Karl van Bibber
Title
Professor and Department Co-Chair
Department
Dept of Nuclear Engineering
Faculty URL
Research Group
Phone
(510) 642-3477
Fax
(510) 643-9685
Research Expertise and Interest
experimental nuclear physics, Particle Astrophysics, Accelerator Technology and Neutron Sources
Research Description
With Prof. Lee Bernstein, Karl van Bibber leads the PANDA research group (Plasmas, Accelerators, Neutrons, Dark matter & Axions) in the Nuclear Engineering Department. Primary current research efforts are the HAYSTAC experiment (Haloscope At Yale Sensitive to Axion CDM), and the development and scientific exploitation of the High Flux Neutron Generator, a DD-plasma based source, and High Energy Density Nuclear Physics at the LLNL National Ignition Facility.
In the News
February 10, 2021
Researchers harness quantum weirdness to speed the search for dark matter
For more than a century, cosmologists have noted mysterious anomalies in the swirls of stars and galaxies in our universe: The motions of these celestial objects, which should be governed solely by the gravity of the other objects around them, instead seem to be dictated by the gravitational pull of matter that simply isn’t there — or, at least, cannot yet be observed.
September 11, 2019
Students make neutrons dance beneath Berkeley campus
In an underground vault enclosed by six-foot concrete walls and accessed by a rolling, 25-ton concrete-and-steel door, University of California, Berkeley, students are making neutrons dance to a new tune: one better suited to producing isotopes required for geological dating, police forensics, hospital diagnosis and treatment.
April 9, 2018
Start of most sensitive search yet for dark matter axion
Thanks to low-noise superconducting quantum amplifiers invented at UC Berkeley, physicists are now embarking on the most sensitive search yet for axions, one of today’s top candidates for dark matter.