Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Explosive astrophysical systems, such as supernovae or compact star binary mergers, provide conditions where strange quark matter can appear. The high degree of isospin asymmetry and temperatures of several MeV in such systems may cause a transition to the quark phase already around saturation density. Observable signals from the appearance of quark matter can be predicted and studied in astrophysical simulations. As input in such simulations, an equation of state with an integrated quark matter phase transition for a large temperature, density and proton fraction range is required. Additionally, restrictions from heavy ion data and pulsar observation must be considered. In this talk I will present such an approach where a quark matter phase transition is implemented in a hadronic equation of state widely used for astrophysical simulations and discuss its compatibility with heavy ion collisions and pulsar data. Furthermore, I will review the recently studied implications of the QCD phase transition during the early post-bounce evolution of core-collapse supernovae where the phase transition produces a second shock wave that triggers a delayed supernova explosion. In addition the second shock wave leads to the release of a second neutrino burst which will be observable by present and future neutrino detectors.

Magnetically confined mountains on accreting neutron stars are promising sources of continuous-wave gravitational radiation and are currently the targets of directed searches with long-baseline detectors like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). In this paper, previous ideal-magnetohydrodynamic (ideal-MHD) models of isothermal mountains are generalised to a range of physically motivated, adiabatic equations of state. It is found that the mass ellipticity $epsilon$ drops substantially, from $epsilon approx 3times10^{-4}$ (isothermal) to $epsilon approx 9times 10^{-7}$ (non-relativistic degenerate neutrons), $6times10^{-8}$ (relativistic degenerate electrons), and $1times10^{-8}$ (non-relativistic degenerate electrons) (assuming a magnetic field of $10^{12.5} mathrm{G}$ at birth). The characteristic mass $M_{c}$ at which the magnetic dipole moment halves from its initial value is also modified, from $M_{c}/M_{sun} approx 5times10^{-4}$ (isothermal) to $M_{c}/M_{sun} approx 2times10^{-6}$, $1times 10^{-7}$, and $3times10^{-8}$ for the above three equations of state respectively. Similar results are obtained for a realistic, piecewise-polytropic nuclear equation of state. The adiabatic models are consistent with current LIGO upper limits, unlike the isothermal models. Updated estimates of gravitational-wave detectability are made. Monte Carlo simulations of the spin distribution of accreting millisecond pulsars including gravitational-wave stalling agree better with observations for certain adiabatic equations of state, implying that X-ray spin measurements can probe the equation of state when coupled with magnetic mountain models.

The properties of strongly interacting Fermi gases have been the object of great interest in recent years. In situations where the interatomic scattering length a_2 is much larger than the effective range of the interaction r_0, few-atom systems serve as a testing ground for techniques developed for the ab-initio solution of few-nucleon systems. We have applied the general principles of Effective Field Theory for the description of few-fermions systems trapped in a harmonic oscillator potential. The interaction between fermions is written as a controllable expansion consisting of contact interactions with an increasing number of derivatives. At leading order (LO), the many-body Schr"odinger equation is solved within the no-core shell model approach and corrections beyond LO are treated in perturbation theory. We have also addressed the relationship between the two-body and many-body cutoffs needed for a consistent model space. Results for the energies of the 3-fermions system at unitarity will be presented and shown to agree with known results. Results for systems with 3, 4 fermions for different values of a2/b (b being the trap length) and r0/b will also be presented and future applications for nuclear systems will be mentioned.

Commissioned as a colliding beams accelerator in 1985, Fermilab's Tevatron held the honor as the highest-energy accelerator and collider for a quarter of a century, until recently being surpassed during CERN's commissioning of the LHC. However, the Tevatron continues to run at peak luminosities up to 400 times its initial design, yielding just recently perhaps one of the most important physics results of its long tenure. Significant accelerator physics developments leading to this level of operation are described as well as opportunities for future innovations and applications of lessons learned stemming from this important stretch of history.

