NSF Award
2100969
Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. The project at Tennessee State University seeks to establish a nuclear science research group that will investigate neutron-unbound states of oxygen isotopes at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University.<br/><br/>This proposed work focuses on two areas: (1) analysis of data from past measurements performed with the MoNA (the Modular Neutron Array) Collaboration at National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and (2) the development of a new segmented target to probe the structure of neutron rich nuclei. The former (1) will examine past measurements of various decay channels in order to extract information about the 27O level structure. It will involve computer programming to analyze and visualize the data as well as perform simulations using the GEANT4 toolkit to interpret the results. This data set was recorded during the first experiment to utilize a new segmented target designed to increase statistics for Radioactive Isotope Beam (RIB) experiments to study neutron-unbound systems using the invariant mass spectroscopy technique. The latter (2) will help inform the design, testing and construction of an upgraded target system, the Multilayered Active target for MoNA Experiments (MAME), that will use a gas electron multiplier (GEM) based detector to track the outgoing reaction and decay fragments. A GEANT4 simulation will be developed as part of the design process and for use in the data analysis of future experiments that will use MAME. The resulting device will provide a new tool for measuring neutron-unbound systems thus contributing to the ongoing investigation of the rich structure of atomic nuclei.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
