radiobiology of heavy ion, microbeam radiation therapy (HIMRT). In particular, we will study how HIMRT affects normal tissues and radiation resistant cancers. Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) is an experimental radiation therapy (RT) technique that is showing promise in enhancing outcomes of cancer treatment. MRT uses high-intensity, thin “slits” of radiation, such as photons or protons. The beams are narrow enough to consider how an array of cells responds to very high doses of ionizing radiation, while cells a short distance away experience a substantially reduced dose. In contrast, the response to conventional radiation therapy (CRT) is linked to the homogeneous distribution of radiation over larger volumes. MRT is being investigated as a method to treat cancers that are resistant to CRT. Investigators hypothesize that very small radiation beams can induce microscopic changes that cancerous tissues have more difficulty repairing than normal tissues. When comparing MRT to CRT, investigators are concluding that the viability of normal tissues is significantly higher after MRT treatment and that genetic damage to normal tissue is significantly reduced. They project that this might bolster normal tissue protection during treatment. The largest pre-clinical data is being presented from European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) using low-energy, photon-based MRT to irradiate animals. Experiments at ESRF observe favorable results suppressing and ablating tumors, even for very aggressive, radiation resistant tumors. In addition, they demonstrate the ability to control intracranial tumor growth in rodents while sparing normal tissue. Irradiated duck embryos show that normal brain tissue has approximately a 10-fold increase in radiation tolerance for MRT as compared to CRT, which is crucial to maintaining the brain’s function following treatment. Though these results are encouraging, most MRT facilities are hamstrung by their use of low photon energies that have limited penetration and intensity. This reduces their therapeutic capabilities for humans. The use of broad beam heavy ion RT (i.e. carbon ion RT facilities located in Japan, Italy, Germany and China) is ideal for targeted RT, due to its penetration capabilities and sharp Bragg-peak, and has an enhanced radiobiological response due to its high linear energy transfer. By combining heavy ion charge particle therapy with MRT, HIMRT will achieve a superior balance of tumor control versus complications than with either broad beam heavy ion RT or MRT alone.

Fermilab's Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) is a small storage ring designed for testing advanced accelerator physics concepts, including implementation of nonlinear integrable beam optics, mitigation of space charge effects and experiments on optical stochastic cooling. The machine is currently under construction at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology facility. In this talk we present the goals and the current status of the project, and describe the details of machine design.

Physical Review Letters publishes over 2,500 scientific articles per year while maintaining its presence as the premier physics journal. This talk will provide an overview of our editorial process and policies and address questions frequently raised by our authors, referees and readers. Upcoming projects and policy changes will be discussed and I will reflect on how PRL needs to orient itself in the rapidly changing landscape of scientific publishing.

For pedagogical and research applications, I will describe retrieval capabilities of nuclear data, in particular, experimental nuclear structure data from a variety of unique databases available at the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC). These databases are primarily a product of DOE's US-Nuclear Data Program (USNDP), a collaborative effort of participants from several US National Laboratories and universities. I will also give a short demonstration of the structure related databases, in particular NSR, XUNDL and ENSDF.

In astrophysical nuclear accretion environments, like those emerging from neutron star mergers, neutrinos do more than carry away energy and lepton charge; they can pump a relativistic jet, blow off nuclear matter to enrich the disk's environment, and modify the nucleosynthesis occurring in that matter. We use ray tracing to get a picture of the neutrino field in relativistic hydrodynamics simulations. In this seminar, I will describe two neutrino ray tracing applications: 1) estimating the energy deposited in the jet-formation region of a disk by neutrino-antineutrino annihilations, and 2) computing the effect of neutrino flavor transformations on the nucleosynthesis occurring in disk winds.

Ultra metal-poor (UMP) stars are believed to be formed from gas clouds enriched by the supernovae explosions of the very first, Population III, stars to form in the universe. By measuring detailed abundance patterns of UMP stars, it is possible to infer the main features of their Pop III progenitors, such as mass and explosion energy. These are crucial to understand the slope of the initial mass function at the early universe, and also constrain models of the chemical (and dynamical) evolution of the Galaxy. In this talk, I will report on the discovery of a new UMP star from SDSS/SEGUE, as well as an effort to match all the UMP stars observed to date with a set of supernova models. Results are consistent with a massive (20-30Mo), low-energy progenitor population, which is capable of reproducing the observed chemical abundance patterns in UMP stars.

