A new gamma-ray spectrometer will be built at Japan’s RIKEN Nishina Centre to capture the faint signals of exotic, short-lived atomic nuclei created in the lab. These nuclei—unstable versions of familiar elements—are produced in nature during supernova explosions and neutron-star mergers. Studying them reveals how the nuclear force behaves under extreme conditions of proton-neutron imbalance, something impossible to learn from the stable isotopes found on Earth. The RIBF facility already delivers the world’s most intense beams of these rare nuclei and has discovered nearly 200 of them. But without a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer, much of the information those nuclei carry is lost. This instrument will give UK researchers a leading role in extracting that information. The work is fundamental science: it will test models of how visible matter formed and how nuclear forces operate in extreme environments. Past fundamental research on nuclear structure has underpinned advances in medical imaging, nuclear energy, and materials analysis. A deeper understanding of exotic nuclei could, over time, feed into similar unexpected applications—but the immediate goal is to answer basic questions about the universe’s building blocks.
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This project concerns the construction of a novel gamma-ray spectrometer to be used at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN Nishina Centre (RNC), Japan. RIBF is an accelerator facility that delivers the world's most intense beams of rare, radioactive isotopes, commonly referred to as exotic nuclei, making it the leading Nuclear Physics facility for their study. The construction of this novel spectrometer will deliver a step change in the capabilities of the RIBF facility and challenge our understanding of visible matter. Nuclear Physics research has shifted its focus from studies of long-lived isotopes that are found on earth, towards the most exotic ones that are created in the cosmos, through, e.g., cataclysmic events such as supernovae explosions or neutron-star mergers. Laboratory studies of exotic nuclei provide a glimpse into the Nuclear Physics properties and processes that take place in these unique astrophysical environments and shed light into our understanding of how visible matter came into being. At the same time, the study of these exotic nuclear species reveals properties of the nuclear force that are not evident in systems around the valley of stability; the large proton-neutron asymmetry in these systems acts as a lever arm for isospin-dependent nuclear properties. The recent scientific interest in producing and studying exotic nuclei is reflected in the scale of the infrastructure investment in this research area. In particular, the world leading accelerator facilities in this field - RIBF (Japan), FRIB (USA), FAIR (Germany), etc. - are scientific investments of order in excess of £1000M. Amongst these world-class facilities, the RIBF clearly stands out as it currently delivers the world's most intense beams of exotic nuclei and has been ahead of the competition for almost a decade now; indeed, the RIBF facility has discovered nearly 200 exotic nuclei. Key scientific instruments play a crucial role in scientific discoveries and gamma-ray spectrometers, in particular, hold a distinctive role in Nuclear Physics research. Indeed, a high-sensitivity gamma-ray spectrometer is currently identified as a top priority for RIBF. The UK Nuclear Physics community is renowned for its strong expertise in gamma-ray spectroscopy research and its long tradition in developing large scientific instruments and in particular gamma-ray spectrometers. Moreover, the research activities of the UK's Nuclear Physics community align perfectly with those of RIBF as is reflected in the number of proposals and publications that are led by UK researchers at RIBF. There is now a great opportunity for the UK community to lead the development of such an array at the RIBF facility and gain scientific leadership in the unique discovery potential that is enabled by this new instrument.
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