Nuclear physics ‘compromised by lack of investment’

From the Institute of Physics:  Nuclear physics ‘compromised by lack of investment’ 

Current funding of nuclear physics research is insufficient for the UK to take advantage of developing technologies needed in such areas as healthcare, the nuclear industry and defence, according to an international panel of nuclear physicists.

Nuclear physics research – research on the fundamental properties of atomic nuclei – addresses fundamental issues relating to how matter was created within the first few seconds of the Big Bang and how the elements continue to be synthesised in stellar and other astrophysical processes.
The new report commissioned by the Institute of Physics (IOP), A Review of UK Nuclear Physics Research, has been produced to help create a broad strategy to guide nuclear physics in the UK for the next decade.
One of its conclusions is that steps are taken to ensure that UK nuclear physics is funded sufficiently well to maintain scientific excellence, to diversify, to improve capability in terms of theory, to play a full role in applications and to train the people that the UK needs.
Professor Bill Gelletly, who chaired the review panel commented, “The UK needs more people trained in nuclear physics to make maximum use of knowledge in the discipline and this means better co-ordination of the UK's research groups in nuclear physics and increased investment.”
Reflecting on the importance of the review for the nuclear industry, Adrian Bull, Director of External Relations at the National Nuclear Laboratory, said, “There is a recognised challenge in the nuclear industry in terms of providing the right skills in the right numbers to allow the UK to take forward the anticipated new build programme in addition to the existing work on operating stations, clean-up, decommissioning and the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle.
“Nuclear physics represents a key element of that overall picture and I welcome the insights and recommendations which the report provides into the scope, profile, funding and skills-base associated with the UK’s nuclear physics research sector.”
On the implications for medical physics, Dr Stephen Keevil, Consultant Physicist and Head of Magnetic Resonance Physics at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, says, "Medical diagnosis and radiotherapy treatments are dependent both on developments in nuclear physics and on the supply of physicists with skills in that area.  Without investment, the UK’s world-leading position in areas of medical physics will be jeopardised.”
There is an additional recommendation in the report to have formal association with leading international scientific facilities, such as GSI’s Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Germany.  Without formal association to world-leading international facilities, the UK is in a weak position to influence the future direction of research.

 

No life in found Antarctica’s buried Lake Vostok -- yet

From Fox News:  No life in found Antarctica’s buried Lake Vostok -- yet

A first analysis of ice pulled from the largest body of water buried beneath Antarctica has yielded nothing but pristine water, untouched in tens of millions of years.
But that doesn’t mean the lake is lifeless.
Sergey Bulat of Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Russia presented preliminary results from a study of ice pulled from the 6,000-square-mile subglacial lake in February. He and his colleagues told the 12th European Workshop on Astrobiology that they found fewer than 10 microbes per milliliter, according to a report at Nature.
That’s equivalent to the background in their clean room, Nature said.
But the results came not from the lake water that rushed up their borehole from the lake and froze it shut again; instead the first results came from ice that froze onto the drill bit itself -- and they did find elements that likely came from the drilling oil and lubricants used to poke a hole through 13,000 feet of ice to the lake.
Bulat hopes to get clean samples from the ice frozen in the hole soon, and the lower depths of the lake itself, which scientists believe may hold microbial life that has been sealed off and isolated for as much as 20 million years.
Such unusual forms of life might give indications of what life elsewhere in the universe looks like. But Lake Vostok is an interesting spot for other reasons.
Beyond the fantastic science, Russian news agency Ria Novosti recently noted a number of rumors about the lake, including talk of a secret Nazi sub base and a rumor that the bodies of Hitler and his mistress were delivered there for cloning.
The Lake Vostok project has been years in the making, with initial drilling at the massive lake -- 6,060 square miles -- starting in 1998. The scientists were quickly able to reach 11,800 feet, but had to stop due to concerns of possible contamination of the never-before-touched lake water.
The Russian scientists came up with a clever way to make sure the water would not be contaminated: They agreed to drill until a sensor warned them of free water. At that point they took out the kerosene lubricating their drill bit and adjusted the pressure so that none of the liquids would fall into the lake, but rather lake water would rise through the hole due to pressure from below.
The Russians are not alone in such a mission: Scientists from around the world are literally racing to explore the mysteries of Antarctica. There are two other Antarctic digs underway.
A team from the British Antarctic Survey is on a competing mission, set to plumb the depths of Lake Ellsworth, one of a string of more than 370 lakes beneath Antarctica that may soon see light for the first time. And a third Antarctic expedition -- a study of the subglacial Whillans Ice Stream -- mainly features U.S. scientists.

