Nishina School 2019

Thoughts and Comments from the Participants

Meng Chit Ho

The RIKEN Summer School was a fascinating experience. I was glad to have participated the two week programme alongside with HKU mates and students from different universities and backgrounds, especially when this year it accommodates the most participants (22) from existing and new partnering institutes. The learning and teaching were conducted under well suited schedules, venues and atmosphere. The hospitality of academic staffs and researchers in RIKEN also greatly assisted our learning of new nuclear physic s, experimental techniques, and equipment managements. There were chances that we can visit the top notch RIBF accelerator on site, which broadened our knowledge on experimental nuclear physics. The hand on opportunity in performing experiment in the secon d week was an invaluable experience. It transcends knowledge from lectures to reality and the collaboration between newly met friends was amazing. Being able to learn some new collision and accelerator physics was one of the best take aways from this progr amme.

We also enjoyed the Japanese food a lot. The RIKEN facilities provided great food and environment that were not common in Hong Kong. We tried a lot of dishes off campus and was very much satisfied. Nevertheless, exploring Japan during weekend was e xtraordinarily memorable and enriching; I thoroughly appreciated every bits of moment in Japan and RIKEN and I am particularly grateful for the faculty’s supportiveness alongside.

Sau Hei Wong

After this RIKEN summer school, I learned a lot of nuclear physics knowledge, which are not covered at the university courses. The main aim of this summer school is how to find out the total cross section in the real experiment.

In the university course, we only did the theoretically calculation. A lot of things were missed in the calculation. Although some of them were reminded in the lecture, most of them were not found out until we understood the situation of experiment. Such as, the aluminium film will block the proton beam, the energy of beam will be decrease w ith the thickness of target.

However, the tutors had a great preparation. They gave us a lot of information and paper about the aluminium blocking and energy loss in target. If this experiment was doing by myself, I must be lost.

Finally, the result is not good as I thought. But I learned a lot of thing. Beside the nuclear physics knowledge and experiment skills, I also made some new friends and communication skills. I hope this summer school can still hold in the coming years. It is a great experience in experiment and life.

Chan Heo

Participating in Nishina School at RIKEN was a great privilege for me. Being in an institute where Nihonium was discovered, learning from pioneering nuclear physicists and seeing some of the most advanced accelerators with my own eyes were truly inspiring for me as a physics student.

Each member of my group consisted of students who came from different universities and countries. My group was responsible for ¹²C(p,γ)¹³N experiment with proton beam energy of 2 MeV using the activation method . We spent our first week at RIKEN to establish the foundation for our experiment. The researchers at RIKEN taught us RIKEN ’s history and facilities, the significance of the experiment and other knowledge needed for the experiment. In the second week, we conducted the experiments together, analyzed our data and presented our findings to the researchers and other participants.

The experiment was not something I or my groupmates was familiar with, and we were expected to figure out a lot of things for ourselves. The overall experience was very challenging, stimulating, and in the end, rewarding for me. I believe that interacting with physics students from other universities and sharing different ideas and thought processes will prove to be a highly valuable experience for me in the future.

Pak Yi Li

During the two week period of the Riken summer school, we have got a chance to learn not only from lectures but also from doing a real experiment, mostly by ourselves. It is unlike what we usually do in HKU, where we can get a detailed guideline from the lab manual. In Riken, we were provided only the equipment, set up and ready for the experiment, and a few pieces of data from previous experiments. We needed to have a thorough understanding of the experiment, including the aim, the methodology and the set up, to piece together the given information, collect the experimental data within an assigned period of time, and analyze the result and the sources of error. It is a new challenge for me, and I have learnt a lot during these two weeks. One of the most important lessons to me is that, this experience illustrated the importance of teamwork and the ability to communicate and cooperate in doing an experiment. In HKU, we usually work alone in completing an experiment, or at most, work in pair. However, as the experiment in, such as particle physics or nuclear physics, gets larger and larger, team play becomes a necessary condition. So, it is nice to get a taste of working in groups to finish an experiment. It is even better, as the groups consisted of people from different universities and with various strengths, so that we can learn from each other.

All in all, I have learnt a lot from this summer school, both in terms of concrete knowledge and in terms of doing experime nts in real life. The two weeks in Riken definitely worth my while, and I am grateful for having this chance to join the summer school.

Ryan Wai-Yen Yeung

It was my honor to join the Nishina School held in RIKEN this year. Taking a course in nuclear physics the semester before has raised my interest in nuclear physics considerably, and I was fortunate enough to be chosen to participate as a representative of HKU.

Though it was quite hectic having to prepare a presentation introducing ourselves and HKU for the first day, when most of us only arrived on the campus at 10 pm the night before, the two weeks at RIKEN’s Wako campus just outside Tokyo was an amazing experience. The whole path from the train station to the campus’ west gate was a tribute to their achievement of being the first to make element 113, nihonium, with tiles counting up from hydrogen at the station to nihonium at the campus gate. It was also helpful in preventing me from getting lost.

In the first week alone, we had the opportunity to visit a vast underground facility with a cyclotron capable of accelerating nuclei to 0.7 of light speed, where nihonium was first made, as well as attend lectures by world class physicists from RIKEN, Seoul National Un iversity, and Peking University. During the second week, we conducted a nuclear physics experiment with the Pelletron, a smaller and less powerful accelerator which was better suited for the lower energies required for our experiments. I was part of the gr oup that measured the gamma rays emitted by the formation of a helium 4 nucleus and a beryllium 7 nucleus from the reaction between a proton with 1 MeV of kinetic energy, and a boron 10 nucleus. After the experiment was completed, we had to prepare a prese ntation on our experiment as well. I had no prior experience in presenting an experiment. But thankfully the staff and my teammates were very helpful in this regard, and the presentation went smoothly.

The Nishina School was a fun and enriching experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in nuclear physics or physics research.