In Defense of Nuclear Physics

From Quantum Diaries: In Defense of Nuclear Physics
By Byron Jennings

This song always reminds me of nuclear physics. The scales (i.e. sizes) involved in nuclear physics are too large to be of interest to the reductionists, also known as particle physicists. They say it is just chemistry. The chemists, on the other hand, are not interested because the scales are too small. Nuclear physics, the archetypal in-between science, has scales too short to apply directly to everyday life and too long to be at the cutting edge of short-distance physics. In-between science includes atomic physics, low energy nuclear physics, QCD and, if the LHC is successful, electro-weak physics. At the other end of the scale, we have the solar system and galactic science which have too a short a scale to be of interest to the cosmologists who are doing science at scales the size of the visible universe.

So, why do in-between science? Let’s take low-energy nuclear physics, the physics done at rare isotope facilities like TRIUMF’s ISAC facility, as an example. The nucleus is an intriguing object. It is built of neutrons and protons which are themselves emergent objects, that is, objects that are not present explicitly in the underlying QCD model. They emerge from solving that model. It is somewhat like building on sand, but as in the case of sand castles, that can be productive and interesting. Actually, things are not so bad. We now have a very good understanding of the relation between low-energy nuclear physics and QCD.

The nucleus is self-bound: the forces between the components hold it together. This allows all kinds of behaviour: it rotates, vibrates, has single-particle excitations, and pairing. It slices, it dices… well let’s not get carried away, this isn’t a TV commercial. Disentangling the various types of excitation can be fun—just get any of my experimental colleagues going on the topic. There are real intellectual challenges in sorting it all out. Great progress has been made but we are not at the end of the trail yet.

We also know a lot about nuclear power (no not in reactors, but in the stars). Stars are powered by gravitationally confined nuclear fusion. No need to build tokomaks—the universe has been powered by nuclear fusion from the beginning. To understand how the universe evolves through time, it is necessary to understand this energy source. And it’s not just ordinary stars, but novae and super novae are powered by nuclear energy as well. We are composed of the remnants of stars, remnants blown into space by novae and super novae explosions. We are star dust. Billion year old carbon.[2] To understand all this, is to understand nuclear physics. Explosive, short lived, and dynamic processes in the heavens depend on the properties of short-lived nuclear isotopes. Coming back down to our planet, the need for studying these isotopes and their associated reactions is fulfilled by facilities like ISAC which make and study short lived isotopes.

Even more down to earth, is nuclear medicine. Medical imaging, using short lived nuclear isotopes, explores questions such as, ‘What causes Parkinsonism?’ and ‘Can we catch Alzheimer’s disease at an early stage and cure it?’ Radiation has been used to cure cancer for a long time now and more progress is being made. In diagnosis and treatment, nuclear medicine is now mainstream. Cyclotrons, once the hallmark of elite physics departments, are now almost a necessity at research hospitals. The pure research in nuclear physics had led to benefits beyond our wildest dreams

And finally nuclear bombs; destruction beyond our wildest dreams. I would guess that in the USA, the right to keep and bear nuclear arms is covered by the second amendment. In any event, as with any science, nuclear physics can cure or kill. Fire keeps us warm, yet wood smoke is carcinogenic. What we need, always and everywhere, is reality-based thinking and responsible people.

To conclude, in-between science is driven by the same impulse that drives all science: a longing to know and a hope to help. Science at any scale is cool (or is that fundamental?).

I work like a dog with no recreation and they call me Mr In-between

Mr In-between, Mr In-between, makes a fellow mean, Mr In-between[1]

[1] From a song written by Harlan Howard and made popular by Burl Ives.

[2] From Woodstock by Joni Mitchell

Testing OPERA with Nuclear flare: A simple race between anti-neutrinos and photons.

