RUI: Study of Exotic Neutron-Rich Nuclei at Westmont College and at NSCL, MSU

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The main goal of this program is to advance the understanding of the fundamental nature of atomic nuclei, with undergraduate student participation as an integral component. The principle investigator and team of undergraduate students will investigate the structure of light neutron-rich atomic nuclei that do not exist naturally in nature but must be produced at an accelerator facility. Understanding these nuclei is important for advancing our understanding of how the protons and the neutrons bind together in nuclear systems that are very near the limits of existence. As the research program advances to the study of heavier nuclei, results will provide important information for the understanding of explosive astrophysical environments such as supernovae and neutron star mergers. Much of the research will be conducted at Westmont College, which includes student training in and the use of instrumentation and data analysis techniques, and at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University, where students participate in state-of-the-art nuclear physics experiments. Major instrumentation used in experiments include the Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) and the Large-area multi-Institutional Scintillator Array (LISA), both constructed and tested by undergraduate students from several institutions in the MoNA collaboration. In addition to the science goals, an important goal of this program is to provide transformational research experiences for the participating undergraduate students that can have a positive influence on decisions they make for future study and careers in physics. The research supported by this award addresses directly some of the main questions driving the field of nuclear science today. Properties of ground and excited states of neutron-rich nuclei will be investigated using the Modular Neutron Array (MoNA), the Large multi-Institutional Scintillator Array (LISA), and the Sweeper Magnet and its associated suite of charged particle detectors, all located at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. Goals of the program include a conclusive measurement of the 10He ground state resonance energy, precise measurement of the 26O ground state lifetime, analysis of the 2-neutron cascade decay of excited states of 24O, and a systematic study of neutron scattering in the MoNA detector bars at the LANSCE facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This research program will help advance knowledge of nuclear structure far from stability, including better understanding of neutron-rich nuclei near the dripline, neutron halo systems, and exotic forms of nuclear decay including multiple neutron decays and 2-neutron radioactivity.