 

EU to build 700-million euro lasers to zap nuclear waste, cure cancer

From RT.com:  EU to build 700-million euro lasers to zap nuclear waste, cure cancer

Photo from nature.com

The EU is to spend €700 million to build the world’s most powerful lasers, in Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The technology may be used to destroy nuclear waste and provide new cancer treatments.
The lasers are ten times more powerful than any yet built, and will be strong enough to create subatomic particles in a vacuum, similar to the conditions that may have followed the start of the universe.
Scientists are hopeful that the lasers could be used to deteriorate the radioactivity of nuclear waste – some of which takes thousands of years to decay – in just a few seconds; they also hope to use them to target tumors.
Experimentation with such a powerful laser could significantly expand knowledge in nanoscience and molecular biology.
Called the Extreme Light Infrastructure project, two lasers will be built in the Czech Republic and Romania, with a third in Hungary, each specializing in a different area of research. The project will culminate in the development of a new fourth laser in a yet-undecided location, which is expected to have twice the power of the initial three.
The project's Romanian coordinator, Nicolae-Victor Zamfir, told Bloomberg in an interview, “We can’t find in nature any phenomenon with such an intense power like the one that will be generated with this laser.”
The laser will allow scientists to practice “a new sort of nuclear physics,” he explained.
The Romanian laser, The Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics Facility (ELI-NP), will be located in the Magurele research center and will consume about 10 megawatts of energy, enough to supply about 2,500 US households. The power will come from geothermal pumps installed on the site. The laser is expected to become operational in 2017.

Nuclear waste solution

The light beam technology could be used to reduce the amount of time it takes for atomic waste to lose its radioactivity from thousands of years to a few seconds. This would remove the need to build underground stores to keep the waste safe for centuries.
Zamfir said that although there has been interest from computer companies in the project, there has been no contact yet with the nuclear industry.
“We haven’t advertised the project properly yet”, Zamfir explained, adding that funding has only just been given the green light by the EU.

Cancer treatment

The research may also prove effective in the fight against cancer, replicating principles already used in a new type of cancer radiotherapy known as hadron therapy. The lasers would target deep-rooted tumors, reducing the risk of recurrence or new tumors.
The first results of the trials are expected in 2018. “It’s going to take almost 20 years until we are able to do it,” Zamfir explained.  
Shirin Wheeler, spokeswomen for the European Commission on Regional Policy, explained, “The hope is to create a virtuous circle that by having the infrastructure there you also attract more funds and research.”

New money boost for science

­The EU has decided to base the project in Eastern European countries, which boasted a proud scientific base in communist times, but more recently have seen a huge brain drain as scientists are lured to richer countries with higher salaries.
EU subsidies are normally used to help poor regions improve their infrastructure and economies. Structural funds have traditionally been used for civic projects such as road building, but the Commission now encourages their use for projects that boost science and technology.
The approval of ELI-NP is a welcome boost for Romania’s beleaguered scientific community, which has one of the EU’s lowest national investments in research and is reeling from a series of high-profile plagiarism scandals.
Dragos Ciuparu, a chemical engineer at the Petroleum-Gas University in Ploieşti, Romania, told the weekly scientific journal Nature that he hoped the ELI-NP would help to keep researchers and engineers in Romania but warned that future governments must continue to invest seriously in the national physics community.
The EU expects to spend €550 million in the first phase of the project, which is set to end in December 2013. The second phase will see EU funding raise to €700 million, and a further €180 million will come from other sources.

 

Nuclear Pasta: Now Available at Your Nearest Supernova

From Physics Central Buzz Blog:  Nuclear Pasta: Now Available at Your Nearest Supernova

At the end of their lives, massive stars can rapidly collapse onto their core and explode within a matter of seconds. As matter and particles rush toward the star's center, they pack together extremely tightly until they hit the limits at which nuclear forces flex their muscles.

This "bounce" against the nuclear forces leads to the massive explosion and shockwave whose remnants we can see with telescopes. During the bounce, there's some strange physics going on that remains to be fully understood.

Many scientists believe that the collapsing nuclei, protons, and neutrons from the star form strange formations during the bounce: nuclear pasta. The particles form spaghetti, meatballs, and lasagna density formations. Now, physicists can add a new pasta combination to the mix thanks to new research.

Stellini pasta image courtesy add1sun via flickr.

Jirina Stone from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and her student Helena Pais recently published their research on nuclear pasta in Physical Review Letters. Although other scientists had already discovered several pasta "phases," Pais and Stone started with an unprecedented blank slate.

Previous research had assumed that certain pasta shapes may exist in these particles' density distributions. For the latest research, however, Stone used a more general mathematical formalism that didn't assume specific shapes.