I will begin by providing an overview of the breadth of basic and applied nuclear science at Los Alamos, and then give a perspective on plutonium research at the laboratory, as we have reached 75 years since plutonium's discovery. I will describe plutonium fission research in experiments at LANSCE, and theory work in the Theoretical Division. Particular emphases will be on: fission neutron spectra, which are difficult to measure accurately owing to numerous background processes that can bias a measurement; radiative neutron capture in actinides; and fission product yields, which are important for plutonium burnup diagnostics. In addition to these data that are needed for nuclear applications, I will summarize the role of 244Pu in superheavy element research and in r-process nucleosynthesis considerations.

The Type I Bursts, thermonuclear explosions on the surface layers of accreting neutron stars, produce extremely bright X-ray flashes that outshine all the other emission for tens of seconds. Their lightcurves encode information about star parameters such as spin, mass and radius that are key to constraining the long sought for equation of state of the matter in the interior of the neutron stars. However, to be able to fully disentangle that information from the observations, we need a solid understanding of how the burning flame propagates across the surface. The mathematical complexity of the problem makes non-approximate analytical solutions impossible and we have to rely on numerical simulations. I will present the results of ab initio calculations of the flame spreading, describing the physical mechanisms behind the propagation and their dependence on the star parameters.

After nearly four decades, the axion, a hypothetical elementary particle, still represents the best solution to the Strong-CP problem, i.e., why the neutron has a vanishingly small electric dipole moment. Should the axion exist, it is expected to be extremely light, and possess extraordinarily feeble couplings to matter and radiation, far beyond the reach of conventional particle physics experiments. Such very light axions would also have been produced abundantly during the Big Bang, and thus the axion represents a well-motivated dark matter candidate. This talk will describe the development of the world’s most sensitive spectral radio receiver to detect the axion, and related searches for axions in the laboratory and from the Sun’s burning core.

Committee: Christopher Wrede, Chairperson A. Brown L. Chomiuk W. Fisher A. Spyrou

Life in a control room can be very interesting - especially when commissioning a new accelerator. This seminar will present the experiences and lessons learned during the NSLS-II commissioning from an operator’s perspective. Emphasis will be on describing the control system tools and our use of Control System Studio. Operational policies and practices regarding the control system will also be discussed.

The LCLS-II is an X-ray FEL upgrade to the existing LCLS X-ray FEL at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC). The facility will be based on a new 4 GeV CW SCRF linac which is being constructed by a collaboration of Cornell University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and SLAC. This talk will describe the overall layout and technical challenges as well as the supporting R&D.

Abstract: Core-collapse supernovae are amongst the most extreme laboratories for nuclear physics in the universe. Stellar collapse and the violent explosions that follow give birth to neutron stars and black holes, and in the process synthesize most of the elements heavier than helium throughout the universe. The behavior of matter at supranuclear densities is crucial to the supernova mechanism, as are strong and weak interactions. Beyond Standard Model behavior of neutrinos may also impact the supernova mechanism. Despite the key role core-collapse supernovae play in many aspects of astrophysics, and decades of research effort, we still do not understand the details of the physical mechanism that causes these explosions. This leaves frustratingly large error bars on many key aspects of our theoretical understanding of the universe, and also makes it difficult to constrain uncertain nuclear physics with data from supernova observations. I will discuss the current state-of-the-art in supernova theory, with a particular emphasis on 3D simulations. I will highlight areas where nuclear physics inputs are critical to the supernova mechanism and discuss future work to further explore these sensitivities and connections.

COMMITTEE: Daniel Bazin, Chairperson M. Hjorth-Jensen W. Mittig K. Tollefson R. Zegers

Resonances play a pivotal role in much of physics including nuclear physics: they appear as an extension of the spectrum of stationary states into the continuum, and in the same way as the bound states they are linked to the structure of the systems hosting them. In nuclear astrophysics reaction rates are in many cases indirectly determined by measuring properties of resonances in the relevant energy region of the continuum. While in the limit of narrow resonances this is all uncontroversial, the applicability of the resonance concept is more unclear for broad continuum structures. In this talk I will discuss recent experiments on mainly 8Be, 12C and 16O. In these systems the lowest threshold encountered is that for α­decay, and around this threshold resonances are found, which are essential for nuclear astrophysics and also related to the cluster structure of these nuclei. The experimental challenge is to precisely determine properties of these resonances with very short lifetimes, or correspondingly very large widths, due to their strong coupling to the α­decay channels. We use the weak interaction as a method to selectively populate the resonances of interest at the ISOLDE facility at CERN, and facilities in Finland, the Netherlands and the US. I will discuss the relevance of our results for understanding the cluster structure of these systems, as well as the triple­alpha and 12C(α,ᵯþ)16O reactions. Recently we have developed a new method to study short­lived nuclear resonances with electromagnetic transitions. The advantage of this method is that the selectivity of the transition can be tuned by proper choice of the initial state. We use this method to further elucidate resonances in 8Be, 12C and 16O of relevance for understanding the cluster structure of these nuclei and their role in the cosmos. These experiments are carried out at Van der Graaff accelerators in Aarhus. Finally we use model calculations to explore the validity of the resonance concept for the interpretation of continuum structures in populated in β­decay, ɣ­decay, and reactions.

