Recently funded projects: https://snarasingh.wixsite.com/website/research

Dr S Nara Singh Bondili is a lecturer in the the Nuclear Physics Group - joined in July 2018.  Dr. Bondili works on projects in the areas of nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics that are aimed at addressing some of the key questions in nuclear physics - answering which has been the focus of several large-scale projects at the world-class facilities.

Dr. Bondili has a well-established collaboration with the experimental and the theoretical groups around the world.

Nuclear Structure –The projects are focused on answering some of the key questions. How and why certain nuclei at the center of ‘spherical atom’ take exotic non-spherical shapes.  What is the difference between proton-proton, neutron-neutron, and proton-neutron interaction? What are the individual influences of these interactions on structural properties of nuclei, especially, around the N=Z line of the nuclear chart?  What are the conditions that govern the stability of superheavy nuclei, for example, against particle decays.

Experimental work is carried out using reactions such as fusion-evaporation reactions and inelastic (Coulomb + Coulomb-nuclear) excitation at Jyvaskyla-Finland, CERN-Switzerland, GANIL-France, Koln/GSI-Germany, ANL-Argonne, USA and MSU-Michigan, USA.  Gamma-ray and charged particle detection methods or plunger techniques are used.

Nuclear Astrophysics –Studies of nuclear reactions that govern chemical evolution of the Universe - e.g., one of the proton-proton chain reactions in the Sun that addresses an abundance puzzle and connects nuclear physics to the standard model of particle physics.

Measurement of reaction rates by directly counting the reaction products using mass separators or through gamma-ray detection.  Facilities such as TRIUMF, Canada, and the CMAM accelerator facility, Spain are used to carry out these projects.

• (Coulomb + Nuclear) excitation to study shapes and shape co-existence in the mass ~80 and 100 regions
• Tagging + Plunger techniques to study N~Z, A~80 nuclei for shape phenomena and probing the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction
• Plunger techniques to measure ~ps lifetimes in the mass~50, 80, 100 and 200 regions for studying shape phenomena and stability against particle decays
• Tagging techniques to study low-lying level structures of proton-rich N~Z nuclei in the A~80 and 100 regions to study shape phenomena and neutron-proton interaction
• Fast timing measurements to study neutron-proton interaction in the mass~100 and 150 regions
• Astrophysically relevant light nuclear reaction rates, connecting nuclear physics to the other fields such as solar neutrinos and abundance puzzles.

Detector developments using novel materials starting from wafers (diamond) or crystals (scintillators) to final products that detect photons or charged particles to serve basic research in nuclear physics, nuclear medicine and societal applications such as food industry, energy demands, health sector and public security.  Monte-Carlo simulations are used that link to a variety of industrial applications.