From 2.0: Testing OPERA with Nuclear flare: A simple race between anti-neutrinos and photons
If we can produce neutrinos at the same time as photons,then detect which arrives first the question of neutrino speed vs light speed would be settled. CERN – OPERA measured neutrinos arriving faster than light would have, astronomers have measured neutrinos and light arriving at about the same time from supernovae. How can we verify the CERN – Opera experiment,reproduce the supernova result, and settle this question once and for all? We can do this by repurposing one of the most destructive things ever created by the hands of man, a atomic bomb.

Complication is the mother of all experimental doubt and error, and the OPERA experiment is indeed complicated. Any experiment which uses a setup largely similar to it will be dogged by the specter of error due to their complexities.

OPERA measured neutrinos arriving 60 nanoseconds before they would have if they moved at the speed of light and no faster.

Supernova SN1987A produced a burst of neutrinos and light. The neutrinos zipped from the core of the star to the surface without interacting with anything. This made the neutrinos arrive four minutes faster. The light would need to bounce around in the star just that long before exiting. Essentially the light and neutrinos arrived simultaneously. This is seen by some as a definitive test of vneutrino/vlight. Others are not so sure.

A simple race

The simplest most direct test would be to keep observing supernovae and see if their neutrino pulses arrive way before their light. The light and neutrinos travel through the same space, along the same path from source to observation. In essence it is a straight forward race between two particles. The problem is that some can doubt weather a given neutrino signal is from a particular supernova. We need more control at the point of production, we need a manmade supernova, we need to use a fusion bomb (or six). This would produce anti-neutrinos, but that should not affect their speed. (Using nuclear devices in this way was first proposed by Fred Reines and Clyde Cowan of Los Alamos National Laboratory http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?25-02.pdf)

The proposal is technically simple, but politically complicated.

1. Step1: Remove the warheads from two minuteman ICBM’s.
2. Step2: Mount said warheads on a Delta IV rocket, withwhatever is required to arm them once the probe has escaped from earth orbit,and safely away.
3. Step3: The probe should launch individual warheads (usingthe MIRV technology developed for the minute man). Once the probe is a safe distance away thewarhead will detonate.
4. Step4: The existing infrastructure of neutrino detectors canbe used in conjunction with simple telescopes and well known electronics to determinewhich is detected first. There are threepossible results from step four.

* A Vneutrino/Vlight>1 Neutrinos do travel faster than light.
* B Vneutrino/Vlight=1 Neutrinos travel only as fast as light.
* C Vneutrino/Vlight<1 Neutrinos travel at a lower speed than that of light.

This should be done multiple times to give the result some statistical significance. Three to six times would be most practical because a minuteman three has three MIRVed warheads.

I defy anyone to find a problem with the physical reasoning.

If the neutrinos are detected more than a few nano seconds before the light; then result A has been obtained. (For the same reason that ittakes light longer to exit the core of a star, neutrinos are less interactivethan light.) This would show without any ambiguity that OPERA was right, and neutrinos do travel faster than light. If neutrinos are as fast as OPERA indicates they should arrive a matter of seconds, not just nanoseconds, before the light. The distance from these explosions to the earth would be millions of miles. It would be a very clear signal.

If results B or C are obtained by this method then OPERA is wrong and we all have to live constrained by the speed of light.

Why this will probably never be done, politics.

This will never be done for one reason, politics. The physics is very clear that this would work as a test of neutrino speed. The problems come from non-scientific concerns. Sill valid, just not scientific in nature.

The partial test ban treaty has, since the 1960’s, prohibited nuclear weapons testing in space. That has been interpreted the use of any nuclear devices in space. It could be argued that this would not be a test of the warheads. We know they will work, never the less, we would need permission from the other signatories of that treaty. One would think Russia would not mind having two fewer minutemen pointed at them, but you never know.

Anti-Nuclear public sentiments, reinforced with some legitimate fear. A certain segment of the public is afraid any time we use nuclear technology in space. Notably in the generators of certain space probes such as the latest Mars rover set to launch very soon. The proposed experiment would use actual nuclear bombs. Devices designed to blowup and kill millions in the process. It is not inconceivable that an accident could lead to detonation. The warheads could arm on the Launchpad and the Delta IV could have a catastrophic failure. The results would be an almost unprecedented catastrophe.

