Hope College Physics Department Research Experiences for Undergraduates Summer 2011 Project Summary

The study of unstable neutron rich nuclei involves understanding the ground state energy of a specific nucleus. The ground state energy of ¹³Be is known, but there has been evidence that the target used for neutron removal might cause the decay of ¹³Be to change. This experiment examines how the energy levels of ¹³Be change between using a carbon target and a deuterated polyethylene (CD2) target. A 59.6 MeV/a ¹⁴Be beam is produced by the cyclotrons and A1900 fragment separator at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. In a target, one neutron is removed from the ¹⁴Be nucleus, producing an unstable ¹³Be nucleus. The ¹³Be nucleus immediately decays to ¹²Be and a neutron; the neutron is detected using the Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) and the charged particles are detected using a 4T superconducting sweeper magnet and a series of charged particle detectors. The decay of ¹³Be is reconstructed using the four-momentum of the emitted neutron and the fragment ¹²Be nucleus for each target. Result will be compared for each target by looking at the differences in decay.
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