Andrea Richard of Ohio University will visit campus to discuss her work with heavy element production in the cosmos and the puzzle of nucleosynthesis.
The origin of heavy elements in the universe is a longstanding question in nuclear astrophysics, and one that still puzzles us today. Since the birth of nuclear astrophysics in the 1950s, three main processes were thought to account for all of the heavy element abundances, namely the p, s, and r processes. While these three processes are strong contributors to the production of heavy elements, new observational data have shed light on additional processes that may have significant contributions to heavy element production in the cosmos. This talk will present the new intricate picture of heavy element production and the nuclear physics inputs that help us piece together the puzzle of nucleosynthesis. In this presentation, Richard will discuss recent experiments performed at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Argonne National Laboratory, and TRIUMF to elucidate the key role that nuclear data play in the synthesis of heavy elements in the universe.
Andrea Richard obtained her B.S. degree in physics and mathematics with minors in English and engineering from Muskingum University in 2011. She obtained her M.S. degree in 2014 from Ohio University, where her focus was neutron time-of-flight spectroscopy of the deuteron breakup reaction. Andrea then completed her Ph.D. from Ohio University in 2018 focusing on in-beam and -delayed gamma-ray spectroscopy of the A=33 isobars in the N=20 Island of Inversion. After obtaining her Ph.D., Andrea worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University as a Nuclear Science and Security Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow and then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her work is primarily related to indirect neutron-capture constraints for the astrophysical i-process (intermediate neutron-capture process) and nuclear security applications using the beta-Oslo method and Surrogate Reaction Method at facilities like the NSCL, FRIB, CARIBU and TRIUMF. As of January 2024, Andrea is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Join us on Friday, Feb. 14, for this exciting presentation from Richard. Lunch will be available in Hayes 216 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and the presentation will begin in Hayes 211/213 at 12:10 p.m. We hope to see you there!