The light curves and spectra of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) depend on multiple factors, such as the neutron excess in the chemical composition of the white dwarf (WD) progenitor, the central density of the WD, and the mechanism that triggers the detonation. These factors also play a central role in the nucleosynthesis that happens in SNe Ia. I describe recent hydrodynamic simulations and radiation transport calculations I and my collaborators have done for a variety of SNe Ia models. I discuss how recently identified properties of the optical and gamma-ray light curves and spectra, and the X-ray spectra from supernova remnants can be used to constrain the initial conditions and the explosion mechanism(s) in SNe Ia, improving our understanding of them. I then discuss how these properties can be used to determine the production of chemical elements in SNe Ia, which places constraints on nuclear reaction rates and is essential to modeling galactic chemical evolution. These results highlight the role of SNe Ia as nuclear laboratories in space.

The panoply of known physics required to fully determine the mechanism and phenomenology of core-collapse supernovae (CC SNe) is prodigious, and the feedbacks involved make the problem close to intractable. However, our understanding has been considerably enhanced via the insight gained from simulations on supercomputers. These simulations are among the largest and most complex numerical experiments ever undertaken. Neutrino transport approximations, spatial dimensionality, and affordable complexity in nuclear kinetics continue to be among the primary limitations on physical fidelity in core-collapse supernova simulations, even on today's petascale platforms. We have recently conducted a series of numerical experiments to examine the effects of several approximations used in multidimensional core-collapse supernova simulations. I will describe some of the results of these studies, including what approximations seem unrealistic.

Since 1956, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) has pursued the same basic mission – bring the best scientific, technical, and analytic talent to bear on issues critical to U.S. National security, in a research environment free of commercial or shareholder interests where objectivity and the public interest are foremost. This talk will present an overview of IDA and its Systems and Analyses Center, along with snapshots of programs related to Naval mine countermeasures, ballistic missile defense, and nuclear weapons effects.

The neutron mean lifetime of about 15 minutes is currently known to a precision of about one second, but the central value has shifted by over five seconds in recent years and a several second discrepancy has appeared between the two main methods of measurement, observing neutron decay in a beam of cold neutrons and counting surviving ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) after storage in a material-walled bottle. We have therefore developed a new experiment, UCNtau, based on storage of UCNs in a magnetic-walled bottle, in order to resolve the existing discrepancies and eventually push the uncertainty on the neutron lifetime down to the sub-one second level. I will describe the latest results from UCNtau commissioning and the plans to study possible systematic effects with high statistical precision over the next years. I will also give an overview of the UCN Facility, which uses the 800 MeV LANSCE proton accelerator to produce UCNs and deliver them to a variety of fundamental and applied physics experiments, measuring properties of the neutron and its decay as well as low energy neutron material interactions.

One-nucleon transfer reactions, such as (d,p) and (p,d), have long been used to probed single-particle aspects of nuclear spectra, while two-nucleon transfer reactions are the probe of choice for the study of pairing correlations in atomic nuclei. In order to extract the desired information from the transfer cross sections, a consistent reaction and structure description of the process under study need to be implemented, in order to account for the intertwining between collective, pairing, and single-particle degrees of freedom, and integrate the theoretical structure description into the dynamical (reaction) aspect of the process. The recent (and foreseeable) availability of exotic beams calls for new developments in order to deal with their peculiarities, such as a high polarizability and the vicinity of the continuum. We are going to present some recent developments in the description of transfer in exotic, very weakly bound nuclei, the integration of the continuum in our description, and the description of the population of compound nuclei.

