EU Invests in Romania’s Nuclear Photonics Project

From Photonics.com:  EU Invests in Romania’s Nuclear Photonics Project

BRUSSELS, Sept. 19, 2012 — The European Commission approved on Tuesday nearly €180 million ($235 million) for a new laboratory in Romania that will study laser-based nuclear physics.

The funding for Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) will be provided as part of a broader initiative with the Czech Republic and Hungary to form a pioneering European research consortium. ELI-NP is expected to involve 40 research and academic institutions from 13 member states as well as members of the business sector. It is expected to be part of the first pan-European multidisciplinary network to host the most intense lasers available.

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Proposed design of the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) facility. The European Commission has approved nearly $235 million in funds for the new laboratory in Romania that will study laser-based nuclear physics. (Image: ELI-NP)

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"This is exactly the type of project we want to see more of in the future. It is aimed at boosting research and innovation with a clear EU added value, to ensure that each and every euro is wisely spent," said Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn.

The ELI-NP, to be built in Magurele, south of Bucharest, will consist of two major components, a very high intensity laser constructed by combining the beams of two 10-petawatt Apollon-type lasers, and a high-intensity beam generated by combining laser light with an electron beam created by a linear accelerator. It is expected to be operational in 2015.

Research at the facility will be done in fundamental and nuclear physics, astrophysics, and material science and the life sciences. Researchers are also expected to work on new ways to handle nuclear materials and radioactive waste. ELI-NP is one part of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), which was identified in 2006 by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure as one of the top-priority projects of research infrastructure for Europe.

The project is the second pillar of a pan-European laser facility; the commission approved €236 million in funding for the first ELI pillar (ELI-Beamlines) in the Czech Republic in April 2011. The third pillar, ELI-Attosecond, is planned for Hungary and will be dedicated to extremely fast dynamics by taking snapshots on the attosecond scale of the electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, plasmas and solids. It will also pursue ultrahigh-intensity laser research.

ELI-NP is expected to give a much-needed boost to research and development in Romania, helping the country to bridge the innovation gap and foster knowledge and technology transfer, officials said. Currently the country invests only about 0.5 percent of its GDP annually across the public and private sectors. It has a Europe 2020 target of 2 percent as part of a broader EU-wide target of 3 percent.

"We have very high hopes for the ELI-NP project. Through it, Romania has a chance to put itself firmly on the map of European research, to retain highly specialized workers - reversing the 'brain drain' and attracting new companies to the region," Hahn said.

The EU's financial investment is being made through the Increase of Economic Competitiveness program of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Tuesday's decision approves the ERDF contribution for the first phase of ELI-NP, from 2011-2015, while the total cost of the project amounts to €356.2 million (about $465 million).

For more information, visit: www.eli-np.ro or www.extreme-light-infrastructure.eu

 

India: Junior Research Fellow

Just sharing because its interesting.

From Naukri.com: Junior Research Fellow

Job Description Send me Jobs like this

Advt./UOM/N.Phy/JSS// DST/ Optical ceramics /2012/174

Project Title : Development of Optically Transparent Cerium and Praseodymium Doped Lutetium Aluminum Garnet and Lutetium Orthosilicate Nanoceramic Scintillators for Radiation Detection and Medical Imaging Applications.


Position : Junior Research Fellow

No. of Position : ONE

Duration : ONE YEAR (Extension is possible which depends on the Progress of the Research).

Emoluments : Rs.16,000/- per month + @ 30% HRA

Qualifications :1st Class M.Sc/M.Phil in Physics/ Applied Physics/Materials science (candidates with previous research experience in functional ceramics fabrication & characterization is preferred), Age limit: 28 years Eligible candidates may send their curriculum vitae with attested copies of educational certificates (High School onwards) and other experience details to the following address on or before 5th October 2012. No TA/DA will be provided to attend the interview. Selected candidate is eligible to register for Ph.D. at Department of Nuclear Physics, University of Madras. Opportunity to collaborate with other premier research institutions is possible.

Dr. J.SENTHILSELVAN, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS

UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS, GUINDY CAMPUS, CHENNAI – 600 025.

