Einsteinium + Calcium = Element 119

 I have a new paper published today: "Mean-field Simulations of Es-254 + Ca-48 Heavy-Ion Reactions", Paul D Stevenson, Frontiers in Physics 10, 1019285 (2022).  It's a rare single-author paper from me, reflecting my growing misanthropy with age.  

The work for the paper started a few years ago, when I attended a workshop in Japan on the subject, partly, of what one could do with a target of Einsteinium-254, which they had at JAEA (Japanese Atomic Energy Agency).  I took a look at some simulations of Es + Ca collisions which gives a compound system of element 119 - the next one beyond the highest-certified element 118 = Oganesson.  

The calculations showed some intersting cases where fusion occurred, and I have sat on them ever since wondering whether to publish them as is, or turn them into a more extensive set of calculations.  In the end, prompted by a call in Frontiers in Physics for a special issue on the subject of superheavy element synthesis, I decided to write what I had up as a "brief research report" and see if the referees would like it.  They did, well enough, and so it is now out there in the research record. 

Here's a zoom in of one of the pictures, where the reacting nuclei look like avocados:

Quizzing in London

On Tuesday night I took part in a quiz in a pub in London that was more than just a pub quiz.  Part of the Quiz League of London, I was in a team competing in a fixture against another team in the league.  This is pretty serious level quizzing and whenever I go, I am always slightly conscious that I don't want to let the team down by any lack of knowledge of trivia.  I don't think I will ever get to the stage of knowing many of the sports people or sports facts that come up - it's a huge subject that I am not very intersted in, but I was pleased/fortunate that I had a nuclear physics question - 

"Which New Zealand scientist won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, for hiswork on investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistryof radioactive substances?".  

I was tempted to jump in after the first four words, but in the quiz format, there is no benefit to doing so, and this was a question specifically for me.  You can see the scores on this page from which you can also download the quiz and the friendly quiz following it (see links at the top middle of page).  In the main quiz I was asked the 2B questions in rounds 1-4 and the 2A questions in rounds 5-8.  

After the quiz and the first friendly, we did one more friendly themed quiz whose theme was animated tv & film, though many of the questions were also gettable through general knowledge by the way they were phrased.   One of the answers, asking about an actress in Bedknobs and Broomsticks was Angela Lansbury.  At the end of the quiz, we hear that she had died earlier that day.  One of those coincidences...

R. I. P. Ricardo Broglia (1939–2022)

I saw on Twitter last week that Ricardo Broglia has died.  Broglia was a big name in nuclear theory during my nuclear physics career.  His work on nuclear structure and reactions has had a lot of impact, and he brought together a group in the University of Milan which has become one of the centres of low energy nuclear theory research.  As far as I know, I never really met him, though I dare say we might have been at the same conference together at some point over the last 20 years.

He was a collaborator of David Brink, who I did know, and who died last year.  In fact, I was searching a second hand book website recently for a book including a chapter by David Brink which I wanted to read.  I found the book and ordered it, but also saw available a copy of Brink and Broglia's Nuclear Superfluidity, which I ordered too.  I have not properly read it yet, but when I heard of Broglia's death, I picked it up and had a look through, wistful for the future nevertime when I will have a chance to study it in detail.  Attached it a picture of me pretending to read it while actually concentrating on taking a selfie of me reading it.  

The Milan group website has a more informative biographical picture of him.