Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Neutron star mergers are extremely violent events resulting in gravitational-waves and electromagnetic emissions that could be detected at distances of several hundred mega-parsecs. Imprinted in these signals are important clues on the properties of high-density matter, waiting to be harnessed by us. I will discuss the prospects of measuring neutron star radii and masses using gravitational-wave observations of the late-inspiral, merger, and post-merger of neutron stars. Then, I will show how multimessenger observations of the merger and post-merger evolution of merging neutron stars could be used to place further constrains on the nuclear equation of state at very high densities. Finally, I will discuss the possible role of neutron star mergers in the creation of the r-process nuclei in the Universe.

While the discovery of non-zero neutrino masses is one of the most important accomplishments by physicists in the past century, it is still unknown how and in what form these masses arise. Lepton number-violating neutrinoless double beta decay is a natural consequence of Majorana neutrinos and many BSM theories, and several experimental efforts are involved in the search for these processes. Understanding how neutrinoless double beta decay would manifest in nuclear environments is key for understanding any observed signals. In this talk I will present an overview of a set of one- and two-body matrix elements relevant for experimental searches for neutrinoless double beta decay, along with preliminary lattice QCD results.

Superconducting RF (SRF) cavities are widely used in particle accelerators for different purposes - in nuclear science, in high energy physics, for free-electron lasers, industrial, medical and defense applications. For proton or ion beam acceleration in medium and high velocity range, multi-cell elliptical cavities are used. In the presentation, the physics background of the cavity operation is discussed; the principles of the cavity RF and mechanical design are considered; phenomena limiting the cavity performance are discussed. Current state-of-the art design and technology of SC elliptical cavities including extensive Fermilab experience will be presented.

In the past decade, concurrent advances in nuclear interactions, many body methods and computational power have launched an explosive foray into ab-initio calculation of nuclear structure properties. Until recently, such calculations were limited only to nuclei with the lightest masses (A 10). The development of renormalization group (RG) methods designed to exploit momentum scale separation in the nuclear many-body problem have made extension of ab-initio methods to the medium mass regime possible. This work focuses on the application of the fledgling in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG) method to calculate excited state properties, such as energies and transition strengths, in a consistent effective operator framework. This particular variant of IMSRG employs equations-of-motion (EOM) methods to extract excited state structure from the IM-SRG effective operators.

The discovery of neutrino flavor oscillations has definitively shown that neutrinos have non-zero mass. This result contradicts the Standard Model and has wide ranging implications in fields ranging from particle physics to cosmology. However, important questions remain: What is the absolute neutrino mass scale? Is the neutrino a Majorana or Dirac particle? A number of large-scale experiments are underway or are being developed to attempt to answer these questions. These experiments fall into two categories: direct neutrino mass determination experiments, and searches for neutrinoless double -decay. In this talk I will describe high precision atomic mass measurements with Penning traps to determine -decay Q values for isotopes that are being used in current or planned -decay and neutrino mass determination experiments. I will discuss measurements that have been performed at the NSCL and Argonne National Lab and describe a new Penning trap that we are developing at Central Michigan University.

In nuclear matter at neutron-star densities and temperatures, Cooper pairing leads to the formation of a gap in the nucleon excitation spectra resulting in exponentially strong Boltzmann suppression of many transport coefficients. However, density oscillations of sufficiently large amplitude can overcome this suppression for flavor-changing beta processes via the mechanism of gap bridging. In this talk I will give brief introduction to the mechanism of gap bridging and show that gap bridging can counteract Boltzmann suppression of neutrino emissivity for the realistic case of modified Urca processes with 3p2 neutron pairing.

The Lennard-Jones potential is the most widely used interaction potential between atoms with widespread applications in physical, chemical and biological sciences. This simple potential also has the advantage that the cohesive energy, pressure and the bulk modulus of a simple solid (simple cubic, body-centered cubic, and face-centered cubic) can be expressed analytically as a function of volume using lattice sums in three dimensions, originally developed by Hund, Born and Lennard-Jones. In a similar procedure to Lennard-Jones we derive analytical expressions for the zero-point vibrational energy and first-order anharmonicity corrections for these crystals by an inverse power expansion in terms of the internuclear distance, which we call the Extended Lennard-Jones potential. These new expressions are applied to the Lennard-Jones systems of rare gas solids from helium down to superheavy element oganessian (Z=118). We will show how to deal with slow converging lattice sums by expansion techniques such as the Epstein zeta function or Van der Hoff-Benson expansions in terms of Bessel functions. We also give an analytical solution for the hcp lattice. By doing so we can solve some old problems, e.g. why a simple Lennard-Jones potential always prefers hcp over fcc contrary to what is known from experiment. Moreover, through many-body expansions using computer intensive relativistic coupled cluster methods we can get the cohesive energy for solid Argon accurate to within 1 J/mol and within experimental accuracy.

Fundamental constants like the speed of light c, the Planck constant h or the gravitational constant G play defining roles in physics and chemistry. Modern theories attempting to unify all four fundamental forces of nature suggest that all fundamental constants may vary in space and time. A small deviation from these constants would result in a completely different universe not able to sustain life. The search for small variations currently constitutes one of the most exciting areas of modern physics as it goes beyond the standard model in particle physics. In fact, this area of research is motivated by new theories unifying gravity with the other three fundamental interactions, as well as by a number of cosmological models. From atomic clock experiments we already know that the variation of the fine structure constant ^a/a is less than ~10-17 per year, and the variation in the electron to proton mass ratio ^m/m(m=me/mp) is similarly small with less than ~10-15 per year. Quasar and Big Bang nucleosynthesis data gave hints for non-zero variations, which, however, have not been confirmed yet. For further progress in this area it is important to find enhanced effects in atoms or molecules for the variation of fundamental constants. Our research group, in close collaboration with V. V. Flambaum (Sydney) and many others, currently searches for best candidates to measure variations of fundamental constants in future high-precision laboratory experiments. Weak anthropic principle (WAP) (Brendon Carter): “We must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers.”

Multi-neutron systems have long fascinated nuclear physicists and the question of their possible existence has had an erratic and inconsistent history that dates back to the early 1960’s. Several experiments have been attempted to find a bound or resonant multi-neutron state, employing methods ranging from neutron induced fission to direct transfer reactions [1]. The unique attributes of multi-neutron systems have also prompted many theoretical investigations into pure neutron-neutron interactions that may make such systems possible [2]. This presentation focuses on a recent measurement of a candidate tetraneutron state, using a missing-mass technique with a double charge exchange reaction [3]. A brief history of the multineutron system and related experiments and theoretical predictions, the details of the 4He(8He, 8Be) experiment, and the significance of such a measurement will be discussed. References: 1. F. M. Marqués et al., Phys. Rev. C 65, 044006 (2002) 2. S. C. Pieper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 252501 (2003) 3. K. Kisamori, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 052501 (2016)

In the last decade we have seen the production of new elements for the Periodic Table up to nuclear charge 118. How far can we go? Where does the Periodic Table end? Can we do chemistry with such exotic elements? What is the chemical and physical behavior of these exotic elements, and do we have to go beyond nonrelativistic quantum mechanics to understand them? The current status of relativistic electronic structure theory for superheavy elements is reviewed. Recent developments in relativistic quantum theory have made it possible to obtain accurate electronic properties for the trans-actinide elements with the aim to predict their chemical and physical behavior. The role of quantum electrodynamic effects beyond the no-virtual-pair approximation, which is usually neglected in relativistic molecular calculations, is discussed. Changes in periodic trends due to relativistic effects are outlined for the superheavy elements with nuclear charge Z=111–120. We also analyze the role of the negative energy states for the electronic stability of superheavy elements beyond the critical nuclear charge (Zcrit≈170), where the 1s state enters the negative energy continuum at −2mec2. Graph: Orbital energy dependence on nuclear charge Z. 1s1/2 shell diving into the negative energy continuum (-2 mec2) at Zcrit.

The understanding of the structure of matter at the level of atoms and molecules is a cornerstone of the technical achievements of the modern civilization; everything from modern medicine to communication infrastructure depend on this knowledge. The current understanding of the internal structure of protons, neutrons and nuclei, however, are at a comparatively primitive level. While we understand something of how quarks and gluons make up these objects, we have very little idea of how they are arranged and how that arrangement leads to the macro-properties of nucleons and nuclei. This lack of understanding has not only been due to experimental limitations, but to the difficulty of the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) that govern quarks and gluons. Advances in the theoretical understanding of QCD in the past decades, however, have lead to a framework that enables the measurement and interpretation of the quark and gluon structure of nucleons and nuclei. With these developments in mind, a new facility called the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) has been proposed to be built in the US in order to investigate the structure of nucleons and nuclei in unprecedented detail. I will discuss the science of EIC as well as the status of the project.

The $\gamma$-ray strength function ($\gamma$SF), the average $\gamma$-decay reduced probability, is an indispensable quantity for reaction rate calculations. The resonances which dominate the strength function were believed to have been known, however, recent experiments have revealed an intriguing behavior of the strength function. It is found that the $\gamma$SF has a characteristic upbend in the low $\gamma$-energy region, never observed before. This low-energy enhancement cannot be explained by the semiclassical models developed to describe the known resonances and its physical origin is not yet fully understood. We will be presenting the characteristics of the $\gamma$SF, as well as the steps done towards the better undestanding of the mechanism which generates the characteristic upbend.

Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources are used as injectors for many heavy ion facilities because of their versatility and the high ion currents available. Over the last few decades advances in magnet technology and better understanding of the ECR ion source plasma physics have led to remarkable improvements of the performance of ECR ion sources. Still requirement for new facilities across the world are driving the development of the next generation of ECR ion sources for operations possibly as high as 45 GHz and beyond. This presentation provides an overview of the principles and current understanding of ECR ion source plasmas as well as the recent results and new development ongoing across the ECR community. Finally some of the challenges facing the development of the next generation of ECR ion sources will be discussed.

We present a new calculation of neutrino emissivities and energy spectra from a massive star going through the advanced stages of nuclear burning (presupernova) in the months before becoming a supernova. The contributions from beta decay and electron capture, pair annihilation, plasmon decay, and the photoneutrino process are modeled in detail, using updated tabulated nuclear rates. We also use realistic conditions of temperature, density, electron fraction and nuclear isotopic composition of the star from the state of the art stellar evolution code MESA. Results are presented for a set of progenitor stars with mass between 15 M_sun and 30 M_sun . It is found that beta processes contribute substantially to the neutrino emissivity above realistic detection thresholds of few MeV, at selected positions and times in the evolution of the star.

The nuclear physics community strongly supports the construction of a future Electron Ion Collider (EIC) to study the origin of nuclear spin, the spatial distribution of gluons in the nucleon, how the gluon density saturates, and to enhance understanding of nuclear structure. Recently, two design studies with minimized technical risk have been carried out on the BNL version of the EIC called eRHIC which uses the RHIC collider and its injection complex. One of the studied solution is based on an Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) for electron acceleration. The second one includes an Electron Storage Ring (RR) in the RHIC tunnel. Both solutions support e-A collisions at center of mass energies of up to 140 GeV and promise to reach luminosities of up to 1034s-1cm-2. Luminosities in excess of 1033cm-1s-1 require for both designs a novel beam cooling technique called coherent electron cooling. The solution based on an electron storage ring has the advantage of requiring only proven technologies which implies minimum technical risk in the implementation of the design whereas several years of R&D is required to retire the risks of the ERL based design options. The decision has now been made to concentrate the eRHIC design effort in FY17 on the RR design to movie the design forward towards CD0 by then of FY18. The presentation will describe the RR design, the expected collider performance, the electron injector complex as well as the corresponding R&D program.

