Discipline: Physics
Subcategory: Physics (not Nanoscience)
Angel Christopher - Hampton University
Co-Author(s): Ameer Blake and Paul Gueye, Hampton University, Hampton, VA
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is currently being constructed on the campus of Michigan State University (Lansing, MI) and is expected to start its operation in 2020. When completed, FRIB will become the most powerful low energy nuclear physics facility in the world to study neutron rich nuclei with heavy ion beams. It will replace the current coupled cyclotron facility located at MSU that is also known as the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). A collaboration of 11 institutions (10 primary undergraduate institutions and one Historically Black institution), called the MoNA Collaboration, has been involved at NSCL for almost two decades. Hampton University, which joined the collaboration in 2013, has lead the development of a Si-Be segmented target that was used to measure the lifetime of 26O in the summer 2016 from the invariant mass technique. This target provided for the first time detail information about the incident beam position and energy (before and after exiting the Be targets) to within 10%. A proposal to construct a GEM-based version of this target was adopted by the MoNA Collaboration in 2016 to increase the position and energy resolutions, and allow missing mass reconstruction (by detecting the recoil fragments). To assess its performances, a realistic Geant4 based Monte Carlo simulation is being developed that also includes a 3D map of the electric field (generated by the Garfield software). Results from this simulation will be presented and compared to experimental data for the ‘standard’ gas electron multiplier (GEM) detectors. The availability of the thick GEM technology developed by MSU is more suited for heavy ion experiments. We will also present the expected performances of a TH-GEM based segmented target.
Not SubmittedFunder Acknowledgement(s): This work is partly supported by NSF award #1713589 and the MoNa collaboration.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Paul Gueye, paul.gueye@hamptonu.edu
Role: I implemented the geometry for the GEM detectors into Geant4. I also ran the simulation for the GEM-based version using the Geant4 simulation toolkit.