US-Australia Collaboration: Preparing to study heavy-ion fusion induced with radioactive ion beams

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

This CNIC award will facilitate the development of a new collaboration between the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and the Australian National University (ANU). The NSCL is near completion of the ReA3 facility which will provide world-unique radioactive ion beams (RIBs) at energies around the Coulomb barrier. A new research program focused on the study of heavy-ion fusion induced with RIBs will be established. Planning for the construction of a new detector to measure fission fragments is currently underway at the NSCL. Prof. David Hinde (Dept. Head of Nuclear Physics) and Prof. Nanda Dasgupta of ANU have developed a similar fission detector at the ANU accelerator facility which has been used in numerous stable beam experiments. The CNIC award will permit the NSCL research group to travel to ANU, perform a heavy-ion fusion experiment, and begin developing a plan for completing similar measurements at ReA3. Along with the PI, two graduate students from the NSCL will travel to ANU to participate in the experiment and planning process. The students will have a wide range of educational opportunities including participating in an international collaboration, scientific discussions with researchers at ANU, and technical skills development using the ANU detector. The results from the experiment completed during the visit will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences. The collaboration will also work to produce a new detector at the NSCL to be used for fusion measurements with RIBs.