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Kategori: eksperiment

Eksperiment

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Data, data, and more data
Today I've spent time at the EXFOR database - hate it and sort of love it at the same time... 
So far it's the "worst" database I've visited, but so far it has also given me what I've needed *mixedfeelings*.
Then I've worked on my strength function plot, which is starting to look like something now. Tomorrow I hope to tweak it so that it will be ready for my next article 😀  #phdlife

Here are some details of today's plot:

//this may sound silly; but I was so proud of my self when I managed to make these labels (no, I do not love ROOT - yet) 😛

//shapes <3 
//this has to be fixed - the slope of the square points needs to be more in line with the two sets of triangles (task of tomorrow!)

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Pure joy!

Good morning everyone <3 Day two of this California/Berkeley trip has just started, and so far I'm very happy 🙂
Yesterday I "finished" the first part of the uranium analysis (which is to find the nuclear level density of uranium-234) - that I wrote about in my last blog post - and started the second part of the analysis (which is to find the gamma ray strength function of uranium-234). The picture above show the very first result of my gamma ray strength data (the squares - both black and white) plotted together with different data from the big nuclear data bases. When I wrote "plot" and this appeared I actually screamed with excitement and joy, and hugged Cecilie, who was sitting next to me and helping me, because it looks soooo pretty - even before I've started to "tweak" my data to fit with the ones from the data bases (the ones on the right side of the plot - the little triangles). 
The goal of this trip is btw to put these two properties of the nucleus (the nuclear level denisty and the gamma ray strength function) into simulations of different reactors (that uses thorium based fuel) and see if they affect the results of the simulations - when we compare to standard simulations where we don't do anything about these nuclear properties 🙂 *excited*
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Below are a couple of pictures from yesterday and today. The first one, of Anders, is probably more like what you would imagine when I say "pure joy"...;) He has just rented a nice car and is on his way to Palo Alto as we speak - he is also excited. (Actually kind of wish i could go with him, but I'm on my way to the lab now, with Cecilie - and that will of course also be fun...but in a quite different way 😛 )

beautiful morning at Berkeley campus
cutest squirrel at Berkeley campus

Cecilie and Darren discussion something important (I'm guessing 😉 ) at Jupiter, where we had dinner yesterday - and the day before, when we'd just arrived

Jupiter <3

Jupiter <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til OSCAR #happy
So we just finished our group meeting, and let me just say YEAY!!!! The group meeting today was really nothing else but drinking Cava and eating (a very rich) chocolate cake (all meetings should be like this 😉 )...
The reason? Today it's official: the Norwegian Research Council has approved our application for new detectors at the Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory ❤️ We are getting 21 million NOK for replacing all of our old sodium iodide detectors (CACTUS - may you rest in peace), with new lanthanide bromide detectors (OSCAR - we welcome you!).
Read more about here (we are the "NEW GENERATION SCINTILLATOR DETECTORS FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN NORWAY")
This is soooo exciting - experiments in Oslo will be better in aboslutely every way! 

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Supervision
Today I spent three hours with Supervisor-Sunniva - I always feel great after supervision from her, like I understand everything (ok, maybe not everything, but I think I understand more every time), and now I have a list of stuff to fix and check before we continue tomorrow 🙂 (I should, of course, have done the things today, after I left Sunniva, but somehow there wasn't any time...don't think I will ever understand why that happens.)

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Berkeley baby!
It's official: Cecilie (my fantastic and talented colleague) and I are going to Berkeley, one week in August!!!
It is of course for working (but who doesn't want to go to Berekely and work there, huh?!?), so the trip basically takes away (big parts of) my summer vacation, since I have to do a lot of preparations before we go - or else I have really no reason to go, since it wont help to go there unless I have my results that I need to get more results 😛 On the other hand, this trip will (hopefully) enable me to write my third paper, and if so, I'll be a GIANT  LEAP (like, really) closer to my degree, so I think losing a summer vacation will definitely be worth it! 
I have some plans for that third paper (article) that I'm not yet ready to share with you - but I'll do it later, when I know more about how it will go...;)