There are numerous reaction rates involving α-particles that play a key role in nuclear astrophysics. For example, some (α,p) reactions have been found to be fundamental for the understanding of X-ray bursts and the production of 44Ti in core-collapse supernovae. Also, some (α,n) reactions are considered to be important neutron sources in different astrophysical scenarios. Direct measurements of these reactions at relevant astrophysical energies are experimentally challenging because of their small cross sections and the intensity limitation of radioactive beams. In this talk I will describe a novel technique to study (α,p) and (α,n) reactions using a Multi-Sampling Ionization Chamber (MUSIC), an active target system with a segmented anode that allows the investigation of a large energy range of the excitation function with a single beam energy. Recent results on the direct measurement of (α,n) and (α,p) measurements in the MUSIC detector will be presented.

Atomic nuclei are complex systems where single-nucleon and collective degrees of freedom are deeply intertwined. The nuclear structure method which I will present describes the nucleus as a system of relativistic nucleons interacting via effective meson-exchange, and applies nuclear field theory in order to account for nucleonic correlations. In this way, this approach naturally connects the intermediate-energy scales of mesons to the low-energy domain of nucleons and their collective motion, and provides a consistent framework for the description of ground and excited states in a wide range of nuclei. Recently, we have extended this formalism to the description of isospin-transfer modes in open-shell nuclei [1], which have various applications in nuclear and particle physics as well as astrophysics. In the charge-exchange channel, the coupling between single nucleons and collective vibrations generates a time-dependent proton-neutron effective interaction, in addition to the static pion and rho-meson exchange, and induces fragmentation and spreading of the transition strength. Such effects are important to reproduce weak interaction rates and to tackle the quenching problem of the Gamow-Teller strength. I will show recent results of calculations for spin-isospin excitations and weak decays in nuclei, and will address further developments. [1] C. Robin and E. Litvinova, Eur. Phys. J. A, 52 (2016).

The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science is a center of excellence in the UK for advanced and novel accelerator technology, providing expertise, research, development and training in accelerator techniques, and promoting advanced accelerator applications in science and society. The JAI is based on three universities: University of Oxford, Imperial College London and Royal Holloway University of London. Every year 6 to 10 accelerators science experts, trained via research on cutting edge projects, defend their PhD thesis in JAI. We work in JAI on design of novel accelerator-based scientific instruments; we devise the upgrades to the 3-rd generation synchrotron light sources and work on novel Free Electron Lasers, we explore plasma acceleration and its application for creation of compact X-ray and THz sources for industrial and medical fields, we develop novel compact energy recovery linacs, while simultaneously working on giant 100-km-perimeter future colliders. In this presentation, after brief overview of the research and training program in JAI, we will in particular focus on discussion of compact X-ray sources, based on plasma acceleration and energy recovery concepts. We will review the state of the art and some of the advanced ideas, and also discuss the underlying physics, providing the audience with back-of-the-envelope estimations and explanations of most relevant parameters or concepts.

Cosmic microwave background Stage-IV experiments and thirty-meter-class telescopes will come on line in the next decade. The convolution of these data sets will provide on order 1% precision for observables related to neutrino cosmology. Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics could manifest itself in slight deviations from the standard predictions of quantities such as the neutrino energy density and the primordial abundances from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). In this talk, I will argue for the need for precise and accurate numerical calculations of BBN. I will first show the detailed evolution of the neutrino spectra as they go out of equilibrium with the plasma. The spectra are important in changing the ratio of neutrons to protons. I will show how sensitive the primordial mass fraction of helium is to the weak interaction rates which evolve the neutron-to-proton ratio. Finally, I will present an example of how BSM physics can affect BBN by instituting an asymmetry between neutrinos and antineutrinos, commonly characterized by a lepton number.

High-resolution spectrographic observations, combined with laboratory atomic physics data, have led to increasingly precise abundance determinations in stars. We have focused on elemental abundances in halo stars. These stars, among the oldest in our Galaxy, were seeded or \'polluted\' by the first generation of stars. We have extensively observed the n(eutron)-capture elements (synthesized in the slow or rapid process) and have recently initiated new studies of the iron-peak elements in the halo stars. To an observational limit, all of the halo stars show some evidence of n-capture elements. However, the r(apid)-process pattern varies (per star) with a complete r-process in some cases like CS 22892-052and only a weak or partial r-process pattern in other cases like HD 122563.Further, we see evidence of extensive n-capture elements in some stars in nearby dwarf galaxies. We find that several of the iron peak elements (Ti, V, Sc and Cr) show correlations. The observed elemental abundance ratios of these iron-peak elements can then be employed to explore the properties of explosive nucleosynthesis in, and to constrain models of, core-collapse supernovae.

In nuclear astro-physics, the quantum simulation of large inhomogeneous dense systems as present in the crusts of neutron stars presents big challenges. The feasible number of particles in a simulation box with periodic boundary conditions is strongly limited due to the immense computational cost of the quantum methods. In this talk, we describe the techniques used to parallelize a state of the art density functional theory code that operates on an equidistant grid, and optimize its performance on distributed memory architectures. We also describe techniques to accelerate the compute-intensive matrix calculation part in this formalism. Presented techniques allow us to achieve good scaling and high performance on a large number of cores, as demonstrated through detailed performance analysis on Edison, a Cray XC30 supercomputer. Furthermore we show first applications simulating so called pasta phases with up to 6000 particles which was not possible without a highly parallelized code.

Why not explore a career in the federal government? Most nuclear physicists are well aware of job opportunities in academia and national laboratories. But most do not consider a job in the federal government. Dr. Gillo will share her experiences as a member of the federal workforce, helping to manage the Nation’s Nuclear Physics Program. She will describe some of the challenges and excitements of being a federal employee, and describe how federal workers can make a contribution to nuclear physics.

Research with rare isotopes is expected to answer some of the fundamental questions about the world we live in, and specifically some of the questions asked by the National Research Council and the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee. FRIB will make a significant contribution to this by providing experimenters with rare-isotope beams of unprecedented intensities. This presentation will give an overview of the rare-isotope production at FRIB. Intense primary beams from the FRIB driver linac will be focused on a rotating target and generate rare isotopes through fragmentation and induced fission of the accelerated beam particles. Different reaction products emerging from the target will be separated in-flight in a three-stage fragment separator. Spatial separation is achieved by using magnetic fields and induced energy loss in appropriately shaped energy degraders. This allows one to intercept undesired contaminants and the unreacted primary beam, and to produce high-quality rare-isotope beams. The high beam power at FRIB will broaden the range of nuclides available for experiments.

The discovery of new isotopes is the first and necessary step towards the study and exploration of more and more exotic nuclei. Exploring the nuclear landscape and pushing towards the limits of nuclear existence is important for the understanding of the strong force and the nucleosynthesis processes in the universe. The discovery of isotopes relies on new advances in accelerator and detector technology. The continuous development of pioneering and innovative separation and detection techniques have pushed the limit towards -- and in many cases beyond -- the driplines. The history of the discovery of isotopes as well as the potential for future discoveries will be presented.

Nuclear reactors are powerful sources of electron antineutrinos because fission fragments are neutron-rich isotopes. Reactors were used to discover the neutrino, and to uncover neutrino oscillations between the first & second and first & third generations, among other things. The biggest stumbling block, however, has been our relatively poor knowledge of the underlying neutrino rate and spectrum. Recent, precision measurements have demonstrated new oddities in the neutrino spectrum, adding to the many questions we already had. This talk will review some of the recent discoveries using reactor neutrinos, including precision measurements from the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. Included will be our measurements of the spectrum, and the new questions that have been raised. We will discuss some of the underlying nuclear physics, and its uncertainties, and what measurements might be made to help clarify the situation. We¹ll conclude by discussing the PRecision Oscillation and SPECTrum (PROSPECT) experiment at the HFIR reactor at Oak Ridge, a search for sterile neutrinos at a well understood research reactor.

Linac4 is a new 160 MeV linear accelerator for H- ions commissioned last year at CERN as the first step of a programme for increasing the luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider. The requirements in terms of beam performance and availability for the new LHC injector led to the development of new designs and technical solutions with potential applications beyond basic science. After completing the accelerator, the Linac4 team has been active in adapting some of these technologies to the medical field building a new low-energy injector for proton cancer therapy, and is now developing a new portable linac design for applications in the fields of cultural heritage and of medical and industrial analysis. The speaker will introduce the challenges and the lessons learned from the Linac4 construction and commissioning, will review the applications of ion linear accelerators in the fields of medicine and industry, and will present some examples of new compact linac designs and of their applications.

Week 1: Transport Code Comparison Writing group meeting

In my career as a historian, I wrote about one particularly sensitive subject: the choice of Weston, Illinois as the site for what came to be called Fermilab. This was a surprising and dismaying decision for many physicists, particularly those at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. After all, following in the tradition of Ernest Lawrence, managers and a world-class group of accelerator builders obtained initial funding and created the first design for the facility. To add further insult and injury, the loss of this particle physics laboratory signaled the end of the era when Berkeley housed the world's largest, most prestigious accelerators. When recently contemplating untold stories I would like to tell before retirement, I realized I am bothered by bits and pieces left out of my previously published work on the Fermilab decision, in particular what I discovered in my interactions with two key participants in that saga, Glenn Seaborg, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Edwin McMillan, then director of Berkeley Lab. It is not that this missing information changes my published assessment or conclusions, which were shaped by dozens of interviews and a mountain of documents. Instead, I present this "in between the lines" story of my experiences with Seaborg and McMillan to show case the job of a laboratory historian. In particular I want to share the scholarly as well as human joys and dilemmas encountered when doing this job, including the difficulty of dealing with and sorting through the emotions that arise when gathering information from history makers and the discomfort that comes with telling a story people don't want to hear. I also hope this account provides further insight into important history makers and the nuances of history-making.

Explaining why the universe contains more matter than antimatter remains an open problem at the interface of particle and nuclear physics with cosmology. While the Standard Model of particle physics cannot provide an explanation, various candidates for physics beyond the Standard Model may do so by breaking fundamental symmetries. Among the most interesting and testable scenarios are those that would have generated the matter-antimatter asymmetry roughly 10 picoseconds after the Big Bang. I discuss recent theoretical ideas for such scenarios, developments in computing their dynamics, and prospects for testing their viability with experiments at the high energy and high intensity frontiers.

Three outstanding pioneers represent the achievements of women in the field of science and technology: the double Nobel Price winner and discoverer of radioactivity Marie Curie (1867–1934), the Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist Lise Meitner (1878–1968), and the Viennese Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) with the invention of frequency hopping. Incidents of their lives, achievements, and impediments as well as the contents of their research and the passion for their work are in the center of the play "Curie Meitner Lamarr Indivisible", produced by the Viennese association PortraitTheater. Illustrated with music and videos, the 95-minute performance shows entertaining portraits of extraordinary women in history. The successful theater performance, directed by Sandra Schűddekopf, with Anita Zieher impersonating the three women, had already been invited to Belgium, Germany, Iran, Poland, Switzerland (CERN), and Romania. 4:30pm Tour of National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (preregistration required) 6:00pm Light Refreshments Available 6:30pm Performance 8:00pm Reception Following Free but ticketed! Appropriate for ages 16+

Women in Science - Curie_Meitner_Lamarr_Indivisible - A performance by the Vienna Portrait Theater The Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics – Center for the Evolution of the Elements is inviting the MSU and greater Lansing communities to a theater performance by the “portraittheater” from Vienna, Austria. It will take place in the auditorium of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (Room 1300, 640 South Shaw Lane) on March 23, 2017 at 6.30 pm. The performance highlights three outstanding women pioneers in the field of science and technology, whose achievements still affect our lives today: The double Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of radioactivity Marie Curie (1867-1934), the Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist Lise Meitner (1878-1968), and the Viennese Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) who invented frequency hopping, which is still used today for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology. Their triumphs and struggles are brought to life in "Curie_Meitner_Lamarr_indivisible", illustrated with music and videos. The show will be followed by a reception with the actress, the director of the play, and local scientists between 8 and 9 pm in the foyer of the auditorium. Prior to the show, there is the opportunity to tour the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory starting at 4:30 pm. This free event is open to the public, however, tickets must be reserved in advance online. In addition, a limited number of tickets will be available at the entrance at 6 pm on March 23. More information and advance tickets are available at indico.fnal.gov/event/JINAPT. The performance is co-sponsored by the MSU Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, the College of Natural Science, the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the Lyman Briggs College. Other partners are the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, MSU WorkLife Office, the Drew Science Program, and the MSU Diversity Programs Office.

http://www.nucl.phys.tohoku.ac.jp/transport2017/

The neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) is sensitive to CP violation arising from new physics beyond the standard model. The experiment at TRIUMF will feature a new superfluid helium source of ultracold neutrons (UCN) so that the statistical sensitivity can be improved over previous experiments. The experimental goal for Phase II operations at TRIUMF is a factor of 30 improvement in precision over the previous best nEDM experiment. At the new level of statistical precision to be reached by this experiment, a host of systematic effects must be handled to higher precision than ever before. This talk will provide an overview of our project, featuring recent progress on UCN source installation, and updates on our studies of magnetic field generation and characterization for the nEDM experiment.