Radiative double electron capture (RDEC) is a one-step process for which two free (or quasifree) target electrons are captured into bound states of the projectile, e.g. into an empty K-shell, and the energy excess is released as a single photon. This process can be considered as a time reverse of double photoionization. However, since bare ions are used during the experiment, RDEC does not have a background from other electrons, that makes the correlation effects difficult to observe during double photoionization experiments. Thus, RDEC may be the simplest, clean tool for investigation of electron-electron interaction in the presence of electromagnetic fields generated during ion-atom collision. Recently, an experiment dedicated to the RDEC process with 38 MeV O8+ ions collided with carbon foil, was conducted at Western Michigan University using the tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. This experiment confirmed that the observation of such process is possible and allowed for estimation of the RDEC cross section of 3.8(1.9) b, which is significantly greater than the the theoretically predicted value of 0.15 b. The talk will cover the results of the experiment and possible explanations of the difference between the experimental and theoretical value of the cross section.

The SlowRI facility will be a primary user facility at RIKEN, allowing for nuclear and atomic physics with low-energy radioactive ions. One of the first instruments at SlowRI will be a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph (MRTOF-MS) for precision mass measurements. The MRTOF-MS system consists of an advanced "flat-trap" for ion preparation, an ion reflection chamber and a voltage stabilization system capable of long-term stability on the ppm-level. While the MRTOF-MS is unable to compete with Penning trap mass spectrometers in terms of maximum achievable precision, it has the advantage of higher precision in a given measurement time. In recent early studies of our device, we have have achieved a mass resolving power of R=50,000 in 4.3 ms for ³⁹K⁺, equivalent to a 30T Penning trap. Thus, we believe this device will prove very useful in the study of very short-lived species. I will present the status of the MRTOF-MS project, including voltage stabilization, flat-trap and some preliminary results.

Only one hexacontatetrapole (E6) gamma-ray transition has been measured - from the isomeric 19/2- state in 53Fe [a]. I will discuss this transition together with C6 form factors measured in electron scattering in terms of large-basis CI calculations and models for the effective charge. I will also discuss the origin of isomers in this mass region. [a] J. N. Black, W. C. McHarris, W. H. Kelly and B. H. Wildenthal, Phys. Rev. C 11, 939 (1975).

The application of Effective Field Theory (EFT) and Renormalization Group (RG) techniques to the Nuclear Many-Body Problem has led to considerable advances in the field in recent years, providing consistent nuclear two- and many-body forces from Chiral EFT and a systematic way to evolve them to lower energy scales which are encountered in nuclear structure theory. The Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) is a particularly convenient realization of RG concepts, since the evolution is, at least in principle, done in a unitary fashion [1, 2]. I will discuss the SRG evolution of realistic NN interactions, which generates universal soft NN interactions with greatly improved convergence properties in actual many-body calculations. The SRG-evolved interactions can be used as an input to nuclear structure calculations, thereby maintaining a stringent link to the underlying vacuum interaction. While work is underway to evolve 3N interactions in the same manner [3], we presently employ a 3N contact interaction to include some of the missing physics. I will present results on ground and excited state properties from using SRG-evolved interactions in a variety of many-body methods, from Hartree-Fock to the Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation (see e.g., [4]). The key aspects of these theoretical approaches will be summarized to accommodate a diverse audience. [1] S. K. Bogner, R. J. Furnstahl & A. Schwenk, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 65 (2010), 94 [2] http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ntg/srg/ [3] E. D. Jurgenson, P. Navratil & R. J. Furnstahl, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 (2009) 082501 [4] P. Ring & P. Schuck, "The Nuclear Many-Body Problem", Springer

Observation of neutrinoless double beta decay will allow us to determine the neutrino mass if the nuclear matrix elements were well known. To date, there has been little experimental data to constrain these theoretical calculations. We have carried out a series of measurements relevant to the 76Ge ➝76Se system to probe nuclear structure properties that can be used as a metric for testing these theoretical calculations. These include pair transfer reactions, and a full mapping out of the proton and neutron occupancies and vacancies for the parent and daughter. We have started exploratory measurements on the 130Te ➝130Xe system, first probing neutron pair correlations in 130Te: previous data for proton pair transfer shows strong pairing vibrations and a breaking of the BCS approximation for the ground state. For single-neutron transfer, we explored the d(130Xe,p)131Xe reaction with the HELIOS spectrometer at Argonne National Laboratory. Future experiments are planned with a frozen 130Xe target built by the Berkeley group. An overview of the experimental program and latest results will be presented.

