Michigan State University - 28 April 2010
Capturing fleeting bits of matter to reveal the nature of the universe is a little like trying to trap incredibly tiny, impossibly speedy mice alive.
A better mousetrap could be at hand, promising new insights that could bring researchers out of the woodwork to conduct cutting-edge experiments at Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.
Michigan State scientists landed a $3.28 million federal grant to develop an electromagnetic trap to snag and quickly extract rare isotope ricochets from high-speed particle collisions they create.
“The products we make live for much less than one second before they decay into something else, so speed is very important,” explained David Morrissey, a University Distinguished Professor of chemistry and the project’s principal investigator.
A diagram of the proposed particle stopper reverse-cyclotron.