They found that their more general simulations did reveal the same pasta shapes as before such as meatballs and spaghetti rod shapes. But they found something unexpected as well: a new pasta shape.

Unfortunately, the new "cross-rod" shape doesn't have a pasta analogue name yet. You can see the general shape below. Might I suggest the "double bow-tie pasta" phase?

Density distributions for several pasta phases. Stone and Pais discovered the center "cross-rod" shape in their latest simulations. Image Credit: Helena Pais/Jirina Stone/American Physical Society

So how does this pasta form among nucleons (protons and neutrons), and what can it tell us about supernovae?

"There is this competition b/w two kinds of forces which act on the nucleons at the same time," Stone told Physics Central. "They don't know what to do."

Coulomb repulsion between the positively charged nucleons push them away from each other. But when two nucleons get close enough to each other, the nuclear force starts to take over and strongly pulls them together. These competing forces give rise to the strange pasta shapes.

Some estimates suggest that the pasta phases of matter account for 15-20 percent of the matter during a supernova's bounce. That's a significant chunk, and pasta may play a very important role during these cosmic explosions.

According to Stone, no current models fully capture the physics of a supernova explosion. Because there's so much physics behind these stellar explosions, scientists have had difficulty creating fully developed models. She hopes that this research may help better explain the physics behind supernovae, leading to more accurate models.

"It's one of the most diligently studied situations, but we don't have the answer," said Stone, referring to supernovae explosions.
 

Nuclear physics and Israeli politics

From the Jerusaleum Post:  Nuclear physics and Israeli politics

I learned from my late father Dr. Israel Eldad that in politics, anytime someone raises the banner of unity, you should look for the division behind it.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

On October 18, “Religious Zionism” celebrated (replete with orange and blue balloons) the announcement of a joint list for the Knesset elections, the fusion of the National Union and the Jewish Home parties.

Long ago, I learned from my late father Dr. Israel Eldad that in politics, anytime someone raises the banner of unity, you should look for the division behind it. That is what happened when the kibbutz movement split some 60 years ago. Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov split into two: one called itself Ihud (Union) and one called itself Meuchad (United). It was the same in Ein Harod. When the divisions spread to other kibbutzim, another kibbutz movement was formed and called – how could it be otherwise? – Ihud HaKvutzot VeHaKibbutzim, the Union of Groups and Kibbutzim.

Religious Zionism has also had its share of fissures. Some were ethnically inspired, such as Aharon Abuhatzeira’s establishment of the Sephardi-based Tami party in the 1980s and, later, the preference of many voters for Shas. Some were ideologically inspired, mostly dividing those supporting Israel’s control of “Greater Israel” and those adopting the more pragmatic line of the National Religious party, which regularly sat in governments led by the Left.

THE FIRST such break occurred when Hanan Porat joined Professor Yuval Ne’eman and Geula Cohen to establish the Tehiya party, in protest over the Camp David Accords with Egypt; afterwards, Haim Drukman had to leave for the same reason, but he set up another party, Morasha, before returning several years later to the NRP.

If this sounds like a soap opera, it gets worse. Hanan Porat also returned to the NRP a few years after he left, only to bolt again in 1999, when he helped establish the Tekuma party. Effi Eitam and Rabbi Yitzhak Levy left the NRP to protest its sitting in Ariel Sharon’s government while he disengaged from Gaza. They set up a party called “Renewed National Religious Zionism,” which later merged with the National Union and then, still later, with the Likud.

As is clear, each split led to attempts to reunite, renewed splits and so on. Ideological and personal conflicts compete with the desire for unity; fission with fusion. Behind all these attempts at unity lies a serious question: Is the knitted yarmulke a political common denominator? Is a head covering more relevant or powerful than the social and political ideas in the head wearing it? The National Union faction that served in the 18th Knesset was comprised of several parties: Tekuma, represented by MKs Uri Ariel and Ya’acov Katz; Eretz Israel Shelanu, whose representative is Dr. Michael Ben-Ari; and HaTikvah, which I represent. When the National Union attended the ceremony marking its merger with the Jewish Home, only half of its MKs were present and only one of its parties. Behind the declaration of unity was division. MK Ben-Ari and I were not included.

“Religious Zionism” preferred a narrow sectarian list to a wide one that would include all those loyal to Eretz Israel. A poll by Dr. Mina Zemach of over 2,100 people, 1,100 of whom represented voters of the Right and who were questioned in depth, revealed that if half the National Union runs together with the Jewish Home, the joint list will win four to five seats. If MK Ben-Ari and I run together, we will win three seats. The representatives of “Religious Zionism” did not include us in the merger because they knew they would have to apportion us places on the party’s list based on our relative strength.