Identifying dominant reaction flows is key to understanding nucleosynthetic processes, especially when used for motivating experimental/theoretical work. This summer, I had the pleasure of mentoring a student as part of the High School Honors Science/Mathematics/Engineering Program (HSHSP: https://www.msu.edu/~hshsp/). During the 7 week program, my student and I examined reaction flows for a range of possible r-process environments. Our goal was to determine which light element flows were dominant, paying particular attention to the 3-body reactions; 3alpha->C12, 2alpha+n->Be9 and alpha+2n->He6. I will review our methods and discuss our findings.

The Time-Dependent Superfluid Local Density Approximation (TD-SLDA) is a local extension of the Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT) to superfluid fermion systems, and as such it can be viewed in general as a reformulation of the exact quantum mechanical time evolution of a many-body system, when only single-particle properties are considered. TD-DFT has been applied for quite some time to a large number of normal condensed matter and nuclear systems, and to complex molecules, typically in order to evaluate their linear response (RPA) to a variety of external probes. The full implementation of the 3D TD-SLDA, without any symmetry constrains, requires the use of the largest parallel computers, and it was only recently achieved. I present results regarding the collective excitation spectra for fermionic systems, and in particular I will show examples of the dynamics of the pairing correlations, which could not be encapsulated within more traditional approaches, such as the quantum hydrodynamics of superfluid systems or the Landau-Ginzburg approach. Finally, I will show the first applications of the large scale TD-SLDA calculations to low-energy neutron-induced reactions.

Studies carried out at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have provided definitive proof that a new form of matter, the strongly interacting quark gluon plasma (sQGP) is created in central collisions of gold nuclei at = 200 GeV. At the temperatures and baryon chemical potentials observed in gold-gold collisions at = 200 GeV, the transition from sQGP to hadrons is smooth and continuous. At lower temperatures and higher chemical potentials, models predict that this transition will become a first order phase transition, resulting in a critical point at intermediate temperatures and baryon chemical potentials. The freeze-out of an extended, strongly interacting system created in a relativistic heavy ion collision near the QCD critical endpoint could create observable non-statistical fluctuations in net charge, strangeness and baryon number. We present STAR results for and fluctuations from central Au+Au collisions at =7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 39, 62.4, 130, and 200 GeV in terms of the variable . We compare these results with recent data from NA49 for central Pb+Pb collisions at = 6.3, 7.6, 8.7, 12.3, and 17.3 GeV. We present the centrality dependence of and fluctuations from Au+Au collisions at = = 62.4 and 200 GeV in terms of the variable . To minimize contributions from background protons, we restrict our measurements for and to the transverse momentum range 0.4 1.0 GeV/c. We present results for and fluctuations separated by sign as a function of centrality. We compare our results with the predictions of the Statistical Hadronization, HIJING, UrQMD, and HSD models.

Experiments with ultra-cold gases are among the coldest experiments in the world. Come and see how new forms of matter are discovered in a gas of atoms cooled to temperatures near absolute zero. The talk will touch upon topics such as temperature, quantum mechanics, and superconductivity.

Effective field theories (EFTs) should in principle provide a systematic way to improve the description of systems that display a separation of scales. In nuclear systems this scale separation is set by the inverse scattering length, the pion mass and the natural scale set by quantum chromodynamics. The EFT approach is then form ratios of these separated scales and to exploit them as small expansion parameters. I will discuss recent progress in the application of the EFT approach to few- and many-body physics. I will give examples from the so-called pionless and chiral EFTs, will address the relation to system of ultracold atoms and will briefly lay out how density functional theory might be used to extend the current reach of the EFT approach.

