Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $6 million in funding for 12 awards across eight efforts to advance research in isotope enrichment, targetry, and separations. This funding is part of a key federal program that produces critical isotopes otherwise unavailable or in short supply in the U.S.
Spectroscopy allows scientists to study the structure of atoms and molecules, including the energy levels of their electrons. This research examines the potential of spectroscopy techniques that rely on quantum entanglement of these photons. These methods can reveal information about molecules not possible with traditional spectroscopy. They also reduce the damage spectroscopy causes to samples.
Scientists have the first direct evidence that the powerful magnetic fields created in off-center collisions of atomic nuclei induce an electric current in “deconfined” nuclear matter. The study used measurements of how charged particles are deflected when they emerge from the collisions. The study provides proof that the magnetic fields exist and offers a new way to measure electrical conductivity in quark-gluon plasma.
Nickel monosilicide (NiSi), a material widely used to connect transistors in semiconductor circuits, was wrongly predicted by theory to be non-magnetic. Now scientists have used neutron scattering to identify an elusive form of magnetic order in NiSi. This finding could lead to improved semiconductors for computers and computer memory.
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) has discovered five never-before-seen heavy element isotopes: thulium-182 and 183, ytterbium-186 and 187, and lutetium-190. Researchers found the new isotopes in the debris of collisions between a stable beam of platinum-198 and a carbon target. These results show the potential for FRIB as it increases its capabilities.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Aurora supercomputer has officially broken the exascale barrier. Today at the 2024 ISC High Performance conference in Hamburg, Germany, the 63rd edition of the high performance computing Top500 list announced that DOE holds the #1 and #2 positions for most powerful supercomputers in the world. The Top500’s benchmark has long been the world’s measuring stick for large scale supercomputing performance.
The interactions of protons and neutrons can be too complex to model using conventional computers and quantum computers face reliability issues. This research combined conventional computers and quantum computers to simulate the scattering of two neutrons.
Researchers used advanced computing techniques to engineer the bacteria Pseudomonas putida to optimize its production of isoprenol using carbon from plant material. Isoprenol has a potential role in the production of jet biofuel blendstocks.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $160 million to advance President Biden’s vision to secure the future of American leadership in semiconductor innovation by implementing a key provision in the historic CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (42 U.S.C. §19331), Microelectronics Research for Energy Innovation.
Theoretical models of dark matter predict that its signals can be detected using low-background radiation detectors. By looking for specific types of dark matter and finding no signal, scientists operating the Majorana Demonstrator experiment have significantly narrowed the characteristics of potential dark matter particles. The results will help design future experiments.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) are thrilled to announce the first 35 projects that will be supported with computational time through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, marking a significant milestone in fostering responsible AI research across the nation.
Potassium-40 usually decays to calcium-40, but about 10 percent of the time it decays to argon-40 through electron capture. One variant of this decay path ends in argon-40 in its ground state.
Conventional metals cannot conduct light in their interiors, but scientists have discovered that in the quantum metal ZrSiSe, electrons can give rise to plasmons.
The quark Sivers function describes much of the physics of how quarks are distributed in a proton whose rotation is perpendicular to its direction of motion. This function shows whether more quarks in the proton move to the right than to the left of the plane created by the proton’s velocity and the direction of the proton’s rotation (spin) axis.
X-ray bursts occur on the surface of a neutron star as it absorbs material from a companion star. This absorption initiates a cascade of thermonuclear reactions that create atoms of heavy chemical elements on the surface of a neutron star. Researchers have directly measured one of these reactions, finding it to be four times higher than the previous direct measurement.
Tantalum superconducting material shows great promise for making qubits. When an oxide layer forms on the surface of tantalum, it can lead to quantum decoherence. In this study, researchers used scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and computer modeling to investigate the structure of superconducting tantalum film. This helped them build an atomic-level understanding of the crystalline lattice of tantalum metal and the oxide that forms on its surface.
Thunderstorms in the American Midwest. Tiny particles in the cloud cover of the Amazon rainforest. Heat waves in Baltimore. What do these very different places have in common? They’re all areas where the Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program is supporting climate research.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 86 graduate students representing 31 states and Puerto Rico for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program’s 2023 Solicitation 2 cycle.
Exploring the gluon saturation in large nuclei is one of the major goals of the future Electron-Ion Collider. New research proposes a novel method to probe the onset of gluon saturation by measuring the nucleon energy-energy correlation in deep inelastic scattering. This result leads to a comprehensive approach to study the universal behavior of gluon saturation.
Scientists have gained insights into the weak nuclear force from new, more sensitive studies of the beta decays of the “mirror” nuclei lithium-8 and boron-8. The weak nuclear force drives the process of nuclear beta decay. The research found that the properties of the beta decays of lithium-8 and boron-8 are in perfect agreement with the predictions of the Standard Model.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science will sponsor the participation of 1,073 undergraduate students and 113 faculty members in three STEM-focused workforce development programs at 17 DOE national laboratories and a national fusion facility during Summer 2024. Collectively, these programs ensure DOE and our nation have a strong, sustained workforce trained in the skills needed to address the energy, environment, and national security challenges of today and tomorrow.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $16 million in funding for four projects providing classroom training and research opportunities to train the next generation of accelerator scientists and engineers needed to deliver scientific discoveries.
Microbiologists do not fully understand how bacteria’s genes relate to their life strategies. Now, by analyzing large DNA sequencing datasets from around the globe, researchers discovered a new way of categorizing the dominant life strategies of soil bacteria based on their genes. This technique allowed the researchers to link different life strategies with specific climate and soil conditions.