Week 3: Focused lectures, talks and discussions on - Bayesian analysis with transport simulations - Implementation of microscopic interactions in the transport models - Applications of equation of state extracted from heavy-ion collisions in astrophysics models

TBA

Helium refrigeration to cool super-conducting magnets and/or super-conducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities around 4.5 K or 2 K (sub-atmospheric) is the most practical and cost effective solution for modern particle accelerators. Cryogenic processes are very energy intensive, and in particular sub-atmospheric refrigeration (below 4.5 K) required for Niobium cavities and Nb-Ti super-conductors (used in magnets) requires three orders of magnitude high input power as compared to commercial refrigeration systems for the same amount of cooling. These refrigeration systems are very complex and are comprised of many sub-systems. Although the need for expertise in helium cryogenics is high, the volume is not comparable to industrial process systems. These factors present a unique opportunity and challenge. Cryogenic engineering truly allows those in the field to be involved with all aspects of the project; from concept and process studies, specification development, detailed design, fabrication oversight, commissioning and operation (and modifications to existing systems). However, many of the components required for helium systems are adopted – with little or no changes – from conventional industries (e.g., refrigeration, gas processing, refinery, air separation). Further, technical expertise does not necessarily exist predominately in industry. There exists then a needed and great opportunity to study these systems and components which operate in an extreme envelope of process conditions, and to develop modifications to existing component and/or develop new components well suited to these processes. However, just having a need is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for study and advancement to proceed and flourish. This can often be the case in the previously mentioned ‘conventional’ industries. The environment must be right. MSU with the cutting edge research facility FRIB on its campus is such an environment, and has a state of the art cryogenic system. This talk will provide an overview of helium cryogenic systems used by accelerators, the research done by the authors, and the areas in greatest need of further development and research here at MSU in collaboration with FRIB and partnering government labs and industry.

The past decade has witnessed a staggering expansion in the range of applicability of ab initio many-body methods, enabling the use of the same nuclear interaction to describe few-body and medium-mass systems. I will report on recent developments in using the in medium similarity renormalization group (IM-SRG) to derive effective valence space interactions and operators. This approach incorporates the experience gained from large scale shell model investigations of nuclear structure, while eliminating the need for phenomenological adjustments and thus enhancing predictive power where no data exist. I will present selected results for isotopes ranging from lithium to cadmium, and discuss prospects for providing reliable many-body uncertainties.

The technique of spin-exchange optical pumping has found extensive use in both fundamental research and a variety of applications. For example, high-density polarized He-3 targets have played an important role in elucidating the spin structure of the nucleon, and more recently, enabling form-factor measurements at very high momentum transfer. Phenomena such as the role of quark orbital angular momentum, and the importance of diquark-like structures, are among the physics that has resulted from such work. MRI using polarized He-3 and Xe-129 have provided the highest resolution images of the gas space of lungs ever produced. And very recently, polarized Xe-129, dissolved into the blood following inhalation, has been used to try to visualize, in real time, the function of the kidney. However, the strategy of somehow combining magnetic resonance with the use of tiny quantities of a tracer is limited by the poor signal-to-noise that results when very few nuclei are involved. I will describe a new technique we call Polarized Nuclear Imaging (PNI) in which magnetic resonance techniques play a key role, but imaging data are acquired not through detecting weak electromagnetic signals, but through the detection of gamma rays. The net effect is to increase the sensitivity of magnetic resonance by factors of between a million and a billion. The techniques described may also be useful in the study of exotic nuclei.

Week 4: Writing group meetings on summary of ICNT 2017 and writing assignments

The nucleon axial charge, gA, is one of the fundamental properties of the nucleon, measuring the strength with which the weak axial current couples to the nucleon. The axial charge governs many fundamental nuclear processes, such as nuclear beta decay and the strength of the nuclear force through long-range pion exchange. Given the prominence of gA, this quantity was originally thought to be one of the first important benchmark calculations for demonstrating that uncertainties associated with lattice QCD calculations relevant to nuclear physics can be appropriately quantified and controlled. However, this quantity has been notoriously difficult to compute with lattice QCD, largely due to systematics that were not fully appreciated, and its theoretical determination remains an outstanding challenge. I will describe a recent lattice QCD calculation, using a new computational strategy motivated by the Feynman-Hellmann Theorem, in which we demonstrate control over all sources of systematic uncertainties using relatively few stochastic samplings. For the first time, a precise and accurate determination of gA has been achieved with lattice QCD. I will also discuss the remaining sources of the largest systematic uncertainty and what is required to reduce the overall uncertainty below the 2% level.

Discoveries and technological advances spurred by the demands of nuclear physics research find applications in many disciplines, including providing benefit to society through the treatment and diagnosis of disease. As an example, proton radiation therapy is a precise form of radiation treatment for cancer. Due to the characteristic Bragg peak associated with ion energy deposition, proton therapy provides the radiation oncologist an improved method of treatment localization within a patient, as compared with conventional radiation therapy using X-rays. This can be accomplished only in concert with advances in tumor identification and localization, patient motion and positioning, treatment planning and evaluation, and a host of supporting technologies. An overview of proton therapy will be presented, with some emphasis on landmark and recent technological developments.

Chiral perturbation theory is a useful tool to develop consistent two- and more-baryon interactions based on the symmetries of Quantum Chromo Dynamics. In this talk, I discuss predictions for the binding energies of light hypernuclei with A=7 based on chiral hyperon-nucleon interactions in leading and next-to-leading order. For the application to larger systems, the Jacobi no-core shell model was employed which requires to evolve such interactions using the similarity renormalization group. After a brief introduction to this method, I will use binding energy results of light hypernuclei to quantify the contribution of three-baryon interactions induced by this technique.

Radiation therapy plays an important role in cancer treatment, with more than 50% of cancer patients receiving radiation therapy as a part of their treatment plan. The advent of new heavy ion treatment facilities, being planned around the world, marks the beginning of an increased use of heavy ions in cancer treatment. Currently, protons are the most common ion in use for radiotherapy; and carbon ions are a distant second. Each has important differences from the clinical perspective, and offer differing advantages and disadvantages. The quantification of the biological effectiveness of the particle beams is expressed in terms of the relative biological effectiveness (RBE). Current in-vivo and in-vitro RBE studies using particle beams are limited in number and cell-type. This hinders the possibility of utilizing full potential offered by the particle beams in patient treatment planning systems. Our efforts in measuring the RBE for particle beams led to an experimental investigation using a novel experimental design that enabled rapid gathering of massive amount of data. Monte Carlo simulations were carried out for accurate determination of particle transport variables for this experimental setup. This investigation highlights the key role of physics-based modeling for heavy ion therapies, and the results will be presented for proton, helium and carbon ion beams.

The neutron-matter equation of state connects several physical systems over a wide density range. Among these are neutron-rich nuclei, which are relevant for the description of the r-process, and neutron stars, which contain the densest form of matter we know to exist in the cosmos. An accurate description of the neutron-matter equation of state requires precise many-body methods in combination with a systematic theory for nuclear forces. Continuum Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are among the most precise many-body methods available to study strongly interacting systems at finite densities. They project out the ground-state wave function of the system by propagating a trial wave function in imaginary time but require local interactions as input. Chiral effective field theory (EFT) is a systematic theory for nuclear forces that allows to develop consistent two- and three-nucleon interactions and enables calculations with controlled theoretical uncertainties. Chiral EFT makes use of a momentum-space expansion of nuclear forces based on the symmetries of Quantum Chromo- dynamics, but contains several sources of nonlocality. In this talk I will explain how to combine chiral EFT interactions and QMC calculations and present recent QMC results for the neutron-matter equation of state and light nuclei with local chiral NN and 3N interactions. I will finally address open problems with local chiral interactions.

In the past two decades, the theoretical description of atomic nuclei has changed due to ideas from effective field theory (EFT) and the renormalization group (RG), and due to advances in computing. Ideas from EFT and RG guide the systematical construction of nuclear Hamiltonians and currents, and the quantification of theoretical uncertainties. The increase in computing power allowed theorists to solve the resulting Hamiltonians even for medium mass and heavy nuclei. This seminar presents recent results (and new predictions) from ab initio computations of rare isotopes of calcium, nickel, and tin. For nuclei in the mass 100 region, the EFT description in terms of quadrupole vibrations is consistent with data within experimental and theoretical uncertainties for several even-even isotopes (Pd, Ru, Cd) and their odd-mass neighbors (Rh, Ag).

The common use of computational models, in combination with physical observations, has expanded our understanding and ability to anticipate behaviors in a variety of physical systems. With relevant physical observations, it is possible to calibrate a computational model, and even estimate systematic discrepancies between the model reality. Estimating and quantifying the uncertainty in this model discrepancy can lead to reliable prediction uncertainties - so long as this prediction is “similar” to the available physical observations. Exactly how to define \"similar\" has proven difficult in many applications. Clearly it depends on how well the computational model captures the relevant physics in the system, as well as the portability of the model discrepancy in moving from the available physical data to the prediction. This talk will discuss these concepts using computational models ranging from simple to complex.

Projectile fragmentation reactions have been described as a two-step process in which the fast collision creates an excited precursor fragment, which then undergoes a slower de-excitation process to result in a final fragment. Even though extensive measurements have been made of the production of the final projectile fragments, the specifics of the production mechanism are not well understood. New coincident measurements of the fragment and neutron distributions can provide insight into the projectile fragmentation process. In addition, comparisons can be made to the predictions from the Liège Intranuclear Cascade model (INCL++) coupled with a de-excitation code [1]. From another standpoint, calculations using the Constrained Molecular Dynamics (CoMD) model [2,3] have shown that the N/Z ratio of the residue fragments and neutron emission from projectile fragmentation reactions are sensitive to the form of the symmetry energy, a term within the nuclear equation of state. Determining the form of the symmetry energy remains a major objective in understanding properties of neutron-rich nuclear matter [4,5]. While previous experimental and theoretical work has made progress in placing constraints on the symmetry energy, further work is needed to refine and confirm the limits. In order to understand the projectile fragmentation process and constrain the symmetry energy using the N/Z ratio observable, an experiment was performed with the MoNA-LISA and Sweeper magnet detectors at the NSCL. Beams of 30S and 40S impinged on 9Be targets and the produced fragments were measured in coincidence with fast neutrons. The multiplicity of neutrons in coincidence with fragments from carbon (Z = 6) to sodium (Z = 11) were obtained in this work. The data analysis process for particle identification and neutron response will be discussed. References: 1. S. Leray, D. Mancusi, P. Kaitaniemi, J.C. David, A. Boudard, B. Braunn, and J. Cugnon, J. Phys. Conf. Series 420, 012065 (2013). 2. M. Papa, T. Maruyama, and A. Bonasera, Phys. Rev. C 64, 024612 (2001). 3. M. Papa, G. Giuliani, and A. Bonasera, J. Comput. Phys. 208, 403 (2005). 4. D.V. Shetty, S.J. Yennello, and G.A. Souliotis, Phys. Rev. C 76, 024606 (2007). 5. B.A. Li, L.W. Chen, and C.M. Ko, Phys. Rep. 464, 113 (2008).

eRHIC is the proposed Electron Ion Collider(EIC) by Brookhaven National Laboratory. The nuclear community demands the requirement of EIC with high luminosity, low divergence and versatile spin pattern. There are two eRHIC designs to fulfill the requirement, Linac-ring and Ring-ring design. Recently, the Ring-Ring version of eRHIC becomes the default design. This presentation will summarize the new Ring-ring design and explore the accelerator physics challenges.

The RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) has been successfully operating for over ten years since the first beam at the end of 2006 with the aim of accessing the unexplored region on the nuclear chart, far from stability. The continuous efforts have improved the performance of the RIBF accelerator complex. We did a lot of things to upgrade accelerator performance, including construction a 28-GHz superconducting ECR ion source with a new injector linac and development of new types of charge strippers. This seminar focuses on the charge strippers. The RIBF accelerator complex uses the two charge strippers for effective acceleration of the uranium ions. These charge strippers could be a bottle-neck problem especially in high power operation. We carried out elaborating R&D works to replace the conventional carbon foils with the new types of the charge strippers which can survive irradiation of high intensity heavy ion beams, reaching to the solutions of helium gas stripping for the first stripper and rotating disks using highly oriented graphene sheet for the second one so far. This talk overviews R&D works for the charge strippers since 2008 and reports the present status of the charge strippers currently used for the operation with future prospect.

The RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) has been successfully operating for over ten years since the first beam at the end of 2006 with the aim of accessing the unexplored region on the nuclear chart, far from stability. The continuous efforts have improved the performance of the RIBF accelerator complex. We did a lot of things to upgrade accelerator performance, including construction a 28-GHz superconducting ECR ion source with a new injector linac and development of new types of charge strippers. This seminar focuses on the charge strippers. The RIBF accelerator complex uses the two charge strippers for effective acceleration of the uranium ions. These charge strippers could be a bottle-neck problem especially in high power operation. We carried out elaborating R&D works to replace the conventional carbon foils with the new types of the charge strippers which can survive irradiation of high intensity heavy ion beams, reaching to the solutions of helium gas stripping for the first stripper and rotating disks using highly oriented graphene sheet for the second one so far. This talk overviews R&D works for the charge strippers since 2008 and reports the present status of the charge strippers currently used for the operation with future prospect.

I will review the ideas of large N and effective field theories. In the limit of a large number of colors an enhanced symmetry of QCD emerges. This symmetry has been used to understand properties of hadrons and nuclei. It has also been used to reduce the number of unknown parameters in effective field theories for few nucleon systems. I will discuss some of these applications and introduce an additional manifestation of the large N limit.

Helium is the only element that remains liquid under normal pressure down to zero temperature. Below 2.17K, the bosonic isotope helium-4 undergoes a phase transition to a superfluid. Motivated by this intriguing bulk behavior, the properties of finite-sized helium droplets have been studied extensively over the past 25 years or so. A number of properties of liquid helium-4 droplets are, just as those of nuclei, well described by the liquid drop model. The existence of the extremely fragile helium dimer was proven experimentally in 1994 in diffraction grating experiments. Since then, appreciable effort has gone into creating and characterizing trimers, tetramers and larger clusters. The ground state and excited state of the helium trimer are particularly interesting since these systems are candidates for Efimov states. The existence of Efimov states, which are unique due to scale invariance and an associated limit cycle, was predicted in 1971. However, till recently, Efimov states had -- although their existence had been confirmed experimentally -- not been imaged directly. Recently, ingenious experimental advances made it possible to directly image the quantum mechanical density distribution of helium dimers and trimers. I will review some of these experiments and related theoretical calculations that led to the experimental detection of the excited helium trimer Efimov state.

Chiral effective field theory (EFT) has become the standard method to generate microscopic nuclear Hamiltonians for few- and many-body calculations. These Hamiltonians are in the form of an expansion that is truncated at some order, inducing an error that must be quantified for robust statistical comparisons to experiment. I will present a Bayesian model for these truncation errors with nucleon-nucleon scattering as a test application. The Bayesian approach allows for statistical validations of the assumptions and enables statistical estimates of the EFT breakdown scale from the convergence pattern.

The reaction 7Be(p,γ)8B generates most of the high-energy neutrinos emanating from the pp-fusion chain in our Sun. Over the past twenty years there has been a substantial effort to measure its cross section at center-of-mass energies below 500 keV. One goal of this effort was accurate extrapolation of the astrophysical S-factor to solar energies. I will explain our treatment of this problem (Zhang et al., Phys. Lett. B 751, 535 (2015)), which uses an effective field theory (EFT) for 7Be(p,γ)8B and Bayesian methods to perform the extrapolation. We find a zero-energy S-factor S(0)=21.3±0.7 eV–an uncertainty smaller by a factor of two than previously recommended. This improvement occurs because the EFT encapsulates all plausible low-energy models of the process, and so model selection for this problem can be accomplished in a rigorous and statistically meaningful way.

I describe recent progress and future directions for lattice simulations of nuclear structure and reactions relevant to the FRIB science mission. Some of the topics include the adiabatic projection method for scattering and reactions, the connection between nuclear forces and nuclear structure, the isotopic dependence of nuclear clustering, and a few curiosities such as numerical tweezers and quantum machine learning.

TBA

The NuGrid international collaboration maintain and develop a research framework where scientists from different disciplines work together to study the production of elements in stars, and how these elements evolve in galaxies. Nuclear physics and astronomy, stellar astrophysics and galactic chemical evolution can be used together to answer open questions about old stars, about the solar composition or about observed abundance signatures that are anomalous with respect to the Sun. In this talk I will provide an overview of the NuGrid research activity in the past year. I will summarize our recent results about supernovae, low mass and massive stars, old and young stars, presolar stellar dust, explosive nucleosynthesis, and nucleosynthesis processes such as the i, s, and , p process.

An extensive experimental study of the recently predicted pygmy quadrupole res- onance (PQR) in the stable even-even Sn isotopes [1] will be presented. In this study, (α, α′γ) and (γ, γ′) experiments were performed on 124Sn [2] as well as life- time measurements in 112,114Sn using the recently established (p, p′γ) Doppler-shift attenuation (DSA) coincidence technique [3]. In all experiments, J π = 2+ states be- low an excitation energy of 5 MeV were populated. The E2 strength integrated over the full transition densities could be extracted from the (γ, γ′) and the (p, p′γ) DSA experiments, while the (α, α′γ) experiment at the chosen kinematics strongly favors the excitation of surface modes because of the strong α-particle absorption in the nuclear interior. The excitation of such modes is in accordance with the quadrupole- type oscillation of the neutron skin predicted by a microscopic approach based on self-consistent density functional theory and the quasiparticle-phonon model (QPM). The newly determined γ-decay branching ratios hint at a non-statistical character of the E2 strength, as it has also been recently pointed out for the case of the pygmy dipole resonance (PDR). This allows us to distinguish between PQR-type and multiphonon excitations and, consequently, supports the recent first experi- mental indications of a PQR in 124Sn [2, 4].

Investigation of excited states in 20Mg: Implications for nuclear astrophysics and nuclear interactions

The investigation of the structure of light nuclei assumes an important role in the description of nuclear forces and their properties. Particle-particle and multi-particle correlations in nucleus­ nucleus collisions are a powerful probe for these aspects. They allow to explore the structure of unbound states, including their interplay with collision dynamics, in stable and unstable nuclei produced in direct reactions as well as under extreme conditions of temperature and density attained in heavy ion collisions [1,2]. Indeed, one can investigate spectroscopic properties of nuclei (like branching ratios and spin [3,4]) and the dynamic properties of nuclear collisions (such as space-time properties of nuclear reactions [5,6]) via the study of the decay of resonant states produced in the collision itself. In presence of clustering phenomena, these tools become particularly important since light particle emissions (cluster) dominate the decay of resonances. In this scenario, a-a and multi-a correlations a re a very special case; they provide information on clustering phenomena in self-conjugated nuclei and allow to investigate the dynamical phases of an Heavy Ion Collision (HIC) with large statistics [1]. By using correlation techniques of a particles applied to spectroscopy, we have studied the 3a disintegration of the Hoyle state in 12C [7]. Our high precision experiment was developed to shed light on its non-resonant decay branch [8], a topic of fundamental importance in Nuclear Structure [9-11] and Astrophysics [11-13]. We observed a fully sequential decay mechanism providing a new upper limit to non-resonant decays [14] which is about a factor 5 lower than previous works [8,11]. Similar correlation are also studied in Heavy Ion Collisions (HICs), in the colliding system 36Ar+58Ni at different incident energies (32-95 AMeV) with the INDRA 4Jt multi-detector. The aim of this study consists of building an in-flight decay simulation code based on the thermal model of two-particle correlations in Heavy Ion Collision (HIC), commonly used to extract temperatures from the population of unbound states and spins in some spectroscopic applications. Regardless the limited angular resolution of the array, not built specifically for light particle correlation measurements, it is shown that some information about the validity of attainment of thermal population of internal states in 8Be can be inferred from a-a correlation functions [15]. Hypothesis on the reaction mechanism and on the time scale of the process will be also discussed by also looking at the shape of IMF-IMF correlation functions. The simulation code is meant to be used in high resolution correlation experiments that can be performed with the FAZIA detector or with silicon strip detector arrays, such as HiRA or MUST2. References: [1] D.H. Boal et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 62 (1990) 553. [2] G. Verde et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 30 (2006) 81. [3] R.J. Charity et al., Phys. Rev. C 75 (2007) 051304(R}. [4] D. Dell\'Aquila et al., Phys. Rev. C 93, 024611 (2016}. [5] S.E. Koonin et al.,Phys. Lett. B 70 (1977) 43. [6] M.A. Lisa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70 (1993) 2545. [7] D. Dell\'Aquila et al., in press on J. Phys.: Cont.Ser. [8] M. ltoh et al.,Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 (2014) 102501. [9] W. von Oertzen, Zeit. Phys. A 357, 355 (1997). [10] E. Uegaki,S. Okabe, Y. Abe, and H. Tanaka, Prag. Theor. Phys. 57, 1262 (1977). [11] 0. S. Kirsebom et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 {2012) 202501. [12] K. Nomoto, F.-K. Thielemann, and S. Miyaji,Astron. Astrophys. 149, 239 (1985). [13] K. Langanke, M. Wiescher, and F.K. Thielemann, Z. Physik A - Atomic Nuclei 324, 147 (1986). [14] D. Dell\'Aquila et al., in press on Phys. Rev. Lett. [15] J. Pochodzalla et al., Phys. Rev. C 35 {1987) 1695.

