as their football squads prepare to meet for the first time in southeastern conference history saturday (oct 20) at kyle field texas a&m university and louisiana state university are teaming up to study collisions of another variety the nuclear kind on one of the worlds biggest stages for nuclear astrophysics japans riken nishina center for accelerator-based science while johnny football manziel undoubtedly will have many saturday moments in the sun texas a&m and lsu physicists are looking to that same sun and its fellow stars as both the architects and inhabitants of our universe in an effort to better understand nuclear reactions and the resulting energy that makes life on earth possible when you have a nuclear reaction you have a tremendous amount of energy released said robert e tribble distinguished professor of physics at texas a&m and director of the cyclotron institute solar energy is a product of a nuclear reaction were trying to find out exactly how the elements were formed and in the process how the energy that makes life on earth possible was created tribble and lsu physics professor jeffrey c blackmon are co-principal investigators in a united states department of energy-funded international collaboration that is exploring the outer limits of nuclear reactions along with colleagues at two additional us universities (texas a&m university-commerce and washington university in st louis) and in five other countries (ifin-hh bucharest romania; universite de caen france; infn sezione di pisa italy; oxford university united kingdom; kyushu university japan) tribble notes that a critical early part of the study is a series of experiments using rare isotope beams (ribs) at the newly commissioned radioactive isotope beam factory (ribf) at riken widely recognized as the most powerful radioactive beam facility in the world tribble says researchers there are doing cutting-edge experiments with nuclei that only live fractions of a second rare infinitesimal windows in which to gain valuable insight into energys essence and answers these experiments will provide important information about rates of nuclear reactions that occur in stellar explosions tribble added some of the reactions that happen in stars happen in nuclei at the edge of stability within the shortest possible time span during which we can access them stars are just big balls of particles that are undergoing nuclear reactions the reactions in our sun which is a relatively small star provide heat and light to us on earth its important to understand these reactions in order to understand the very basis of life as we know it the collaboration will focus on both proton- and neutron-breakup reactions at intermediate energies with the goal of using the resulting data to better understand single-particle properties and to determine reaction rates in larger stellar explosions such as supernovaes and x-ray bursts by understanding how nuclear reactions work at a base level from both single-nucleon removal and recapture standpoints tribble says they can extend that knowledge to predict likely patterns of atomic behavior in more complex situations and at stellar energies for nuclei far from stability whether in the cosmos or here on earth we dont know what the chain of reactions is within stars but we can figure out what the probability of certain reactions is tribble said for this study we are focusing on p-gamma and n-gamma reaction rates which are important in calculating how stars are born tribbles individual research group within the cyclotron institute is helping to develop the necessary equipment for the collaborations experimental program specifically a large silicon detector array that will incorporate both existing state-of-the-art technology and generate cost-effective extensions of that technology to enable silicon detector readout meanwhile blackmons lsu group is working with the texas a&m and washington university groups to incorporate front-end electronics into a working portable data acquisition (daq) system that will allow user-friendly inspection and analysis and ultimately easy integration between laboratories blackmons team will be in charge of maintaining this software and providing the integration and linkages between the current software and the proposed systems at both texas a&m and riken we also plan to implement the hardware so that it can be inspected via an internet interface from anywhere in the world tribble said this requires a merger of two technologies already in use by washington university such a system can have all eyes on a problem in short order and should probably be considered a requirement of the new century with japanese funding now secured for a very large new spectrometer samurai to be built at riken tribble says the time is right to begin developing a detector system that can be used in conjunction with samurai to carry out a broad range of reaction and breakup studies at riken energies a program that eclipses the initial suite of experiments proposed by the collaboration in its original letter of intent to riken in january 2008 the technology that we will develop will have broad application at many existing nuclear physics laboratories using stable or rare isotope beams in addition to future rib facilities tribble said and the training of students and postdoctoral research associates will be important contributions to the future workforce in this field to learn more about the project overall scope of work or partners involved in the $800 000 department of energy award which runs through 2014 visit http://cyclotrontamuedu # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds premier research institutions texas a&m is a leader in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge in many fields including rigorous scientific and technological disciplines research conducted at texas a&m represents an annual investment of more than $700 million; the university ranks 20th among all us universities and third nationally for universities without a medical school according to the national science foundation research at texas a&m creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://vprtamuedu -atm- watch how a beam is accelerated within the radioactive isotope beam facility (ribf) at riken on youtube below or click here to take a virtual tour: contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr robert e tribble (979) 845-1411 or tribble@comptamuedu