News

Bardayan Interviewed About Recent Discovery at FRIB

Less than a year after its opening, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams produced five never-before-seen isotopes for observation, a success that researchers say highlights the discovery potential of the facility. Nuclear Science Laboratory director Dan Bardayan was interviewed for the American Physical Society News of the week about the discovery. He was quoted as saying “One of the fundamental observables of nuclear physics is whether a given nucleus exists or whether it simply falls apart into its constituents”. Read the full article text at https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/28.

Team Members Present at 2023 Fall Meeting of the Division of Nuclear Physics in Hawaii

Group members Chevelle Boomershine, Will von Seeger, Scott Carmichael, Patrick O’Malley, Cade Dembski, and Sydney Coil travelled to Waikoloa, Hawaii to participate and present their research at the 2023 Fall Meeting of the Division of Nuclear Physics. From the pictures below, it appears there were also opportunities to explore the island.

NSL Researchers Featured on Korean Broadcasting Society

NSL scientists Michael Wiescher, James deBoer, Shahina, and Dan Bardayan made presentations at the 17th Conference on Nuclei in the Cosmos, which was held at the Institute for Basic Science in Daejeon, South Korea.  The was a particularly opportune time to be in Daejeon as the Rare Isotope Accelerator Complex (RAON) is nearing construction completion.  The excitement by the local community to host the conference and scientific facility was demonstrated by the impromptu appearance of a camera crew from the Korean Broadcasting Society.  Check the video link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVaPbRX9FjY&t=517s.

Summer Students Welcomed to the Group

Every summer the size of the group swells with the addition of summer students performing research at the Nuclear Science Lab. From left to right is graduate student Cade Dembski, Faculty member Patrick O’Malley, REU student Alex Temidis, REU student Melody Shimba, undergraduate Sydney Coil, graduate student Will von Seeger, undergraduate Matt Chapple, undergraduate Tom Gore, graduate student Chevelle Boomershine, and Dan Bardayan.

Sydney Awarded Edison Fellowship

Notre Dame undergraduate Sydney Coil has been awarded a 2023-2024 Charles Edison Fellowship. The Charles Edison Fellowship is a $1,500 fellowship that will be granted to two undergraduate students who are passionate about pursuing research, but have financial struggles. “Research is a vital element to an undergraduate science education. However, this process requires much time and effort, and many students cannot commit time to research due to financial circumstances and must rather have an on-campus job.” says Daniel Pape, co-editor-in-chief of Scientia. “The Edison Fellowship will give these students the opportunity to participate in research and make discoveries in their field of interest.” 

Scott Wins Lamm Award

Scott Carmichael is the recipient of the 2023 Larry O. Lamm Memorial Award in Nuclear Physics. Congratulations!


Dr. Lamm was a 1989 Ph.D. 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. 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.

First Beam Transported to Enge Spectrograph

A milestone was reached in April 2023 as the first beam was transported to the Enge Spectrograph. A 14 MeV proton beam was tuned to the quartz viewer directly in front of the Enge target chamber with no noticeable loss in transmission. The quadrupole on the Enge beamline focused the beam to a spot roughly 3 mm wide as shown in the pictures below taken with the quadrupole off and on.

Cade Selected as NSF Graduate Research Fellow

Nuclear Science Lab researcher and ND Department of Physics and Astronomy graduate student Cade Dembski has been selected as a 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow.  Cade’s project is entitled “Measuring Nuclear Fusion Rates to Study Astrophysical Explosions and Nucleosynthesis” and will create a world-unique particle-decay spectrometer at the NSL TriSol facility to study exotic nuclear decays of astrophysical interest, and he is working under the guidance of Prof. Dan Bardayan.

Inaugurated in 1952, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding students in the NSF-supported STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. It is the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind.

Enge Spectrometer Energized

After a few years of installation, the magnet coils of the spectrograph were energized for the first time in March of 2023! Congratulations to Scott Carmichael and the team for all of their hard work in reaching this milestone.


ATHENA NIM Paper Published

Drew Blankstein published a manuscript describing the commissioning of the Active Target High Efficiency detector for Nuclear Astrophysics (ATHENA) in Nuclear Instruments and Methods. The full citation is

ATHENA: An active target detector for the measurement of total cross sections
D. BlanksteinD.W. BardayanJ.M. AllenC. BoomershineL.K. CallahanS. CarmichaelS.L. Henderson, and P.D. O’Malley
Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A, 1047, 167777 (February 2023).

Congratulations Drew!


TriSol Commissioned

TwinSol was recently converted to TriSol with the addition of a switching magnet and superconducting third solenoid. TriSol has now been commissioned by demonstrating the production of 7Be, 8B, 11C, 14O, and 17F beams.

The results have been published as

TriSol: A major upgrade of the TwinSol RNB facility
P.D. O’MalleyT. AhnD.W. BardayanM. BrodeurS. Coil, and J.J. Kolata
Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A, 1047, 167784 (February 2023) .


Drew Defends His Thesis

In December 2022, Drew Blankstein successfully defended his thesis entitled “ACTIVE TARGET MEASUREMENT OF THE 25,26Mg(a,n)28,29Si TOTAL CROSS SECTION”. Congratulations Drew!


Bardayan elected Fellow of the APS

Dan Bardayan was selected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in November of 2022. Bardayan was nominated for his study of explosive astrophysical events with exotic beam measurements, and the development of unique experimental devices to perform such studies. He performs his experiments using transfer reactions at the TriSol magnetic spectrometer at the Notre Dame Nuclear Science Laboratory, the supersonic gas-jet target JENSA at Michigan State University, and the Gammasphere array at Argonne National Laboratory.

No more than one-half of one percent of the APS membership are elected to the status of fellow each year. The fellowship program was created in 1921 for scientists in the physics community to recognize their peers’ contributions to the field with original research, innovative applications, teaching and leadership. This year, 155 members were honored as fellows.


Chevelle and Scott present at INPC

Chevelle and Scott were part of a large Notre Dame contingent to present at the 28th International Nuclear Physics Conference held in September 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa.

It was rumored that Chevelle even got her picture with a Rhinoceros in honor of having taken her thesis data with the Rhino gas target at the NSL.