Nathan Frank
Augustana College, IL·Physics
Atomic nuclei packed with extra neutrons, sitting at the edge of stability, reveal how protons and neutrons interact. They also help explain how the elements in the universe formed.
- Fields
Physics
Engineering
- Topics
nuclear physics
nuclear structure
neutron-rich nuclei
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Develop a modular fast-neutron detector array of plastic scintillators read out by silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), compact light sensors, to locate neutron hits more precisely than paired-photomultiplier bar detectors.
- Build and test detector modules at seven participating undergraduate institutions, then commission the tiled array so its active area can be adjusted to each experiment.
- Enable invariant-mass spectroscopy of neutron-unbound states in elements beyond oxygen at FRIB by improving momentum resolution and rejection of double-scattered neutrons.
More about the research
One way to study these nuclei is to let them break apart and measure the pieces, including the neutrons they shed. Neutrons are hard to detect, however, because they have no charge and interact only with atomic nuclei. As a result, measurements of heavier exotic nuclei need much sharper neutron detectors than exist today.
Why it matters
This is basic nuclear physics. A sharper fast-neutron detector would let researchers measure heavier and more exotic neutron-rich nuclei at FRIB. These measurements add to understanding of how nuclear forces work and how elements form in the universe. The scintillation-detector building skills that students gain are also used in industry and in medical imaging.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Junwei Du
University of California-Davis, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Build a whole-body mouse PET scanner with about 0.5 mm resolution, using 128 detectors made of 0.5 mm LYSO crystal arrays (crystals that flash when hit by gamma rays) read out from both ends by silicon photomultipliers.
Erin Peters
University of Kentucky, KY·Physics
Study nuclear structure relevant to neutrinoless double-beta decay using inelastic scattering of fast, single-energy neutrons from the University of Kentucky accelerator and measuring the emitted gamma rays.
Steven Stroberg
University of Notre Dame, IN·Physics·Early-career
Develop a computationally tractable way to include three-particle interactions in the in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG), a method for solving the quantum many-body problem of atomic nuclei.
The school
Augustana College: 1 labs on PI Pages.
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