Improved understandings of nuclear fission is key for many areas of science, including heavy element formation in supernova and neutron-star mergers, making safer nuclear reactors, and the formation and properties of long-lived superheavy isotopes. Students involved in this project will further our understanding of fission across the chart of nuclides.

This project will allow us to understand the time-dependence of quantum tunnelling and nuclear fusion.

This project aims to discover if the long-held concept of low-energy nuclear vibrations holds true under scrutiny from Coulomb excitation and nucleon-transfer reactions. 

Large scale quantum many body simulations are performed to study the quantum shell effects that determine the final properties of the nuclear fission fragments. 

We investigate the impact of nuclear structure on the interaction of a dark matter particle with a nucleus. 

The measurement of the lifetimes of excited nuclear states is foundational for understanding nuclear excitations. This project covers three measurement methods that together span the nuclear lifetime range from about 100 femtoseconds to many nanoseconds. The project can include equipment development, measurement, and the development of analysis methodology (programming and computation). 

Some nuclei, like stable ^6,7Li and ⁹Be or radioactive ⁸Li and ⁶He, are weakly-bound, which gives them a cluster structure which can be broken apart with very little input of energy. These nuclei show a huge variety of behaviors which challenge our understanding of nuclear reactions, requiring experimental measurements. 

This project aims to gain fundamental insights into the mechanisms of energy dissipation in nuclear collisions by making new measurements that will aid in the development of new models of nuclear fusion.