Applying physics to environments both human and stellar

Jerry Hinnefeld, a professor of physics at IU South Bend, was on the radiology research faculty at the University of Cincinnati three years after that initial exposure at Chernobyl, a time when the former Soviet Union was beginning to allow more emigration, specifically of their Jewish citizens. Because a contingent of emigrants had settled in the city, UC began conducting radiobiological evaluations of these former residents of Kiev, Mozyr, Gomel and Bobrujsk.

“My role was to analyze the data from the whole-body counts in order to determine the amount of cesium-137 in their bodies,” said Hinnefeld.

Cesium-137 is a relatively long-lived product of fission, which was released into the environment at Chernobyl. The “whole-body counts” refer to measurements of radioactivity emitted by radionuclides in the body. Findings from the research study were published in 1997 in the International Journal of Radiation Biology.

Since arriving at the South Bend campus in 1991, Hinnefeld’s research has centered on studies of nuclear reactions induced by radioactive beams and nuclear reactions with astrophysical implications. That work will affect how solar neutrinos are measured and for measuring various quantities that are needed to understand in detail how heavier elements are produced in explosive stellar environments, such as novae and supernovae.

A recent three-year grant of $92,000 from the National Science Foundation to Hinnefeld will allow continued research that has included additional work at the Université Catholic de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, where Hinnefeld spent his sabbatical in 1998.

For more on Hinnefeld’s work, go to this IU Research and Creative Activity archival Web site:

http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v23n2/p18.html