Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The gift that keeps on giving.

When I was a Senior at Indiana University South Bend I went to my first Nuclear Physics conference. There are many things I remember about that meeting but one I was reminded about today while I was touring the Argonne National Laboratory facilities.

At this conference there was talk after talk after talk showing level schemes which went to very high spin, 30+ levels, 52+ levels. WHAT? I was working on 0+ states. They were showing Gammasphere data. The general public knows Gammasphere as the detector which turned a man into The Hulk. (I won't go into this) The nuclear physics community knows it as an amazing detector array, some of the younger students might not remember it much at all.

Gammasphere is a large array, consisting of 108 high-purity germanium detectors which detect gamma-rays (essentially light) after a reaction takes place. It completely surrounds the target and there is a place inside to put auxiliary detectors for additional capabilities. This device was revolutionary at the time is was launched and led to advancements in technology in our field with impact in other fields. With it's first run in 1993 the data taken led to hundreds of papers, countless Ph.D's and many advancements in the field.

I have never analyzed data from Gammasphere. In fact, today was the first time I had ever seen in "in the flesh". I spent my career hearing about it, reading papers about it, "Gammasphere" is part of our vocabulary. I spent years working on experiments in the old Gammasphere room at Berkeley. I used the Gammasphere codes to analyze my fission data. I have been trained by physicists who earned their Ph.D's from Gammasphere data.

And we are still using it!! All these years later, it is still in commission. The beams have changed, but there is still a need for a ball of 108 detectors. It is nice to know that some things are not thrown aside because they are old. Below is a picture of Mr. Gammasphere himself looking at his "baby". I wonder what he sees when he looks at it. Is it like a parent looking at their adult child and still seeing a toddler? Does he still see it bright and shiny and full of promise? Does he remember the excitement as the first peaks were observed on the screen when it was turned on almost 20 years ago? I hope so.

Gammasphere opened, so only half can be seen.
Standing in front of Gammasphere.
"Mr. Gammasphere" himself, looking at his baby.

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