Scientists know of more than 3,300 isotopes. Researchers have compiled experimental nuclear data for all known nuclei, including mass, quantum numbers, half-life, decay modes, and branching intensities.
You may have flown a flight simulator in a computer game or at a science museum. Landing without crashing is always the hardest part. But that’s nothing compared to the challenge that engineers are facing to develop a flight simulation of the very large vehicles necessary for humans to explore the surface of Mars. The Red Planet poses innumerable challenges to astronauts, not the least of which is getting there. That’s where the Department of Energy Office of Science’s user facility supercomputers come in. Researchers at DOE’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) are working with NASA engineers and scientists to simulate the process of slowing down a huge spacecraft as it moves towards Mars’ surface.
When superconductors encounter too much current, they can become resistive. Researchers can design microscopic electronic components that use this effect to create a switch, like a transistor. The resulting nanowire superconducting switching devices (called nano-cryotrons, or nTrons) show promise for future superconducting electronics or particle detectors.
Soil microbes use volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as a food source but can also release VOCs as gases that enter the atmosphere.
To study quantum many-body systems, researchers use computational tools called quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In this work, researchers used a specific approach called the “floating block method” to compute atomic nuclei corresponding to two different Hamiltonians.
Creating multiple universes to see how they run might be tempting to scientists, but it’s obviously not possible. That is, as long as you need physical universes. If you can make do with virtual ones, there are far more options.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has an ongoing competition for the management and operating contract for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF).
In early 2023, scientists published a new measurement testing the strong nuclear force. The experiment involved the way an alpha particle becomes excited. The study suggested a puzzle that could not be solved with existing theoretical methods.
Lanthanide elements are important for clean energy and other applications. To use them, industry must separate mixed lanthanide sources into individual elements using costly, time-consuming, and waste-generating procedures. An efficient new method can be tailored to select specific lanthanides.
On screensaver mode, smart TVs often rotate through photos of natural wonders, from waterfalls to canyons. Now imagine hundreds of those televisions, with one single image spread out among them.
Physicists use methods called finite-volume simulations with periodic boundary conditions to model the nuclei protons and neutrons can form. This new work solves a long-standing and fundamental problem for electrically charged systems in these “periodic boxes.” It derives the mathematical equation that describes how the properties of these electrically charged systems depend on the size of the simulation volume.
Background radioactivity from cables in equipment for ultra-precise physics experiments can impair those experiments.
As I depart the Office of Science to return to my academic position, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the amazing things we’ve done together over the past two years.
Microbes called anaerobic methanotrophic archaea form communities with sulfate reducing bacteria. These communities can consume methane in anaerobic environments. This research found that biological processes in these microbial communities can create silica deposits that appear to entomb the communities.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a unique international particle collider being constructed to explore the building blocks of matter at the smallest scale, will get a significant boost from colleagues in the United Kingdom (UK).
According to the traditional model of nuclear shells, oxygen-28 is expected to be a doubly magic nucleus with 20 neutrons and 8 protons. However, an experiment performed at the Rare Isotope Beam Facility in Japan measured the direct decay of oxygen-28 into four neutrons and oxygen-24 and found that it is not a bound nucleus.
As you gaze into the night sky, stars look like tiny, glowing pinpricks shining through the dark. But inside those stars, reactions occur that produce staggering amounts of energy. All stars – including our sun – produce energy through a powerful reaction called fusion.
Entanglement entropy quantifies the amount of entanglement between two subsystems. In many systems, the entanglement entropies increase as the area that separates them from their environment increases.
With a delicate hand, Anna Karion slides a large, enclosed box back into its protective shelf. She’s standing on top of a hill that overlooks the Washington D.C. area. This box, a greenhouse gas (GHG) sensor, is connected to a tube that runs up a tall, metal tower that is constantly collecting air samples. Karion, a research scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is working to fine-tune GHG measuring instruments installed in a telecommunications tower.
Polyolefins are resistant to breaking down, making them hard to recycle. Scientists have now discovered a yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica, that uses hydrocarbons derived from polyolefin plastic wastes to produce substances that can be used to make biodegradable polyesters and polyurethanes.
Like protons and neutrons, Lambda particles consist of three quarks bound together by gluons. But unlike protons and neutrons, which contain a mixture of up and down quarks, Lambdas also contain a strange quark.
The tantalum isotope, Ta-180m, is found naturally in a long-lived excited state. However, the radioactive decay of this excited state in Ta-180m has never been observed.
When scientists collide heavy nuclei, the constituent quarks and gluons melt into a quark-gluon plasma.
Applications are currently being accepted for the Fall 2024 term of two undergraduate internship programs offered by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science: the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program and the Community College Internships (CCI) program.
The room buzzed with conversation, until the moderator attempted to quiet it for a second time. Slowly, discussions paused and heads turned back towards the front of the room.
At high temperatures and densities, plasmas in fusion devices can develop gradients that can grow into instabilities, including edge localized modes (ELMs) that can damage reactor walls. In this research, scientists studied negative triangularity, a way the plasma shape can deviate from an oval. The research found this shaping was inherently free of instabilities across various plasma conditions, including operating reactor conditions.
In cancer research, seeing is believing. Before they can diagnose or treat cancer, researchers and doctors need to have a clear understanding of what’s happening at a microscopic level. While existing technology allows us to see things the naked eye can’t, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is working to standardize a process for staining and seeing cancer in a whole new perspective – in 3D (three dimensions).
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