I would not burden the reader with all these details (which I find somewhat boring, I confess) if it were not for one important fact that the poll reflects: the number of undecided voters on the Right is small. Not many are wavering between the various right-wing parties. So this is a zero-sum game where the only way to profit politically, socially, and in terms of policy is to merge into a larger whole.

RELIGIOUS ZIONISM’S misanthropic withdrawal into a narrow sectarian list will not inspire tens of thousands of people who wear yarmulkes and vote Likud to leave the Likud to vote for a National Religious party.

Such voters have decided that they want a general, inclusive party that will promote various goals. The common denominator that should unite all the members of the nationalist camp should be unequivocal support for Eretz Israel and total opposition to a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River (as far as I am concerned, there already is a Palestinian state in Jordan, and we do not need another one. When the Hashemite Kingdom falls, Jordan will change from a kingdom to a Palestinian state, whether or not we want it to).

Not for nothing are Jews known as the fathers of modern nuclear physics. The talents embedded in the Jewish people are able to divide atoms into small basic particles. But does our people also know the secret of fusion? Bringing particles together frees great amounts of energy. Can this happen on the Israeli Right? Will common sense prevail? Will the results of the polls convince the different potential partners or will they continue to live within their illusions? Will they continue to dream of 15 seats coming their way when all the yarmulke wearers “come home”? We will find out at midnight on December 6, the deadline for the submission of party lists for the upcoming elections.

The writer is a Knesset Member and a professor.

 

Ohio State University Physicist: Clear Case for Nuclear Power in Fighting Climate Change

From Nuclear Street:  Ohio State University Physicist: Clear Case for Nuclear Power in Fighting Climate Change

In this TEDx talk posted online Monday, Ohio State University physics Professor Gordon Aubrecht makes a compelling case for more nuclear power in the face of climate change and the existing slate of technologies to meet growing energy demand.

In the long term, he sees solar technology serving as the world's primary source of power. Until that happens, though, he said, "We cannot afford, as the human race, to continue to do this to our planet, and so we need to get to a future where we can use that solar energy. To get there we need a bridge, and I think that bridge is nuclear energy."

In addition to presenting data elaborating on the history and potential consequences of climate change, he outlined nuclear power's advantages compared to fossil fuels in terms of energy density and environmental impact.

He also noted that, if American coal plants were regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, they would be shut down for exceeding the limits on radiation releases imposed on nuclear plants.

To see the video, you must visit the link above via a computer

CMU, MSU faculty collaborate to study nuclear physics

From Central Michigan Life:  CMU, MSU faculty collaborate to study nuclear physics

Faculty members from Central Michigan University have joined into an academic partnership with Michigan State University to participate in a nuclear physics research study.
Georgios Perdikakis, Matthew Redshaw and Kathrin Wimmer, all assistant professors in the department of physics at CMU, were named part of the team. Through the partnership, undergraduate and graduate students from MSU and CMU will have opportunities to conduct research at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a world-leading facility in East Lansing.
Wimmer said this collaboration will give students opportunities to be involved with research for projects, theses and employment opportunities.
“There are a lot of opportunities for students to participate in research,” Wimmer said. “Students will participate in experiments, work on their senior research projects in the facility, or students can do master theses on the experiments. There may even be a chance to work as a research assistant in the lab.”
The $680 million rare isotope user facility located at MSU is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, MSU and the state of Michigan.
This partnership will allow the faculty members to supervise doctoral students at MSU while also working with both undergraduate and graduate students from CMU.
Perdikakis received his doctorate from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece and specializes in experimental nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. His research includes experiments to understand the nuclear reactions that occur in stars and supernovae.
Redshaw’s research projects include the study of high-precision mass measurements with exotic nuclei and ultra-high-precision mass spectrometry with stable and long-lived isotopes. Redshaw received his doctorate from Florida State University.
Wimmer has conducted research projects, which include the study of the structure of exotic nuclei. Her research is performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory in East Lansing. Wimmer received her doctorate at Technische Universitat München in Munich.
She said she is excited for this opportunity to do research and conduct experiments that have always interested her.
“We want to understand the question of how all matter is created,” she said. “We want to understand the structure of nuclei and their reactions to each other in order to understand where we come from. I’m interested in fundamental research to understand the structure of nuclei. The nuclei I work on will be sent to other locations, as well as being used for experiments located within the facility.”