Email: jsselvan@hotmail.com , Phone: 9176056005, (Mobile)

For more information, please visit website : http://www.unom.ac.in/uploads/appointments/DSTOpticeraAdvt_20120920203013_90853.pdf

Last Apply Date: 05 Oct 2012

Salary: Emoluments : Rs.16,000/- per month + @ 30% HRA

Industry: Education, Teaching, Training

Functional Area: Engineering Design, R&D

Desired Candidate Profile

Please refer to the Job description above

Company Profile

Department of Nuclear Physics - University of Madras

Nuclear Physics

From McGill (University) website:  Nuclear Physics

Nuclear physics began with the discovery of radioactivity, transmutation of matter, and the discovery of the nucleus. The latter two discoveries were made by Sir Ernest Rutherford. McGill University's long and strong tradition of excellence in nuclear physics began with Rutherford's tenure at McGill between 1898 and 1907 during which he discovered the transmutation of matter. The same tradition of excellence continues on to this day.
Today, nuclear physics encompasses a wide range of modern physics. The traditional study of nuclei and their reactions is still a vibrant part of modern nuclear physics. In the latter part of the 20th century, however, a new and exciting field of nuclear physics started to emerge, the study of nuclear matter under extreme conditions.

Nuclear Theory at McGill
(C. Gale, S. Jeon)

Soon after the advent of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong nuclear force, physicists began to realize that at extreme temperatures of trillions of Kelvin, the protons and neutrons in nuclei should, in effect, melt, and the released quarks and gluons should form a completely new phase of matter. The hunt for this new state of matter, dubbed the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), soon began and the powerful relativistic heavy ion colliders at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and at CERN have now confirmed that under this extreme and highly relativistic condition, QGP is indeed the phase of the nuclear matter. Yet, many properties of the produced QGP, such as the lowest viscosity ever measured, were completely unexpected.

To put QGP in perspective, this kind of temperature (about a billion times hotter than the surface of the sun) existed in nature only when the Universe was about a micro-second old, about 1 cubic millimeter of QGP contains enough energy that it could power current Canadian economy for few hundred million years, yet it flows more freely than the superfluid helium!
The study of QGP is the new frontier of modern nuclear physics. The Nuclear Theory Group at McGill has long been playing a central role in the development of this exciting new field. The group currently consists of two professors (Charles Gale and Sangyong Jeon) and more than a dozen students and postdoctoral fellows. The group also has strong ties to researchers in the high energy theory group at McGill and collaborators in the US, Europe and Asia. The main focus of our study is QGP and the relativistic heavy ion collisions in which it is made. The research topics vary widely from purely theoretical to numerical simulations. What ties all of our efforts together is the question, How does one use heavy ion collision phenomenology to learn about QGP? This calls for a comprehensive model of the full evolution of heavy ion collisions.

Evolution of jets in QGP

To achieve the extreme conditions necessary to produce QGP, heavy nuclei such as gold or lead are accelerated to almost the speed of light and made to collide with each other. The produced QGP then cools as it expands and eventually turns back into ordinary matter. To accurately describe and predict the behavior of these processes requires understanding of the initial nuclei, energy and entropy release during the collision, formation of QGP, expansion and cooling, and finally the phase transition back to ordinary nuclear matter. While all these are happening, high energy quarks (called the jets) may traverse QGP shedding some of its energy, and photons from black-body radiation are being produced at each stage. To understand all of the above is a challenging task to say the least. Yet, the goal of the our group is nothing short of building a comprehensive model of the full heavy ion collision and QGP evolution encompassing the essence of all of the above!
To achieve this goal, some of us are working on applying string theory techniques to the study of QGP, some of us are studying quantum field theories at extremely high temperatures, some are building the most advanced hydrodynamic models of the QGP evolution, and some are studying the effect of QGP on ultrarelativistic particles that are traversing it. Yet, there are many important un-answered questions such as What is the nature of the initial conditions? How does the QGP form so quickly? that are waiting for bright minds.
To add excitement, the LHC has started to produce a copious amount of new heavy ion collision data which contains more surprises that await theoretical resolution. Our group is fully engaged in studying all aspects of these issues. This is an exciting time to be a nuclear physicist, especially at McGill!