This presentation explains a new experimental method to determine the absolute magnitude and energy dependence of Nuclear Level Density and the Gamma Strength Function employing an extension of the Doppler shift attenuation method in 56Fe(p,p') using the GRETINA array coupled to a fast phoswich particle detector. The Gamma Ray Energy Tracking In-beam Nuclear Array (GRETINA) is an 1152-segmented germanium detector array that has the capabilities to extract quasi-continuum lifetimes (QCtau) from minuscule shifts in Doppler shift as a function of outgoing particle energy. High resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy provides access to lifetimes of discrete nuclear excited states via changes in gamma-ray energy with angles respective to the initial nuclear recoil vector. Gates on the outgoing particle energy isolate events where decay from the QC precedes a low lying discrete transition. This gives the recoiling excited nucleus more time to slow down and reduces Doppler shift of subsequent gamma-rays. The relationship between QCtau, Nuclear Level Density, and the Gamma Strength Function complements both the traditional Oslo method [1], the Two Step Cascade method developed by Becvar et. al. [2], and the direct reaction two-step cascade method developed by Wiedeking et al. [3]. This presentation also delves into ongoing experimental physics campaigns at UC Berkeley's Nuclear Engineering department. Recently commissioned, the High Flux Neutron Generator (HFNG) is a quasi-monoenergetic 2.5 MeV DD neutron source. The HFNG science program is focused on pioneering advances in the 40Ar / 39Ar dating technique for geochronology, new nuclear data measurements for medical isotopes and reactors, basic nuclear science, and education. The HFNG also operates as a user facility for researchers in industrial applications. This section of the talk will summarize publications including neutron cross section measurements and resolved technical issues with electron backstreaming. References: [1] Guttormsen, M. et. al., Radiative strength functions in 93-98Mo, Phys. Rev. C, 71(4):044307, 2005 [2] Becvar, F. et. al., Test of photon strength functions by a method of two-step cascades, Phys. Rev. C 46 (1992) 1276–1287. [3] Wiedeking, M., et. al., Low-Energy Enhancement in the Photon Strength of 95Mo, Phys. Rev. Lett., 108(16):162503, 2012

COMMITTEE: Alexandra Gade, Chairperson D. Bazin B. A. Brown W. Fisher S. Liddick

The quantum many-body problem is common to all fields aiming at describing complex quantum systems of interacting particles. Examples range from quarks and gluons in a nucleon to macromolecules such as fullerenes. Nuclear systems are another example where up to about 500 nucleons (in the case of actinide collisions) may interact. What make nuclear systems special to test quantum many-body theories is their small size (few fermi) and short “native" time scale (few zeptoseconds) ensuring the complete isolation from external environment, and then, the preservation of quantum coherence during the dynamics. Nuclei are then ideal to investigate fundamental aspects of quantum physics such as coherence and tunnelling. Predicting the outcome of heavy-ion collisions is very challenging as several reaction mechanisms may occur. Ideally, the same theoretical model should be able to describe all the outcomes, e.g., (in)elastic scattering, multi-particle transfer, and fusion. A good starting point is to consider that the particles evolve independently in the mean-field generated by the ensemble of particles. This leads to the well known time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) theory proposed by Dirac. This microscopic approach and its extensions to incorporate pairing correlations as well as quantum fluctuations are well suited to investigate the variety of nuclear reactions. An appealing aspect is that structure and reaction are described on the same footing. In addition, the only input being the choice of the energy density functional, this approach provide a solid ground to predict reaction outomes with exotic nuclei. Recent applications to nuclear vibrations, particle transfer, fusion, and fission will be discussed in the talk.

Resonant electromagnetic structures are vitally important in engineering and scientific applications, ranging from devices as ubiquitous as antennas and microwave ovens, to devices as demanding as high-power microwave sources and particle accelerator components. As we push the limits on the design and operation of such structures, one of the physical limitations that we must contend with is electrical breakdown, which becomes increasingly likely as we increase field strength and reduce structure sizes. Multipactor is a type of breakdown in which electromagnetic fields accelerate free electrons into a material, which then ejects secondary electrons which are re-accelerated back into the material, and which sustains or grows the breakdown current over time. We are interested in understanding multipactor better because it is one of the common design constraints for high-power resonant structures around microwave frequencies, such as klystrons, couplers, waveguides, and accelerating cavities used in particle accelerators. Besides being a design constraint, we could also potentially employ the non-linear nature of multipactor to intentionally bleed off random harmful power levels which may affect certain sensitive equipment, such as the protection of front-end electronics on radio receivers in space-borne applications. This dissertation details the results of numerical study of two-surface multipactor driven by time-harmonic fields, with a specific focus upon how secondary electron emission models can affect the resulting multipactor predictions, and how multipactor susceptibility and trajectories can be affected by the presence of additional modes within a resonant structure. The primary focus is on multipactor occurring between the inner and outer conductors of coaxial geometries, but some parallel-plate geometries are also considered. The scope of investigation is limited to the multipactor regime in which space charge effects can be neglected. In practice this means the early-time evolution of multipactor, since it takes some time before space charge effects become significant. Despite this simplifying assumption not being applicable to the late-time behavior of multipactor, this approach still allows for much practical benefit in the understanding of multipactor genesis and controllability, which is frequently the most significant concern of engineering interest. Journal papers: Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Migration of Multipactor Trajectories Via Higher-Order Mode Perturbation." accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 2017 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "A Comparison of Multipactor Predictions Using Two Popular Secondary Electron Models." IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 42, (no 6), June 2014 Conference proceedings Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Quasi-Analytical Derivation of Parallel-Plate Multipactor Trajectories in the Presence of Higher-Order Mode Perturbations." 2016 IEEE International Power Modulator and High Voltage Conference (2016 IPMHVC), San Francisco, CA, July 5-9, 2016 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Migration of Multipactor Trajectories Via Higher-Order Mode Perturbation." 43rd IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2015), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 19-23, 2016 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Multipactor Breakdown Modelling Using an Averaged Version of Furman's SEY Model." 42nd IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2015), Belek, Analya, Turkey, May 24-28, 2015 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Multipactor Current Growth Modelling Using an Averaged Version of Furman's SEY Model." International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC'15), Richmond, VA, May 3-8, 2015 Scott Rice and Lee Harle, "Distinguishing Localized and Non-Localized Scattering for Improved Near Field-to-Far Field Transformations." Antenna Measurement Techniques Association 2014 Annual Conference (AMTA 2014), Tucson, AZ, October 13-16, 2014 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, Multipactor Estimation Using an Averaged Version of Furman's SEY Model." 2014 IEEE International Power Modulator and High Voltage Conference (2014 IPMHVC), Santa Fe, NM, June 1-5, 2014 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Multipactor Current Modelling Using an Averaged Version of Furman's SEY Model." 41st IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2014), Washington, DC, May 25-29, 2014 Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "Initial Studies of Multipactor Suppression Via TE and TM Modes." North American Particle Accelerator Conference (NA-PAC'13), Pasadena, CA, September 29 - October 4, 2013. Scott Rice and John Verboncoeur, "A Comparison of Multipactor Predictions Using Two Popular Secondary Electron Models." North American Particle Accelerator Conference (NA-PAC'13), Pasadena, CA, September 29 - October 4, 2013

Transfer reactions are a standard experimental tool for probing important aspects of nuclear structure, such as single-particle- like degrees of freedom. In order to extract the structure information from the experimental result, one usually relies on a factorization of the reaction and structure aspects of the process. This standard approach can suffer from a possible inconsistency between both calculations, blurring the message of the measured cross section. As we move away from the more safe regions along the valley of stability, different structure theory strategies are implemented in order to make reliable and predictive statements regarding the more exotic nuclei. In order to obtain unambiguous structure information from the experiments we should allow for a clean implementation of these structure models into the reaction formalism . We show recent progress towards an integrated structure + reactions framework, presenting a combined effort to produce optical potentials and effective interactions within different structure approaches and integrating them into transfer reactions calculations.

Committee: Hendrik Schatz, Chairperson A. Brown E. Brown B. Sherrill K. Tollefson

Various aspects of nuclear physics, such as the properties of nuclear forces and the ground and excited states of nuclei, can be obtained through the analysis of nuclear reactions. Up to now, these were investigated with some reaction models based on phenomenological optical potentials, however, this approach has a limit to explore a new field of nuclear physics. On the contrary, it would not be possible to solve nuclear many-body problems starting from nuclear forces exactly even if we use a high performance computer. In fact, ab initio calculations are not available in most cases. According to multiple scattering theory, we can solve nuclear many-body problems efficiently by using an effective interaction instead of a bare nuclear force. The difficulty in handling the many-body effects is taken into account for the effective interaction. It should be noted that the effective interaction is constructed with a nuclear force, therefore, there is no ad hoc parameter in reaction calculations using the interaction. Recently, the microscopic description of various kinds of direct nuclear reactions based on an effective interaction is feasible. We show the recent progress of the microscopic reaction theory and the development of a new microscopic reaction theory starting from two- and three-nucleon forces based on chiral effective field theory.

COMMITTEE: Christopher Wrede, Chairperson E. Brown W. Lynch F. Nunes J. Pollanen

COMMITTEE: Jaideep Singh (Chairperson), S. Couch, K. Minamisono, S. Pratt, C. Wrede

The presence of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) in ultra relativistic heavy ion collisions was first verified at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL almost fifteen years ago. Since then, heavy ion collisions at the LHC, CERN at 2.76 and 5.02 TeV center of mass energies have greatly enhanced our knowledge of this very high temperature plasma of strongly interacting and unbound quarks and gluons. An early signature of the QGP, both theorized and seen in experiments, was the aspect of ``jet quenching\" and understanding that phenomenon will be the main focus of this talk. The concept behind quenching is that a high energetic quark or gluon jet, undergoes significant energy loss due to the overall structure modifications related to its fragmentation and radiation patterns as it traverses the medium. The term jet, parameterized by a fixed lateral size or the jet radius, represents the collimated spray of particles arising from the initial hard scattered parton. Along with published results of the jet production cross sections in proton-proton, proton-lead and lead-lead collisions, we present nuclear modification factors that unequivocally confirm jet quenching. In addition, we study the inherent medium induced modifications to the jet structure by comparing experimental measurements with Monte Carlo predictions. I summarize by compiling the physics we\'ve learned thus far behind jet quenching followed by a brief description of the trend in current and future heavy ion studies.

The future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which aims to resolve the neutrino mass hierarchy and measure CP violation, relies on a 40 kton liquid argon detector and a neutrino beam delivered from a multi-MW proton driver driving the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF), sited at Fermilab. The existing beamline has achieved 700 kW operation, with a new SRF linac and other upgrades expected to support 1.2 MW of beam power at 120 GeV. Eventual operation at 2 MW or greater is desired. Performance of the existing Linac and Booster is limited by beam loss driven by space charge. An accelerator R&D program has been started in an effort to overcome such limitations, and the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) is under construction with the goal of investigating space charge effects, beam halo formation, particle losses, beam instabilities, etc. The array of planned experiments will be discussed, as well as the current status of construction and commissioning.

COMMITTEE: Alexandra Gade (Chairperson), Sean Liddick, Wayne Repko, Michael Thoennessen, Vladimir Zelevinsky. THESIS IS ON DISPLAY IN ROOM 1312 BPS BLDG. AND THE NSCL

COMMITTEE:Michael Thoennessen (Chairperson),S. Bogner, J. Singh, A. Spyrou, K. Tollefson

In 1915, Barnett et al found that rotation of a metal cylinder can induce a magnetization in the object. This remains a rare example of a coupling between macroscopic mechanical rotation and quantum spin (though this was not the paradigm of the day). Just last year (2016), Takahashi et al discovered the first polarization of electrons induced by mechanical vorticity induced by viscous effects in a fluid; they thus heralded the new field of fluid spintronics. In 2000, first collisions at Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) led to the surprising discovery that the deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is best described as a "nearly perfect fluid." These fluid properties remain the focus of intense study, and are providing insights into the Strong force in the non-perturbative regime. However, fundamental features of the fluid-- including its vorticity-- are largely unexplored. I will discuss recent measurements by the STAR Collaboration at RHIC, on the spin alignment, or polarization, of Lambda hyperons with the angular momentum of the collision. I will argue that a RHIC collision generates the subatomic analog of Takahashi's observation, the vorticity generated by initial viscous forces and maintained by subsequent low viscosity. These measurements allow an estimate of both the vorticity of the QGP and the magnetic field in which it evolves. Both of these quantities far surpass any known system in the universe. Furthermore, knowledge of both is crucial to recent studies that may reveal the onset of chiral symmetry restoration in QCD.