The Mystery of Red Giants in the Universe --Solved! (Weekend Feature)

From the Daily Galaxy:  The Mystery of Red Giants in the Universe --Solved! (Weekend Feature)

          

Since the Big Bang, the universe has been evolving. From the formations of simple protons and neutrons to the wide breadth of elements and molecules known today, it is ever growing in complexity and variety. And now, nuclear physics theorists have gained new insights into a fundamental nuclear reaction that gave rise to life as we know it. The reaction is known as the triple-alpha process and it is responsible for the large amount of carbon found throughout the universe. For years, the process by which stars combined light, simple nuclei into the most crucial element has been understood only as a two-step process.

But recently, the problem was revisited to unveil the full scope of mechanisms behind the formation of life's most crucial isotope, carbon-12. Specifically, that problem was the rate of carbon-12 production at low temperatures. Previous calculations made by a group led by Kazuyuki Ogata, professor of nuclear physics from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, resulted in dramatic models where stars would burn up so fast that they could not reach the red giant phase. A problem, seeing as how there are plenty of red giants (image above) to be found throughout the cosmos. "The Kyushu theory predicting rates of carbon-12 production were incompatible with observations and the whole nuclear astrophysics community was going bezerk," said Filomena Nunes, nuclear physics theorist and professor at NSCL. "I was getting emails all over the place. The method being used was sound and the Kyushu group members are experts on that method. So there had to be something wrong with the approximations."
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and carbon-12 is its most common form. With an even number of six protons and six neutrons, this simple nucleus forms the basis of all known life. However, the processes that create carbon-12 and the reasons for its abundance are not so simple. In a matter of microseconds after the Big Bang, quarks and gluons formed protons and neutrons. Just three minutes later, simple hydrogen and helium nuclei came on the scene. But it wasn't until one million years later that electrons joined the party to form neutral atoms and ten million years after that until stars began to form.
Within the cauldron of a star, protons began combining through a sequence of reactions into helium nuclei. But then the nuclear synthesis process came to an impasse. Add another single proton to helium and you get lithium-5, a nucleus that nature does not permit to exist. Fuse two helium nuclei together and you get beryllium-8, another non-existent nucleus due to the laws of nuclear physics.
But clearly the stars continued churning away, creating all the different elements we see around us. So how is this possible? This question nagged astrophysicists for years because, NSCL graduate student Ngoc Bich Nguyen said, "If we cannot explain the abundance of carbon-12, we cannot explain how our universe formed." The answer comes in the form of a reaction involving three helium nuclei, also known as alpha particles.
Though beryllium-8 decays in mere nanoseconds, if a star is hot enough, a third alpha particle can fuse with the short-lived nucleus. And because the energy of a beryllium-8 nucleus added to the energy of an alpha particle is almost exactly the same as a carbon-12 nucleus in an excited state, it creates a resonance that greatly increases its rate of production.
But there is another way that stars can create carbon-12. At low temperatures, when the energy is not enough to reach the resonances, carbon-12 can still be formed through the simultaneous fusion of three alpha particles. And while in the past, nuclear theory accurately modeled the rates of the two-step process, it was woefully inaccurate when it came to the single-step process. The Kyushu group made a serious improvement on those predictions.
"However their results prohibited the formation of red giants, which we know exist because we've observed them," said Nunes. "So I had the idea for an alternative approach without the limitations of the one that was being used at the time."
Together, Nunes and Nguyen solved this very challenging three-body scattering problem. When their new results were obtained, they agreed with the prior theory for high-temperature carbon-12 formation. At lower temperatures, however, they predicted an increase of the rate by about 10 trillion times from the estimates from the past. While this seems like a lot, it still was much less than Ogata's predictions.
 "With our new results, red giants finally exist again!" said Nunes. "From here, we have to use the new rates in many more astrophysical scenarios. We hope it will resolve some issues lingering in novae and supernovae."
For more information: Low-Temperature Triple-Alpha Rate in a Full Three-Body Nuclear Model, Physical Review Letters, 109, 141101 (2012) prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v109/i14/e141101 Journal reference: Physical Review Letters
The Daily Galaxy via Michigan State University
Image credit: http://www.lcse.umn.edu/research/RedGiant/

 

Magurele to host EUR 180 million laser investment

The Diplomat (Bucharest):  Magurele to host EUR 180 million laser investment


The European Commission has approved funding for the Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) laser, one of the biggest research programs in Romania, worth EUR 180 million. The project is intended to reach a high level of international research, by gathering the top Romanian and foreign experts. "This plan is like an oxygen balloon for all the specialised faculties, which are permanently dealing with the absence of students. This way they will be more interested in science," said Stefan Antohe, dean of the Physics Department at the University of Bucharest. The ELI-NP will serve as a pan-European laboratory and will host a wide range of scientific disciplines, which include innovative areas of fundamental physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics, material and life sciences.
Researchers will study possible new ways of dealing with nuclear materials and radioactive waste. Hiring will be conducted through an international competition and starts in October. The ELI-NP will be located in Magurele, 13 km from Bucharest.

