Members of the MoNA collaboration went to the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) July 24-28, 2023 to help prepare for an upcoming experiment to better understand neutron scattering and detection. The group consisted of participants from Davidson College, Indiana Wesleyan University, Michigan State University, and Virginia State University.
The group stands in front of the replica Main Gate from Manhattan Project era
The second Program Advisory Committee (PAC2) of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams met on March 1-3, 2023. A total of 11,859 facility-use hours were submitted to PAC2 and 4,127 hours (35%) could be approved due to the limited beam time available. The MoNA Collaboration submitted five proposals in partnership with other researchers outside of the collaboration, two of which were approved by the PAC.
The two approved proposals are :
23033 - Investigating the halo structure of 37Mg - A. Revel
23068 - Study of possible p-wave halo in 34Na ground state - B. Monteagudo-Godoy
Those two experiments aim to improve our understanding of phenomena arising when moving away from the valley of beta-stability and in particular on the formation of neutron halos, often observed uniquely in nuclei close to the neutron dripline. Both experiments will shed light on the interplay between deformation, shell evolution, halo formation and coupling to the continuum. The two nuclei of interest, 37Mg and 34Na, will be studied using kinematically complete Coulomb breakup measurement in order to map the dB(E1)/dErel function and extract key information such as the geometrical information of the halo, the neutron separation energy, the ground state and its configuration mixing. The invariant-mass method will be used to reconstruct the relative energy following the Coulomb breakup reaction. The neutron will be detected by the MoNA-LISA array and the recoil fragment will be deflected by the sweeper magnet before to be measured by a set of detectors. In addition, eventual decays towards bound states will be observed using the CAESAR CsI array placed around the target.
Updated: Jul 2, 2024
Students and PIs at Davidson College, Virginia State University, Michigan State University, Hope College, Augustana College, and James Madison University are currently constructing and testing SiPMs with plastic scintillators to aid in the design and prototyping of a next generation neutron detector. Custom PCB boards were designed at FRIB and sent to participating MoNA institutions. Davidson College student Ari Maki has been investigating the role of the optical coupling of SiPMs to the scintillators and the reflective wrapping with cosmic rays and collimated gamma rays as part of his honors thesis. Other students have been exploring time and position resolutions, as well as characterizing the performance of different SiPM modules from various vendors.
Scintillator tile with SiPM test board
Davidson College student Ari Maki working with a test module
