September 30, 2009 – News & Views

This Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) consists of 144 individual detector modules installed in this device. Starting this fall, students and faculty at Ohio Wesleyan will be building 16 individual detector modules, which will be combined with modules built at other undergraduate institutions to enhance the existing array.

Photo courtesy of the MoNA Collaboration, National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University. Click here for more details.

Ohio Wesleyan Earns National Science Foundation Research Grant
Physics faculty, students from nine schools will collaborate to study highly exotic nuclei

For the first time at Ohio Wesleyan University, physics students will have the opportunity to assist in building a large neutron detector array used to study short-lived (exotic) atomic nuclei thanks to a $145,753 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Ohio Wesleyan is part of the MoNA (Modular Neutron Array) Collaboration, which received approximately $1.2 million combined for this project. The National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation program provided funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama in February.

The eight other undergraduate institutions involved in this project are Central Michigan University, Concordia College, Gettysburg College, Hope College, Indiana University-South Bend, Rhodes College, Wabash College, and Westmont College.

Once the enhanced detector array is completed, it will allow physicists (and their students) to perform the research necessary to address a number of outstanding questions in nuclear physics, including the rates at which heavier elements are synthesized in stellar reactions.

“This project provides an opportunity for Ohio Wesleyan students to participate in the construction, testing, and commissioning of an instrument that will be a crucial tool in the understanding of the structure of atomic nuclei at the very limits of what can be studied in the laboratory,” says Bob Kaye Ph.D., associate professor of physics and astronomy and principal investigator for the OWU grant. “It also paves the way for future students to collaborate on research projects with international teams of scientists at a world-class particle accelerator facility.”

The two year project will begin this fall with the ordering of components needed to build 16 complete neutron detector modules—each about 6 ½ feet long, 4 inches wide, and 4 inches tall.

Construction and testing of the modules will occur throughout this academic year. In summer 2010, the detector modules will be transported to Michigan State University, where they will be combined with modules constructed at the other eight institutions to fabricate the Large area multi-Institutional Scintillator Array (LISA).

See below for more information about the MoNA Collaboration and this project.

– Linda O’Horo