The nucleon-nucleon interaction has been extensively studied using the meson exchange models. Pions play a basic role in description of the nucleon-nucleon force, as introduced in a seminal paper by Yukawa. Large efforts have been put, both experimentally and theoretically, to learn about the interaction of physical pions with nucleons and nuclei. To obtain a global picture of the meson-nucleus interaction, one also needs to study the interaction between other heavier mesons and nuclei. The next lightest of the exchanged mesons is the eta-meson, about four times heavier than the pion. In comparison to the pion, the knowledge about the properties of the eta meson in nuclear medium and its interaction with nucleon/nucleus is quite sparse. In this talk, I shall present a study of the eta-meson production and its interaction with the light nuclei.

Atomic nuclei are complex, quantum many-body systems whose structure manifests itself through intrinsic quantum states associated with different excitation modes or degrees of freedom. Collective modes (vibration and/or rotation) dominate at low energy (near the ground-state). The associated states are usually employed, within a truncated model space, as a basis in (coherent) coupled channels approaches to low-energy reaction dynamics. However, excluded states can be essential, and their effects on the open (nuclear) system dynamics are usually treated through complex potentials. Is this a complete description of open system dynamics? Does it include effects of quantum decoherence? Can decoherence be manifested in reaction observables? In my talk, I will discuss these issues and the main ideas of a coupled-channels density-matrix approach that makes it possible to quantify the role and importance of quantum decoherence in low-energy nuclear reaction dynamics. Some topical applications will be highlighted.

Nuclear astrophysics addresses two of the most fundamental questions: How do stars evolve? And what is the origin of the elements in the Universe? This talk will introduce three of our recent projects: (i) Monte Carlo reaction rates; (ii) the measurement of 17O(p,g)18F important for classical novae; and (iii) a sensitivity study for 26Al synthesis in massive stars. Open questions and directions for the future will be proposed.

Large-scale computational capabilities make microscopic predictions for nucleon-nucleus scattering now possible. We will present calculations which make use of state-of-the art computational capabilities and modern structure models. In order to predict reaction cross sections, we explicitly coupled the elastic scattering channel to all particle-hole (p-h) excitation states of the target nucleus, as well as to all relevant pickup channels. These p-h states may be regarded as doorway states through which the flux flows to more complicated configurations, and to long-lived compound nucleus resonances. Such calculations for nucleon-induced reactions were performed using a QRPA description target excitations, coupling to all inelastic open channels, as well as to all transfer channels that correspond to the formation of a deuteron. For the first time, complete and consistent calculations of excitations, starting from basic interaction between nucleons within the nuclei and first principle structure models, account fully for the observed reaction cross-sections, at least for incident energies above 10 MeV. Our results are in very good agreement with predictions of a phenomenological optical potential and with experimental data. Our procedure serves as a method to evaluate the quality of structure models since our calculations yield predictions that can be directly compared with measurable quantities.

An overview of the use of radioactive metals in diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine will be presented. This area of research involves radionuclide production and separations, chelate synthesis, biomolecule synthesis, metal conjugate synthesis, radiometal conjugate stability testing, receptor binding determinations, and in vivo evaluations in normal and tumor-bearing mice. Various aspects of this interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field will be discussed.

Collinear laser spectroscopy is a technique has been extensively used in nuclear physics to determine fundamental properties of nuclei (e.g. , Q, ). The BECOLA (BEam COoling and LAser spectroscopy) facility, which is being installed, allows this technique to be realized at NSCL. An introduction to BECOLA physics and experiment will be given. The laser system, light transportation using optical fibers (polarization maintaining, large mode area fibers) and each component of the beam line will be detailed. Development, installation and testing of the charge exchange cell with alkali vapor and the photon detection system utilizing a simple reflector will also be discussed.

I will discuss the basic elements of the Interacting Shell Model, (ISM) linking it to the bare NN and NN interactions via the the methods of many body perturbation theory, and taking advantage of the separation of the effective hamiltonian in its monopole and multipole components. I will present some recent applications to the regions of neutron rich nuclei around N=28 and N=40. Besides, I will describe the coexistence of spherical, deformed and superdeformed states at low energy in doubly magic 40Ca, to emphasize the unique role of correlations in nuclear physics.

