Through the nuclear looking glass

FRIB announces first PAC-recommended experiments

Hidden symmetry explained

The Quantum Rodeo

University of Surrey and FRIB researchers explore origin of aluminum-26

ReA6 hosts first experiment

NSCL accelerates first beam in ReA6

International research team helps create cosmic conditions at RIKEN’s heavy-ion accelerator in Japan

Constraining the origin of stellar Iron-60

Two FRIB researchers create computer model to help explain and make nuclear discoveries

A team of international researchers went back to the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago to gain new insights into the cosmic origin of the heaviest elements on the periodic table.

New grant helps harvest unused FRIB isotopes for variety of research fields

Researchers at NSCL and at TRIUMF Laboratory in Canada provide high precision refinements to masses of rare scandium isotopes, probing the emergence of exotic nuclear shells.

Quantum Wave Functions Computed Faster

Rare isotope studies to understand the cooling of neutron star crusts

Probing the neutron star structure with a radioactive 22Mg beam

A new approach gives detailed information about the spatial correlations of protons and neutrons and the size of nuclear fragments as a function of temperature and density

Bringing the promise of quantum computing to nuclear physics

MSU researchers awarded grant to develop instrument that will advance nuclear science research

Disappearing Magic Numbers Result in a Cooler Neutron Star Crust

New review article on Low Energy Nuclear Physics with Active Targets and Time Projection Chambers

Researchers develop novel approach to modeling yet-unconfirmed rare nuclear process

Researchers are participating in a new $3.7 million National Science Foundation project to advance nuclear physics experiments

NSCL collaboration with international colleagues for a RMP article about shell evolution of exotic nuclei

NSCL users make discovery that challenges nuclear theory

NSCL’s GADGET produces First Science

Convenient location of a near-threshold proton-emitting resonance in boron-11

NSCL researchers participate in experiment that expanded the neutron dripline for the first time in 20 years

MSU researchers lead team that observes exotic radioactive decay process

Learning about Neutron Stars in the lab: New results from NSCL experiment Sheds Light on the Neutron Star Compactness.

Structure of 42-silicon: challenge for nuclear theory at the limits

First Observation of Unbound 11O, the Mirror of the Halo Nucleus 11Li in Phys. Rev. Lett.

r-Process Nucleosynthesis: Connecting Rare-Isotope Beam Facilities with the Cosmos

Predicting the existence of heavy nuclei using machine learning

Why is there nearly no antimatter in the Universe? Recently published review article summarizes the status of searches for electric dipole moments in pursuit of this question.

Researchers examine puzzling sizes of extremely light calcium isotopes

An interplay between a nuclear halo and deformation: strong electric dipole mode found in 27Ne

The chain of Selenium isotopes, with Z=34 protons, is thought to undergo a sudden shape change around N=36 from a disk-like to an elongated shape, which provides stringent test of nuclear structure models.

MSU theorists devise new way to predict quantum wave functions

Three shapes in one nucleus: the elusive state in Sulfur 43 found

Researchers from MSU and the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan have discovered eight new rare isotopes, including the heaviest known calcium atom, calcium-60.

The puzzling two-proton decay of krypton-67

Properties of light nuclei using local chiral Interactions

Fusion reactions between neutron-rich nuclei have been proposed as a potentially important heat source in the outer-crust of an accreting neutron star, possibly triggering an X-ray superburst.

Using ReA3 to explore reactions that may reach the heaviest elements.

Looking through the isobaric mirror

The mass measurement of 56Cu is reported, a quantity critical for understanding the reaction flow in the rapid proton capture process that fuels X-ray bursts.

A novel and universal polarization phenomenon

Nuclear clustering with pinholes and probes

The Gravitational Waves Observed from Neutron-Star Mergers: Exciting News for NSCL/FRIB

The production of carbon-12 in nature is proportional to the probability of decay of the Hoyle state to the ground state of carbon-12.

The differences in the charge radii of mirror nuclei are shown to be proportional to the derivative of the neutron equation of state and the symmetry energy at nuclear matter saturation density.

Scrutinizing the tetraneutron: Can four neutrons form an atomic nucleus?

Finding an elusive giant resonance.

Ab Initio Description of Open-Shell Nuclei: Merging No-Core Shell Model and In-Medium Similarity Renormalization Group Approaches

A measurement performed at NSCL provided new insights into the structure of the rare isotope sulfur-44, which has an excess of 12 neutrons as compared to the most abundant stable sulfur-32 isotope found in nature.

The Music of Nuclear Energy Level Spacings

One of the most fundamental properties of the nucleus is its size. Generally, nuclear radii follow a smooth trend: they gradually increase with the number of constituent protons and neutrons. However, when looked through a magnifying glass, measured radii display local variations, which signal structural changes. To measure such variations, superb precision is needed. To measure such small effects on radii of short-lived isotopes, a novel experimental scheme has been developed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University (MSU). The method involves laser spectroscopy of isotopes produced through a fast in-flight separation followed by gas stopping.

Research conducted at NSCL has shed new light on the structure of the nucleus, that tiny congregation of protons and neutrons found at the core of every atom. “The finding is somewhat unexpected,” said Alexandra Gade, chief scientist at MSU’s NSCL, where the work took place. “We’ve confirmed something that has been suspected for about 40 years but hadn’t been observed. This result furthers our understanding of how the nucleus is put together.”

For a pair of mirror nuclei, where the number of neutrons in one matches the number of protons in the other, one expects their properties to be essentially the same. An experiment at NSCL compared an exotic mirror pair and unraveled the impact of angular momentum.

An experiment performed at NSCL on the campus of Michigan State University revealed that challenging reactions can be conquered by an indirect approach that exploits the formation of unstable nuclei in beta decay and the detection of the gamma-ray radiation liberated in the process with the SuN detector.

Quadrupole strength in the neutron-rich Nickel-72 isotope: the order is restored

Stardust from ancient stellar explosions finds its way to earth in the form of microscopic rocks called presolar grains. Identifying the origin of these grains is difficult, but a new experiment may shed some light on this 5-billion-year-old question.

A new open source weak interaction rate library with the aim of standardizing the incorporation of weak rates in astrophysical simulations is now available. This library brings together all major weak interaction rate tables and is easily expanded to incorporate new tables of arbitrary grid resolution and ranges of density and temperature. It's first implementation was in the sensitivity study of core-collapse supernovae to nuclear electron capture.

Mass Measurement of 56Sc Reveals a Small A=56 Odd-Even Mass Staggering, Implying a Cooler Accreted Neutron Star Crust.

Eugene Wigner won the 1963 Nobel Prize. Among his contributions was a simple quadratic equation known as the Isobaric Multiplet Mass Equation (IMME). Over time, questions arose about this equation. Recently, scientists were able to precisely measure nuclear structure effects at NSCL. As a result of their measurements, they showed that the IMME is revalidated.

Measuring the energies of the neutrons emitted following beta decay is important for applications in nuclear energy and nuclear astrophysics. However, neutrons are notoriously difficult to detect directly because they are not electricalhttps://cms02.cascade.msu.edu/render/file.act?path=/news/News-caption-7.pngly charged. A team of scientists at NSCL recently demonstrated a technique using Doppler shift that can determine the energies of these neutrons without detecting them directly.

A team of NSCL researchers discovered the lightest known isotope of germanium: Ge-59.