Nuclear physicist Peter T. Demos dies at 94

From MIT News:  Nuclear physicist Peter T. Demos dies at 94

Peter T. Demos, a nuclear physicist who guided MIT’s Bates Linear Accelerator from a groundbreaking idea in 1961 to a globally renowned center for the study of nuclear structure and reactions, died of coronary artery disease on Sept. 18. A longtime resident of Belmont, Mass., Demos was 94.

Demos was a “remarkable scientific leader,” said Robert Redwine, a professor of physics at MIT and current director of the Bates Center. “His excellent scientific taste, his unquestioned integrity, and his determination to support every user of the laboratory were critical in establishing a style of operation that was a model for laboratories around the world.”

The Bates Accelerator “opened up a huge new area of research in nuclear physics. We pioneered studies in high-resolution electron scattering and started a program in coincidence experiments,” said MIT physics professor Stanley Kowalski, Demos’ former student and faculty colleague. Demos and Kowalski worked with a team of MIT physicists to launch the Bates facility.

Demos served as director of the Bates Center from 1973 to 1983. During its more-than-30-year life as an international center for the study of nuclear physics, scientists came from around the world to use the facility in Middleton, Mass.

Before developing and directing Bates, Demos served as a leader in the design and construction of MIT’s first microwave linear accelerator, completed in 1951. During the 1960s, he was a trustee to the group of nine universities, including MIT, founded to operate the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s proton accelerator.

“Those whose passion is to understand the basic nature of matter and energy are in Peter Demos’ debt,” John M. Deutch, Institute Professor of Chemistry and dean emeritus of the School of Science, noted when Demos retired as Bates director. “He gave us essential leadership — a remarkable national resource for physics research, a tool of inestimable value.”

The Bates Center now provides critical technical support for MIT researchers and their collaborators in nuclear and particle physics experiments, and houses the largest MIT facility for high-performance computing. Bates staff members also collaborate on applications of accelerator technology to projects in medical physics and in homeland security.

Demos’ legacy was honored when the Peter T. Demos Award was established to recognize a graduate student who demonstrates the “spirit, persistence and intellectual qualities” Demos embodied over his long career. 

From MIT NEws: Research and a leap

An expert in radiation and applications of radiation, Demos specialized in ballistics and radar studies before coming to MIT with his young family in 1946 as a research associate. He earned his PhD at the Institute in 1951 and joined the MIT physics faculty in 1957, becoming a full professor and director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS) in 1961. He served as LNS director until 1973.

As director of LNS and Bates, Demos “pushed heaven and earth to get good ideas implemented. His efforts were very important toward having LNS recognized as a world leader in nuclear and particle physics,” said William Bertozzi, a professor of physics at MIT and and Demos’ first graduate student.

Demos’ early MIT work, concentrating on low-energy physics and photonuclear reactions, might have set him on a conventionally successful academic career. But he made a classic MIT leap: When an innovative, hands-on project arose — building one of the first linear accelerators, a 17-million-electron-volt machine — Demos twice set aside his doctoral research to get the room-sized device working. 

At that time there were three accelerators on MIT’s campus — a synchrotron in Building 24, a cyclotron in Building 44 and the linear accelerator, or linac, that Demos and his team built in Building 20. “The linac made possible world-leading research,” Kowalski recalled. “It truly was an exciting time to do physics.”
Demos’ example and his generosity helped harness those exciting times at MIT. His support was “crucial to success in experimental research. In his quiet but convincing style he helped open many doors of opportunity and recognition for the faculty and research staff,” Bertozzi said. “I shall miss his advice and counsel.”

Not surprisingly, Demos advocated breadth in physics education and flexibility with young physicists as they grew, as he did, through experience. A devoted mentor and educator, he once wrote that while he valued a “good undergraduate physics education and direct experience with good experimental work, I have learned the most from teaching others.”

In recent years, Demos was interested in energy issues as well as new techniques for cooling hadron beams at high energies. “He was a wise and regular contributor to informal discussions on energy in LNS in the years 2007 to 2010. With his LNS colleagues, he co-authored an article in the MIT Faculty Newsletter on nuclear energy in 2008,” noted Richard Milner, the current LNS director and a professor of physics.

Demos was a member of the American Physical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former director of the advisory panel to the Center for Radiation Physics Division at the National Bureau of Standards. He also served as chair of the Committee on Radiation of the National Research Council.  

