Global Navigation

  • VPR
  • Funding & Proposals
    • Find Funding
    • Research Development & Proposal Services
    • Training Grants
    • Pre-Award Support
    • Post-Award Support
    • Collaboration
  • Compliance
    • Research Regulatory Support
    • Animal Care
    • Human Subjects
    • Environmental Health & Safety
    • Export Control
    • Conflict of Interest
    • Research Integrity
    • Stem Cell
    • University Research Organization
    • Outside Influence Guidance
    • MSU Policies
  • Commercialization
    • Innovation Center
    • Business Connect
    • MSU Technologies
    • Spartan Innovations
    • Bioeconomy Institute
    • AgBio Product Center
  • Resources
    • Getting Started in Research
    • Resource Contact List
    • Core Facilities
    • Centers & Institutes
    • Library
    • Training
    • Acronyms
    • Find an Expert
    • Events & Workshops
    • Event Archive
    • COVID-19 Research Response
    • HR Forms
  • Students

VPRGS Local navigation

  • About
  • Initiatives
  • Facts & Figures
  • Administrative Units
  • People
  • Communications
  • Events
  • News

Search

Skip to Main Content

Global Navigation

  • VPR
  • Funding & Proposals
    • Find Funding
    • Research Development & Proposal Services
    • Training Grants
    • Pre-Award Support
    • Post-Award Support
    • Collaboration
  • Compliance
    • Research Regulatory Support
    • Animal Care
    • Human Subjects
    • Environmental Health & Safety
    • Export Control
    • Conflict of Interest
    • Research Integrity
    • Stem Cell
    • University Research Organization
    • Outside Influence Guidance
    • MSU Policies
  • Commercialization
    • Innovation Center
    • Business Connect
    • MSU Technologies
    • Spartan Innovations
    • Bioeconomy Institute
    • AgBio Product Center
  • Resources
    • Getting Started in Research
    • Resource Contact List
    • Core Facilities
    • Centers & Institutes
    • Library
    • Training
    • Acronyms
    • Find an Expert
    • Events & Workshops
    • Event Archive
    • COVID-19 Research Response
    • HR Forms
  • Students
Michigan State University Office of Research and Innovation

Search

Main navigation

  • About
  • Initiatives
  • Facts & Figures
  • Administrative Units
  • People
  • Communications
  • Events
  • News

Stress-Testing Physics at FRIB

It’s strange to think that there are nuclear reactions that physicists classify as gentle. After all, the particle accelerators that let scientists study these reactions are nicknamed “atom smashers,” not “atom coddlers.”

But gentle nuclear reactions represent more than a strange-sounding curiosity. These reactions let researchers stress-test certain scientific models that account for how the universe’s fundamental rules work, said Kaitlin Cook of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, at Michigan State University.

And Cook is now creating new ways to study these reactions to further our understanding of science and medicine with the power of FRIB.

“FRIB is going is to open up our ability to do these reactions with nuclei we’ve never been able to access before,” said Cook, an assistant professor of nuclear physics at FRIB and in MSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Natural Science. “The catchphrase I’ve been using is that this is going to expand our palette.”

In the gentle nuclear reactions Cook will study, the cores of two atoms, or nuclei, come together with just enough energy to barely touch. This can lead to varying degrees of fusion, where the two nuclei combine — sometimes completely, sometimes not — to create new nuclei.

Expanding the palette of nuclei available to test these reactions will help construct better models, or formalized explanations, for nuclear physics, part of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s, or DOE-SC’s, long-range research plans. Improved models, in turn, can deepen our understanding of how the universe came together and stays together.

“Every atom in our bodies was made in a nuclear reaction. Everything we can see, touch and feel was made in a nuclear reaction,” Cook said. “But many of those reactions, we can’t replicate in the lab and our only hope is to make a model to predict them.”

Better models can also lead to better medicine. For example, medical researchers have developed cancer treatments that send a beam of carbon atoms into tumors. The goal is to use these atoms to deliver a very potent but very controlled dose of radiation that attacks only cancer cells.

Read full story at MSU Today.

Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter

YouTube

The Conversation

Quick Links

  • Contact Us
  • MSU Home Page
  • Centers & Institutes
  • Campus Map
  • Core Facilities & Resources
  • Campus Directory
  • Find an Expert
  • The Graduate School
  • MSU Libraries
  • Student Research
  • MI Spartan Impact
  • Together We Will
  • University Research Corridor
  • Join Our Team
  • MSU Misconduct Hotline

Office of Research and Innovation

517-355-0306
Hannah Administration Building
426 Auditorium Rd.
East Lansing, MI 48824-1046

Michigan State University Info

Michigan State University
  • Privacy Statement
  • Site Accessibility
Call MSU: (517) 355-1855 | Visit: msu.edu | MSU is an affirmative-action, equal-opportunity employer. | Notice of Nondiscrimination
SPARTANS WILL. | © Michigan State University