Nuclear Science & Engineering Seminar – Carl Svensson – 4pm

Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy Research with Radioactive Ion Beams at TRIUMF-ISAC

The Isotope Separator and Accelerator (ISAC) facility located at the TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver, Canada, is an advanced radioactive ion
beam facility of the Isotope Separation On-Line type. Intense beams of rare isotopes are produced by bombarding thick production targets with up to 100 uA of 500 MeV protons from the TRIUMF main cyclotron. These isotopes are ionized, massseparated, and delivered to a variety of experimental facilities in the form of high-quality, low-energy ion beams which support a diverse program of nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental symmetries, and condensed matter research. The rare isotope beams can also be accelerated through a series of room temperature and superconducting linear accelerators to energies relevant to nucleosynthesis in explosive astrophysical environments, and beyond to energies above the Coulomb barrier. This presentation will focus on the gamma-ray spectroscopy research programs with both lowenergy radioactive ion beams at ISAC-I and accelerated beams at ISAC-II. The high-efficiency GRIFFIN and TIGRESS gamma-ray spectrometers will be described and recent highlights from the nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, and fundamental symmetries research programs with them will be presented.

Carl Svensson received his PhD in Physics from McMaster University (Canada) and then went on to a Postdoctoral Fellow position at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. He joined the University of Guelph’s Department of Physics as an Assistant Professor in 2001. Dr. Svensson is currently a Full Professor of Physics and since 2009 has been the Canada Research Chair in Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy and Rare Isotope Physics. Dr. Svensson has won several awards for his research and nuclear science community leadership, including the
John Charles Polanyi Prize in Physics (2001), the Ontario Premier’s Research Excellence Award (2002), the CAP Herzberg Medal (2007), and the NSERC E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2008). Dr. Svensson has served in a number of high-level subatomic physics service roles in North America and Europe, including as Chair of the Board of Directors for SNOLAB.