Senior Whit Lewis helped with nuclear research at the University of Notre Dame. Malia Thibado | Collegian
Senior Whit Lewis said that participating in a research experience for undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame changed the way he viewed physics.
Lewis, a physics major, was the second student-speaker for the 2023 fall semester’s physics seminar courses. His talk, “St. George and the HIPPO: A Nuclear Physics Research Experience at Notre Dame,” focused on the experiments he was involved in and his general experience during his summer at Notre Dame.
Lewis said the main purpose of the research was to understand why there is such a high concentration of fluorine present in stars. Fluorine’s presence contradicts the working predictions from scientific experimentation.
He assisted with operating the complex machinery used in the lab by both the graduate students and his fellow undergraduate researchers.
“You are doing everything from operating the accelerator and everything on the floor,” Lewis said. “You definitely learn a lot.”
Lewis’ personal research aimed at improving a complex machine which calculates data based on experiments named the Strong Gradient Electromagnetic Online Recoil separator for capture Gamma-Ray Experiment but commonly referred to as St. George.
He built a separate machine, called a mass flow controller, which worked in conjunction with the St. George machine. The mass flow controller minimized the variance of the resulting nuclear cross-section yield by regulating the pressure of the gasses which are injected into the machine.
The nuclear cross-section represents the likelihood that a nuclear reaction will occur.
Without the mass flow controller, Lewis said, the injected gasses cannot be calculated precisely, thus resulting in inaccurate and vague results.
“I built the plate and everything else, learned to code it, and figured out how to use it in the system,” Lewis said about the mass flow controller.
Lewis also spoke about his experience conducting research at a large college.
“It’s a much different culture in these physics departments with people from large schools like Purdue and LSU and places like that, to here where we are much smaller and don’t have quite as much research as they do,” Lewis said.
Lewis said that it was a very interesting and enlightening experience to interact with fellow physics undergrads from different colleges all over the world and learn more about their research.
In addition to research contributing to the study of nuclear astrophysics, Lewis said he also enjoyed the numerous places he toured and the lectures he attended.
Senior physics major Nathan Sibert said that though he is more interested in the theoretical aspects of physics, he found Lewis’ seminar on his experimentation fascinating.
Freshman Mikayla Manner said she didn’t understand all the mechanics of the different experiments which Lewis discussed but she found the subject matter fascinating.
“The idea of doing research over the summer is super interesting to me, so to hear someone else’s experience is very interesting just to see how I can apply in the future,” Manna said.
Freshman Matthew Tolbert said he appreciated the details of Lewis’ lecture.
“The thing I found most interesting about this lecture was when he detailed what the experiments actually entailed, like how the flow regulator was useful for experimentation without undue experimental error,” Tolbert said. “Seeing what he was doing was actually helping real research was probably the most interesting part of the talk for me.”
