My work on stardust grains involves embedding the grains in a dental resin that is then cured and sliced with a diamond ultra-microtome into sections only a few 10s of nanometers thick that can be viewed in the transmission electron microscope. To assist in this effort, Emily worked on developing a technique that allows one to cure the resin in a vacuum. The reasons for doing this are technical, but the bottom line is that using this approach leads to fewer losses of these precious grains. In addition, Emily worked in our clean-room in order to pick and mount some of the stardust graphite grains for slicing that are being studied. As a result of her work last year, she was a co-author on a paper that will be presented at the lunar and planetary science conference this Spring.

Tim joined the experimental nuclear physics (and chemistry) group of Sobotka and Charity in his freshman year. Initially he worked on understanding a potential nuclear fusion experiment at the most powerful laser facility in the world, a facility designed to reproduce conditions in stellar interiors. In the summer between his freshman and sophomore years he switched his effort to one of the main projects of this group – multiparticle correlations. He worked on the 3-body correlation in the decay of 6Be γ 2p + α and on the 4-particle correlations in the decay of excited states of 10C (into 2p +2α.) Each of these analyses will lead to papers published in the Physical Review in his sophomore year. Tim is second author on both of these papers. The decay of 6Be is particularly interesting in that, with Tim’s effort, it is both the lightest case and the case with the most complete data (covering the full kinematic phase space) of simultaneous 2p decay.

The Phage Hunters freshman focus program is a fast-paced, lab intensive course, and Alex Anderson is a great asset to the class. Alex is very bright, and contributes regularly to classroom discussions, both with excellent questions and meaningful experimental ideas.