Feature Channels: Nuclear Physics

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Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, visited DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Jan. 27 to celebrate the fast-approaching debut of a state-of-the-art particle detector known as sPHENIX. The house-sized, 1000-ton detector is slated to begin collecting data at Brookhaven Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility for nuclear physics research, this spring.

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A regional partnership that aims to attract nuclear energy-related firms to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has been recognized with a state and local economic development award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium.

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IU physicist Adam Szczepaniak is leading a project exploring the physics of exotic hadrons — a largely unexplored group of subatomic particles — under a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Mexican-born physicist Carlos Hernandez-Garcia has been honored by the Mexican Community of Particle Accelerators with an inaugural award for outstanding contributions to Mexico’s particle accelerator community. The award was established and has been named in his honor.

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Tungsten heavy alloys show promise for nuclear fusion energy development, according to new research conducted at PNNL.

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Nine postdoctoral appointees were recognized with Postdoctoral Performance Awards.

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Given the choice of three different “spin” orientations, certain particles emerging from collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), an atom smasher at Brookhaven National Laboratory, appear to have a preference. Recent results reveal a preference in global spin alignment of particles called phi mesons.

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Below are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Space and Astronomy channel on Newswise, a free source for journalists.

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The word “exotic” may not spark thoughts of uranium, but Tyler Spano’s investigations of exotic phases of uranium are bringing new knowledge to the nuclear nonproliferation industry. Spano, a nuclear security scientist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and her colleagues examined four previously understudied phases of uranium oxide: beta (β-), delta (δ-), epsilon UO3 (ε-UO3) and beta U3O8 (β-U3O8).

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At ITER – the world’s largest experimental fusion reactor, currently under construction in France through international cooperation – the abrupt termination of magnetic confinement of a high temperature plasma through a so-called “disruption” poses a major open issue.

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Argonne researchers receive award for work securing America’s stockpile.

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Nuclear physicists have found a new way to use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory—to see the shape and details inside atomic nuclei. The method relies on particles of light that surround gold ions as they speed around the collider and a new type of quantum entanglement that’s never been seen before.

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New PNNL research makes it easier to differentiate between chemical and nuclear explosions.

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Physicists, engineers, and technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are rounding out the year with key developments to a house-sized particle detector that will begin capturing collision snapshots for the first time next spring. The state-of-the-art, three-story, 1,000-ton detector—known as sPHENIX—will precisely track particles streaming from collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research.

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Argonne researchers put their stamp on 2022 with accomplishments as varied as quantum science, wearable medical sensors, and climate change resilience and recovery.

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The recent achievement of fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) marks a monumental scientific step in controlling the physics involved in the quest for future limitless clean energy.

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Researchers are combining experimental, theoretical, and observational data on neutron stars to constrain the equation of state (EOS) and to glean the composition of their interiors. Different techniques probe the EOS at different densities, thereby creating a “density ladder” that aims to connect the various rungs. The findings indicate a possible phase transition in the interior of neutron stars.

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The proton is the only composite building block of matter that is stable in nature, making its properties key to understanding the formation of matter. A team of physicists measured the proton’s electric polarizability, which characterizes the proton’s susceptibility to deformation, or its “stretchability,” in the presence of a photon’s electromagnetic field. The results reveal a puzzling new structure – a bump in the polarizability that nuclear theory cannot explain.

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Scientists in the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have published a comprehensive analysis aimed at determining which factors most influence fluctuations in the flow of particles from heavy ion collisions. The results will help scientists zero in on key properties of a unique form of matter that mimics the early universe.

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Scientists at Baltic Federal University have suggested evaluating concentration and chemical composition of drugs by means of vibrational spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance instead of conventional complex approaches

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When the nuclei of atoms are about to collide in an experiment, their centers never perfectly align along the direction of relative motion, leading to complex collisions. A deblurring algorithm from optics can help nuclear physicists examine the pattern of emissions from these collisions as if the initial nuclear centers were under tight control.

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In a recent study, Argonne National Laboratory researchers showed how artificial intelligence could help pinpoint the right types of molten salts for nuclear reactors.

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A new way to study quarks, one of the building blocks of the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei, is proposed.

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A new computational analysis by theorists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Wayne State University supports the idea that photons (a.k.a. particles of light) colliding with heavy ions can create a fluid of "strongly interacting" particles. In a new paper they show that calculations describing such a system match up with data collected by the ATLAS detector at Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

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Argonne scientists were awarded Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing projects in nuclear and high energy physics, and Earth system model development. They will partner with DOE national labs to connect experts and high performance computers.

