A Modern Alchemist: Nuclear Astrophysics

One of the goals of alchemy was transmutation of “base” metals, such as lead, into “noble” ones, such as gold. Whilst traditional recipes couldn’t do the trick, modern physicists do this on a regular basis. By smashing high energy particle beams into radioactive targets, researchers at TRIUMF and across the world are simulating nuclear reactions that happen throughout our universe. This talk attempts to present the origin of all the elements we see around us today, and to explain how physicists are decoding the workings of the galactic machinery that create them.

Guy Leckenby is currently a Masters student at TRIUMF, Canada's particle accelerator centre located on the UBC campus. In 2017, he received a Bachelor of Philosophy (Science) with first-class Honours from the Australian National University in Canberra. Whilst based at TRIUMF, Guy is actually working on a collaboration developing a new detector to study highly charged beta-decay in the Experimental Storage Ring at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. Studying such high charge state beta-decay will provide insight into the nuclear reactions constituting the astrophysical r-process, which responsible for creating most heavy elements.