The annual meeting of scientists conducting research at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and its pre-injector accelerator, the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS), was held virtually June 7-10, 2022. This gathering is a chance for researchers to share their science and hear the latest plans for their field.
In a pioneering partnership, Argonne, the DOE Packaging Certification Program, the University of Nevada, Reno, and other DOE national labs are helping to meet demand for new expertise in nuclear packaging by offering a novel graduate certificates program that trains future leaders in the field.
To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can “live” outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe.
Iowa State University's James Vary and an international team of nuclear physicists used supercomputers to theorize and predict that a four-neutron structure, a tetraneutron, could form for just billions of billionths of a second. Experiments in Japan have now confirmed the reality of a tetraneutron.
The international KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany recently reported a new upper limit on the mass of the neutrino. This limit—0.8 electronvolts (eV)—is the lowerst scientists have achieved. As the results are confirmed and refined, they will help scientists better understand the neutrino and its role in the evolution of the universe.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Andreas Kemp studies the interaction of intense, extremely short laser pulses with matter. This new field of research studies extreme nuclear physics reactions at rates far higher than those of current accelerator experiments.
Since the first hot Jupiter was discovered in 1995, astronomers have been trying to figure out how the searing-hot exoplanets formed and arrived in their extreme orbits. Johns Hopkins University astronomers have found a way to determine the relative age of hot Jupiters using new measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, which is tracking over a billion stars.
Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have revealed how certain particle-jets lose energy as they traverse the unique form of nuclear matter created in these collisions. The results should help them learn about key transport properties of this hot particle soup, known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP).
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the selection of 83 early career scientists from across the country to receive $110 million in funding for research covering a wide range of topics, from holography to particle accelerators. This year’s awardees represent 47 universities and 13 National Labs in 29 states. These awards are a part of the DOE’s long-standing efforts to develop the next generation of STEM leaders who will solidify America’s role as the driver of science and innovation around the world.
A new flagship facility for nuclear physics has opened, and scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have a hand in 10 of its first 34 experiments.
Two graduate students at Virginia universities who plan to conduct research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have just received grants toward their projects. They are among 80 graduate students representing 27 states selected to receive support through the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program’s 2021 Solicitation 2 cycle.
Theoretical and experimental physicists from around the world gathered last month at Quark Matter 2022 to discuss new developments in high energy heavy ion physics.
After running simulations on the world's most powerful supercomputer, an international team of researchers has developed a theory for the nuclear structure and origin of carbon-12, the stuff of life. The theory favors the production of carbon-12 in the cosmos.
Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, opened its doors to discovery with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on 2 May. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm and MSU President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., cut the ribbon to officially mark the start of FRIB’s scientific mission.
For nearly four decades, scientists have known that protons and neutrons cozily bundled up inside an atom’s nucleus are different from those roaming free in the cold emptiness of space. Now, for the first time, nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have shown that while both particles are altered by their residence inside a nucleus, they may be affected differently.
A commonly used radioisotope, technetium-99m, used in medical diagnoses regularly suffers from shortages due to being produced at aging nuclear reactors that often shut down for repairs.
Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and partner U.S. national laboratories will compare their Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment software framework to the safety assessment software of international peers at a late-April workshop.The Sandia-led Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment framework is a computer modeling system designed to answer critical safety assessment questions about future disposal options for spent nuclear fuel deep underground and the system of tunnels, containers and possible concrete-like barriers used to keep the radioactive material contained far from the surface and water sources, said Emily Stein, a Sandia manager overseeing the development of the framework.
Simerjeet Gill, James Dunlop, and Sanjaya Senanayake, three accomplished scientists from the U.S, Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, were selected as fellows for the 2021-2022 cohort of the Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program (OSELP). OSELP is a distinguished fellowship program that brings together exceptional leaders to explore the complexities, challenges, and opportunities facing the national laboratory system and the DOE.
Scientists are holding up a ‘mirror’ to protons and neutrons to learn more about the particles that build our visible universe. The MARATHON experiment, carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has accessed new details about these particles’ structures by comparing the so-called mirror nuclei, helium-3 and triton. The results were published today in Physical Review Letters.
Scientists have found a new way to 'see' inside the simplest atomic nuclei to better understand the 'glue' that holds the building blocks of matter together. The results come from collisions of photons (particles of light) with deuterons, the simplest atomic nuclei (made of just one proton bound to one neutron).
Scientists have created a new way to examine Mach waves in quark-gluon plasma. This plasma has almost no resistance to flow, making it the world’s most perfect fluid. The shape of a Mach wave can offer important information about quark-gluon plasma. Because quark-gluon plasma existed in the early universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, understanding its properties helps scientists understand how the universe formed.
Workers at Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor have completed an 11-month outage for a core overhaul that occurs about every 10 years to maintain peak performance.
Scientists compared collisions of ruthenium-96 ions with collisions of zirconium-96 ions, which have four fewer protons, expecting to see a greater separation of charged particles emerging from ruthenium collisions because its greater proton number generates a stronger magnetic field. The results instead showed slightly more charge separation in zirconium collisions. This suggests there may be more differences between these two “isobar” nuclei than just their proton numbers.
A cutting-edge nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) rocket engine using what’s called centrifugal liquid fuel bubble-through could one day be a ticket for NASA to go directly into deep space.
Researchers have examined the antimatter makeup of the proton sea for a wide range of quark momenta with higher precision than ever before. This research found that there are, on average, 1.4 down antiquarks for every up antiquark. This finding will help scientists better understand the fundamental forces that keep the proton together.