Getting the political support needed to make this happen would be almost impossible. I just don’tsee congress and the president ever going along with this, let alone the international community. There is too much fear around the word nuclear. The chance of accidental detonation of an unarmed nuclear device is essentially zero. There is a better chance of being killed by lighting than by the described space mission. Such facts never get in the way of anti-nuclear hysteria.

The experiments done to date, or proposed for testing the OPERA result suffer from the same fundamental weakness. They are physically complicated in many and various ways. The simplest test would beusing a ready made supernova, a nuclear device. When these detonate a pulse of neutrinos is released as well as a pulse of light. We can detect which arrives first the anti-neutrinos or the light and that will give us a simple and definitive answer. This will likely never be done due to politics, and mostly irrational fear. So, keep watching the neutrino detectors and the skies for more supernovae. They are the best most direct test of OPERA’s results.

New posting schedule

Sorry for the long delay in posting - had some family issues.

The posting schedule for this blog - starting this Wednesday, Nov 23, will be Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Thanks for your patience!

Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose input led to finely tuned atomic clock

From the Irish Times: Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose input led to finely tuned atomic clock
NORMAN F RAMSEY: NORMAN F RAMSEY, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who developed a precise method to probe the structure of atoms and molecules and used it to devise a remarkably exact way to keep time, died in Wayland, Massachusetts, aged 96.

In 1949, Ramsey invented an experimental technique to measure the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation most readily absorbed by atoms and molecules. The technique allowed scientists to investigate their structure with greater accuracy and enabled the development of a new kind of timekeeping device known as the atomic clock. Ramsey received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1989 for both achievements.

“If you made a list of the most outstanding physicists of the 20th century, he’d be among the leaders,” said Leon M Lederman, emeritus director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, which Ramsey helped found. Early in the 20th century, physicists began to decipher the structure of atoms from measurements of the wavelengths of light they released and absorbed, a method called atomic spectroscopy. In 1937, the physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi of Columbia University developed a means of studying atoms and molecules by sending a stream of them through rapidly alternating magnetic fields. As Rabi’s student at Columbia in the late 1930s, Ramsey worked to refine it.

In 1949, when he was at Harvard, Ramsey discovered a way to improve the technique’s accuracy: exposing the atoms and molecules to the magnetic fields only briefly as they entered and left the apparatus. His approach – often referred to as the Ramsey method – is widely used today.

Ramsey’s research helped lay the groundwork for nuclear magnetic resonance, whose applications include the MRI technique now widely used for medical diagnosis. But the most immediate application of the Ramsey method has been in the development of highly accurate atomic clocks. Since 1967 it has been used to define the exact span of a second, not as a fraction of the time it takes Earth to revolve around the sun, but as 9,192,631,770 radiation cycles of a caesium atom.

In 1960, working with his student Daniel Kleppner, now an emeritus professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ramsey invented a different type of atomic clock, known as the hydrogen maser, whose remarkable stability has since been used to confirm the minute effects of gravity on time as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Atomic clocks like the hydrogen maser are also used in the systems that track global positioning satellites.

Norman Foster Ramsey jnr was born on August 27th, 1915, in Washington, the son of Minna Bauer Ramsey, a mathematics teacher, and Norman Foster Ramsey, an army officer. After receiving his PhD under Rabi at Columbia, he worked at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and served as a radar consultant to the secretary of war. In 1943 he went to New Mexico to work on the Manhattan Project, leading a team that helped assemble the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. After the war, he taught for nearly four decades at Harvard. Although he officially retired in 1986 he continued his work and in recent years he collaborated with British physicists on the symmetry of the neutron.

