Welcome to FRIB

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) is a world-class research, teaching and training center, hosting the most powerful rare isotope accelerator. MSU operates FRIB as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB allows MSU graduate students to engage in groundbreaking research in tandem with their coursework. Open the doors to discovery with the newest and most advanced rare isotope research facility and the world's most powerful rare isotope accelerator. Apply and inquire through FRIB’s graduate studies page at frib.msu.edu/grad.

17 Oct

Public Talk Featuring Jan Gordon, Author of "All The Ways You Taught Us"

17 October 2024 - 5:30 PM
1300 FRIB Laboratory
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Abstract

From the speaker:

“A few years ago, I began to write about my parents, Mort and Bernice Gordon, to solve the mystery of their remarkable partnership. My father, a blind physicist, and my mother, his reader, who lived with spina bifida, were bound together by love and necessity decades before recognition of their rights as disabled people. I explored their letters, interviewed Dad’s colleagues, searched for his publications, and listened to audio tapes of their work. As I revisited the scenes we shared, I developed a new understanding of how and what they taught me; my sister, Anne; his students; and their community.

Mort Gordon was a college student during World War II, when he learned that he was going blind from retinitis pigmentosa. Then Mort made two important decisions: he began studying physics, and he courted and married Bernice Rubinstein. These choices enabled him to contribute to the world of accelerator physics and raise a family. Mort, as a new PhD, faced discrimination because of “decreased vision,” then worked on an innovative cyclotron project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which led him to take a job at Michigan State University and create something new.  Mort and Bernice Gordon ingeniously found ways for the professor to teach his classes, develop the mathematics and computer models essential for MSU’s innovative cyclotrons, and share knowledge with colleagues around the world. Their story lives at the intersection of disability history and physics history. It illuminates the importance of sustained curiosity and the benefits of persistence, mentoring, and collaboration.”

Bio

Janet Gordon grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1974, with aspirations to make the world better. She received an MA in business administration from George Washington University.  As a federal banking regulator, she developed guidance on the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages banks to serve low- and moderate-income communities. As Associate Director of Community Affairs at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Janet improved consumer education to better serve people with disabilities. After retiring in 2018, Janet studied writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. In All the Ways You Taught Us, A Memoir of Ability, Disability and the Pursuit of Meaning, she chronicles lessons about inquiry, disability, and meaningful living learned from Mort and Bernice Gordon’s remarkable lives.

Morton M. Gordon and Bernice Gordon

Morton M. Gordon (1924-2012), born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, attended Rutgers University, graduated from the University of Chicago, and received a PhD in physics from Washington University in 1950. Mort was instrumental in the design of a new breed of cyclotrons. By the time he arrived at Michigan State University in his thirties, he was almost completely blind from retinitis pigmentosa. Nonetheless, in 1959 he was the second person hired to design the first particle accelerator at MSU’s Cyclotron Laboratory. Mort was the principal theoretical physicist guiding the mathematics and computer models essential to its development. He continued his contributions at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory until 1999. He was a professor of physics for 50 years, and his students went on to help build accelerators all over the world. Mort’s principal collaborator in life, Bernice Gordon (1928-2007), also grew up in Atlantic City and graduated from the New Jersey College for Women in 1950. Bernice was born with spina bifida, which slowly reduced her mobility over the course of her life. In addition to a half century of service as Mort’s dedicated (and unpaid) reader, she was a political organizer, a participant in the Lansing area Jewish community, and a lover of literature who influenced the reading of her family and members of her book clubs. Mort and Bernice Gordon raised two daughters and left legacies for the next generations.

