Research Group

Uwe Greife

Professor

Department of Physics

Introduction

I joined the Colorado School of Mines as an assistant professor in 1999 and have been active in applied nuclear physics research in collaboration with several national laboratories. 

Currently the research group is pursuing the following three activity streams:

1) Nuclear astrophysics with radioactive ion beams (RIB): we are performing RIB experiments, predominantly radiative capture in inverse kinematics, at the facilities of TRIUMF (ISAC, DRAGON) and NSCL/FRIB (JENSA, SECAR). The reactions pursued are usually relevant to nucleosynthesis on the proton rich side of the chart of nuclides.

2) Neutron induced reactions relevant to nuclear energy and non-proliferation issues: we are developing experimental equipment (time projection chamber and dual arm spectrometer) and approaches for precision measurements of fission cross sections and fragment distributions as well as for neutron scattering experiments. These activities are using the LANSCE neutron beam facilities of LANL.

The uniting element in all our efforts is instrument development, which we try to apply to all fields where our involvement is useful. A strong component at our state university is naturally dedicated to education through the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in the research enterprise.

Group Members

Faculty:

Uwe Greife, Professor

Ph.D. Graduate Students:

Kristina Montoya, Mark Haseman

Former Group Members

 Former Postdocs:

Cybele Jewett (2005-2006), Caleb Mattoon (2007), Luke Erikson (2008-2009), Ulrike Hager (2010-2011), Kelly Chipps (2010-2013), Patrick O’Malley (2012-2013), Bill Moore (2019-2021), Joey Latta (2021)

Former Graduate Students working with and supported by this research group:

Cybele Jewett (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2005), Robert Hatarik (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2005), Ana Maria Alpizar Vicente (M.S. Applied Physics 2005) , Ellen Simmons (M.S. Applied Physics 2005), Jake Livesay (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2006), Bob Keith (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2007), Aaron McEvoy (M.S. Applied Physics 2008), Kelly Chipps (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2008), Luke Erikson (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2008), Nik Sunde (M.S. Applied Physics 2009), Nidhi Patel (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2010), Dylan Hoback (M.S.-NT Mechanical Engineering 2011), Chris Farwell (M.S.-NT Nuclear Engineering 2011), Luke Snyder (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2012), Bob Larson (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2013), Elliot Grafil (M.S. Nuclear Engineering 2010 and Ph.D. Applied Physics 2014), Devin Connolly (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2015), Dana Duke (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2015), David Jedrejcic (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2016), Jeremy Bundgaard (Ph.D. Applied Physics 2017), Osama AlZaabi (Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering 2017), Dan Higgins (Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering 2018), Adam Mahl (M.S. Nuclear Engineering 2017 and Ph.D. Applied Physics 2018), David Hensle (Ph.D. Physics 2019), Bill Moore (M.S. Nuclear Engineering, M.S.-NT Mechanical Engineering 2011 and Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering 2019), Matt Lovely (Ph.D. Physics 2020), Jonathan Karpesky (M.S.-NT Nuclear Engineering 2019 and Ph.D. Physics 2020), Joey Latta (Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering 2021)

Some Recent Publications

• “Recoil Separators for Radiative Capture using Radioactive Ion Beams”, Chris Ruiz, Uwe Greife and Ulrike Hager, Eur. Phys. J. A 50 (2014) 99
• “A time projection chamber for high accuracy and precision fission cross-section measurements”, M. Heffner, D.M. Asner, R.G. Baker, J. Baker, S. Barrett, C. Brune, J. Bundgaard, E. Burgett, D. Carter, M. Cunningham, J. Deaven, D.L. Duke, U. Greife, S. Grimes, U. Hager, N. Hertel, T. Hill, D. Isenhower, K. Jewell, J. King, J.L. Klay, V. Kleinrath, N. Kornilov, R. Kudo, A.B. Laptev, M. Leonard, W. Loveland, T.N. Massey, C. McGrath, R. Meharchand, L. Montoya, N. Pickle, H. Qu, V. Riot, J. Ruz, S. Sangiorgio, B. Seilhan, S. Sharma, L. Snyder, S. Stave, G. Tatishvili R.T. Thornton, F. Tovesson, D. Towell, R.S. Towell, S. Watson, B. Wendt, L. Wood, Nucl. Instr. Meth. A 759 (2014) 50
• “The Jet Experiments in Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics (JENSA) gas jet target”, K.A. Chipps, U. Greife, D.W. Bardayan, J.C. Blackmon, A. Kontos, L.E. Linhardt, M. Matos, S.D. Pain, S.T. Pittman, A. Sachs, H. Schatz, K.T. Schmitt, M.S. Smith, P. Thompson, The JENSA Collaboration, Nucl. Instr. Meth. A 763 (2014) 553
• “Boron-rich benzene and pyrene derivatives for the detection of thermal neutrons”, H.A. Yemam, A. Mahl, U. Koldemir, T. Remedes, S. Parkin, U. Greife and A. Sellinger, Scientific Reports 5 (2015) 13401
• “Design of SECAR a recoil mass separator for astrophysical capture reactions with radioactive beams”, GPA Berg, M Couder, MT Moran, K Smith, M Wiescher, H Schatz, U Hager, C Wrede, F Montes, G Perdikakis, X Wu, A Zeller, MS Smith, DW Bardayan, KA Chipps, SD Pain, J Blackmon, U Greife, KE Rehm, RVF Janssens, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment 877 (2018) 87
• “Methacrylate based cross-linkers for improved thermomechanical properties and retention of radiation detection response in plastic scintillators”, Adam Mahl, Allison Lim, Joseph Latta, Henok A. Yemam, Uwe Greife, Alan Sellinger, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 884 (2018) 113
• “Direct measurement of resonance strengths in 34-S(alpha, gamma)38-Ar at astrophysically relevant energies using the DRAGON recoil separator”, D. Connolly, P. D. O’Malley, C. Akers, A. A. Chen, G. Christian, B. Davids, L. Erikson, J. Fallis, B. R. Fulton, U. Greife, U. Hager, D. A. Hutcheon, S. Ilyushkin, A. M. Laird, A. Mahl, and C. Ruiz, Phys. Rev. C 97 (2018) 035801
• “Energy Loss of Low Energy Hydrogen and Helium Ions in Light Gases”, D. Jedrejcic and U. Greife, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B 428 (2018) 1