The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), located on the campus of

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

was a rare isotope research facility in the United States.Bruns, Adam (January 2009
How Are You Helping Companies Grow?
''Site Selection Magazine''.Retrieved on December 27, 2009. Established in 1963, the

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

laboratory has been succeeded by the

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams The Facility for Rare Isotopes Beams (FRIB) is a scientific user facility for nuclear science, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), Michigan State University (MSU), and the State of Michigan. Michigan State Un ...

, a

linear accelerator A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear b ...

providing beam to the same detector halls. NSCL was the nation's largest nuclear science facility on a university campus.The National Science Foundation (NSF)
4/10/2007 Funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and MSU, the NSCL operated two superconducting cyclotrons. The lab's scientists investigated the properties of rare isotopes and

nuclear reactions In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation ...

. In nature, these reactions would take place in

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

s and exploding stellar environments such as

nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...

e and

supernovae A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

. The K1200 cyclotron was the highest-energy continuous beam accelerator in the world (as compared to

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed p ...

s such as the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundre ...

which provide beam in "cycles"). The laboratory's primary goal was to understand the properties of

atomic nuclei The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment. After the discovery of the neutron i ...

. Atomic nuclei are ten thousand times smaller than the atoms they reside in, but they contain nearly all the atom's mass (more than 99.9 percent). Most of the atomic nuclei found on earth are stable, but there are many unstable and rare isotopes that exist in the universe, sometimes only for a fleeting moment in conditions of high pressure or temperature. The NSCL made and studied atomic nuclei that could not be found on earth. Rare isotope research is essential for understanding how the elements—and ultimately the universe—were formed. The nuclear physics graduate program at MSU was ranked best in America by the 2018 Best Grad Schools index published by ''U.S. News & World Report''.

Laboratory upgrades

The upgrade plans are in close alignment with
report
issued December 2006 by the National Academies, "Scientific Opportunities with a Rare-Isotope Facility in the United States," which defines a scientific agenda for a U.S.-based rare-isotope facility and addresses the need for such a facility in context of international efforts in this area. NSCL is working towards a significant capability upgrade that will keep the laboratory – and nuclear science – at the cutting edge well into the 21st century. The upgrade of NSCL – the $750 million

(FRIB), under construction as of 2020 – will boost intensities and varieties of rare isotope beams produced at MSU by replacing the K500 and K1200 cyclotrons with a powerful linear accelerator to be built beneath the ground. Such beams will allow researchers and students to continue to address a host of questions at the intellectual frontier of nuclear science: How does the behavior of novel and short-lived nuclei differ from more stable nuclei? What is the nature of nuclear processes in explosive stellar environments? What is the structure of hot nuclear matter at abnormal densities? MSU Cyclotron

Beyond basic research, FRIB may lead to cross-disciplinary benefits. Experiments there will help astronomers better interpret data from ground- and space-based observatories. Scientists at the Isotope Science Facility will contribute to research on self-organization and complexity arising from elementary interactions, a topic relevant to the life sciences and quantum computing. Additionally, the facility's capabilities may lead to advances in fields as diverse as biomedicine, materials science, national and international security, and nuclear energy.

Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) is a collaboration between Michigan State University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Chicago to address a broad range of experimental, theoretical, and observational questions in nuclear astrophysics. A portion of the Michigan State collaboration is housed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, directly involving roughly 30 nuclear physicists and astrophysicists.JINA-CEE, Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics - Center for the Evolution of the Elements
/ref>

References

External links

Isotope Science Facility at Michigan State University

A report by the National Academies
"Nuclear science hits new frontiers"
A commentary by NSCL Director C. Konrad Gelbke in the December 2006 CERN Courier

''MSU News Bulletin'', Oct. 26, 2006
The Spartan Podcast – Arden L. Bement, Jr.
An audio interview with NSF Director Arden L. Bement Jr. who visited MSU Oct. 26, 2006 to award NSCL more than $100 million to fund operations through 2011, highlighting the lab's status as a world-leading nuclear science facility

{{Coord, 42.724498, N, 84.473716, W, display=title Michigan State University Michigan State University campus Nuclear research institutes Research institutes in Michigan

Laboratory upgrades

Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics

See also

References

External links