A native of Toronto, Demos became a U.S. citizen in 1958. His wife of 62 years, Elizabeth (Betty) Jean, died in 2003. He is survived by his sons, Theodore of California and John of Maine; his daughter Ellen of Ireland; his sister Georgia Davies of Calgary, Alberta; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and many devoted Canadian and American nieces and nephews.

Donations in Demos’ memory can be made to Hospice of the Good Shepherd.

 

Nuclear physics and the wealthy

From the Chronicle (Duke University):  Nuclear physics and the wealthy

When you consider any respectable MRS degree pursuant, there’s a black-gold standard of success: the oil mogul. Whether it’s Eike Batista, the richest man in Brazil, or Mukesh Ambani, his Indian counterpart with a net worth of $22.3 billion, oil, gas and mining magnates dominate the rankings of billionaires on Forbes.
It’s no secret why fossil fuels are so lucrative. Relatively low front-end costs and huge demand allowed anybody able to control oil fields or extraction and production in the early 20th century to thrive. Even today, when there is a pervasive awareness of environmental issues posed by fossil fuel-burning power plants, it’s hard to look at the price tag on a kilowatt-hour of coal and say, “Four cents? No thanks; I’d really rather spend a little more.” There’s not enough momentum in the United States to move forward away from conventional energy. Despite this, with a little innovation and a refocusing of energy perceptions, a new option can be brought to the table: nuclear.
Over the past few years, nuclear energy has picked up quite the unfortunate rep. In 2010 when a terrifying earthquake-tsunami combination caused the meltdown of three reactors in Fukushima, Japan, the world was reminded of the power behind nuclear technology and why it has applications in the military sector. Widespread health concerns with radioactive iodine and cesium isotopes floating around the Japanese countryside were well publicized. In the aftermath of the incident, Germany even announced its belief that the use of nuclear energy has no place in commercial energy production.
Any move to introduce nuclear energy as a legitimate source of production would require huge amounts of public support, but we continue to associate nuclear energy with Chernobyl, the burgeoning Iranian weapons program and that terrible chill that runs down our spines when we hear George W. Bush even try to say “nuclear.”
But nuclear energy’s poor public image is just that—a poor image. In reality, nuclear safety is scary by nature, but not a real threat. Accidents are statistically unlikely and most modern nuclear reactors have passive security systems. In the case of a slight disturbance, no manual intervention is required because mechanisms relying on gravity or natural convection will eliminate the risk of meltdown. The third generation nuclear reactors have been designed to operate at high efficiency, creating optimal amounts of electricity while using a minimum amount of fuel and reducing waste. Finland is close to finishing one of the first long-term storage facilities for nuclear waste—a no-surveillance, no-maintenance setup 500 meters underground. The collective ability to provide safe nuclear energy is present. It’s just not being fully exploited.
On top of all of its horror film-esque attributes, nuclear energy is a huge pain when it comes to starting from scratch. Building a plant itself with all of the requisite safety and efficiency features is a huge capital investment, and the licensing process is not easy. Any industry that seeks to supply an entire country with the ability to read at night or charge their infinite various appliances must be at its core based upon profit. An industry that receives capital investment and is subsequently propped up by governmental subsidies can only last as long as the subsidies themselves; thus, the industry becomes dependent on political fluctuations. So isn’t it great that nuclear energy represents a private venture that is just as economically sustainable as current baseload power production?
Nuclear energy really is no more expensive than fossil fuels. When it comes to the price per kilowatt-hour of energy produced, nuclear energy costs the same as coal, a whopping 4 cents. This is slightly misrepresentative because it describes a plant that has been in operation—it doesn’t depict the massive initial investment or the years and years of waiting before the first return on investment. If a carbon tax were ever actually incurred in the United States, however, then nuclear energy would surge ahead in cost efficiency. Efficient nuclear plants produce .01 percent of the carbon emissions of coal power plants, and the overall societal costs from health issues and climate change without a legislative tax are estimated to be 25 times more costly in coal generation.
Nuclear energy is the answer to many energy production problems in the United States; it’s both where we need to go and where I firmly believe we will end up. With that, here’s my call to Duke students and graduates and whatever other ambitious, intelligent individuals my column will reach: Go nuclear. Make it profitable. Environmental protection and the economic stimulus of domestic production are pretty appealing possibilities. Not to mention the next generation of Batistas and Ambanis, of innovators and businessmen, has some openings. So do you want to make billions but retain your “wanting to make a difference in the world” inner flower child? Because I’m willing to bet that in 20 years, Forbes will feature a new demographic: those who were willing to bet on nuclear energy.
Lydia Thurman is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Wednesday. You can follow Lydia on Twitter @ThurmanLydia.