Ramsey presided over the founding of Fermilab and the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, where he was the first head of the physics department in the 1940s. As the first science adviser to Nato, he initiated programmes to train European scientists. He led a committee that concluded in 1982 that, contrary to the findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, acoustical evidence did not support the existence of a second gunman in the assassination of John F Kennedy.

Ramsey had an athletic flair. He learned to ski in Norway in the 1930s. Later, he took up long-board surfing and ice sailing, and he travelled with his second wife, Ellie Welch Ramsey, from the Himalayas to Antarctica.

His first wife, Elinor, died in 1983. In addition to his wife, he is survived by four daughters, Margaret Kasschau, Patricia Ramsey, Winifred Swarr and Janet Farrell; two stepchildren, Marguerite and Gerard Welch; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Low levels of radioactive particles in Europe: IAEA

From Reuters: Low levels of radioactive particles in Europe: IAEA
Very low levels of radioactive iodine-131 have been detected in Europe but the particles are not believed to pose a public health risk, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, saying it was seeking to find the source.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog, said it did not believe the radioactive particles were from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant after its emergency in March.

Experts said the origin of the radiation -- which has been spreading for about two weeks -- remained a mystery but could come from many possible sources ranging from medical laboratories or hospitals to nuclear submarines.

The Czech Republic's nuclear security watchdog said it had tipped off the IAEA after detecting the radiation it thought was coming from abroad but not from a nuclear power plant. It suggested it may come from production of radiopharmaceuticals.

Germany's Environment Ministry said slightly higher levels of radioactive iodine had been measured in the north of the country, ruling out that it came from a nuclear power plant.

Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Sweden also reported traces at very low levels that did not pose a health risk.

Iodine-131, linked to cancer if found in high doses, can contaminate products such as milk and vegetables.

Paddy Regan, a professor of nuclear physics at Britain's University of Surrey, said the suggestion that it may have leaked from a radiopharmaceuticals maker "sounds very sensible and totally reasonable."

He said since iodine was used in the treatment of thyroid conditions it was also likely that hospitals in many European countries would have it in their stores.

"It would be very unlikely for it to have come from Fukushima since the accident was so many months ago and iodine-131 has a brief half-life," he said.

Iodine-131 is a short-lived radioisotope that has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days, the IAEA said.

Massimo Sepielli, head of the nuclear fission unit of Italy's national alternative energy body ENEA said any number of sources could be to blame for the readings.

"It could be coming from the transporting of (nuclear) material, it could come from a hospital ... it could even come from a nuclear submarine, even if it's a more complicated possibility ... but you can't rule that out."

CAREFULLY CONTROLLED

Professor Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Britain's Royal Berkshire Hospital, said any link with Fukushima was extremely unlikely.

"It is far more likely that the iodine may be as a result of excretion by patients undergoing medical treatment. Whilst such patients are carefully controlled, some release of iodine into the environment may be inevitable but would certainly be well below any limits where health detriment would even begin to be an issue for concern," he said.

The IAEA said the Czech Republic's nuclear safety body had informed it that "very low levels" of iodine-131 had been measured in the atmosphere over the country in recent days.

"The IAEA has learned about similar measurements in other locations across Europe," the brief statement said.

"The IAEA is working with its counterparts to determine the cause and origin of the iodine-131."

The Czech watchdog said it had detected iodine-131 at a number of monitoring stations since late October. It said there was no health risk from the iodine.

"It was detected by our radiation monitoring network, with probability bordering on certainty the source is abroad. It is iodine-131 and we have asked the IAEA if they know what the source could be," Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety chief Dana Drabova told Reuters.

Officials in Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Finland, France, Britain, Switzerland, Poland and Norway said they had not detected any abnormal radiation levels. Romania's watchdog said there had been no incident at the country's sole nuclear plant.

Austria's Environment Ministry said small levels were measured in the east and north of the Alpine country, saying the estimated dose level for the population was one 40,000th of the dose of radiation received in a transatlantic flight.

In the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, an earthquake followed by a massive tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima plant in Japan, causing a reactor meltdown and leakage of radiation, including of iodine.