I will review the "state of the art" of the calculations of the nuclear matrix elements (NME) of the neutrinoless double beta decays in the framework of the Interacting Shell Model (ISM), and compare them with the ones obtained using the Quasi-particle RPA (QRPA) and other approaches. I will explain the discrepancies between the NME's from different models in terms of competition between the pairing and quadrupole correlations in the initial and final nuclei. I will show that when parent and grand daughter differin deformation, the NME's for both the neutrinoless and the two neutrino modes are strongly quenched.

At extreme isospin, exotic collective structures have been predicted to arise from the decoupling of deformed proton and neutron distributions. Several years ago, the reported anomalously small reduced quadrupole transition strength, B(E2;2+→0+), in 16C sparked interest in such decoupling phenomena in the neutron-rich carbon isotopic chain. Recoil Distance Method (RDM) lifetime measurements, from which the B(E2) is directly obtained, provide an important probe of the nuclear charge deformation and are complementary to hadron inelastic scattering probes for nuclear matter deformations. To shed light on the shape evolution in the even-even N=10−14 carbon isotopes, RDM lifetime measurements were carried out at National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory with the combination of the Segmented Germanium Array, the Digital Data Acquisition System, and the Köln/NSCL Plunger. By monitoring the Doppler shifted de-excitation gamma rays as a function of plunger target-degrader distance, the lifetimes of the 2+→0+ transitions, and thus the B(E2) values, for 16,18,20C were extracted. The data, analysis, and results of the measurement for 18C will be presented in detail. Additionally, the Köln/NSCL Plunger has been adapted for charged particle spectroscopy by replacing the velocity degrader with a silicon energy loss detector. This particle plunger provides a new method to study fast proton-decay lifetimes along the proton drip line. Lifetime information in this region, especially near rp-process waiting point nuclei, is important for characterizing nucleosynthesis pathways. A proof of principle experiment at NSCL utilized this method in a lifetime study of the two-proton emitter 19Mg. The method and results for the commissioning particle plunger investigation will be discussed.

A neutron star, of order 10km in radius, is believed to have a mostly solid outer layer, the crust, about 1km thick, and a fluid core comprising the remaining depth to the center. The theoretical study of the properties of matter at the boundary layer between crust and core is crucial to understanding certain observational phenomena such as pulsar glitches, quasi-periodic oscillations in the X-ray tails of SGR light curves, and potential gravitational waves from neutron star oscillation modes and deviations from axial symmetry from material accreted onto the surface. I will introduce the various ingredients to such studies: nuclei and exotic nuclear clusters immersed in a neutron fluid at the bottom of the crust and the composition, mechanical, tranport and superfluid porperties of such matter, and their dependence on the equation of state of nuclear matter. I will discuss what the possible observational signatures of the boundary layer are.

The Institute for Cyber Enabled Research (iCER) is an on-campus resource for advancing the use of computational methods in research at MSU. It includes the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC), which has been serving the university community with freely available computing resources for the past five years and which is on the verge of a significant expansion in computing capacity. An overview of iCER resources will be presented. And, the topic of how iCER can serve Cyclotron and FRIB theorists will be discussed. The discussion will include examples of how freely available HPCC software and computing power was used to develop an improved version of the NuShellX nuclear shell model code. Also, the availability of programming staff with a physics background will be highlighted for those looking to develop or run their codes on HPCC systems.

When a symmetry is a “good” symmetry of the nuclear system, it can directly give the spectroscopic properties of the nucleus, without the need for involved calculations. However, in practice, even the best symmetries are significantly broken. Then symmetries do not directly give the solution to the problem but rather may provide a suitable basis to be used in the full computational treatment of the problem. This talk will provide a pedagogical introduction to the practical aspects of applying symmetry approaches, in the context of some new applications and developments: (1) An efficient and tractable scheme for exact numerical diagonalization of the Bohr collective Hamiltonian, the algebraic collective model (ACM), is based on an SU(1,1)×SO(5) algebraic basis. This method makes possible quantitative application to the full range of nuclear rotational-vibrational structure, from spherical oscillator to axial rotor to triaxial rotor. (2) The fundamental quantities underlying symmetry-based calculations are the coupling coefficients, or generalized Clebsch-Gordan coefficients, for the symmetry group. Again using SO(5) as an example, a more general and systematic approach to large-scale computation of coupling coefficients will be outlined. A primary motivation for developing such methods is to make possible the use of symplectic symmetry in ab initio shell model calculations.

