Feb 21

Orlando Olivas-Gomez receives the 2022 Browne Award

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

Jes presents their work at the NNSA SSAP Symposium 2022

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

Jes completes an experiment at Texas A&M

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.

Craig, Jes and Miriam taking data at the Texas A&M Cyclotron.

Jun 28

HECTOR back at the NSL ready for beamtime

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

Jane O’Reilly joins the group for the summer REU program

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

Orlando receives the 2021 Larry O. Lamm award

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

HECTOR made the SURF news!

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.

Jul 14

Previews of the Future in Low-Energy Experimental Nuclear Physics, National Postdoctoral Seminar Series

Our mission is to support US-based senior experimental Postdocs and finishing graduating PhD students in the low-energy nuclear physics field who are about to take the next step in their careers. Due to the COVID-19 situation, junior people are currently being robbed of the opportunity to travel to conferences, show their work, and meet and interact with potential employers.

Our goal is to shed exposure on these individuals by providing an online series of selective seminars to be held 1-2 times a month until conference travel has returned to some normalcy.

To learn more or recommend someone for a seminar, please visit: https://enppreview.tamu.edu/

Jul 01

REU 2020 goes online!

The global pandemic of 2020 does not stop the REU program. Several students across the US joined the ND-REU program and are working remotely, on data analysis, simulations and modeling.
Cassidy Favorite from Hendrix College and Ryan Buechele from Case Western Reserve University joined my group this summer to work on Geant4 simulations for the STARLiTeR array. Their work will help us understand the response function of the gamma-ray detectors and will allow for optimizing the setup in the future to maximize the gamma-ray detection probability.

Feb 19

HECTOR ready for experiments a mile underground

Last week a team from Notre Dame, Dan Robertson and Orlando Gomez, were at the Sanford Underground Research Facility working 4850 feet underground to install HECTOR, Notre Dame’s high-efficiency, gamma-ray summing detector. The combined setup, called CASTOR, is now ready and soon be measuring alpha-capture reactions relevant for a wide and varied range of stellar burning scenarios. With CASPAR’s low-energy, high-intensity beams and HECTOR’s high gamma-summing efficiency, the CASTOR team will push the limits of the cross section measurements. HECTOR will remain underground until August 2020 and will be utilized for several experimental campaigns lead by Notre Dame and strongly supported by collaborators from South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

Original article: https://isnap.nd.edu/news/hector-ready-for-experiments-at-caspar/

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