In the days and weeks after the accident, tiny amounts of iodine-131 believed to have come from Fukushima were detected as far away as Iceland and other parts of Europe, as well as in the United States.

Finding the next Einstein in Africa

From the Globe and Mail: Finding the next Einstein in Africa

When she left her home in war-torn Sudan a few years ago, Esra Khaleel found herself on a small campus near one of South Africa’s most famous beaches, where she could see the surfers and sunbathers from the windows.

But she never learned to swim. She was too focused on her work at the innovative new African science institute, where she eagerly explored the mysteries of the universe.

“The environment was 24-hour studying,” she marvels. “You felt so good, you didn’t feel tired – you just wanted to study. Sometimes we couldn’t even sleep from the excitement.”

Ms. Khaleel, who grew up in impoverished Darfur on the eve of a devastating civil war, had never been outside Sudan and had never spoken English before her arrival here. Today, thanks to her formative year at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, she is completing her doctorate in nuclear physics at a South African university and has spent time with Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist.

The computer laboratory at AIMS is filled with young men and women from across Africa who often study and work together until 2 or 3 a.m. before finally crashing in their dormitory rooms on the floor above. Until coming to AIMS, most were frustrated by the rote memorization methods of their classes at underfunded African schools. “We were so hungry to learn,” remembers Thifhelimbilu Singo, another recent graduate who is now completing a PhD in nuclear physics at nearby Stellenbosch University.

The institute, created in a former hotel in the beach town of Muizenberg near Cape Town in 2003, has produced 360 graduates from 31 African countries over the past eight years. Almost all have gone on to graduate degrees at universities around the world, and many are planning to return to their homelands to apply their knowledge to help solve Africa’s social and economic problems, from energy shortages to malaria transmission.

The institute is now rapidly expanding across the African continent, with $20-million in assistance from the Canadian government. A new branch has just opened in Senegal, and another is opening in Ghana next year, with Ethiopia and Tanzania likely to get the next branches. In total, the institute hopes to have 15 campuses across Africa by 2020.

The project is known as the “Next Einstein Initiative.” The belief is that the world’s next Albert Einstein could just as easily be found in Africa as anywhere else – if the educational opportunities exist.

In science and math, the gulf between Africa and the developed world is huge. Nearly a million students graduate from African universities every year, yet advanced scientific education is virtually unavailable, and the brightest students tend to leave Africa to work in Europe or North America. Only about 1 per cent of the world’s patents and scientific articles are from African-based researchers, and there are only two mathematics journals in the whole continent.

“When I meet the students, I see the richness that the world is losing by not having more African scientists,” says Carolina Odman-Govender, director of academic development for the Next Einstein Initiative.

“There’s so much potential that’s unseen and untapped. There are all these people who are brilliant but haven’t had a chance to shine. Many of them have never left their country before, never even flown before.”

Ms. Odman-Govender, a Swedish astrophysicist, was a teaching assistant at AIMS in its early days and later decided to return full-time. “It makes more sense to do science here than anywhere else because the impact is so much greater,” she says. “It’s a life-changing experience. You see them exceed the expectations every day.”

The founder and chairman of the institute is Neil Turok, a renowned physicist and long-time collaborator with Mr. Hawking. Born in South Africa to anti-apartheid activists, he now works in Canada as director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont.

Mr. Turok believes the AIMS institute can contribute to an “African renaissance” by helping to overcome decades of underfunding and isolation at the continent’s universities. “Just think what will happen if Africa does for science what it has done for music, for literature and for art,” he wrote in The Globe and Mail last year. “Not only Africa, but the world could be transformed.”

Every year, about 50 to 60 students are accepted at the South African AIMS campus from all over Africa. A minimum of one-third are female. Nearly as many are accepted at the Senegal campus, and similar numbers are expected at future campuses in other African countries.