18 Oct

Radio-Frequency Superconductivity R&D at Fermilab for Accelerators and Quantum Applications

18 October 2024 - 3:00 PM
Online via Zoom
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Daniel Bafia

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This presentation will highlight recent R&D efforts at Fermilab focused on niobium superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities for both particle accelerator and quantum information science applications. It will present new insights into how various surface processing techniques have enhanced Nb SRF cavity performance, resulting in higher quality factors and accelerating gradients by integrating cryogenic RF measurements with advanced materials science. Additionally, these resonant structures provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms limiting quantum coherence times in 2D and 3D quantum computing architectures. By simplifying complex multi-layer devices into single-interface systems, Fermilab has identified key sources of loss, such as amorphous native niobium oxide and dielectric substrates. These findings have aided in the development of quantum bits with record-breaking coherence times and thus advancing the field of quantum information science.
25 Oct

The Origin of the Heaviest Elements

25 October 2024 - 2:00 PM
2025 FRIB Laboratory and Online via Zoom
North Carolina State University

Ian Roederer

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Understanding the origin of the elements remains one of the major challenges of modern astrophysics. I will introduce some of the big, open questions in the field and present several major advances from recent years. These advances include measuring the most complete heavy element chemical inventory beyond the Solar System and the first detection of transuranic fission fragments in stars. These advances can help shape the experiments carried out by future space flagship missions in the 2030s and 2040s, rare isotope facilities, and shape our understanding of our own cosmic origins.
28 Oct

Dense Matter Equation of State from Nuclear Theory and Experiments

28 October 2024 - 8:00 AM
1221A and 1221B FRIB Laboratory
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We are excited to announce the upcoming collaborative workshop organized by IRL NPA (In2p3/FRIB) and taking place from Oct 28 to Nov 1 at FRIB. The meeting will be aimed at gathering researchers from multiple communities interested in the nuclear matter equation of state (EOS): an area that is currently undergoing rapid development due to upcoming unprecedented experimental opportunities, notably at FRIB, and the advent of multi-messenger astronomical observations. The workshop will include discussions of the latest measurements from astrophysics and laboratory experiments, recent developments in ab initio calculations, and new results from dynamical models. A significant portion of the workshop will be used to form working groups devoted to well-defined and closely-connected challenges: 1. Studies of new observables, both from nuclear structure and nuclear dynamics, to obtain tighter constraints on the EOS. 2. Quantification of the theoretical uncertainties and theoretical errors, development of appropriate likelihood models for Bayesian estimation, and using emulators and other machine learning techniques. 3. Optimization of the comparison protocol between transport models and data, notably via a controlled estimation of the unmeasured theoretical parameters and cross-comparison of different experimental data sets. Following the working group sessions, we will reconvene to summarize the discussions, identify near-term research directions, and prioritize the topics for future endeavors. If applicable, emerging collaborative efforts will be formulated and timelines for obtaining and presenting results in a publication will be discussed.
29 Oct

Transport Model Based on Inputs from Chiral Effective Field Theory

29 October 2024 - 11:00 AM
1200 FRIB Laboratory
Texas A&M University

Che-Ming Ko

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Heavy ion collisions make it possible to study the properties of nuclear matter at high density. After briefly describing the history of heavy ion collisions, a short review on the determination of the equation of state of nuclear matter from heavy ion collisions will be given. These studied were based on the use of transport models with mean-filed potentials derived from phenomenological energy density functionals and nucleon-nucleon in-medium scattering cross sections fitted to observables measured in these collisions. Because of the recent advance in chiral effective nucleon-nucleon interactions and its successful applications to nuclear structure studies, where only sub-saturation densities are present, it is of great interest to test their predictions of nuclear matter properties at higher densities. As a first step in this direction, the χBUU model was developed in Ref. [1] by using a Skyre-type energy density functional that was constructed from fitting the nuclear equation of state and nucleon effective masses in asymmetric nuclear matter predicted by the two- and three-body chiral interactions. This energy density functional was shown to describe well the binding energies of finite nuclei and their dipole polarizabilities [2]. Work is in progress to replace the phenomenological nucleon-nucleon scattering cross sections used in χBUU with those calculated from chiral effective field theory for nuclear matter at various densities, isospin asymmetries, and temperatures. With such an extended χBUU model, one can then study heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies available at the FRIB without arbitrary parameters, which would provide the test of chiral nuclear interactions at higher densities as well as allow for more stringent constraints on the nuclear equation of state from the experimental data.