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The University of Texas at El Paso in partnership with the University of New Mexico and the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will prepare the next generation of nuclear security enterprise talent to develop electronics for extreme environments through a five-year, $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Scientists at Brookhaven Lab will participate in a new Topical Theory Collaboration to explore the behavior of so-called 'heavy flavor' particles. These particles are made of quarks of the 'charm' and 'bottom' varieties. By understanding how these exotic particles form, evolve, and interact during powerful particle collisions, scientists will gain a deeper understanding of a unique form of matter that filled the early universe.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced funding for a new Topical Theory Collaboration to be led by DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory that will aid in the discovery and exploration of a saturated state of gluons. These aptly named particles carry the nuclear strong force, acting as the 'glue' that holds together quarks, the building blocks of all visible matter.

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Heavy ion collisions using gold nuclei found a phase of nuclear matter with freely moving quarks and gluons, the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). Scientists are aiming to establish if a critical point exists in the phase diagram of nuclear matter, where the QGP would coexist with a gas of protons, neutrons, and other particles. Research at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider indicates that if this critical point exists, it is between energies of 3 and 20 giga-electron volts.

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Scientists measuring the nucleus of calcium-48 to determine how its 20 protons and 28 neutrons are distributed inside its nucleus found that the protons and neutrons aren’t simply sprinkled throughout the nucleus. Instead, they form a neutron-rich “thin skin” around a core of evenly distributed protons and neutrons. This skin is thinner than many theoretical models predicted and not consistent with expectations based on recent observations of lead’s thick skin.

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Enrico Fermi’s Chicago Pile 1 experiment in 1942 launched an atomic age, an unrivaled national laboratory system, fleets of submarines, cancer treatments and the unending promise of clean nuclear energy. Argonne National Laboratory builds on its legacy.

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A research collaboration between Argonne and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill produced a paper that examines how the nucleus of nickel-64 reacts when exposed to energy.

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Quarks are distributed differently in free protons and neutrons versus those inside nuclei, something called “the EMC effect.” Scientists previously thought that the EMC effect treated the up and down quarks in protons and neutrons equally. New high-precision data from the MARATHON experiment indicates that the EMC effect may exert more influence on the distribution of down quarks compared to up quarks inside nuclei.

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Argonne’s Experimental Operations and Facilities (EOF) division works to enable a broad range of experiments at the laboratory.

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After an extensive international search, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has appointed Mark Jones as the new group leader of the lab’s Experimental Halls A and C. He began his tenure Nov. 1.

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Edge localized modes (ELMs) associated with plasma instabilities in tokamak fusion reactors can damage reactor walls, a challenge in the design of future fusion power plants. Scientists have now discovered that internal resistance of the plasma can cause additional instabilities that drive ELMs in the National Spherical Torus Experiment. This will help researchers mitigate and control ELMs in spherical tokamaks.

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A new study led by the Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab has measured how long it takes for several kinds of exotic nuclei to decay. The paper, published today in Physical Review Letters, marks the first experimental result from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

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Nuclear fusion has drawn more attention in the era of carbon neutrality because of no carbon dioxide production during power generation and no generation of high-level radioactive wastes.

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PNNL researchers use machine learning and data analytics to assist with detection of nuclear proliferation and nuclear material trafficking.

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory has named Luisella Lari as Project Manager for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC)—a one-of-a-kind nuclear physics research facility that will offer a closer look at the building blocks of matter—effective Oct. 3, 2022.

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Nuclear fission and fusion reactors use carbon and silicon in shielding, structural materials, fuel, and neutron moderators. Neutrons are the drivers of the nuclear energy production processes. This makes understanding how neutrons scatter from all reactor materials critical for nuclear plant design and other applications. In this research, scientists investigated the interaction of neutrons with silicon and carbon.

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A new precision measurement of the proton’s electric polarizability performed at Jefferson Lab has confirmed an unexplained bump in the data. The proton’s electric polarizability shows how susceptible the proton is to deformation, or stretching, in an electric field. Like size or charge, the electric polarizability is a fundamental property of proton structure. The data bump was widely thought to be a fluke when seen in earlier measurements, so this new, more precise measurement confirms the presence of the anomaly and signals that an unknown facet of the strong force may be at work. The research has just been published in the journal Nature.

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Three physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have been named Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS).

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Every day, researchers discover new details about the laws that govern the tiniest building blocks of the universe. These details not only increase scientific understanding of quantum physics, but they also hold the potential to unlock a host of technologies, from quantum computers to lasers to next-generation solar cells. But there’s one area that remains a mystery even in this most mysterious of sciences: the quantum mechanics of nuclear fuels.