The rapid neutron capture process (r-process) is responsible for the synthesis of approximately half of the isotopes of the heavy elements. Despite this important role in stellar nucleosynthesis, many open questions remain, with the main one being the unknown site of the r-process. The astrophysical calculations that aim at reproducing the observed r-process abundance distribution suffer from the significant nuclear physics input uncertainties. Masses, β-decay half-lives, β-delayed neutron emission probabilities and neutron capture reaction rates are the main nuclear properties needed in r-process calculations. Out of these quantities, the neutron capture rates are by far the most uncertain due to the complete lack of experimental data along (or even close to) the r-process path. This talk will present a new experimental technique to extract neutron capture cross sections on short-live nuclei. The technique is called the “β-Oslo” technique and relies on the use of β-decay to populate the compound nucleus of interest and extract its nuclear level density and γ-ray strength function. These experimental quantities are then used as input in statistical model calculations to extract the (n,γ) reaction cross section.

The development of worldwide rare isotope beam facilities has brought many new insights in nuclear physics. In particular, novel structure in nuclei towards extreme isospin and spin has acquired great interest over the years for the challenges and implications it involves. Theoretically, covariant density functional theory (CDFT) has achieved great success in describing many nuclear phenomena over the past several decades. In this talk, I will highlight recent progress in improving and extending the nuclear CDFT, which are motivated by experimental results on both nuclear ground and excited states. We developed a new covariant functional PC-PK1, which considerably improves the isospin dependence of nuclear properties, and is more reliable for the description of neutron-rich nuclei. We also extended CDFT for nuclear spectroscopic properties within the tilted-axis-cranking approach. It has provided successful description of novel rotation and exotic shape for nuclei towards high isospin and spin. The success of our model stimulates a number of new measurements, and I will present several examples for our interactive research with experimentalists. The extension of CDFT to nuclear spectroscopic properties is not the only accomplishment recently achieved. Together with its many other extensions, CDFT provides a unique opportunity to connect nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics and particle physics. Future plans in this direction will be discussed. In particular, the investigation of the properties of neutron-rich systems will provide useful insights relevant to the FRIB physics.

The proton radius extracted from recent high-precision spectroscopy measurements in muonic hydrogen disagrees significantly with that determined from electronic hydrogen spectroscopy or electron-proton elastic scattering. Intrigued by the proton radius puzzle, new measurements of the Lamb shift in other light muonic atoms will be performed at PSI. These experiments aim to extract the nuclear charge radius with high accuracies, however limited by our knowledge of nuclear polarizability corrections. The nuclear polarizabilities are QCD effects that contribute to the atomic spectrum. They need to be provided by theory with high accuracy. I will talk about how we perform ab-initio calculations of such nuclear polarizability using state-of-the-art nuclear Hamiltonians, with a precision that satisfies the experimental requirement. I will present results for several light muonic atoms, and discuss the uncertainties from both atomic and nuclear physics. I will further extend the discussion to nuclear structure effects in electronic atoms containing light halo nuclei near the edge of stability. These nuclei are easier to be excited by the surrounding electrons. As an example, I will discuss the calculation of 6He in the framework of an effective field theory for clustering mechanism. This calculation can be extended to obtain the nuclear polarizability, which is important for accurately extracting the radius of a halo nucleus from spectroscopic measurements.

Very recently, the ground state two-neutron emission has been observed in 16Be, 13Li, and 26O at NSCL, MSU. The two-neutron decay of 26O has been studied also at GSI and RIKEN. It has been expected that those two-neutron decays of unbound nuclei provide a good probe for the di-neutron correlation, which has attracted lots of attention in recent years in connection to the physics of weakly bound nuclei. In this talk, I will present theoretical analyses of the two-neutron decay of 26O using a three-body model with the Green's function technique. Using the new data from RIKEN, I will discuss the ground state properties of 26O, the decay energy spectrum, and the angular correlation between the two emitted neutrons. I will also discuss the excited 2+ and 0+ resonance states and make a comparison with shell model calculations.