A hydrodynamic simulation of QGP evolution

Nuclear Experiment at McGill
(F. Buchinger)

The formation of the elements that make up our universe, from the remnants of the big bang that created it, continues to be a fascinating mystery. It is thought that at least part of the production of the heavier elements took place during explosive astrophysical events (supernovae, x-ray bursts etc.) that are powered by nuclear reactions among short-lived, radioactive nuclides at the limits of nuclear binding. The atomic masses of these nuclei are essential to understanding these processes because they determine the energy released and determine the path of the nuclear reaction chains that take place in these events. Furthermore, the atomic masses of nuclei that participate in super-allowed beta-decay provide a unique opportunity for tests of fundamental symmetries in the standard model for particle physics.
Nuclear mass measurements are done using the Canadian Penning Trap Mass Spectrometer (CPT) at the Argonne national Laboratory that collects short life nuclei produced in reactions at the ATLAS heavy-ion accelerator. With this system, nuclear masses of isotopes with lifetimes as short as 30 milliseconds are measured with very high accuracy and sensitivity. Nuclear mass measurements are also performed using the TITAN facility at TRIUMF in Vancouver where the unstable nuclei are produced by a different process; nuclear spallation.
In recent years, techniques originally used for atomic spectroscopy have been applied to measure such nuclear properties as spin, electric and magnetic moments, and the change of charge-radius between neighboring isotopes. These techniques are based on the precise measurement of atomic hyperfine structure in the interaction of laser beams with atomic beams obtained from isotope separators. The laboratory has pioneered in the development of a number of high sensitivity techniques for such studies.
Our group participates in a program of such measurements at the ISAC radioactive beam facility at TRIUMF. Using a spectroscopic method known as collinear fast beam laser spectroscopy and by making use of existing facilities such as the TITAN ion trapping system and material science beta-NMR and beta-NQR it is possible to perform spectroscopy measurements on ion beams with intensities as low as a few tens of ions per second.

 

