The Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2011-12 DNP Thesis Prize is Stephan Ettenauer. Dr. Ettenauer was awarded his Ph.D. by the University of British Columbia in 2012 for the work “First Mass Measurements of Highly Charged, Short-lived Nuclides in a Penning Trap and the Mass of 74Rb”. In this work, Penning trap mass measurements of short-lived nuclides have been performed for the first time with highly-charged ions, using the TITAN facility. The objective was to determine precisely Vud of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa quark mixing matrix using superallowed 0+ → 0+ nuclear β-decays. Dr. Ettenauer was actively involved in the planning and preparation of measurements, and demonstrated leadership and innovation during the experiments.
Dr. Ettenauer’s work was carried out within the TITAN collaboration at TRIUMF and was supervised by Prof. Jens Dilling (TRIUMF/UBC).
Dr. Ettenauer shall receive a cash award of $1000 from the DNP and will be invited to give a talk at the Winter Nuclear & Particle Physics Conference in February 2013 in Banff, Alberta. The travel expenses for this will be generously covered by TRIUMF. A two page summary of Dr. Ettenauer’s thesis work will appear in a later issue of Physics in Canada.
This prize was set up in 2005 by the DNP, to be awarded in Experimental or Theoretical Nuclear Physics to any student receiving their Ph.D. degree from a Canadian University in the current or prior calendar year. The selection for the 2011-12 Prize was adjudicated by a committee consisting of Zisis Papandreou (Professor and DNP Chair Elect, Experimental Nuclear Physics, University of Regina), Sonia Bacca (Research Scientist, Theoretical Nuclear Physics, TRIUMF) and Adam Garnsworthy (Research Scientist, Nuclear Structure, TRIUMF). Five theses were nominated, representing a broad variety of topics in experimental and theoretical nuclear physics. All of the theses were strong and the competition was very close. We would like to thank all of the nominees and the people who wrote letters of support for their participation in this year’s competition.