Ana Becerril: “Identification of isomers in neutron-deficient nuclei in the 100Sn region” An experiment dedicated to measure the decay properties of proton-rich nuclei in the neighborhood of doubly magic 100Sn was performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. One of the motivations was to obtain nuclear physics data relevant to the astrophysical rapid proton capture process (rp-process), the driving mechanism of Type I X-ray bursts, which can occur near the surface of an accreting neutron star in a binary system. It is essential to identify b-decaying isomers along the rp-process path, especially in waiting point nuclei, so that ground and isomeric state decays can be disentangled to ensure that the half-lives measured in the laboratory are the ones needed in astrophysical model calculations. The nuclei of interest were produced by fragmentation of a 112Sn primary beam impinging on a 9Be target, and separated with the A1900 Fragment Separator in conjunction with the Radio Frequency Fragment Separator. The neutron-deficient fragments were implanted onto the NSCL-Beta Counting System, and correlated with their b-decays on an event-by-event basis. Sixteen high purity Ge detectors from the SeGA array were placed around the implantation detector in order to measure prompt and b-delayed g radiation. I will discuss the experimental technique and present recent experimental results. Carla Benatti: “Emittance Measurements at ReA3” The ReAccelerating facility (ReA3) will provide beams of short lived isotopes with Q/A .25 with an energy from 0.3 MeV/u up to 6MeV/u. An important aspect of commissioning the ReA3 beam line is to measure the beam’s emittance and compare it with calculated values and previous measurements. This work focuses on the characterization of the He+ ion beam delivered by the pilot ion sources. The data will then be fed into simulation programs to predict and set tuning values for the beam line and accelerator. The final goal is to develop an automatic tuning procedure for the LEBT, RFQ, and the SRF linac. Quadrupole scans have been performed to make an indirect measurement of the emittance at the LEBT, before the RFQ. An emittance scan using the 2-jaw collimator and the 45 degree slit scan will be performed after the RFQ in the future. In my talk I will discuss the quadrupole scan technique, show examples of data taken at ReA3 and describe the application I have developed to analyze the data.

A design is being developed for an accelerator-driven subcritical molten-salt eutectic reactor for green nuclear power. What makes green nuclear power: • It can use any of the most plentiful nuclear fuels – SNF, depleted U, Th. This technology has the potential to provide all the World’s energy needs for the next two millennia. • It operates as an iso-breeder that segregates the lanthanides during operation so that it can run to full burnup of its nuclear fuel. • It operates with a fast neutron spectrum so it terminates the actinide chain and consumes the long-lived isotopes. When the core is finished, its waste isotopes would decay within a few centuries. • It operates as a subcritical core which provides for a margin of stability during the early and late phases of fuel burn. The additional 2% of neutrons needed for subcritical operation are provided by a high-power beam of protons from a superconducting isochronous cyclotron. A collaboration is being formed to prepare a full conceptual design and to undertake R&D on critical technical components

I will report on our development of new equipment for astrophysics studies at TRIUMF, the SHARC silicon detector array which fits inside the TIGRESS gamma ray array, and TACTIC, a cylindrical geometry active target. I will also give an update on the state of analysis on two recent measurements, 17o(a,g) and 18F(p,a) and their influence on, respectively, the r-process and 18F detection from Novae.

Nuclei close to the drip-line exhibit peculiar structures, like the halo structure. However, due to their short lifetime, they cannot be studied through usual spectroscopic techniques, and one must resort to indirect methods to infer information about their structure. Nuclear reactions are one of the best indirect methods to study nuclei far from stability. During this seminar, I will present some of the most precise nuclear-reaction models used to study halo nuclei: The time-dependent model, in which the projectile-target relative motion is described by a classical trajectory, the dynamical eikonal approximation, which relies on the eikonal approximation, and the continuum-discretised coupled channel model, in which the continuum of the projectile is modelled by square-integrable functions. I will compare these models in the case of the breakup of 15C, a one-neutron halo nucleus, on Pb at 70AMeV. Subsequently, I will present new results of a work done with Ron Johnson of the University of Surrey, in which we show that the ratio of angular distributions for breakup and elastic scattering can provide structure information about halo nuclei.

