NUCLEAR PHYSICS - Stony Brook University

Experimental Nuclear Physics at Stony Brook
Past, Present, and Future
Prof. Gene D. Sprouse
Stony Brook

• Nov 24, 2006 4:00 pm Superconducting
LINAC completed its last experiment at
Stony Brook
• This is an opportune time to review the
history of the Van de Graaff and the
LINAC and the people involved in their
acquisition and operation, and to look into
the future a little.

1975
1966
Van de Graaff
1968
Superconducting
LINAC 1983

Department of Physics 1964
Bob
deZafra
Cliff
Swartz
Juliet
Lee-
Franzini
Arnie
Feingold
Peter
Kahn
Alec
Pond

Proposal for EN tandem Van
de Graaff to SUNY-Alec Pond

Van de Graaff proposal
s
person

Time Line for proposal
• 14 Dec 1962 Proposal prepared for EN (6MV) VdG.
• 24 Jan 1963 NSF issues positive report on Nuc. Physics,
proposing to double funding and make money
available to build facilities
• 13 Feb 1963 Provost Porter gets positive review

Time Line for proposal
• 14 Dec 1962 Proposal prepared for EN (6MV) VdG.
• 24 Jan 1963 NSF issues positive report on Nuc. Physics,
proposing to double funding and make money
available to build facilities
• 13 Feb 1963 Provost Porter gets positive review
• 15 April 1964 State Legislature appropriates $1.35M for
machine and ½ of the building,

Time Line for proposal
• 14 Dec 1962 Proposal prepared for EN (6MV) VdG.
• 24 Jan 1963 NSF issues positive report on Nuc. Physics,
proposing to double funding and make money
available to build facilities
• 13 Feb 1963 Provost Porter gets positive review
• 15 April 1964 State Legislature appropriates $1.35M for
machine and ½ of the building,
• 27 October 1964 NSF grant for ½ of building ($291k) approved.

Pond
Proposes
going for an
FN(King)
rather than an
EN(Standard).
This is known
as “bait and
switch”

Time Line for proposal
• 14 Dec 1962 Proposal prepared for EN (6MV) VdG.
• 24 Jan 1963 NSF issues positive report on Nuc.
Physics, proposing to double funding and make money
available to build facilities
• 13 Feb 1963 Provost Porter gets positive review
• 15 April 1964 State Legislature appropriates $1.35M
for machine and ½ of the building,
other ½ ($291k) from NSF funding.
• Jan 1 1965 First NSF research grant for $34,000
• Sept 1965 Lin Lee, Dave Fossan hired
• Sept 1966 Peter Paul, Bob Weinberg hired
• Oct 1966 Building started

October-10-1966 (view from top of Harriman Hall toward
Old Chemistry. Trees are site of Grad Chemistry building)

November-10-1966

December-5-1966

February-1-1967

February-1-1967

Completed Van de Graaff building
Trees at right rear of the building will become site of Grad Physics Building

Delivery of the Van de Graaff tank
We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine,
We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine,

Tank entering the building

Current picture of the Van de Graaff

Van deGraaff
Nuclear Experiment Facilities and Faculty 1965-2007
FACULTY
Robert Weinberg
Linwood Lee
David Fossan
Peter Paul
Robert McGrath
Gene Sprouse
65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
resigned

Van de Graaff Physics Programs
Gamma Ray Spectroscopy Dave Fossan
Giant Dipole Resonance Peter Paul
Charged Particle Reactions Bob McGrath
Lin Lee
Nuclear moments and applications
to Solid State, Atomic Physics Gene Sprouse

Two PDP-9 computers from DEC, each costing $100,000. The “big”
machine had 16k 18 bit memory cells, and the “small” one 8k!

The machine ran 24-7, and we hired people
to operate the machine at night.

Dr. Dan Dietrich, Livermore.
(Metcalf student who did thesis
with van de Graaff)
Dr. Ron Chestnut,
CPE at SLAC
Dr. Phil Goldstone,
Los Alamos

The lab ski trip

Igloo 101

Fred Raab, head of the
LIGO Hanford Observatory
(Metcalf student)
Ehud Dafni, VP Business
Development, CMT
Prof. Steve Rolston,
Assoc. Chairman, Univ of
Md.
Prof. Partha Chowdhury,
Univ of Mass. Lowell

Prof. Gunter Schatz,
Univ. Konstanz
Dr. John Noe,
Laser Teaching Center

• Friedlander Panel on Future of Nuclear Science
NAS/NRC, 1975–77 recommends that two
University Van de Graaffs should get “booster
accelerators”
• Peter Paul motivates the group to compete for
one of these two.
• Collaboration initiated with Cal Tech to build a
superconducting LINAC at Stony Brook(We
could not buy LINAC like vdG)
• Paul and Sprouse stop physics research to
devote full time to the project

To expedite the transfer of the superconducting resonator
technology to Stony Brook, Sprouse spends a semester at
Cal Tech. Whose car is this??

Collaboration with Cal Tech to build
superconducting resonators

• There were competing development
proposals to NSF from:
– Stanford(Hanna, Glavish and Ben Zvi)
– Stony Brook(Paul and Sprouse)
• Stony Brook won!

Testing the Prototype superconducting
resonator with beam
Ilan BenZvi,
Director of the
Accelerator
Test Facility,
BNL

Next step: Test a prototype module
containing 3 resonators

What is the difference between these two proposals?

