Prof. Mark Caprio
Email: mcaprio (at) nd.edu
Prof. Caprio's research is in nuclear structure theory, on topics including collective excitations of nuclei (rotations, vibrations, etc.), Lie algebraic methods, and phase transitions in quantum many-body systems. He is interested in fundamental problems in the many-body physics of nuclei and other mesoscopic systems, especially the microscopic origins of collective phenomena.

REU student projects will involve using Lie algebras to solve problems in quantum mechanics. The project can be purely mathematical or can include computer programming for numerical calculations. The student may also carry out comparisons of calculations with nuclear data. Background at the level of an undergraduate quantum mechanics course is necessary for most projects, but advanced undergraduate mathematics courses (linear and abstract algebra) or good programming abilities may be appropriate instead.

Prof. Phillipe Collon
Email: pcollon (at) nd (dot) edu
This project involves a complete upgrade of the electrical and cooling systems of the vacuum pumps, gauges and controllers as well as all control and power systems of the spectrograph and magnets. Improvements will also be made on the beam line. A new detector (ionization chamber and position sensitive PPAC) is also being developed, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, for the focal plane of the spectrograph. Students will be involved in all parts of this project.

Prof. Umesh Garg
Email: garg (at) nd (dot) edu
Nuclear Incompressibility is one of the three fundamental quantities characterizing the equation of state of infinite nuclear matter and the only one which has not been measured in a direct experiment. It is critical to our understanding of a wide variety of nuclear and astrophysical phenomena including neutron stars, stellar collapse, supernovae, and collective flow in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. We measure nuclear incompressibility directly by observing the compressional-mode vibrations of atomic nuclei. These experiments are carried out at the Research Center of Nuclear Physics at Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. The REU student will help with data analysis and, possibly, travel to Osaka to help with setting-up the experiment and data taking.

Prof. Xiaodong Tang
Email: x.tang (at) nd (dot) edu
Three projects are available for undergraduate students. 1) Development of Ionization chamber. This project includes development of gas handling system, construction and test of ionization chamber with radioactive source. 2) Development of digital processing of the signal from nuclear radiation detectors. The detail information from the detectors, captured by a high speed waveform recorder, provides more possibilities and flexibilities to the nuclear physicists compared to traditional analog modules. In this project, the student will work on data taking, DSP programming and neural network. 3) Set up running rabbit system for decay measurement.

Prof. Michael Wiescher
Email: mwiesche (at) nd (dot) edu
We are designing a low level neutron detector array for future experiments at the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory DUSEL at Homestake Mine Lead, South Dakota. The student will be involved in the construction and tests of the first prototype detector and will measure the internal natural neutron activity of the detector material.

The new recoil separator for low energy astrophysicis experiments St.George will be constructed over the summer 2009. This student will be involved in the construction and test measurements of the magnetic dipole and quadrupole components and the vacuum systems for the separator. This project will also include beam tests on the newly constructed supersonic jet gas target coupled to the separator.