MoNA Collaboration Starts its experimental Program at FRIB

Between June 19-July 1, 2025, the MoNA Collaboration conducted its first experiments at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) using 144 plastic scintillator bars from the MoNA-LISA modular neutron arrays in combination with the large gap Sweeper magnet in the reconfigured S2 vault. Two experiments were performed:  “Investigating the halo structure of ³⁷Mg” (e23033; Co-PIs: A. Revel, B. Monteagudo Godoy, N. Frank) and “Study of possible p-wave halo in ³⁴Na ground state” (e23068; Co-PIs: B. Monteagudo Godoy, A. Revel, A. Banu). Participation for these experiments included faculty and students from all MoNA Collaborators: Wabash College, James Madison University, Argonne National Lab, Augustana College, Davidson College, Virginia State University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Hope College, Concordia College, Indiana University South Bend, and Michigan State University. Additional external collaborators were also present representing the French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASNR, France), the Research Center for Nuclear Physics, Osaka University (Japan), and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California). The successful running of this Summer 2025 campaign would not have been possible without the critical contributions from the staff of several FRIB divisions.

The MoNA Collaboration during the Summer 2025 campaign.

MoNA-LISA /Sweeper setup in the S2 vault (picture by Shumpei Noji).

Incident secondary beam PID for e23033.