Particle accelerators are among the hidden drivers of our modern world. From medical diagnostics and treatments to computer chip manufacturing and oil exploration to discovery sciences, the world’s more than 30,000 particle accelerators underlie many of our modern conveniences. Now, more students will soon have easier access to the unique job opportunities offered by these remarkable machines. The new Virginia Innovative Traineeships in Accelerators (VITA) is now accepting students. VITA is a partnership among four higher education and research institutions located in Hampton Roads, Va., including Old Dominion University, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Hampton University and Norfolk State University.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $18 million for research and development (R&D) in accelerator science and technology for nuclear physics research.
Light nuclei typically contain close to an equal number of protons and neutrons, but as nuclei get heavier, they need more neutrons than protons to remain intact. These extra neutrons tend to stick to the outer edges of heavy nuclei in a kind of neutron-rich “skin.” A recent experiment made the most direct observation of this skin to date in lead nuclei and measured its thickness as 0.28 femtometers.
KINGSTON, R.I. – Feb. 7, 2022 – Thirteen University of Rhode Island mechanical engineering students are working with NASA and other prestigious universities on a project that could cut in half the travel time for a human mission to Mars. The project involves nuclear thermal propulsion, which scientists and engineers say can get astronauts to Mars more quickly and safely than they can with current chemical propulsion and technology.
Finding an elusive elementary particle is more viable than ever after an international team of scientists conducted the first experiment to explore magnetic monopoles using the Large Hadron Collider.
Abhay Deshpande, director of Electron-Ion Collider science at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, has been named a 2021 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Scientists have used a powerful particle accelerator to create matter (and antimatter)—electrons (and positrons)—directly from collisions of light. The idea of creating matter from light stems from Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation, but using light energy to test this idea—and proving that the photons are real and long-lived, not “virtual” and short-lived—has been challenging. This marks the first time scientists have achieved this process in a single direct step.
Quarks and gluons are found deep inside protons and neutrons but also combine in less common configurations to make other subatomic particles. A new theory method aids in scientists’ efforts to study these configurations by predicting which less-common particles an experiment will produce. The method allowed physicists to make the first complete numerical prediction from theory for a three-particle system consisting of three positively charged pions.
Brookhaven National Laboratory will kick-off its 75th anniversary with a live-streamed celebration. Meet three of the Lab’s leaders as they share their vision for the future of particle physics, climate science, quantum information science, and more. Then, the panel will answer questions from a live, virtual audience.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $8 million for theoretical research in nuclear interactions, nucleon structure, and properties of nuclei and nuclear matter via collaborations that bring together leading nuclear scientists to address well-defined topical areas.
In collaboration with an international team of researchers, Michigan State University has helped create the world’s lightest version, or isotope, of magnesium to date. Forged at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at MSU, or NSCL, this isotope is so unstable, it falls apart before scientists can measure it directly. Yet this isotope that isn’t keen on existing can help researchers better understand how the atoms that define our existence are made.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $35 million for research in computation and simulation techniques and tools to understand the nucleon structure, nuclear matter, and strong force via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE high performance computers.
Particle smashups have begun for Run 22 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). RHIC, a 2.4-mile-circumference particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, operates as a DOE Office of Science user facility, serving up data from particle collisions to nuclear physicists all around the world. On the menu this run: collisions between beams of polarized protons interspersed with tests of innovative accelerator techniques as the recently upgraded STAR detector tracks particles emerging from collisions at a wider range of angles than ever before.
Latifa Elouadrhiri has been presented with the 2021 Jesse W. Beams Research Award, which recognizes especially significant or meritorious research in physics that has earned the critical acclaim of peers from around the world. The award was established by the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) in 1973. Elouadrhiri is only the second woman to receive it.
This feature provides an overview of the science behind the discovery of superheavy elements and outlines ORNL's crucial role in supplying actinide target materials, highlighting some of the women scientists involved.
Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars that scientists believe evolved completely isolated from the rest of the universe. As such, they are perfect “stellar laboratories.” This research turned to the nuclear physics of an important type of reaction involving the sodium in these stars to help unlock what happened in the interiors of these stars to create the universe as we know it today.
Physicists have proposed a method to measure the speed of sound characterizing matter created in nuclear collisions. Heavy nuclei consist of hundreds of protons and neutrons, which themselves are composed of quarks and gluons. In heavy-ion collisions, the energy density of matter reaches very high levels, and the nucleons become a quark-gluon plasma. Experimental analyses can reveal properties of the quark-gluon plasma, helping scientists learn about the thermodynamics of dense nuclear matter.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $5.7 million for six projects that will implement artificial intelligence methods to accelerate scientific discovery in nuclear physics research.
A newly invented detector is allowing physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to “see” neutrons like never before. Fresh insight from these devices has improved operation of the lab’s powerful electron accelerator, which is used in nuclear physics studies of the atom’s nucleus.
Neutrinos may be the key to finally solving a mystery of the origins of our matter-dominated universe, and preparations for two major, billion-dollar experiments are underway to reveal the particles’ secrets. Now, a team of nuclear physicists have turned to the humble electron to provide insight for how these experiments can better prepare to capture critical information. GENIE is simulation framework made of many models that each help physicists reproduce certain aspects of interactions between neutrinos and nuclei to help understand their experimental results. Since so little is known about neutrinos, it’s difficult to directly test GENIE to ensure it will produce both accurate and high-precision results from the new data that will be provided by future neutrino experiments. In this study, the team used an electron-scattering version of GENIE, dubbed e-GENIE, to test the same incoming energy reconstruction algorithms that neutrino researchers will use. Instead of using neutrinos, the