Abstract: With the approaching commissioning of high intensity heavy ion accelerators like FRIB ,the need for long lasting charge stripping media becomes more pressing. Besides the normal thermal issues that appear in traditional carbon foil strippers, radiation damage forces us to think about self-replenishing media (gases and liquids). We will discuss the present efforts to develop a heavy ion charge stripper at MSU and other places.

In X-ray binaries systems, accretion onto the neutron star acts to heat the crust through pycnonuclear reactions occurring deep within the crust. Once accretion drops to quiescent levels, X-ray observations show cooling of the crust over timescales of weeks to years. The shape of the cooling curves depends on the structure and composition of the crust. I will review observations of systems that show this crustal cooling, and discuss implications for properties of the crust.

In this talk, I will discuss the emergence of collectivity from first principles in light and intermediate-mass nuclei, up to the calcium region, with implications for reproducing enhanced E2 transitions in deformed nuclei without effective charges, as well as for the description of alpha-capture reactions of interest to X-ray burst (XRB) nucleosynthesis. Structure calculations use the N2LOopt chiral potential and are based on the ab initio symmetry-adapted no-core shell model (SA-NCSM) that expands the reach of NCSM to heavier nuclei by exploiting approximate symmetries of nuclei. In particular, I will focus on collective features of Ne and Mg isotopes, as well as the alpha-capture reaction through the 1- resonance in Ne-20. The reaction rate is, in turn, provided as input to calculate the abundance pattern from XRB nucleosynthesis simulations, which is compared to results based on the present database for fixed astrophysical conditions.

Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRIS) produce intense and stable DC beams of highly charged ions for injection into accelerators, for studies in atomic physics, and other applications. The sources are the open minimum-B magnetic traps that confine a plasma heated by absorption of microwaves at the ECR surface. Confinement times of charged particles in a stable ECRIS plasma are large, which allows producing highly charged ions in a step-by-step ionization chain by bombardment with energetic plasma electrons. Analysis of complicated processes that influence the source dynamics is essential for finding ways for ECRIS improvement. We develop a Particle-in-Cell Monte-Carlo Collisions code for numerical modeling of plasmas in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources. Ions in ECRIS plasmas are supposed to be confined by a small dip in the globally positive plasma potential. Various processes are taken into account when calculating the ion movement in the plasma including ionization of particles in electron-ion collisions, charge-exchange collisions with neutral atoms, ion neutralization in collisions with the source walls, etc. Parameters of the electron plasma component are calculated by assuming stochastic heating of electrons at ECR surface. The main parameters of the ECRIS are obtained such as charge-state-distributions of extracted ion beams and spatial distributions of fluxes inside the source. Explanations for some effects in the sources are given. Using the simulated source parameters, the shape of the plasma emissive surface can be calculated, which allows the detailed ion extraction simulations.

The non-perturbative nature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) has historically left a gap in our understanding of the connection between the fundamental theory of the strong interactions and the rich structure of experimentally observed phenomena. For the simplest properties of stable hadrons, this is now circumvented by using lattice QCD. In this talk I discuss a path that will allow us to access a variety of previously unexplored sectors of QCD. As a proof of principle, I will focus my attention to the isoscalar mesonic sector of QCD. Carrying the quantum numbers of the vacuum, this is perhaps one the most interesting channels in hadronic physics. Beyond playing a crucial role in a range of phenomenologically important processes, it hosts some of the most intriguing states of QCD. For example, glueballs, which have long been upheld as a smoking gun of the low-energy validity of QCD, are expected to appear in this channel.

Faddeev equations in momentum space have a long tradition of utilizing separable interactions in order to arrive at sets of coupled integral equations in one variable. However, it needs to be demonstrated that their solution based on separable interactions agrees exactly with solutions based on non-separable forces. I will discuss calculations of the 6 Li ground state via momentum space Faddeev equations using the CD-Bonn neutron-proton force and a Woods- Saxon type neutron(proton)- 4 He force. For the latter the Pauli-forbidden s-wave bound state is projected out. Two methods for evaluating the 6 Li three-body ground state are considered. First, we solve the bound state Faddeev equations directly using the afore-mentioned two-body potentials. In the second approach, the interactions in the two-body subsystems are represented by separable interactions derived in the Ernst-Shakin-Thaler (EST) framework. We find that by utilizing the full parameter space of the EST separable expansion, one can attain a precision of upto four significant figures in three-body binding energy. It is also shown that the three-body binding energy computed in this manner agrees fully with the one obtained directly within the stated numerical precision. The momentum distributions computed in both approaches also fully agree with each other.

The nuclear structures of the even-even Cd isotopes near stability, especially 110-116Cd, were long thought to be prime examples of spherical nuclei possessing low-lying vibrational states. Their level schemes display nearly harmonic spacings of one, two, and three-phonon levels. Due to their importance as paradigms of vibrational motion, their structures have been investigated by a variety of reactions. These reactions were essential for establishing the location of levels and their main decay branches, together with level lifetimes, but for many levels they lacked the sensitivity to probe the weak low-energy decay branches that are necessary to assess the degree of collectivity that the states possess. In order to complement the data used to test the collectivity present in the Cd isotopes, high-statistics [beta]-decay experiments using the 8[pi] spectrometer at the TRIUMF radioactive-beam facility have been performed. The goal of these experiments was to achieve a sufficient sensitivity to weak, lowenergy branches amongst the multi-phonon levels so that the collective branches would either be observed, or very stringent upper limits set. Thus far, we have examined the decay of 110In to 110Cd, and 112In/112Ag to 112Cd. These experiments have revealed that the individual low-spin multi-phonon states do not decay in the expected manner. Further, and much more surprising, the missing E2 strength is not due to fragmentation (i.e., mixing) amongst the levels. While the breakdown of vibrational motion at the 3-phonon level is perhaps not surprising, combining data from complementary measurements, especially Coulomb excitation and E0 strengths, has enabled us to rule out the existence of the 0+ member of the 2-phonon triplet. This lack of the E2 strength has forced a re-evaluation of the structure, suggesting that the Cd isotopes do not possess low-lying multiphonon vibrations about a spherical shape as envisioned in the Bohr picture. The results on the Cd isotopes raises the issue that if our long-standing paradigms of spherical vibrations can no longer be considered as such, are there any spherical vibrational nuclei?

The Active Target and Time Projection Chamber (ACTAR TPC) is an ambitious European project whose goal is to design and construct a high-luminosity gas-filled detector to study reactions and decays of rare isotopes. The core detection system will consist of one (or possibly several) micro-pattern gaseous detectors (MPGDs) coupled to a highly pixelated pad plane with a pitch of only 2x2 mm2. Both the channel density (25 channels/cm2) and total number of electronics channels (16384) are the highest that have been achieved by any nuclear physics detector to date. In this presentation I will provide an overview of the project, discuss the principal challenges associated with constructing such a device and present the day one physics programs for ACTAR TPC when it goes online at the GANIL laboratory in France in 2018.

The era of FRIB will further clarify that one can never unambiguously extract structure information without a proper reaction description when strongly interacting probes are involved. An outline of an ambitious plan to tackle this issue in a consistent manner will be presented with emphasis on the dispersive optical model (DOM) that treats the structure and reaction domain simultaneously at least for single proton or neutron propagation. Apart from upgrading this framework to include nonlocality of the potentials and the treatment of pairing open-shell nuclei, attention will be given to an extension of this approach involving the deuteron in the initial or final state. A fresh analysis of the (e,e’p) reaction indicates that a consistent approach is indeed possible. Predictive features of the DOM include the neutron skin with results for 48Ca and (preliminary) 208Pb. The efficacy of this approach is further illustrated by considering the current state of the art of the (d,p) and (p,d) reaction. Additional insights into where binding is generated in the nucleus are discussed with future applications to asymmetric nuclei.

Trapped radioactive atoms and ions have become a standard tool of the trade for precision studies of beyond SM physics. B decay studies, in particular, offer the possibility of detecting deviations from standard model predictions of the weak interaction which signal new physics. These \'precision frontier\' searches are complementary to the high energy searches performed by the LHC and other high energy/high luminosity facilities. I will present a general overview of magneto-optical, optical traps, and elec- trostatic traps, and their use for weak interaction studies. I will further present the new Hebrew University trapping program (TRAPLAB), recent experimental results, and future plans.

Accelerating particles over shorter distances than ever before opens new doors in many areas of science. To this end, we have been exploring RF breakdown phenomena in high vacuum structures. We have been able to engineer some of the materials used in the accelerator structure and modify its geometry to achieve extremely high gradients~175 MV/m. Now, our research effort have to also include practical engineering developments to transform these advances into practical devices that can be applied to photon science, high-energy physics, medical, industrial and national security uses. In this talk We will describe our progress on high gradient RF accelerators and the equally advanced developments for compact RF sources capable of driving these new types of accelerators. We will also describe some of the applications being enabled by these developments. For photon sciences, we are looking at compact high repetition rate coherent X-ray sources. For high energy physics application we are looking at the next generation of accelerators for linear colliders. For medical applications we are exploring a new paradigm shift in radiation therapy that will enable dose delivery at an extremely fast time scale; enough to freeze motion and hence enhance precision.

There is a need for small 1.8 K to 2.1 K refrigeration systems for SRF systems and component testing in the laboratories, which can provide 50 to 100 W, that are cost effective, efficient, and relatively easy to implement. This capacity and temperature range is not practically or efficiently handled by cryo-coolers. These are very energy intensive applications and it is not uncommon for these small systems to require up to 7000 Watts per 1 Watt of cooling at 2 K, which is approximately an order of magnitude higher input power for the same cooling capacity as compared to large systems. For these small (capacity) systems, a very modest additional capital investment can substantially improve the performance to less than 2000 Watts per Watt, and these can be packaged to work with a standard commercial 4.5 K liquefier. This talk will discuss possible design options and the projected performance for these small systems.

Heavy nuclei beyond the Fe-group are made primarily via r(apid)-process and s(low)-process n(eutron)-capture events. Although the s-process n-capture is fairly well understood, the r-process n-capture events remain poorly understood. The relative role of Core Collapse Supernova and n-star mergers will likely be understood in the next few decades. I will discuss recent studies of old Metal-Poor stars that are revealing some new details of nucleosynthesis. This progress is due to the availability of high resolution spectra from large ground based telescopes, access to the UV via the Hubble Space Telescope, and better laboratory data.

Strong coupling lattice QCD in the dual representation allows to study the full \\mu-T phase diagram, due to the mildness of the finite density sign problem. This has been done in the chiral limit, both at finite N_t and in the continuous time limit. We extend the phase diagram to finite quark masses and finite inverse gauge coupling. I present numerical results from direct Monte Carlo simulations via worm algorithm.

A great deal of effort is being expended to develop detectors capable of identifying heavy dark matter particles through the nuclear recoils they induce when scattering in ordinary matter. An interesting question is what can and cannot be learned about the underlying particle physics of dark matter from such experiments. I describe an approach in which the tools of effective theory are used to determine both nucleon-level and nuclear-level operators for this process. The unusual kinematics -- energy transfers are minimal while momentum transfers are large, on the scale of the inverse nuclear size -- makes the nuclear response more interesting than one might naively assume.

The Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) is an international research centre at the leading edge of neutron science and technology. As the world’s flagship centre for neutron science, the ILL provides scientists with a very high flux of neutrons feeding some 40 state-of- the-art instruments, which are constantly being developed and upgraded. The instruments of the nuclear and particle physics group (NPP) and their fields of research are briefly presented. ILL’s two ultracold neutron installations are described in more detail. The ongoing research program using ultracold neutrons as measuring the lifetime of the free neutron, the search for an electric dipole moment and gravity resonance spectroscopy are highlighted.

Introduce some scientific activities at HIRFL, and recent progress in CIADS, HIAF and HIMM projects at IMP

That would be a high-level view of the whole process of making nuclear data. It will explain how theories and experiments and models all get combined. Especially relevant if FRIB is to make nuclear data for new nuclides.

Rhenium-186 (186Re), arsenic-77 (77As), and rhodium-105 (105Rh) are radionuclides with nuclear properties suitable for “theranostics” in that they emit both beta particles for radiotherapy and gamma rays for imaging, with 90 h, 38.8 h and 35.4 h half-lives, respectively. Additionally, 72As is a positron emitter that is a true “matched pair” radioisotope for 77As. All of these radionuclides can be produced in high specific activity at either an accelerator or nuclear reactor. High specific activity 77As and 105Rh are produced by thermal neutron irradiation of 76Ge or 104Ru, followed by beta decay, with the 77As and 105Rh separated from the enriched targets. High specific activity 186Re can be produced by either proton or deuteron irradiation of enriched 186W or by proton irradiation of enriched Os targets, again followed by separation of the 186Re- from its target material. Sulfur-containing chelates (either thiols or thioethers) are used to form stable complexes with these radionuclides. The chemistry and radiochemistry from production through preliminary biological studies will be presented.

COMMITTEE:B. Alex Brown, Chairperson, H. Hergert, C. Piermarocchi, K. Tollefson, C. Wrede

Uncertainty quantification has seen a strong renewed interest in recent years within the theoretical nuclear physics community and its importance can hardly be overstated. As chiral effective field theories expand their range of applicability across the nuclear chart, the the study of the effects of statistical and systematic uncertainties in nuclear structure calculations is still a work in progress. This seminar will review some of the techniques and efforts on quantifying statistical uncertainties in NN interactions and their subsequent propagation into the calculation nuclear structure observables. Recent progress on the propagation of statistical uncertainties from DFT into astrophysical phenomena will be discussed as well.

In recent years local chiral interactions have been derived and implemented in quantum Monte Carlo methods for nuclear physics to test to what extent the chiral effective field theory framework impacts our knowledge of few- and many-body systems. We present quantum Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei based on local chiral two-nucleon interactions constructed by our group in a previous work in conjunction with a chiral three-nucleon force fitted to bound- and scattering-state observables in the three-body sector. These results lead to predictions for the energy levels and level ordering of nuclei in the mass range A=4–12, accurate to [less than or equal to] 2% of the binding energy, in very satisfactory agreement with experimental data.

We have an insatiable need for computing driven by the complex problems and often time-urgent issues that confront us. We are increasingly turning to simulation as a unique means to inform emerging high-consequence decisions. At the same time we are at a crossroads in high-performance computing(HPC) where we face the “end” of Moore’s Law. I hope to provide some insight into the collision of policy and science through a series of examples and show how this is shaping our path to next generation HPC options. This includes driving the convergence of artificial intelligence/machine learning, big data analytics and traditional high performance computing.

A major challenge in quantitatively predicting nuclear structure ab initio, directly from realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions, arises due to an explosion in the dimension of the traditional configuration interaction basis as the number of nucleons and included shells increases. The need for including highly excited configurations exists, in large part, because the kinetic energy induces strong cou- pling across shells. However, the kinetic energy conserves symplectic, or Sp(3,R), symmetry. Combining symplectic symmetry with the no-core configuration interaction (NCCI) framework provides a means of identifying and restricting the basis to include only the highly excited configurations which dominantly contribute to the nuclear wavefunction, thereby -it is hoped- reducing the size of the basis necessary to obtain accurate results. This seminar will introduce a symplectic no-core configuration interaction (SpNCCI) framework for ab initio calculations of the nuclear problem. We will then explore the results of initial calculations of p-shell nuclei in this framework. We will focus on what these calculations tell us about many-body symmetries of light nuclei.

The \"Island of Inversion\" at N≈20 for the neon, sodium, and magnesium isotopes has long been an area of interest both experimentally and theoretically due to the presence of particle-hole excitations that lead to deformed ground states. However, the presence of rotational band structures, which are fingerprints of deformed shapes, have only recently been observed. Results from a measurement of the low-lying level structure in 33Mg populated via a two-stage projectile fragmentation reaction and observed using GRETINA will be presented. The newly identified rotational band level energies and γ-ray intensities, as well as other available experimental data on the ground state magnetic moment and intrinsic quadrupole moment show good agreement with the strong-coupling limit of a rotational model. The analysis and interpretation of the available experimental observables for 33Mg within a rotational framework will be discussed.

Conventional wisdom suggests that new particles should exist as part of highly anticipated Standard Model extensions. Further, the discovery tool is expected to be an energy-frontier collider, where new particles are produced directly among the debris of the highest-energy pp collisions. The Higgs discovery affirmed this technique; although it has not signaled new physics (yet), it demonstrated the power of such experiments. Nonetheless, with significant data taking now completed at the LHC, the long-anticipated “TeV-scale” discoveries have not yet emerged. What else can one do? In this Colloquium, I will describe an alternative approach involving “low-energy” experiments having very high precision or very high single-event sensitivity. My focus will quickly zero in on what I believe to be the most promising of the current efforts, namely the new Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab. The previous Brookhaven measurement of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment is larger than current SM expectations, with a significance exceeding 3 standard deviations. What could this be, and perhaps more importantly, is it real? To answer this, we built an even more precise experiment at Fermilab and we are presently commissioning it. The experiment will determine the muon’s magnetic anomaly to 140 ppb precision, a goal that should allow for a definitive statement about new physics (or not). I will take you on an insider’s tour of this unique effort and flash some preliminary data that indicates that we are on our way.

Collinear resonance ionization spectroscopy (CRIS) was performed on neutron-deficient francium isotopes to determine the extent that shape coexistence defines the low-energy quantum structure across the isotopic chain.[1] Recent alpha-decay measurements suggest that a proton intruder state exists in the neutron-deficient isotopes of francium, with evidence suggesting that the ground state of Fr-199 is an intruder state.[2] Intruder states are quantum states of a nucleus that would be expected to reside at high excitation energies, but due to residual interactions between valence nucleons, are stabilized and brought lower in energy. Understanding the interactions that allow this to happen is critical to developing a more predictive model of the nucleus. Hyperfine spectra were measured for francium isotopes with mass numbers 202,203,204,205 and 206. There are low-energy isomers of even-A francium, which leads to a convoluted hyperfine spectrum. In order to assign the spectrum to the correct isomer, alpha decay spectroscopy was utilized. By matching the laser frequency to a resonance peak and simultaneously recording the energy of the alpha decay, each peak in the hyperfine spectrum can be assigned to the corresponding ground or isomeric state. The nuclear structure information that is extracted from these spectra, such as the nuclear moments and charge radii, will inform the assignment of the nuclear state as having a normal or intruder configuration of nucleons. Using this method, the hyperfine spectra of francium 202-202m and 204-204m were successfully de-convoluted, and tentative assignments were given for the resonances of francium 206-206m, which have since been re-examined.[3] The isotope shift and hyperfine constants were extracted from the hyperfine spectra for ground states of the francium isotopes with mass numbers from 202-206, as well as for the low-energy isomers in the odd-A isotopes. Future studies will be directed towards francium-199, to confirm if the proton intruder state will become the ground state. References: 1. K.M. Lynch et al., Decay-Assisted Laser Spectroscopy of Neutron-Deficient Francium, Phys. Rev. X 4, 011055 (2014) 2. J. Uusitalo et al., α Decay Studies of Very Neutron-Deficient Francium and Radium Isotopes, Phys. Rev. C 71, 024306 (2005) 3. A. Voss et al., Nuclear Moments and Charge Radii of Neutron-Deficient Francium Isotopes and Isomers, Phys. Rev. C 91, 044307 (2015)

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory, installed at an altitude of 4100 m above sea level in the state of Puebla, Mexico, has been surveying the northern sky at TeV energies since 2013 while still in construction. In this talk I will provide an overview of the detection technique, and the instrumental characteristics of the observatory. I will then review selected recent results from the survey of the galactic plane, and from the search for extragalactic transients. To close I will briefly present some of the HAWC outreach projects currently ongoing.

On August 17th, the gravitational wave detectors LIGO and Virgo observed for the first time the signature of a binary neutron star merger. Roughly two seconds later, the Fermi satellite detected a short gamma-ray burst whose location was consistent with the position of the gravitational wave source. These signals triggered an electromagnetic follow-up campaign by dozens of groups around the world, who quickly identified an electromagnetic counterpart, which was observed over the next several weeks at energies ranging from the x-ray to the radio. These observations allowed astronomers to construct a detailed picture of an event that had previously been studied only theoretically, and to test key theories about the nature of neutron star mergers. Among these is whether mergers are the astrophysical site of r-process nucleosynthesis, which produces roughly half of elements heavier than iron. I will give an overview of the electromagnetic observations of this system, with an emphasis on the optical and infrared emission (the \"kilonova\") powered by the radioactive decay of elements synthesized in the merger. I will outline how recent theoretical advances allowed us to interpret kilonova observations and decode signs of heavy element production.

Many progresses have been made in developing nuclear Hamiltonians within the framework of chiral effective field theory. In particular, the develop of chiral interactions that are fully local opened the way of implementing these Hamiltonians in Quantum Monte Carlo calculations. The advantage of using Quantum Monte Carlo methods is that they are not limited to use soft interactions, and calculations dedicated to explore the role of cutoffs can be done. I will devote part of this talk in discussing several new results for nuclei up to A=16, and addressing several questions regarding the prediction power of these Hamiltonians, and issues related to regulators and cutoffs. I will show properties like energies, radii, form factors, and others. In the second part of the talk I will show new results of few neutron resonances. While several experiments have been very recently proposed to measure four- (and three-) neutron resonances, on the theory side several calculations give very different results. I will show how our calculations suggest that three-neutron resonances might be lower than four-neutrons.

