Advancing science and knowledge
World-leading rare isotope research
Rare isotopes are mere fleeting bits of matter created primarily in the super-extreme environment of stars. They can’t be seen or felt. But at Michigan State University, the research to produce and study these short-lived atomic nuclei is making an enormous impact in the world of science, an impact that translates to benefits for everyday lives around the globe.
On December 11, 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that MSU—a world leader in rare isotope research and home to the nation's No. 2-ranked graduate program in nuclear physics—had been selected to design and establish the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB).
“This is a great day for science,” responded MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, and that sentiment was echoed far beyond Michigan State by a host of constituencies who understand the importance of the decision and the value of its impact.
The proposed $550 million facility will bring together an international community of top scientists to advance understanding of rare nuclear isotopes—helping unlock the mysteries of nature and the universe and fueling breakthrough applications for medicine, national security, and the environment.
“The opportunities to advance human knowledge through science and the potential for scientific discoveries to improve the human condition are tremendous,” says MSU National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) Director Konrad Gelbke, who was tapped to lead FRIB. “This will be a transformational facility—not just for MSU but for the best scientific minds around the world.”
Experimental game changer
FRIB will build on MSU’s half-century commitment to accelerator-based experimental nuclear science and, says Gelbke, allow the university to expand a role for which it is known and valued around the world—”facilitator of the best ideas.” A national user facility, FRIB will enable anyone with an interesting scientific question and a strong plan for answering it in an experiment to submit a proposal to an independent review committee for “beam time” at the leading-edge facility.
For years, MSU has operated a user program at the National Science Foundation-funded NSCL, a world-class rare isotope research facility that has served 700 researchers from 100 institutions in more than 30 countries. FRIB is expected to increase the quality and quantity of research opportunities for approximately 1,000 university and laboratory scientists, postdoctoral associates, and graduate students around the globe.
The main advantage—and attraction for researchers—is FRIB’s beating heart, a high-energy linear accelerator that will be nothing less than an experimental game changer.
Like NSCL, FRIB will forge isotopes by first speeding up a mass of everyday nuclei; focusing the horde into a beam the width of a thin, pencil-drawn line; slamming that beam into a thin target material; and then sorting and making sense of the many different particles that fly out the other side. Some of these particles are rare isotopes.
The advantage of FRIB’s accelerator is not measured in speed. Like the existing superconducting cyclotrons at NSCL, the new accelerator will launch nuclei down a beam line at roughly half the speed of light—fast enough to travel around Earth four times each second. But FRIB’s accelerator will hurl dramatically more nuclei per second. This technical capability is important because many of the most sought-after rare isotopes pursued by scientists are unimaginably elusive.
“Some of the rare isotopes we’re most interested in are produced only one in every billion billion collisions at the target,” says Brad Sherrill, University Distinguished Professor of physics at MSU, “so your chances of making one are about the same as flipping a coin 52 times and turning up heads each time.”
The accelerator at FRIB won’t change those odds, but will, in effect, allow the rate at which the coin can be flipped to increase exponentially—enabling production of certain exotic isotopes at the edges of the known nuclear map that are, for all practical purposes, otherwise off limits.
Impact that improves lives
FRIB will assist scientists in deciphering galactic chemical evolution to better understand Earth’s origins and make possible countless experiments that have the potential to transform nuclear theory and to lead to new applications.
Although the full impact of the discovery potential won’t be known for another 10 to 20 years, experimental nuclear research already has made possible technologies that are making the world a safer place, including a high-precision handheld device that detects a host of destructive elements—from lead paint on children’s toys to an aluminum alloy used only in nuclear weapons production. Advances in accelerator technology used in nuclear and high-energy particle physics also are leading to innovations in proton therapy, which is showing promise in treating certain types of cancer.
FRIB is expected to provide economic benefits as well. This science infrastructure investment will bring an estimated billion dollars in economic activity to Michigan over two decades. And as an investment in U.S. competitiveness, siting the facility on a university campus is a clear win for nuclear science education, a foundational STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) discipline.
Countless reports from government, academia, and the media have urged investment in STEM-related fields to ensure and boost future U.S. competitiveness in science. MSU already is ranked second in that nation for its graduate program in nuclear physics by U.S. News and World Report, and the university helps train 10 percent of all U.S. nuclear science doctoral students.
One of the strengths of NSCL—the nation’s only nuclear science flagship facility based on a university campus—is the access it provides students at all postsecondary levels to cutting-edge tools of nuclear science not often readily available to students. FRIB is expected to continue and to enhance such opportunities for student research while energizing would-be researchers.
The kind of excitement that big experimental science generates is evidenced in the response to the “Large Hadron Rap” on YouTube. The video—which explains the technology and science of the world’s most powerful accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LCH) in Geneva Switzerland—was viewed more than four million times. Its creator—MSU physics graduate Katie McAlpine—has been interviewed about her video by major news outlets including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the Associated Press and is now working on a rap about rare isotope research.
While the journey to make FRIB a reality has only just begun, the U.S. Department of Energy’s selection of MSU as its site is a significant milestone in the history of nuclear science and long-awaited good news for the international science community. Until the next-generation facility is completed, a substantial upgrade to NSCL is ensuring that today’s finest scientific minds—and the next generation of nuclear scientists—have uninterrupted opportunities for research that can capture the imagination and transform the world.
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