Miguel Arratia, Assistant Professor of Physics at the UC Riverside College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS), conceives and designs detectors for experiments for the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) in Upton, NY, which was developed to uncover the mysteries that bind the atomic nucleus together. The U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Science Advisory Committee has named the construction of the EIC one of its top priorities in nuclear physics in the U.S.
In addition to his team of five undergraduate students, four graduate students and two post-doctoral fellows, Professor Arratia also works with thousands of people all over the world. “What I do in my work is highly collaborative…it’s a network, and in a sense, we are all working as a big team,” he says. “We want to have a big group working on this…it’s really a necessity. The projects are so huge in scope and span decades, so you can’t just have a handful of institutes running them.”
Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the EIC would be built over the next decade at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton at an estimated cost of $1.6-2.6 billion. The EIC will figure prominently in Professor Arratia’s lecture Quantum Tomography: Mapping the inner world of the atomic nucleus with a new type of particle collider, which he will deliver on March 4th as part of CNAS’ Science Lecture Series.
“I will discuss our efforts to map the structure of the atomic nucleus through quantum tomography, which is akin to taking a 3D scan of a quantum particle measured from different angles,” he says. “The EIC is a big achievement for nuclear physics in the U.S. and the world, and will open up new ways to peer into the structure of the atomic nucleus like we have never done before.”
According to Professor Arratia, timing is everything. “When I joined UCR, it was a very special time in the chronology of the project,” he says. “It was during the design phase of the first experiments when I came to UCR, around 2020. It was a happy coincidence, the pandemic notwithstanding.”
Before landing at UCR, Professor Arratia, who grew up in Chile and got his undergraduate degree at Valparaiso, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and was a post-doctoral fellow at UC Berkeley. But for all his academic citations – including an Early Career Research Program Award from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2024 – a career in science was never a sure thing for him, at least not early on.
“I did not know any scientists, either in my family or anywhere else,” Professor Arratia says. “My father is a first-generation student, and the only one of his 11 siblings to attend college. Being a scientist was completely outside the realm of possibilities I considered until I was about 20 years old and in college, where I fell in love with physics.
“Because of this,” he continues, “I am very sympathetic with UCR’s first-generation students. I try to help them in any way I can, and make it a priority for my research group to support and engage undergraduate students in our projects.”
The $875,000 Early Career Research Award will be distributed in increments over five years, and will contribute to understanding how quarks and gluons form the atomic nucleus. Professor Arratia was one of 91 early career scientists from across the country to win funding last year.
For Professor Arratia, the turning point came from his interest in mathematics, an all-consuming passion back in Chile.
“I didn’t know about physics or astronomy until very late,” he says. “I was studying engineering and was supposed to be an engineer…that was the closest practical thing to related to math. But when I was in college, I learned about physics, astronomy and mathematics, and how they all get together.”
Professor Arratia says that he became “hooked” on physics when a professor showed him the beauty inherent in physics.
“Physics in high school is very simplified and not really beautiful, but once you get into more advanced mathematics, you can actually see the beauty of physics,” he says. “I remember that vividly…it was a math class that allowed me to see the special relativity – Einstein’s theory -- from a mathematical point of view. After that, there was no turning back.”
For all the forward-thinking and collaborative building-block mentality that Professor Arratia espouses, he says that every so often he can’t help but go back to a book that made a strong impression on him as an undergraduate back in Chile.
“In Letters to a Young Scientist, evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson gives advice that has stuck with me throughout the years,” Professor Arratia says. “In the book, Wilson analogizes that in war, soldiers were told that they should march to the sound of the guns. But in science, Wilson says it’s the complete opposite…try to do things that no one else is doing and get away from the sound and noise.”
“I try to follow that and it’s not always easy,” he continues. “But I think Wilson is right on with that statement. That’s when progress is made – when you’re thinking outside the box and not following the crowd along well-worn avenues.”
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