Enter the Dragon...

Hello all (Edits are in red, this took a few days, I can't pop them out like Neil, 6 in one day, beyond)
So a week (and a half (+ half)) ago I arrived in Vancouver for the summer. The last week has felt like forever. On Saturday I was up early and went to the airport, remember last two Saturdays all those on the Island. Power on/off/on/off/on/... at the airport, I was hoping my flight would be canceled and then I would get moved to first class, no such luck. Met up with André in Toronto and flew out west, it was cloudy.

We stayed at TRIUMF house for a few days while we waited for May 1st to come around when we moved into our apartment and started work.

I'm working at TRIUMF with the DRAGON team (Detector of Recoils And Gammas (go look the rest up...) Of Nuclear reactions).

TRIUMF is quite cool, We got a tour the first day and got to see all the different areas. I'm working in the ISAC section which deals with radioactive nuclei (formed from the 500MeV proton beam) and in particular the DRAGON group which takes these radioactive nuclei and bombards either protons or alpha particles to observe nuclear fusion.

The instrument, starts by taking a beam of these ions (they don't have to be radioactive :) )(lets say 12C(varying charge but around 5+ when it gets to DRAGON)) and accelerating it to ~12MeV per particle. Just to note, average air particle has 3/2kT energy < 1eV at room temperature.

The beam is shot through a gas, lets say alpha particles, and on average 1 in 10^12 12C fuse with an alpha to make 16O (varying charge). DRAGON separates these recoils (16O) by mass and charge to determine the rate at which 16O is formed. What is interesting about this reaction is that there are certain energies of the beam (~12MeV is one) that the rate has a resonance in 16O production.

This is what happens in stars when they go supernova or nova, the kinetic energies of the surroundings allow for this fusion to resonant and an increase in O production happens. (There are many resonances for different atoms not just O, DRAGON also does proton capture experiments too for many different reactions)

My job is testing GEANT, a simulation program for 'ion optics' (focusing the beam of particles with magnets, turning around corners, etc) to match up with experiment, then possibly make experiment better.

Other then that I've been really busy, moving in, groceries, thesis work needing finishing up etc. Laura is coming in 3 days yesterday to go to a conference. Should be fun.We met today and walked around abit, she came and saw our house. BBQ tomorrow :)

"Dude haven't you ever had intercourse Mr. Mackey"
"Well sure I have... it's just... I was about 19 at the time... it been about 21 years... Mmmmkay"