Undergraduate research · Westmont College
Finding patterns in nuclear physics.
Tiny signals can tell a larger story. Faith’s undergraduate research involved analyzing gamma-ray data to help interpret the structure of gallium-70.
Listening to the evidence
An excited nucleus can release energy as gamma rays. By studying the energies of those rays and which signals appear together, researchers build a picture of the nucleus’s energy levels.
Faith’s undergraduate work at Westmont College involved filtering gamma-ray spectroscopy data and comparing patterns with earlier scientific literature. Careful selection helped distinguish useful signals from background and other activity.
Faith’s contribution
Working with R. A. Haring-Kaye, Faith contributed to the analysis and interpretation of the gallium-70 data. She is listed as the second author of Onset of band structure in ⁷⁰Ga, published in Physical Review C in May 2022.
Her work combined detailed signal analysis with the larger task of interpreting what the evidence could say about nuclear structure.
What the team found
The study added 16 transitions to the known gallium-70 energy-level scheme and identified evidence for the onset of a positive-parity band structure. These are results of the collaborative study, combining experimental observations with theoretical calculations.
The everyday skill underneath the technical work is a familiar one: separate a pattern from the noise, compare it with what is already known, and be precise about what the evidence supports.
Peer-reviewed publication
Read the research
R. A. Haring-Kaye, F. Palombi, et al. “Onset of band structure in ⁷⁰Ga.” Physical Review C 105, 054307 (2022).
View the published paperDOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.105.054307