The advanced computer control system of the
accelerator was developed primarily by a PhD. Student
Dr. Alfred Scholldorf,
VP for development at Reuters

Joseph M. Brennan,
AGS Department, BNL

Mike Brennan and
Chen Chia-erh,
work on the beam sweeper
Chen later becomes
President of Beijing
University and President of
the Chinese Physical
Society

Linac room before

400 W Helium Refrigerator Installation
Professor Miriam
Rafailovich, Director,
Garcia Center,
Materials Science
Department, Stony
Brook

Helium gas storage tank delivery

Installation of Bob McGrath’s
scattering chamber “big mac”

Linac room before

Linac room after

• SCIENCE Volume 291, Number 5506, 9 Feb
2001, p. 962.
Copyright © 2001 by The American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
• NUCLEAR PHYSICS:
Nuclei Crash Through The Looking-Glass
• David Voss
• Gloves do it. Toupees do it. Even twists of DNA
do it. And now, for the first time, physicists have
discovered that atomic nuclei come in right- and
left-handed models, too. In the 5 February issue
of Physical Review Letters (PRL), a team of
researchers from the State University of New
York (SUNY), Yale, the University of
Tennessee, and Notre Dame reports
observations of rapidly spinning nuclei morphing
into mirror-image forms. In the process, the
physicists also uncovered solid evidence that a
long-disputed feature of nuclear anatomy really
does exist.
Starosta, Fossan, Koike,
LaFosse, Beausang, and
Vaman

Lifetime(seconds)
Nuclear Lifetimes of Fr Isotopes
(work done with Luis Orozco, now at UMd.)
1.E+04
1.E+02
1.E+00
1.E-02
1.E-04
1.E-06
1.E-08
201
Made at Stony Brook Boulder
205
209
213
217
Isotope
221
225
229

Francium Atomic Level Scheme
(work done with Luis Orozco, now at UMd.)
9s
107.53±0.90 ns. 83.5±1.5 ns
8s
7s
53.48 +- 0.33 ns
149.3±3.5 ns
8p3/2 8p1/2 7p 3/2
21.02+-0.11 ns
7p 1/2
29.45+-0.11 ns
trapping transition
718 nm
67.7+-2.9 ns
7d5/2 7d3/2 73.60+-0.3 ns
6d 5/2
6d 3/2
Found at Stony
Brook
Still unknown

Dave Fossan Bob McGrath Gene Sprouse
Lin Lee Peter Paul

Aniko Paul Dot Lee Carolyn McGrath
Ann Fossan H’y Sprouse

DAVID B. FOSSAN (1934-2003)
21 Ph.D. students, 17 postdoctorates,
260 refereed publications
First recipient of “Chancellor’s Award for
Excellence in Research and Creative Activity”
1. Neutron Total Cross Sections of Be, 10B, B, C and O, D.B. Fossan and
R.L. Walter, W.E. Wilson and H.H. Barschall, Phys. Rev. 123, 209 (1961).
• 2. Differential Cross Sections for the T(p,n)3He Reaction, W.E. Wilson,
• R.L. Walter and D.B. Fossan, Nucl. Phys. 27, 421 (1961).
• 3. Rotational-State Lifetimes, D.B. Fossan and B. Herskind, Phys. Letters 2, 155 (1962).
• 4. Half-Lives of Two Excited States in 172Yb, B. Herskind and D.B. Fossan, Nucl. Phys. 40, 489
(1963).
• 5. Half-Lives of First Excited 2+ States (150

Dave Fossan, one of the creators
of “Gammasphere”

Funding/year
$2,000,000
$1,000,000
$0
1965
NSF Funding of Nuclear Structure Laboratory
1968
1971
1974
1977
1980
1983
∫ = $41.2Μ
1986
Year
1989
1992
1995
1998
2001
2004
2007

Department Visiting Committee
Comments on Nuclear Physics

The Future:
Linac:
Beijing Atomic Energy Institute wishes to
acquire the LINAC as a booster for their tandem.
Van de Graaff:
MARIACHI (Cosmic ray detectors for
outreach to high schools)
Tandem Teaching Lab (experiments for
advanced laboratory, and C 14 dating for
outreach)
Detector Research and Development
A. Deshpande, A. Drees, T.K.
Hemmick, B. Jacak, M. Marx

Mariachi Workshops

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
• AMS is well established for 14 C, 10 Be, 26 Al, 36 Cl,
41 Ca, 129 I.
• 14 C is the familiar “dating” isotope for biological
samples.
• Living materials contain 14 C/ 12 C~10 -12
• After death, ratio decays t 1/2 =5730 yr
• Accelerator used to strip ions to +3 charge state,
eliminating molecules.
• 12 C via beam current, 14 C via count rate

Proposed Lab Layout:
MARIACHI
14 C
Grad Lab
Det R&D
Winder

Concluding remarks
• Alec Pond’s vision has largely been realized:
The purchase of the Van de Graaff was one of
several statements that Stony Brook intended to
be a major research university.
• Peter Paul’s vision to go after the LINAC has
paid off well.
• Peter also played a pivotal role in securing RHIC
for BNL.
• The Van de Graaff will continue as a productive
educational and outreach tool.

Personal remarks
• Came to Stony Brook, January 1970
• Will go on 5 year leave, starting January 2007 to
become Editor in Chief of the American Physical
Society.
• I have worked hard for Stony Brook, and Stony
Brook has been good to me. I’ve enjoyed my
interactions with my colleagues and the
outstanding SB students, especially the last 4
years teaching Honors Physics 141-2.
• My new job is different, with new challenges,
and I’m excited about taking them on.

The End
For material used in this presentation, many thanks to:
Peter Kahn, Lin Lee, and John Noe