We are entering an exciting new era in low energy nuclear physics. With the advent of powerful radioactive beam facilities around the world, nuclei that reside in very exotic regions on the nuclear chart can now be produced and studied in the laboratory - nuclei that until now were only produced in astrophysical environments on a pathway to heavy element formation. These exotic nuclei with very high N to Z ratio, with weak binding and and short lifetimes, may exhibit radically different behavior as compared to nuclei close to the valley of stability. At the same time, their theoretical description is a major challenge due to computational limitations and/or the neglect of important degrees of freedom. It is understood that for nuclei in the limits of stability the vocabulary that one is using for their description is commonly used in both structure and reaction communities. A striking example is the formation of resonances that influence cross sections and the effort to model independently determine resonance parameters. It is known that the coupling to the continuum, which becomes stronger near the limits of nuclear stability, is one of the decisive factors that alters the properties of weakly bound nuclei. Hence the description of such exotic nuclei calls for methods that are unifying structure and reaction aspects and include continuum degrees of freedom in their framework and/or treat bound, unbound and scattering states on equal footing. Formalisms in the complex energy plane provide an avenue for a consistent description of structure/reactions, including also continuum degrees of freedom. In this talk I will address the progress and the developments that have been achieved the last years for the theoretical description of weakly bound nuclei, including prospects for ab initio calculations with chiral nucleon-nucleon plus three-nucleon interactions, with the goal of testing and maximizing the predictive power of the theory.

Neutron stars are astrophysical laboratories for dense neutron rich matter that enable the exploration of new physics and allow cross-checks with terrestrial experiments. Many neutron star observables, such as their temperature and magnetic field, are coupled to the properties of the star's crust. Especially the presence of nuclear pasta phases, exotic structures of nuclear matter created by an interplay of nuclear and Coulomb forces, have been shown to impact the electric and thermal conductivities in neutron stars. For a self-consistent study of these structures, quantum simulation are the desirable tool. I will discuss the development a Hartree-Fock code using the Multi-resolution Adaptive Numerical Environment for Scientific Simulations to study pasta phases in large simulation volumes. I will then present benchmark test of nuclear ground states and first results for nuclear pasta. In the second part of my talk, I will report on a project to develop a kinetic transport code for core-collapse supernova studies. A major challenge in supernova simulation is the coupled solution of the neutrino transport and the hydrodynamic equations. Motivated by an approached widely used in heavy-ion simulations, we are developing a kinetic Direct Simulation Monte Carlo transport code to capture physics of matter in and out of equilibrium. The goal is to apply this approach to model the hydrodynamic evolution of supernova matter and the neutrino transport on the same footing. While proof-of-principle kinetic supernova simulations have been performed in the past, our current efforts are focused on the verification of the code in the hydrodynamic regime. I will present some hydrodynamic shock and fluid instability simulations and discuss plans for future.

We are entering a new era of ab initio descriptions and predictions of atomic nuclei. The combination of an array many-body methods, statistical analysis of inter-nucleon hamiltonians, advances in high-performance computing, and advanced numerical optimization techniques is opening the door to quantitative ab initio predictions and descriptions of atomic nuclei. I will give an overview of why such quantitative predictions are necessary and of the current efforts for ab initio uncertainty quantification. Finally, I will also show new results on applying these ideas to predicting key properties of Calcium-48, such as the “size” and dipole polarizability of this nucleus.

Arriving at a microscopic understanding of the phenomena of low-energy nuclear reactions from the protons and neutrons degrees of freedom and the 'fundamental' interactions among them would mean the fulfillment of a long-standing goal in nuclear science and the ability to accurately predict fusion reactions that power stars and Earth-based fusion facilities. But, can this be done? About eight years ago ab initio nuclear theory took on this challenge and in this talk I will present the status of this effort.

The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) is an intense 14-MeV neutron source for simulating fusion reactor conditions to test candidate fusion reactor materials. In the IFMIF, neutrons are produced by a deuteron–lithium stripping reaction: Li(d,xn). In the current IFMIF design, a 25-mm-thick and 260-mm-wide liquid Li wall jet flowing at a velocity of 15 m/s is the Li target. It is bombarded with two 40-MeV and 125-mA D+ beams under a vacuum of 10−3 Pa. Thickness variation of the Li target must be suppressed to within 1 mm inside the beam footprint to maintain the integrity of the Li target and guarantee the desired level of neutron flux. In this seminar, the development history of the Li target of the IFMIF is presented. The IFMIF project was initiated in 1994. Firstly, the conceptual design activity of the IFMIF (IFMIF-CDA) was conducted during 1995 and 1996. During IFMIF-CDA, main activities of the Li target were implementation of conceptual designs and water simulation experiments. And then, activities of the key element technology phase of the IFMIF (IFMIF-KEP) was conducted during 2000 to 2002. During IFMIF-KEP, main activities of the Li target were construction of a small-size (420-liter) Li loop and Li jet experiments. Until the end of IFMIF-KEP, the activities are conducted internationally (EU, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United States) under The International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreement for a Programme of Research and Development on Fusion Materials. From 2007, the Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities the IFMIF (IFMIF/EVEDA project) has been conducted under the Broader Approach (BA) Agreement between the Japanese Government and EURATOM. During the IFMIF/EVEDA project, main activities of the Li target were construction of a prototype of the IFMIF Li loop (5000-liter inventory) and demonstration of the stable Li target flow. The activities of the Li target in the framework of the IFMIF/EVEDA project have been successfully accomplished.