Rutherford Centennial Conference on Nuclear Physics

From Journal Of Physics:  Rutherford Centennial Conference on Nuclear Physics

PREFACE

Just over one hundred years ago, Ernest Rutherford presented an interpretation of alpha-particle scattering experiments, performed a couple of years earlier by Geiger and Marsden, to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The work was summarised shortly afterwards in a paper in the Philosophical Magazine. He postulated that a dense speck of matter must exist at the centre of an atom (later to become known as the nucleus) if the details of the experiments, particularly the yield of alpha particles scattered through large angles, were to be explained. The nuclear hypothesis, combined with the experimental work by Moseley on X-rays and Bohr's theoretical ideas, both also initiated at the Victoria University of Manchester, established our view of atomic structure and gave birth to the field of nuclear physics.
The Rutherford Centennial Conference on Nuclear Physics was held at The University of Manchester in August 2011 to celebrate this anniversary by addressing the wide range of contemporary topics that characterise modern nuclear physics. This set of proceedings covers areas including nuclear structure and astrophysics, hadron structure and spectroscopy, fundamental interactions studied within the nucleus and results of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We would like to thank all those who presented their recent research results at the conference; the proceedings stand as a testament to the excitement and interest that still pervades the pursuit of this field of physics.
We would also like to thank those who contributed in other ways to the conference. To colleagues at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry for putting together an exhibition to coincide with the conference that included the manuscript of the 1911 paper, letters, notebooks and equipment used by Rutherford. These items were kindly loaned by Cambridge and Manchester Universities. Winton Capital generously supported this exhibition. We would also like to thank Professor Mary Fowler, Rutherford's great-granddaughter, and Professor Stephen Watts, Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Manchester, for opening the exhibition as part of the welcome reception for the conference. The reception was only possible with support from Canberra Industries.
We are grateful to His Excellency Mr Derek Leask, New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, to Professor Rod Coombs, Deputy President of The University of Manchester, and to Professor David Phillips, the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, for their contributions to the formal opening of the conference.
Manchester City Council kindly supported a civic reception hosted by the Lord Mayor of the City of Manchester, Councillor Harry Lyons JP, at Manchester Town Hall. The Ogden Trust helped support the conference dinner and Professor George Dracoulis provided an entertaining after dinner speech. Thank you for these contributions to the social programme of the conference.
In addition to the exhibition at the Museum, which was open to the public until October 2011, the conference programme also included a series of public evening lectures and we are grateful both to the speakers (David Jenkins, Alan Perkins and John Roberts) and to those providing support for the public engagement activities (the Institute of Physics Nuclear Physics Group, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, the Nuclear Institute and the Science and Technology Facilities Council).
We would also like to thank the European Physical Society for providing conference travel grants to a number of young scientists.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the other members of the UK Organising Committee for their help in making the conference a success and for their work in putting these proceedings together. In addition, the International Advisory Committee provided essential advice that contributed to the selection of the plenary speakers who were without exception engaging, interesting and entertaining, giving a really excellent set of presentations.
Finally we are also pleased to express our thanks to the Conference Office of the Institute of Physics for their invaluable support in organising this event. We are especially grateful to Dawn Stewart for her responsive and efficient day-to-day handling of this event, as well as to Claire Garland for her planning and management of this event.
This conference is the second in a series of conferences that began with the Rutherford Jubilee Conference held in Manchester in 1961, which is described in one of the contributions to these proceedings. I do hope that at least some of the delegates from the Centennial Conference will be able to attend the next one, fifty years hence in 2061, just as we were honoured to have some of the Jubilee delegates with us for the Centennial. If I am still around, I doubt that I will have the energy then to be conference chair. I would also not like to attempt to predict the plenary programme, but I hope that it will be as vibrant and exciting as the 2011 conference.
Professor Sean J Freeman
Conference Chair
On behalf of the UK Organising Committee

Ernest Rutherford (Photograph courtesy of The University of Manchester)
Edited by:
Sean Freeman (The University of Manchester)
Andrei Andreyev (University of the West of Scotland/The University of York)
Alison Bruce (University of Brighton)
Alick Deacon (The University of Manchester)
Dave Jenkins (University of York)
Dave Joss (University of Liverpool)
Douglas MacGregor (University of Glasgow)
Paddy Regan (University of Surrey)
John Simpson (University of Daresbury)
Garry Tungate (University of Birmingham)
Bob Wadsworth (University of York)
Dan Watts (University of Edinburgh)

Dates

Issue 1 (2012)

 

Nobel Prize-winning South Dakotan physicist

From Black Hills Pioneer:  Nobel Prize-winning South Dakotan physicist 


There are things that command a certain respect. Winning the Heisman Trophy; being sworn in as Commander-in-Chief; selling more than a million copies of an album — the list goes on, and I'd say most people would have “Nobel Prize” among the items. Ernest Orland Lawrence, born and raised in South Dakota, is one person who lays claim to this prize, in the category of physics.
Ernest was born Aug. 8, 1901, in Canton, the grandson of Norwegian immigrants. His father, Gustavus, was the superintendent of schools, and he would attend school in Canton through high school, later attending St. Olaf College and then the University of South Dakota, where in 1922 he got his degree in chemistry. He added a master's degree in the field in 1923 from the University of Minnesota, and then added a Ph.D. in physics from Yale in 1925, having spent some time at the University of Chicago in between. He would spend the next two years as a National Research Fellow there before being appointed as an assistant professor for one year, before moving to the University of California-Berkeley in 1928 as an associate professor. After just two years, he was appointed the youngest professor of that university, adding the title of Director of the University Radiation Laboratory to his nametag in 1936. He would stay at these occupations the remainder of his life.

