Béatriz Jurado-Apruzzese honored with CNRS Silver Medal and the Joliot-Curie Prize
03.12.2025 |
This news is based on a press release of CNRS
Professor Béatriz Jurado-Apruzzese, a researcher at the Laboratoire de physique des 2 Infinis de Bordeaux (LP2I Bordeaux), France, was recently honored with two prestigious awards. She received the 2025 Silver Medal of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and also the prestigious Joliot-Curie Prize 2024 of the French Physical Society (Société française de physique).
The ERC Advanced Grant recipient has developed an innovative technique that allows reactions in a storage ring to be studied using the method known as inverse kinematics. This has enabled her to carry out measurements at the experimental storage ring ESR of GSI/FAIR that were not previously possible.
“By firing the heavy nucleus onto a light target and not vice versa, one circumvents the impossibility of producing targets made of very unstable nuclei,” Jurado-Apruzzese explains the underlying principle of the method. The researcher’s work is closely linked to GSI/FAIR: She completed her PhD thesis at GSI/FAIR and visited in 2018 as an EMMI professor. In 2022, in a first experiment at the ESR with the new method, her research team measured the probability for an excited lead-208 nucleus to emit a neutron as a function of its excitation energy with 100 percent efficiency. In 2024, simultaneous measurements of the probability of all decay modes of uranium including fission as well as the emission of up to three neutrons were carried out for the first time.
In future experiments, Jurado-Apruzzese plans to use the method to study particularly unstable exotic nuclei that can only be investigated in detail with the new technique. This promises new insights in astrophysics, for example in the field of the synthesis of heavy elements in stars, whose fundamental mechanisms are still poorly understood.
The CNRS Silver Medal is one of the most prestigious scientific awards in France. It is awarded annually to researchers whose work makes an outstanding contribution to the development of their field — often in recognition of internationally visible, innovative research. With this medal, the CNRS honors individuals who, through their scientific excellence and creative work, contribute significantly to the advancement of research. The Joliot-Curie Prize of the Société française de physique rewards outstanding work in the field of nuclear physics in even-numbered years and fields and particle physics in odd-numbered years. (CP)