We're flying with Norwegian, directly from Oslo to Oakland (which is even closer to Berkeley that San Francisco - where we normally fly to), and it will be so nice not to change flights somewhere. Also I'm excited about flying Norwegian on such a long-distance flight - wonder how it will be...:)


Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Collapse
I'm dead tired right now... After I held my talk yesterday (outfit above; trying to "be me" but just enough "conservative" at the same time) I felt like I just collapsed (I managed to take part in the conference dinner, luckily 😛 ), and this morning I just slept through my alarm - which never happens, except maybe if my body is trying to tell me a needed a couple of extra hours sleep. I've been really stressed about the talk yesterday, and the (preliminary) results that I showed was finished on Wednesday afternoon. Being so "last minute" didn't exactly feel great, and that was probably one reason why I was so nervous.
It has been a great week though; and even if I really  just want to go home now, and go to sleep, I'm going out with all my great nuclear physicist colleagues from all over the world <3
Wishing everyone a great Friday and a great (long) weekend!
(from my snap chat story - follow me at sunnivarose ;))
- in action -

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Getting there…
My talk is tomorrow.
It's not finished yet.
I feel nervous, but also excited...
Nervous, because I wish I had come further than I have, and that I understood "everything". Excited, because I actually do have results, and they are nice, and they make sense. They make me believe that I will actually do this; not just the talk tomorrow, but I will finish my next paper (article/publication) in June (or maybe July - but hoping for June). After that I will start directly to analyse the second part of the uranium experiment, and hopefully it will be much "easier" since I have already done it once 😉 
I'm in my bed right now, working on the presentation for tomorrow, which is around 11. Think I will work for around 30 more minutes, and then go to sleep. I'd rather get up at 5 tomorrow morning, and finish it then.
Wish me luck <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Happy face
I'm so relieved right now...! It turns out I've (probably) done a good job when I've calibrated my gamma detectors - and now I'm actually getting real results.
It's preliminary, of course, but it's there - something I can actually show in my talk at the conference here in Oslo next week (that I've been so nervous and stressed about :/ ).
There is still tons of work to do, but I must admit I'm really happy and motivated for everything right now; nothing can stop me, and the rest of 2015 will be about analyzing data and writing papers...<3<3<3
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Here are some happy pictures from yesterday (spending a day off with Alexandra) and todays celebration of 17th of May in kindergarden - just love Biørneblæs, the student marching band!

Happy weekend and 17th of May (for those of my readers that celebrate such things) and everything!
TGIF <3

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Publisert 3 kommentarer til Finished…!

...in several ways...

Finished with the calibration of the gamma detectors (happyhappyhappy 🙂 ), but now I'm also "finished" mentally :/
Started this day by oversleeping (not the best start of a looong day), then I gave a talk about nuclear power and radiation at the biology department, and after that I've been working at Gry's office (she helps me A LOT <3) and my own office.
me, ready (sort of) for talking to the biology students - wearing one of my favourite dresses from HM, and of course heels  
After spending a couple of hours fine tuning my gamma detector calibration, I made this plot - showing gamma radiation from oxygen and beryllium. It looks like the peeks are only 20-30 kilo electronvolts "off", and I think that's ok (I'll ask someone with much more experience than me tomorrof, of course!).
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So now I've started to look at time correction stuff - having "fun" with staring at these different graphs. If they look the same, I can tell you they're not, but it's definitely not easy to see which one is "best". At least not for me...
After a good night's sleep it will probably be clearer when I can discuss this with someone (Supervisor Sunniva? 😉 )  tomorrow - meaning; I've been at the University for 12 hours, and now it's time to go home <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Today…
...has been about "programming", or, not really programming, but trying to understand some code. I made some progress, and one of my main "results" from this day is shown below - phdlife... (frustration is a key word here, but at least i didn´t move backwards) <3
Speaking of phdlife; I have a snapchat account where I share my phdlife/behindthescenes moments - feel free to follow @sunnivarose (which is also my name on Instagram and Twitter). I put snaps on my story several times a day; even if I´m very busy and deep into my reading/understanding code/making talks/writing thesis, and don´t really have time to be very active here on the blog, I´m still sharing stuff there 😉