Physics professor receives Department of Energy grant to study nuclear structures

Physics professor Con Beausang has been awarded a grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for $117,000 to be distributed over the course of three years. The grant will support Beausang’s research on nuclear structure and is a renewal of a DOE grant he has held for the past three years.

Additionally, Beausang has received the third installment of a Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration three-year grant for $510,000 to support research on nuclear stockpile stewardship.

The DOE’s Office of Science supports research that answers basic nuclear physics questions, with or without real world application. Beausang will measure nuclear shapes, the nature of fundamental excitations in nuclei and attempt to ascertain the extent of the heaviest nuclei.

The DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administrations Stewardship Science Academic Alliance Program supports unclassified basic research that has applications to nuclear stewardship science. Since the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, scientists have worked to better understand the science behind nuclear weapons in order to guarantee that the United States’ stockpile works without ever having to test a single weapon.

Beausang’s research is relevant because he studies nuclear synthesis, measuring cross sections for neutron-induced reactions on short-lived unstable nuclei. In addition to contributing to the Stewardship Program, Beausang says that measuring these unstable nuclei may help scientists answer big questions about the origin of the elements and nuclear synthesis of the elements in nuclear reactions in stars.

Posted October 17, 2008