Feb 21
Chloe, Miriam and Jes went to DC to present their NNSA-sponsored work at the annual NNSA SSAP meeting. Chloe presented her efforts to use HECTOR as a neutron detector, Miriam talked about her summer experience in using the DANCE array at LANL, and Jes showed gamma-decay probabilities from their Zn data obtained with Hyperion.
Feb 21
Miriam, Jes and John presented their research at the DNP-JPS meeting in Waikoloa, HI. Each of them gave a talk on their most recent achievments:
Feb 21
Jes and Miriam presented their work at the 2023 Annual NNSA SSAP Meeting held in Santa Fe, NM. Jes presented their work on indirect measurements of neutron capture cross sections on Zn isotopes using Hyperion. Miriam showed the first results of the commissioning of the Neutron Irradiation Station at Notre Dame.
Feb 21
Cornelius P. Browne served as the director for the Nuclear Structure Lab for nearly thirty years. Through his hard work and dedication he steered the lab through the most successful period in its history. In honor of Dr. Browne this award is presented annually to an outstanding Nuclear Physics graduate student who has exemplified Professor Browne’s work ethic.
The 2022 Cornelius P. Browne Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics is shared between two graduate students. Orlando Olivas-Gomez was recognized for his work on searching for branching points in the p-process nucleosynthesis path. In his thesis Orlando measured (p,γ) reactions in the A=100 mass region. The goal of his work was to identify nuclei in this region for which within the p-process temperatures, the competition between the (γ,n) and (γ,p) reactions determines the nucleosynthesis flow. He confirmed that 111In is a branching point in the reaction flow.
Orlando is the third graduate student in the history to receive all three of the awards: the Larry Lamm Award, the Cornelius Browne Award and the Kaneb Center Outstanding TA Award. The previous two people to reach this goal were Daniel Robertson and James deBoer.
https://isnap.nd.edu/news/orlando-olivas-gomez-and-august-gula-receive-2022-browne-award/
Feb 16
As the SSAP meeting was held online again, all participating students presented their posters in a form of a short video. Below is the presentation by Jes Koros talking about the experiment at Texas A&M using the Hyperion array to investigate neutron capture on Zn nuclei via surrogate reactions.
Jan 24
After a year-long delay, the measurements with Hyperion for Jes’ thesis were completed. A week of 28 MeV protons on Zn targets resulted in a great data set containing (p,p’), (p,d) and (p,t) reactions that Jes will use as a surrogate-type approach to extract neutron capture cross sections on several Zn isotopes.
Orlando and Miriam joined the team to work with the LLNL collaborators (including Craig, now a postdoc at LLNL) and helped with the setup and shifts during the run.
Jun 28
After nearly two years of a sabbatical at CASPAR, HECTOR made it back from South Dakota to the NSL. During the past two weeks, Beka has measured over 400 data points to investigate the proton capture cross section on 92 and 94 molybdenum isotopes. In the photo, Beka showing Miriam, Jane and John how the DAQ system works in preparation for the beamtime.
Jun 25
During the summer of 2021 an REU student – Jane O’Reilly from Skidmore College, NY – joined our group to learn about the gamma-summing technique. Jane is working with Beka Kelmar on measurements of proton capture on molybdenum isotopes and after a two-week experimental campaign will be busy analyzing the data with Beka.
Mar 12
The Nuclear Science Lab awarded Orlando Gomez the 2021 Larry O. Lamm Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics. The award is given annually to the student that was deemed to have provided the most outstanding service and dedication to the Nuclear Science Laboratory. The award recognizes Orlando’s continued efforts in sustaining and driving forward CASPAR experimental campaigns, making experimentation possible during the trying times of the COVID pandemic.
Dr. Lamm was a 1989 PhD graduate from our program and in 1994 joined the nuclear group as a Research Professor. His work in the Nuclear Science Laboratory as technical director was instrumental in expanding the laboratory to its current size, and striving to reach new heights in nuclear astrophysics.
Feb 03
The year-long experimental campaign using HECTOR at CASPAR came to an end. However, before leaving, Orlando told ‘Deep Thoughts’ a bit about our detector. The full article can be found here.