The 10-month program at AIMS includes intense classes in computer skills, language and mathematics. Competition to enter the institute is fierce: Only one of every five applicants is successful. They are truly the best and brightest of Africa’s science and math students.

Once they are accepted, tuition is free and travel costs are covered. They are given free accommodation and meals in the same building as their classes, allowing them to focus entirely on their studies. “They need to do their own laundry, and that’s about it,” Ms. Odman-Govender says. “And we provide the laundry machines and detergent.”

The professors and lecturers are volunteers, including Nobel Prize winners and other top scientists and mathematicians, who visit the AIMS campus for three-week teaching stints for a modest stipend. One of the key benefits of the institute is that the students can build a lifelong network of friends among their professors and fellow students, since they are together at meal times as well as in the laboratory and classroom.

“That’s the magic of AIMS,” says Bruce Bassett, a professor of cosmology and mathematics at the institute and at the University of Cape Town. “The students are networking. They’re eating with their professors and having a beer with them and working with them at 2 a.m. As a model, it’s brilliant.”

Ever Wonder What the Pre-Requisites are for a course in Nuclear Physics

From the University of Oslo: FYS3520 - Nuclear physics, structure and spectroscopy
Course content

Basic characteristics of the atomic nucleus. Single-particle motion and collective characteristics. Thermodynamics and low energy phase transitions in the nucleus. Radioactive disintegration processes. Nuclear reactions, fission and fusion. Super heavy nuclei and nuclei with extreme proton and neutron numbers. Nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovae. Nuclear medicine, proton therapy and PET. Reactor physics and ADS thorium power plants.
Learning outcomes

The student should:

* be able to explain basic properties in the atomic nucleus. In more detail: one-particle motion and collective characteristics, thermodynamics and low energy phase transitions, radioactive disintegration processes, nuclear reactions, fission and fusion.
* know about super heavy nuclei and nuclei with extreme proton and neutron numbers, nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovae, nuclear medicine, proton therapy and PET, reactor physics and ADS thorium power plants. The objective of this course is to give students a knowledge base when writing a master thesis in Experimental or Theoretical Nuclear Physics.


The student should be able to:

* show insight into the fundamental properties of the atomic nucleus, both the experimental and theoretical parts of the nucleus’ structure and dynamics.
* understand the different processes that determine the amounts of different elements in our solar system.
* evaluate various nuclear applications in medisine and energy.

Admission

Students at UiO must apply for courses in StudentWeb.

International applicants, if you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.

The examination in this course is not available for external candidates. Only students admitted to the course may sit for the examination.
Prerequisites
Formal prerequisites

In addition to fulfilling the Higher Education Entrance Qualification, applicants have to meet the following special admission requirements:

One of these:

* Mathematics R1
* Mathematics (S1+S2)

And and in addition one of these:

* Mathematics (R1+R2)
* Physics (1+2)
* Chemistry (1+2)
* Biology (1+2)
* Information technology (1+2)
* Geosciences (1+2)
* Technology and theories of research (1+2)

The special admission requirements may also be covered by equivalent studies from Norwegian upper secondary school or by other equivalent studies. Read more about special admission requirements.
Teaching
Exam information
Assessment and grading

Course grades are awarded on a descending scale using alphabetic grades from A to E for passes and F for fail.
Evaluation of this course

Feedback from our students is essential to us in our efforts to ensure and further improve the high quality of our programmes and courses. As a student at the University of Oslo you will therefore be asked to participate in various types of evaluation of our courses, facilities and services. All courses are subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students on a particular course to participate in a more comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of this course, a so called "periodic evaluation".
Contact us
Department of Physics

Visiting address:
Physics building, Sem Sælandsvei 24

Visiting hours:
Monday-friday 08:00-15:45

Postal address:
P.O. Box. 1048, Blindern
NO-0316 OSLO
Phone: +47 22 85 64 23
Fax: +47 22 85 64 22
E-mail: studieinfo@fys.uio.no
Web: http://www.mn.uio.no/fysikk/english/