As the second leading cause of mortality in the U.S. in 2015, cancer was responsible for 22% of deaths reported [1]. One treatment option is targeted internal radiation therapy with alpha or beta emitting radionuclides. This ionizing radiation can destroy the DNA of a cancer cell, interfering with cell replication. Alpha particles demonstrate a linear energy transfer of about 60-230 keV/µm compared to 0.1-1 keV/µm for beta particles, resulting in a shorter range and higher relative biological effectiveness for alpha particles [2]. While these effects are desirable for cancer treatment, alpha emitters are riddled with problems from undesirable half- lives to a lack of availability. Among the alpha emitters with suitable characteristics is 149Tb (t1/2 = 4.12 h, Eα = 3.937 MeV, Iα = 16.7 %). However, this isotope is currently difficult to make in sufficient quantities to carry out large-scale preclinical research. Three different production methods are available: light ion reactions, heavy ion reactions, and proton spallation [3,4]. In 2014, a sample of 149Tb was collected from a proton spallation reaction on a tantalum target at ISOLDE to conduct a small preclinical test using 149Tb-DOTA-folate. This study showed promising results as tumor growth was delayed and survival time increased in mice treated with this radiotherapy compared to control mice [5]. In addition to the therapeutic effects of 149Tb, this isotope forms a theranostic radionuclide pair with 152Tb (t1/2 = 17.5 h, Eβ+ = 1.14 MeV, Iβ+ = 20.3 %). In a recent clinical study, 152Tb-DOTATOC was used to produce PET images of a patient with metastatic neuroendocrine cancer. The images were comparable to those of 68Ga, a clinically used positron emitter [6]. These studies show promise for effective therapy and imaging of cancer with the 149Tb and 152Tb theranostic pair. References: 1. National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2016: With Chartbook on Long- term Trends in Health. Hyattsville, MD. 2017. 2. M.W. Brechbiel. Dalton Trans. 43, 4918 (2007). 3. G.J. Beyer, J.J. Čomor, M. Dković, D. Soloviev, C. Tamburella, E. Hagebø, B. Allan, S.N. Dmitriev, N.G. Zaitseva, G.Ya. Starodub, et. al. Radiochim Acta. 90, 241 (2002). 4. B.J. Allen, G. Goozee, S. Sarkar, G. Beyer, C. Morel, A.P. Byrne. Appl Radiat Isotopes. 54, 53 (2001). 5. C. Müller, J. Reber, S. Haller, H. Dorrer, U. Köster, K. Johnston, K. Zhernosekov, A. Türler, R. Schibli. Pharmaceuticals. 7, 353 (2014). 6. R.P. Baum, A. Singh, M. Benešová, C. Vermeulen, S. Gnesin, U. Köster, K. Johnston, D. Müller, S. Senftleben, H.R. Kulkarni. Dalton T. (2017). (in press) doi: 10.1039/c7dt01936j.

There are many types of particle accelerators with varying degrees of challenges to vacuum system designers. The vacuum technologies used in the research accelerators will be the focus of these talks. Part I (November 16) The fundamental vacuum physics parameters and formulae will be described. The source of gases, thermal outgassing, permeation and beam-induced gas loads will be presented. The types of high vacuum pumps commonly used for accelerators will also be presented. Part II –(future date) The selection of vacuum materials and treatment will be described. The vacuum system design, engineering, implementation and operation will be demonstrated through examples, some applicable to FRIB.

Cross sections for compound-nuclear reactions involving unstable targets are important for many applications, but can often not be measured directly. Several indirect methods have recently been proposed to determine neutron capture cross sections for unstable isotopes. These methods aim at constraining statistical calculations of capture cross sections with data obtained from the decay of the compound nucleus relevant to the desired reaction. Each method produces this compound nucleus in a dierent manner (via a light-ion reaction, a photon-induced reaction, or decay) and requires additional ingredients to yield the sought-after cross-section. This talk focuses on the process of determining capture cross sections from inelastic scattering and transfer experiments. Specifically, theoretical descriptions of the (p,d) and (d,p) transfer reaction have been developed to complement recent measurements in the Zr-Y-Mo region. The procedure for obtaining constraints for unknown capture cross sections is illustrated. Indirectly extracted cross sections for both known (benchmark) and unknown capture reactions are presented. The main advantages and challenges of this approach are compared to those of the proposed alternatives. * This work is performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. Partial support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at LLNL,Project No. 16-ERD-022 is acknowledged.

Experimentally, the understanding of the complex, long, and intricate process of nuclear fission is approached by collecting as many observables as possible and from all fissioning systems available. The measured properties of the fissioning system and of the fission products, and their correlations, has led to the current picture where, in a very simplified way, the fission proceeds according certain modes or channels centred around fragments with particular numbers of protons and/or neutrons, which emerge with specific deformations that also drive the sharing of part of the available energy. Most of the information on fission was gathered so far in experiments that use direct kinematics, where the fissioning system can be considered at rest in the laboratory. However, these experiments suffer from two main drawbacks: few observables are measured simultaneously and the fragment atomic number is either absent or poor in resolution. The use of inverse kinematics, where the fissioning system is studied in-flight, opens a possibility to solve those issues and to add new information. In particular, we will discuss the use of magnetic spectrometers in order to provide the simultaneous measurement of the mass and atomic number of the fragments, as well as their velocities, which grants the access to the fissioning system reference frame. The correlation of the measured observables permits to recover properties such as the total kinetic energy or the neutron multiplicity that can be studied and compared with previous measurements. In addition, the measurement of the atomic number allows us to retrieve quantities such as the neutron-to-proton ratio of the fragments, the total excitation energy, and the elongation of the system can be calculated. From there, a few reasonable assumptions are enough to extract the intrinsic and collective excitation energy of the fragments as a function of their atomic number, along with their quadrupole deformation and their distance at scission. The discussion will mainly focus on the study of transfer- and fusion-induced fission of several systems, produced in inverse kinematics at GANIL (France). We will address the latest results on 240Pu and 250Cf, the ongoing analysis of the dependence with the fission energy, as well as future applications to the study of high-energy fission and quasi-fission.

Join nuclear scientists as they discuss the impact of the LIGO/VIRGO neutron star merger discovery and followup observations on nuclear science and nuclear astrophysics

A major aspect of the beauty of nuclear physics is the rich variety of behavior found across the nuclear chart, and even within the same nucleus. This has lead to a predominantly phenomenological approach to nuclear theory in which various models address specific regions or behaviors. Many of these models have achieved great success and provided considerable insight into the inner workings of nuclei. However, it is not always easy to connect one model to another or to trace a given behavior back to its origins in the interaction between constituent protons and neutrons. A nuclear theorist\'s dream is a single consistent theory of all nuclei, rigorously connected to the underlying nuclear interaction, which makes predictions with quantified uncertainties. This is a dream that may never be realized, but I will argue that if such a theory were to be realized, it would very likely take the form of a large-scale shell model approach connected to an underlying interaction by a controlled nonperturbative transformation. I will present the current status of one such realization of this approach the valence space in-medium similarity renormalization group and suggest some future directions, both short-term and longer term.

On August 17th this year, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration detected gravitational waves from a new type of system: a binary neutron star merger (NSM). Two seconds later, a short gamma-ray burst (GRB) was observed, allowing accurate localization and follow-up observations across the entire electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, from high-energy gamma-rays to radio. Optical and infrared observations of this event detected a new type of transient -- kilonova, powered by radioactivities of freshly synthesized r-process elements. This event and potential similar events in the future will allow us to see the r-process \"in-the-making\" and constrain nuclear physics in extreme regimes not accessible in laboratory or via pulsar observations. With more detections, we might be able to finally resolve the mystery of the main r-process production site. I will present an outline of a new multiphysics model, developed at LANL, which links kilonova to the properties of ejected material, such as mass, velocity, orientation and, most interestingly, nuclear composition. The key sensitivity in kilonova modeling is the nuclear heating and thermalization of generated energy, which in turn depends on the nuclear structure in the neutron-rich regime, potentially accessible to FRIB. The composition and heating are computed with WinNet r-process network and passed to multidimensional radiative transport code SuperNu to synthesize optical/infrared spectra with detailed composition-dependent atomic opacities. For the case of GW170817, the ejecta clearly separates ifself into two distinct components, in line with predictions of numerical relativity. Two-dimensional character of our model allows us to infer approximate orientation of the system. Using nucleosynthesis network, we can robustly constrain neutron richness of the ejecta. In the future, advances in FRIB together with more detections will tighten such constraints and impact current uncertainties in nuclear structure, for example models of nuclear mass and fission. Finally, I will briefly discuss other potential implications, such as those for the nuclear equation of state.

COMMITTEE: Andrea Shindler (Chairperson), A. Bazavov, M. Hjorth-Jensen, B. O’Shea, J. Singh

Correlations can be regarded as the effects felt by the single-nucleon propagation due to the surrounding nuclear medium. Their impact varies according to the phenomena considered and the region of the nuclear chart under investigation. With the aim of comparing different many-body approaches, three applications will be discussed: novel phenomenological interactions introduced as the generators of Nuclear Energy Density Functional. Deuteron-induced transfer reactions described in an ab initio framework, the No-Core Shell Model combined with the Resonating Group Method. The electromagnetic response of medium-mass nuclei in the Self Consistent Green\'s Function formalism, with a special focus on the role of the two-nucleon propagator in describing both excited states of nuclei up to the drip lines and processes mediated by two-body currents.

Next-generation experiments are poised to explore lepton-number violation, discern the neutrino mass hierarchy, understand the particle nature of dark matter, and answer other fundamental questions aimed at testing the validity and extent of the standard model. Nuclear uncertainties constitute an obstacle to these discoveries. To describe nuclear properties, I use many-body nuclear interactions and electroweak currents derived in chiral effective field theory, and Quantum Monte Carlo methods to solve for the nuclear structure and dynamics of the many-body problem for nuclei. This microscopic approach yields a coherent picture of the nucleus and its properties, and indicate that many-body effects in both nuclear interactions and electroweak currents are essential to accurately explain the data. In this talk, I will review recent progress in microscopic calculations of electroweak properties of nuclei, with emphasis on recent studies that address the “gA-problem\" and the impact of correlations and lepton-number violating potentials in neutrinoless double-beta decay matrix elements. I will present a novel framework to calculate electron- and neutrino-nucleus quasi-elastic cross sections relevant to neutrino-oscillation experiments, and discuss future developments of these studies within FRIB science.

Neutron stars are astrophysical objects of extremes. They contain the largest reservoirs of degenerate fermions, reaching the highest densities we can observe in the cosmos. The observed two solar mass neutron stars place important constraints on the nuclear equation of state. In August the first neutron-star merger has been observed, which provided compelling evidence that these events are an important site for the production of neutron-rich heavy elements within the r-process; these nuclei will be probed in the new FRIB facility. Present predictions for these different strongly interacting systems are limited by our understanding of nuclear interactions, and our ability to make reliable calculations. An accurate description of such systems requires precise many-body methods in combination with a systematic theory for nuclear forces. In this talk I will explain how to use chiral effective field theory (EFT) and advanced Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) many-body methods to provide a consistent and systematic approach to strongly interacting systems and allow precision studies with controlled theoretical uncertainties. Chiral EFT is a systematic framework for strong interactions based on the symmetries of Quantum Chromodynamics. It predicts two- and many-body interactions and allows to estimate theoretical uncertainties. On the other hand, QMC methods are among the most precise many-body methods available to study strongly interacting systems at finite densities. I will present recent results for light nuclei and the nucleonic matter relevant for the nuclear astrophysics of core-collapse supernovae, neutron stars, and neutron-star mergers, and will discuss future directions and opportunities.

We present a study of methodologies for the propagation of epistemic uncertainty, also known as incertitude, in complex astrophysical simulations. We chose the community simulation instrument MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics) and simulated the evolution of stars with a ZAMS mass of one solar mass. We explored the case of incertitude in stellar wind parameters, specifically parameters employed to model stellar winds during the red giant and asymptotic giant branch phases of evolution. These parameters are inputs to MESA, and we chose uncertainty intervals for each. Treating MESA as a ``black box,\" we applied two incertitude propagation techniques, Cauchy deviates and quadratic response surface models, to obtain bounds for white dwarf masses at the cessation of thermonuclear burning. These methodologies are applicable to other computational incertitude propagation problems.

As the density of matter increases, atomic nuclei disintegrate into nucleons and, eventually, the nucleons themselves disintegrate into quarks. The phase transitions (PT\'s) between these phases can vary from steep first order to smooth crossovers, depending on certain conditions. First order PT\'s with more than one globally conserved charge, so-called non-congruent PT\'s, have characteristic differences compared to congruent PT\'s. I discuss the non-congruence of the quark deconfinement PT at high densities and/or temperatures relevant for heavy ion collisions, neutron stars, proto-neutron stars, supernova explosions and compact star mergers.

COMMITTEE: Remco Zegers (Chairperson), D. Bazin, B. Alex Brown, H. Iwasaki, K. Mahn