MRI for the aquisition of a high-efficiency scintillation detector for photon detection with rare isotopes

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides funds for the acquisition of a high-efficiency scintillator-based photon detector for the most efficient detection of photons emitted from rare isotopes of atomic nuclei at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). This instrument will detect photons with one order of magnitude more efficiency than the existing, semi-conductor based photon detector at the NSCL. This increased sensitivity translates into increased scientific reach and opens the possibility of a new class of spectroscopy experiments at the forefront of nuclear science. The study of rare isotopes is of key interest to nuclear science, as theories developed for stable atomic nuclei have been shown to lose their predictive power for very neutron-rich and very neutron-deficient atomic nuclei (rare isotopes). The Coupled Cyclotron Facility at the NSCL is a national user facility that has been built to produce some of the most intense beams of very neutron-deficient and very neutron-rich atomic nuclei worldwide. About half of all experiments at the NSCL require photon detection to precisely identify the final state of the atomic nucleus after a reaction or decay. The proposed instrument will enable nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics studies of the most exotic isotopes that are made at the NSCL. Experimental data on these most exotic isotopes are particularly important since they provide the largest constraints on theoretical predictions and can check or invalidate the theoretical extrapolations from stable atomic nuclei. An increase in detection efficiency of one order of magnitude will make key experiments possible.