Trapping and cooling techniques provide unprecedented control over atoms and ions that can be harnessed to search for 'new physics' beyond the Standard Model and for other precise measurements in nuclear physics. I will describe a storage-ring based test of Lorentz invariance via the most precise measurement of relativistic time dilation using Li+ ions as fast moving ion clocks. I will then discuss two projects at TRIUMF: (i) Work towards an atomic parity violation measurement using laser-cooled francium atoms produced online, and (ii) the development of a cooler Penning ion trap for the TITAN mass measurement facility, where we plan to cool highly charged radioactive ions charge-bred in an electron beam ion trap using cold electrons or protons.

Pierre Capel - Halo nuclei are light neutron-rich nuclei that exhibit a strongly clusterized structure: they can be viewed as a core that contains most of the nucleons, to which one or two neutrons are loosely-bound. Owing to their low separation energy, these neutrons tunnel far from the classically-allowed region and form a sort of a halo around the core. This exotic nuclear structure is the subject of many experimental and theoretical studies. During this talk, I will present a new way of extracting information about the halo structure using angular distributions for elastic scattering and breakup. Rhiannon Meharchand - Charge-exchange reactions have been used extensively in forward kinematics to probe the spin-isospin response of stable nuclei. By exploiting a simple proportionality between the differential cross section and Gamow-Teller strength (B(GT)), one can extract detailed structure information in a model-independent way. This provides stringent tests of theoretical models. The charge-exchange group is pioneering the use of the (7Li, 7Be) reaction in inverse kinematics as a tool to expand these structure studies to exotic nuclei. In November 2009, the 12B(7Li, 7Be) reaction was employed to study 12Be, in an attempt to elucidate the breakdown of the N=8 shell closure and demonstrate the power of this experimental technique. Experimental details and preliminary results will be presented.

Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) flow equations can be used to unitarily soften nuclear Hamiltonians by decoupling high-momentum intermediate state contributions to low-energy observables while maintaining the natural hierarchy of many-body forces. Analogous flow equations can be used to consistently evolve operators so that observables are unchanged if no approximations are made. The question in practice is whether the advantages of a softer Hamiltonian and less correlated wave functions might be offset by complications in approximating and applying other operators. In this talk, I show the advantageous features generally carry over to general operators, with additional simplifications for operators that probe high-momentum components of low-energy states. The momentum distribution n(q) for large q is a prototypical example. There, one finds matrix elements of n(q) factorize into the product of a universal (i.e., nucleus and state-independent) function that carries the asymptotic q-dependence times a "soft" (low-momentum) matrix element of a current operator that depends on the nucleus and the particular low-energy state. This factorization behavior is reminiscent of operator product expansion methods in quantum field theory, although a precise connection has not yet been established.

Current plans for the in-flight fragment separator system at FRIB require multiple stages of separation, as well as advanced techniques of using wedge degraders. A number of codes, such as LISE, MOCADI, and COSY, are being applied for simulation and performance assessment of the techniques. An overview of how these codes are being used for these studies will be discussed. Some examples will be given of the type of results that can be extracted, along with the scheme that was introduced for the conceptual design of FRIB.

Particle accelerators and their associated technologies impact many aspects of our lives, from the inner workings of a microwave oven, to industrial processing of materials, to modern treatments for cancer, to keeping us safe. The introduction of concepts exploiting unique capabilities from plasma, laser, and the material sciences has led to a range of accelerator concepts that bear little resemblance to existing technology. Tremendous technical progress in the last two decades has radically changed the landscape, transforming many of these fantastic concepts into tangible reality. We'll take a look at how far technologies for electron accelerators have come, and what the future might hold.