STFC have just announced the new round of Erneset Rutherford Fellows. There are 10 of them, spanning the STFC research areas of Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics, and Astronomy.
The new nuclear fellow is Dr Kara Lynch who will take up her fellowship at a University of Manchester. Here is the blurb from the STFC press release:
Probing the charge radii of proton emitters for the first time
Dr Kara Lynch, The University of Manchester
What is the shape of the nucleus in the moments before it emits a proton? How does the shape of the nucleus change when the proton becomes unbound?
Dr Kara Lynch aims to answer these questions by performing the first laser spectroscopy studies on proton-emitting nuclei, bringing a powerful technique into a new research domain.
At the edges of the nuclear landscape, a rare form of radioactive decay occurs where the nucleus emits a proton.
Studying proton-emitting nuclei with laser spectroscopy provides a new and exciting opportunity to test the fundamental properties of the nuclear force.
Laser spectroscopy measures the hyperfine structure of atoms, an atomic fingerprint that allows nuclear properties to be measured in a nuclear-model-independent way.
For example, the charge radius tells us about the proton distribution in the nucleus.
Dr Lynch aims to understand the effect of the proton on the nucleus before it is emitted. Dr Lynch will gain a unique insight into how this single proton can influence the behaviour of the whole nucleus by measuring nuclei across the proton-drip line (beyond which proton decay occurs).
These measurements will provide a powerful test for state-of-the-art nuclear theories, constraining the nuclear wave function and providing a significant insight into the complex system that is the nucleus.
and here is the best picture of Kara I could find (from her Google Scholar profile):
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