Feature Channels: Nuclear Physics

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Nuclear power is considered one of the ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but how to deal with nuclear waste products is among the issues surrounding it.

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In creating five new isotopes, an international research team working at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, at Michigan State University has brought the stars closer to Earth.

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A proton’s core consists of three valence quarks, but they contribute only a small fraction of the proton's mass. Most of the mass emerges from intricate quark dynamics and is primarily governed by the strong force mediated by gluons.

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White blood cells known as neutrophils feature a nucleus that is structured strikingly different than most nuclei. These unique shapes permit neutrophils to travel all over the body to combat invading pathogens.

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Scientists have new evidence that gluons have a positive spin polarization, meaning the spins of individual gluons are aligned in the same direction as the spin of the proton they are in.

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People often think of radiation as the basis for carbon-free nuclear power. But radiation can also save lives.

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Fixed numbers of protons and neutrons can rearrange themselves within a nucleus. The gamma ray transitions from this reshuffling connect excited quantum energy levels, and the pattern in these connections provide a unique “fingerprint” for each isotope.

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Neutrons, known for their ability to penetrate materials deeply, are key in nondestructive material analysis. Techniques like Neutron Resonance Analysis (NRA) and its variant, Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis (NRTA), use these properties to identify elements and isotopes inside materials without damaging them.

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Ten projects aimed at advancing next-generation science and technology have been awarded funding by Jefferson Lab for fiscal year 2024.

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Nuclear facilities, particularly during decommissioning, face significant challenges due to hazardous materials and environments. Traditional methods often rely heavily on human intervention, posing risks and inefficiencies.

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Sal Rodriguez, a nuclear engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, is forging a rocket revolution with the help of the University of New Mexico and student Graham Monroe.

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Around one million individuals worldwide become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, each year.

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For the first time in two decades, Idaho National Laboratory, the nation’s nuclear energy laboratory, has received a shipment of used next-generation light water reactor fuel from a commercial nuclear power plant to support research and testing.

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Magnetic plasma confinement in tokamaks is subject to effects from instabilities in the hot plasma.

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New research conducted by nuclear physicists at Jefferson Lab is using a method that connects theories of gravitation to interactions among the smallest particles of matter.

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Conducting neutron scattering experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL and Corning scientists discovered that as the number of smaller, less-stable atomic rings in a glass increases, the instability, or liquid fragility, of the glass also increases.

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Sometimes a single atomic nucleus can take many shapes, shifting between spherical and deformed states.

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Studies of neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) could shed light on the mass of neutrinos and whether they exist as both matter and antimatter.