Studies of Nuclear Reactions and Structure

Florida State University, Tallahassee FL

Investigators

Abstract

This award wil support the experimental nuclear physics group at Florida State University. The research will be carried out at the FSU Tandem/LINAC accelerator facility and at other laboratories around the U.S. Nine FSU faculty members are actively involved. Research focus areas include a variety of nuclear reactions of astrophysical importance, isospin purity of nuclei, new insights into nuclear collective behavior, and properties of loosely bound "halo" nuclei. The FSU has had primary responsibility for the Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector for the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), and will pursue electron measurements to look for nuclear medium effects on the perperties of light vector mesons. At Jefferson Laboratory, the FSU group will use high-quality tagged photon beams at the CLAS detector to search fo rmesons with so-called exotic quantum numbers. This activity also ties directly to participation in the development of the proposed Hall D detector for Jefferson Laboratory. Graduate education will be an essential component of the group's activities.