SHU leading the way at CERN

“Berylli-ant” effort by SHU and collaborators during a recent experiment at the ISOLDE facility at CERN.

In very exciting news, a SHU-led experiment was run from 1st to 6th November 2023 at the ISOLDE radioactive beam facility at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) in Geneva. The research, led by Dr Robin Smith, aims to explore exotic nuclear resonances in the beryllium-8 nucleus, in order to ultimately learn more about the nuclear force that binds matter together. The data analysis will be led by GTA PhD student, Kris Haverson, who is working under the supervision of Dr Smith and Prof Andy Alderson. Physics PhD student, Olivia Tindle, and Physics BSc undergraduate student, Owen Hughes, also travelled to CERN to perform the experiment. Part of the analysis of these data will form Owen’s final year project. The work, which utilised the ISOLDE solenoidal spectrometer, is a collaboration with the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester, Connecticut, KU Leuven and Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.