Background

Brenden Longfellow's research interests are in nuclear structure, nuclear reactions, nuclear astrophysics, and precision measurements using techniques including γ-ray spectroscopy, β-decay spectroscopy, fast timing, and ion trapping. As a graduate student at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University, Brenden utilized in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy to study the structure of exotic nuclei both near the proton dripline in the sd shell and into the N=28 island of inversion on the neutron-rich side of the nuclear chart. He joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as a postdoctoral researcher in 2020 and became a staff scientist in 2023. He has worked on precision measurements using trapped ions, analyzing ⁸B β decay data taken using the Beta-decay Paul Trap at Argonne National Laboratory to put limits on physics beyond the standard model and to precisely determine the neutrino energy spectrum, an important input for solar neutrino astrophysics. In addition, he has led an LLNL project using the state-of-the-art γ-ray detector array GRETINA at both Argonne National Laboratory and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Ph.D., Physics, Michigan State University, 2020

M.S., Physics, Michigan State University, 2017

B.S., Physics and Mathematics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015

B. Longfellow, A. T. Gallant, T. Y. Hirsh, M. T. Burkey, G. Savard, N. D. Scielzo, L. Varriano, M. Brodeur, D. P. Burdette, J. A. Clark, D. Lascar, P. Mueller, D. Ray, K. S. Sharma, A. A. Valverde, G. L. Wilson, and X. L. Yan, "Determination of the ⁸B neutrino energy spectrum using trapped ions", Phys. Rev. C 107, L032801 (2023)

B. Longfellow, A. Gade, D. Bazin, P. C. Bender, M. Bowry, B. A. Brown, B. Elman, E. Lunderberg, D. Rhodes, M. Spieker, D. Weisshaar, and S. J. Williams, "Relative population of states in ²¹Mg from few-nucleon removal reactions", Phys. Rev. C 107, 014620 (2023)

B. Longfellow, D. Weisshaar, A. Gade, B. A. Brown, D. Bazin, K. W. Brown, B. Elman, J. Pereira, D. Rhodes, and M. Spieker, "Quadrupole collectivity in the neutron-rich sulfur isotopes ^38,40,42,44S", Phys. Rev. C 103, 054309 (2021)

B. Longfellow, D. Weisshaar, A. Gade, B. A. Brown, D. Bazin, K. W. Brown, B. Elman, J. Pereira, D. Rhodes, and M. Spieker, "Shape Changes in the N=28 Island of Inversion: Collective Structures Built on Configuration-Coexisting States in ⁴³S", Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 232501 (2020)

B. Longfellow, A. Gade, J. A. Tostevin, E. C. Simpson, B. A. Brown, A. Magilligan, D. Bazin, P. C. Bender, M. Bowry, B. Elman, E. Lunderberg, D. Rhodes, M. Spieker, D. Weisshaar, and S. J. Williams, "Two-neutron knockout as a probe of the composition of states in ²²Mg, ²³Al and ²⁴Si", Phys. Rev. C 101, 031303(R) (2020)

B. Longfellow, A. Gade, B. A. Brown, D. Bazin, P. C. Bender, M. Bowry, P. D. Cottle, B. Elman, E. Lunderberg, A. Magilligan, M. Spieker, D. Weisshaar, and S. J. Williams, "Spectroscopy and lifetime measurements near the proton drip line: ^26,27,28P", Phys. Rev. C 99, 064330 (2019)

B. Longfellow, P. C. Bender, J. Belarge, A. Gade, and D. Weisshaar, "Commissioning of the LaBr3(Ce) detector array at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory", Nuclear Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 916, 141 (2019)

B. Longfellow, A. Gade, B. A. Brown, W. A. Richter, D. Bazin, P. C. Bender, M. Bowry, B. Elman, E. Lunderberg, D. Weisshaar, and S. J. Williams, "Measurement of key resonances for the ²⁴Al(p,γ)²⁵Si reaction rate using in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy", Phys. Rev. C 97, 054307 (2018)

• Nuclear Science and Security Consortium Graduate Fellowship
• Sherwood K. Haynes Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University, 2020
• Michigan State University College of Natural Science Research Enhancement Award, 2019
• First Place Poster at Nuclear Structure Conference, 2018