Substantial research and development related to continuous wave (CW) proton and ion accelerators is being performed at ANL. A 4-meter long 60.625-MHz normal conducting (NC) CW radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) and a 4K cryomodule with seven 72.75-MHz quarter-wave resonators (QWR) and superconducting (SC) solenoids have been developed, built, commissioned and operated as an upgrade of the CW ion linac, ATLAS, to achieve higher efficiency and beam intensities. The new CW RFQ and cryomodule were fully integrated into ATLAS and have been in routine operation for several years. New design and fabrication techniques for QWRs resulted in the achievement of record accelerating voltages and low cryogenic losses. Since the very beginning the cryomodule provided 17.5 MV accelerating voltage or 2.5 MV per cavity. Currently we are engaged in development of the first cryomodule for a CW H linac being built at FNAL. A 2K cryomodule with eight 162.5-MHz SC half wave resonators (HWR) and eight SC solenoids is being developed for FNAL and scheduled for commissioning in 2017. The testing of the first 2 HWRs demonstrated remarkable performance. Application of ANL-developed technologies at FRIB will be also discussed.

There are several examples of important nuclear processes in nature that rely on the fine-tuning of interactions, which generates -unnatural- energy scales, such as solar fusion and stellar nucleosynthesis. In this talk, I will discuss fine-tuning in its extreme limit, unitarity, a universal regime with applications ranging from AMO experiments to neutron stars. I will show how lattice field theory may be used as a tool for studying systems in this limit, and as a starting point for effective field theory calculations of nuclei. Finally, I will discuss the impact that lattice QCD will have on our understanding of fine-tuning directly from the Standard Model.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has conducted a two year beam energy scan (BES I) to provide data for AuAu collisions at center of mass energies of 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV. This scan was motivated by the search for the phase transition between confined hadronic matter and de-confined quark matter. The Color String Percolation Model (CSPM) is a model that proposes an analysis of pp and AuAu data to search for signs of this phase transition, with an emphasis on the de-confined state known as the quark gluon plasma (QGP). Specifically, it provides a method for extracting the initial temperature in heavy-ion collisions through fits of the transverse momentum (pT) spectrum created from a sample of collisions. The first systematic analysis of BES I data taken at the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) is reported. The CSPM was found to represent the of the data, and the extracted temperature was found to share a behavior with varying center of mass energy similar to that observable.

After a pedagogical introduction to QCD and its implementation on a space-time lattice I discuss how to obtain precise and accurate nuclear observables from lattice QCD. I provide an overview of algorithmic improvements and new methods in order to overcome current limitations of lattice QCD calculations such as the signal-to-noise degradation in nucleon systems. I show specific physics applications involving both light and heavy quarks and discuss more recent developments that allow a robust determination of the nucleon electric dipole moment. Future applications for new physics searches and nuclear physics are outlined.

The structure of certain proton-rich nuclei significantly influences stellar explosions like novae and X-ray bursts. We studied the structure of 32Cl using Gammasphere and determined resonance energies for the 31S(p,γ)32Cl reaction that are important for understanding sulfur enrichments observed in some nova ejecta. Also, 25Al + p elastic scattering was measured in inverse kinematics to study the level structure of the compound nucleus 26Si, which is important for understanding the 22Mg(,p)26Si reaction in X-ray bursts. The experimental approach and results will be presented.

The emergence of complex systems from simple origins is a common occurrence in nature. Hadrons and nuclei are one example, arising from the strong interactions of the standard model, with low-energy properties governed by only the QCD scale and light quark masses, to a first approximation. Although simple from the standpoint of their underlying theoretical description, the few- and many-body properties of such strongly interacting systems (e.g., spectrum, binding energies, scattering properties, equation of state) are immensely rich, and can only be accessed reliably through a nonperturbative treatment of study. Monte Carlo simulations, performed on a space-time lattice, provide one of the few known avenues for achieving this aim. However, determining the properties of such systems numerically is often beset by significant obstacles in and of itself. In this talk, I will show how novel approaches that I have developed have overcome a number of these fundamental challenges, and discuss their use in numerical studies of nuclear and particle physics from first principles.