 

Texas A&M, LSU Nuclear Physicists Looking to Stars to Understand Energy

From Science at Texas A&M:  Texas A&M, LSU Nuclear Physicists Looking to Stars to Understand Energy

COLLEGE STATION -- As their football squads prepare to meet for the first time in Southeastern Conference history Saturday (Oct. 20) at Kyle Field, Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University are teaming up to study collisions of another variety -- the nuclear kind -- on one of the world's biggest stages for nuclear astrophysics, Japan's RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science.
While Johnny "Football" Manziel undoubtedly will have many Saturday moments in the sun, Texas A&M and LSU physicists are looking to that same sun and its fellow stars as both the architects and inhabitants of our universe in an effort to better understand nuclear reactions and the resulting energy that makes life on Earth possible.
"When you have a nuclear reaction, you have a tremendous amount of energy released," said Robert E. Tribble, distinguished professor of physics at Texas A&M and director of the Cyclotron Institute. "Solar energy is a product of a nuclear reaction. We're trying to find out exactly how the elements were formed and, in the process, how the energy that makes life on Earth possible was created."
Tribble and LSU physics professor Jeffrey C. Blackmon are co-principal investigators in a United States Department of Energy-funded international collaboration that is exploring the outer limits of nuclear reactions along with colleagues at two additional U.S. universities (Texas A&M University-Commerce and Washington University in St. Louis) and in five other countries (IFIN-HH Bucharest, Romania; Universite de Caen, France; INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Italy; Oxford University, United Kingdom; Kyushu University, Japan).
Tribble notes that a critical early part of the study is a series of experiments using rare isotope beams (RIBs) at the newly commissioned Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN, widely recognized as the most powerful radioactive beam facility in the world. Tribble says researchers there are doing cutting-edge experiments with nuclei that only live fractions of a second -- rare, infinitesimal windows in which to gain valuable insight into energy‘s essence and answers.
"These experiments will provide important information about rates of nuclear reactions that occur in stellar explosions," Tribble added. "Some of the reactions that happen in stars happen in nuclei at the edge of stability within the shortest possible time span during which we can access them. Stars are just big balls of particles that are undergoing nuclear reactions. The reactions in our sun, which is a relatively small star, provide heat and light to us on Earth. It's important to understand these reactions in order to understand the very basis of life as we know it."
The collaboration will focus on both proton- and neutron-breakup reactions at intermediate energies, with the goal of using the resulting data to better understand single-particle properties and to determine reaction rates in larger stellar explosions, such as supernovaes and X-ray bursts. By understanding how nuclear reactions work at a base level from both single-nucleon removal and recapture standpoints, Tribble says they can extend that knowledge to predict likely patterns of atomic behavior in more complex situations and at stellar energies for nuclei far from stability, whether in the cosmos or here on Earth.
"We don't know what the chain of reactions is within stars, but we can figure out what the probability of certain reactions is," Tribble said. "For this study, we are focusing on p-gamma and n-gamma reaction rates, which are important in calculating how stars are born."
Tribble's individual research group within the Cyclotron Institute is helping to develop the necessary equipment for the collaboration's experimental program -- specifically, a large silicon detector array that will incorporate both existing state-of-the-art technology and generate cost-effective extensions of that technology to enable silicon detector readout. Meanwhile, Blackmon's LSU group is working with the Texas A&M and Washington University groups to incorporate front-end electronics into a working portable data acquisition (DAQ) system that will allow user-friendly inspection and analysis and ultimately easy integration between laboratories. Blackmon's team will be in charge of maintaining this software and providing the integration and linkages between the current software and the proposed systems at both Texas A&M and RIKEN.
"We also plan to implement the hardware so that it can be inspected via an Internet interface from anywhere in the world," Tribble said. "This requires a merger of two technologies already in use by Washington University. Such a system can have all eyes on a problem in short order and should probably be considered a requirement of the new century."
With Japanese funding now secured for a very large new spectrometer, SAMURAI, to be built at RIKEN, Tribble says the time is right to begin developing a detector system that can be used in conjunction with SAMURAI to carry out a broad range of reaction and breakup studies at RIKEN energies -- a program that eclipses the initial suite of experiments proposed by the collaboration in its original letter of intent to RIKEN in January 2008.
"The technology that we will develop will have broad application at many existing nuclear physics laboratories using stable or rare isotope beams, in addition to future RIB facilities," Tribble said. "And the training of students and postdoctoral research associates will be important contributions to the future workforce in this field."
To learn more about the project, overall scope of work or partners involved in the $800,000 Department of Energy award, which runs through 2014, visit http://cyclotron.tamu.edu.
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