The next meeting of the Programme Advisory Committee will take place on June 8, 2026.

The Agenda of the meeting is available here.

We would like to invite you to a seminar that will take place on Thursday, April 30 at 12:15 in room 111 of the Physics Building of the Warsaw University of Technology. 

During the seminar, Dr hab. Ernest Grodner from the  National Centre for Nuclear Research will give a talk entitled “Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in atomic nuclei. 2026-2027: a time of new research opportunities”.

The seminar will be held in English.

Abstract:

The term “chirality” is used in a wide range of phenomena in various fields of science. Generally, it means a possibility of a system or object to exist in two equivalent forms: left- or right-handed one. Chemical molecules – enantiomers- with mirror geometric form are a well known example. Chirality is often associated with the concept of helicity: in optics these are circularly polarized photons or in the theory of weak interactions the handedness of the weak current serves as an example. The link between the two opposite handedness is a geometric transformation: spatial inversion. Nuclear chirality, the subject of this lecture, is of a different nature. Here, the time reversal is the link between the right-handed and left-handed forms. Thus an existence of a specific dynamics, a kind of “clockwork mechanism,” instead of static geometry plays a key role here.

Initially, studies of nuclear chirality involved a few specific isotopes. A breakthrough came with the first experimental observation of the complete set of predicted chiral features in a nucleus [1,2], as a result of research work conducted 20 years ago in Warsaw. Then a new technique allowed the direct measurement of nuclear chirality using nuclear magnetic dipole moment as an observable [3]. This technique was also developed in Warsaw and today is considered an ultimate experimental test for nuclear chirality. Application of new experimental methods may bring another breakthrough thanks to cooperation between the National Center for Nuclear Research and the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Magnetic moments measurement of short-lived excited states are planned utilizing a kilo-Tesla magnetic field originating from atomic electronic shells.

[1] E. Grodner et al., “128Cs as the Best Example Revealing Chiral Symmetry Breaking”, Physical Review Letters 97, 172501 (2006)

[2] E. Grodner et al., “Partner bands of 126 Cs – first observation of chiral electromagnetic selection rules”, Physics Letters B703, 46(2011)

[3] E. Grodner et al., “First Measurement of the g Factor in the Chiral Band: The Case of the 128Cs, Isomeric State”, Physical Review Letters 120, 022502 (2018)

The Heavy Ion Laboratory participated in the first day of the 6th Polish‑British Science Forum, which this year was hosted by the University of Warsaw.

The Director of HIL, Paweł Napiorkowski, presented to the guests from the United Kingdom the accelerator facility operating at the University of Warsaw and its importance for the European Research Area. Particular attention was given to the Laboratory’s extensive international cooperation in nuclear physics research and applications, as well as the use of the Warsaw Cyclotron for training students and young researchers from Poland and abroad.

A brief visit of the Forum participants to the Laboratory allowed them not only to see the research infrastructure available at HIL, but also to meet the international research team led by Dr. Desislava Kalaydjieva from Canada and Dr. Marco Siciliano from the United States. The researchers were conducting measurements using the beam of the Warsaw Cyclotron at the time.

The Deputy Directors of HIL, Dr. Jarosław Choiński and Dr. hab. Krzysztof Kilian, presented the history and characteristics of the cyclotrons operating on the University of Warsaw’s Ochota Campus. Afterwards, the guests from the United Kingdom watched a short film showing the production of FDG — a radiopharmaceutical used in medical diagnostics — manufactured using one of the accelerators installed at the Heavy Ion Laboratory.

More information is available on the websites of the University of Warsaw and the Centre for Europe at UW.