Forum for Science, Industry and Business

FAIR magnet completed in France

The NUSTAR researchers intend to examine the characteristics of rare and extremely unstable atomic nuclei with large numbers of neutrons and how they are created in supernovae. In this manner the scientists would ultimately like to find out how our elements have been created in such massive starbursts.

In the French Technology Research Center CEA the superconducting coils of GLAD were inserted into the cryostat, with which the magnet can be cooled to 4.5 Kelvin.

Felix Wamers

Some 50 engineers and scientists at the French technology research center CEA in Saclay – with the support of industry partners – have, over a period of many years, developed a superconducting magnet for the R3B experiment in the NUSTAR collaboration at FAIR, the GLAD magnet (GSI Large Acceptance Dipole).

In the R3B experiment the NUSTAR scientists will examine extremely rare and highly neutron-rich nuclei, which for the first ever may now be created at the FAIR complex in sufficient amounts as a secondary beam. If such neutron-rich atomic nuclei fly close to other atomic nuclei of the so-called target, they are excited, oscillate and collapse, by emitting neutrons for example.

Thus they reveal to scientists something about their structure, for instance the formation of neutron skins. Thus they can possibly answer the fundamental question of why uncharged neutrons in certain numbers can stabilize atomic nuclei such that it was possible for all the heavy elements such as lead, gold and uranium which we now find on earth could be formed in supernovae (starbursts).

The GLAD magnet separates the charged particles from the uncharged neutrons directly behind the target and thus allows for their analysis. The particular technological challenge: the magnet has a large horizontal and a large vertical angular aperture so as measure both charged particles and nuclear fragments.

At the same time it creates a strong, highly homogenous magnetic field. This is necessary because the particles have a large momentum. In addition, the superconducting magnet coils do not have an iron core to amplify the magnetic field, thus making the magnet an overall “lightweight” of merely 60 tonnes. For this reason it can be transported by road as a heavy load from France to Darmstadt.

Weitere Informationen:

http://www.fair-center.eu

Dr. Markus Bernards | idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Im Focus: The pyrenoid is a carbon-fixing liquid droplet

Plants and algae use the enzyme Rubisco to fix carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere and converting it into biomass. Algae have figured out a way to increase the efficiency of carbon fixation. They gather most of their Rubisco into a ball-shaped microcompartment called the pyrenoid, which they flood with a high local concentration of carbon dioxide. A team of scientists at Princeton University, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University and the Max Plank Institute of Biochemistry have unravelled the mysteries of how the pyrenoid is assembled. These insights can help to engineer crops that remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while producing more food.

A warming planet

Im Focus: Highly precise wiring in the Cerebral Cortex

Our brains house extremely complex neuronal circuits, whose detailed structures are still largely unknown. This is especially true for the so-called cerebral cortex of mammals, where among other things vision, thoughts or spatial orientation are being computed. Here the rules by which nerve cells are connected to each other are only partly understood. A team of scientists around Moritz Helmstaedter at the Frankfiurt Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Helene Schmidt (Humboldt University in Berlin) have now discovered a surprisingly precise nerve cell connectivity pattern in the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for orienting the individual animal or human in space.

The researchers report online in Nature (Schmidt et al., 2017. Axonal synapse sorting in medial entorhinal cortex, DOI: 10.1038/nature24005) that synapses in...

Im Focus: Tiny lasers from a gallery of whispers

New technique promises tunable laser devices

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators are used to make tiny micro-lasers, sensors, switches, routers and other devices. These tiny structures rely on a...

Im Focus: Ultrafast snapshots of relaxing electrons in solids

Using ultrafast flashes of laser and x-ray radiation, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Garching, Germany) took snapshots of the briefest electron motion inside a solid material to date. The electron motion lasted only 750 billionths of the billionth of a second before it fainted, setting a new record of human capability to capture ultrafast processes inside solids!

When x-rays shine onto solid materials or large molecules, an electron is pushed away from its original place near the nucleus of the atom, leaving a hole...

Im Focus: Quantum Sensors Decipher Magnetic Ordering in a New Semiconducting Material

For the first time, physicists have successfully imaged spiral magnetic ordering in a multiferroic material. These materials are considered highly promising candidates for future data storage media. The researchers were able to prove their findings using unique quantum sensors that were developed at Basel University and that can analyze electromagnetic fields on the nanometer scale. The results – obtained by scientists from the University of Basel’s Department of Physics, the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the University of Montpellier and several laboratories from University Paris-Saclay – were recently published in the journal Nature.

Multiferroics are materials that simultaneously react to electric and magnetic fields. These two properties are rarely found together, and their combined...