In 1932, he married Mary Kimberly Blumer, and the couple would have six children.
Ernest was always interested in nuclear physics, and he had earned the nickname “Atom Smasher” because of this focus. In 1929, he became the inventor of the cyclotron, a creation that could accelerate particles without using high voltages, and these nuclear particles can then disintegrate and perhaps re-form atoms into a different element. (Come now, it isn't rocket science; it's nuclear physics!) He initially got the idea from a diagram of such a proposed device, but this drawing showed a straight line of acceleration, and as Ernest started doodling his own solution on a sheet of paper, he realized a circular shape would create the necessary conditions for high-energy particles, and though others had investigated other theories for how to create such a phenomena, Ernest gets the credit for being the first to actually do so.
His first version of the cyclotron was very simple, composed of brass, wax and wire, and was also very small: about 4 inches in diameter. From this small original would evolve larger and larger versions, creating the foundation for high-energy physics experiments. In 1934, Ernest patented the invention, and it allowed for the discovery of new radioactive isotopes of known elements, which he and his brother, John, who was the director of the University's Medical Physics Laboratory, used to research the impact on biological and medical applications. Because of the cyclotron's impact in this field and his work, the Institute of Cancer Research at Columbia listed Ernest as one of their consultants.
The cyclotron allowed Ernest to create the Radiation Laboratory (also known as the Rad Lab), which would greatly aid in the study of nuclear physics. It also earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939, and because of World War II, the ceremony was held on the university campus in Berkeley. The war impacted Ernest's work, as his laboratory played a role in the search for nuclear weaponry, and he was one of the major players in the Manhattan Project, focusing on isotope separation.
Ernest was a believer that the government should support, and provide funding, for scientific research. Though he was one of the pioneers of nuclear research that led to the invention of the atom bomb, time and the appearance of nuclear weaponry elsewhere prompted new reactions from scientists, and by request of President Eisenhower, Ernest was part of the U.S. delegation's attempt to obtain a global agreement to suspend the testing of nuclear bombs, as a part of the 1958 Geneva Conference. Unfortunately, he was suffering a rather severe bout of colitis, an inflammation of the colon, which had been a chronic condition for him, but he recognized the importance of the request and left for Switzerland. His condition worsened, and though he was taken immediately to Stanford University's hospital, he died very soon afterwards in Palo Alto, Calif., on Aug. 27, 1958, only 57 years old.
The list of awards and honors that belong to this man is extensive, in addition to the 14 honorary doctorates he held. He was awarded the Medal for Merit; the Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute; the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society; the Enrico Fermi Award from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Sciences; the Duddell Medal of the Royal Physical Society; the Faraday Medal; the Sylvanus Thayer Award from the United States Military Academy; and he was an Officer of the Legion of Honor; and he was a fellow or member of many scientific and academic societies the world over.
The University of California renamed two of its research facilities after Ernest, less than a month after his passing. The Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories bear his name, as well as the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, established in 1959. He even has an element on the periodic table honoring his impact on the field: “lawrencium” is chemical element number 103, and it was discovered in 1961 in one of the labs named in his honor.
We may be a state with a small population, but that doesn't mean we don't have extraordinary folk here. Ernest Lawrence is one of the many names on the list that have changed the world, and this is only a smattering of the highlights of his story.

 

Posts resume Sept 24 2012

My mom, who is 75, wants to go up to teeny tiny town near Rapid City, to see her sister, who is 80. They live in a house in the boonies and have no internet.

I'll be back online on Monday the 24th and promise not to miss another day.

Please bear with me, your patience is appreciated!

UK plans for nuclear batteries from civilian waste

From Physics Today:  UK plans for nuclear batteries from civilian waste

BBC: The UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory is currently running a pilot program for extracting americium-241 from the nuclear waste stored at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Seascale. The proposed project for creating nuclear-powered batteries for European Space Agency spacecraft would also create some 50 jobs and several million pounds in export revenue. Plutonium-238, which is currently the isotope used in nuclear batteries, is only available from military reactors owned by the US and Russia, and the supply is expected to run out by 2018. The program at Sellafield would be the first to use an alternative nuclear isotope for battery creation. If the ESA decides to provide funding in November, Tim Tinsley, NNL’s program manager, believes the plant would reach full production by 2020.