Nuclear Structure Research at WNSL

The atomic nucleus is a unique microscopic system, a quantum laboratory, in which the behavior of a limited number of strongly interacting fermions may be studied. The nucleus contains sufficient numbers of protons and neutrons (nucleons) so that macroscopic quantities such as shape, surface and deformation may be defined. However, the number of constituent nucleons is small enough that a single proton or neutron can alter the behavior of the system (shell effects). In other words there is a delicate interplay of single particle and collective degrees of freedom.

Nuclear Structure Physics strives to study the behavior of these unique quantum mechanical laboratories when they are stressed by the application of, for example, high angular momentum, high excitation energies or large imbalances in the number of protons and neutrons.

The Nuclear Structure Group at Yale University is internationally recognized as one of the leading groups world wide. Our research focuses on many aspects of nuclear structure physics including,

• collective phenomena
• high spin physics
• nuclei with large neutron excess
• physics with exotic beams.

Our research is carried out both at Yale using our in-house tandem accelerator and our state of the art experimental apparatus as well as at national and international user facilities such as Argonne, Berkeley and Oak Ridge in the US and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) and IReS Strasbourg (France) .