New Experiment with SuN - Looking for Iron-60

This week’s experiment is using the SuN detector in the “stopped" beam area to study the important radionucleus Fe-60. The half life of Fe-60 is two million years and we find signatures of its presence in many different sites: in meteoritic samples, in gamma-ray telescopes looking at active nucleosynthesis in our galaxy, and in samples from the earth’s ocean sediment dating a few million years ago. To better understand these observations we need to understand well how Fe-60 is produced and destroyed in astrophysical processes. This experiment will provide new information on the nuclear reactions involved in the creation of Fe-60 and it will help us understand better the different mechanisms of element production in stars. A large group of collaborators are participating in this experiment from MSU, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of Oslo, Central Michigan University, University of Notre Dame, Hope College and UC Berkeley.