Tag: Nuclear Physics

Mapping Out Matter’s Building Blocks in 3D

sarah JonasResearch Results

Deep inside what we perceive as solid matter, the landscape is anything but stationary. The interior of the building blocks of the atom’s nucleus — particles called hadrons that most of us would recognize as protons and neutrons — are made up of a seething mixture of interacting quarks and gluons, known collectively as partons. The HadStruc collaboration has now come together to map out these partons and disentangle how they interact to form hadrons. Their latest findings were recently published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.

Four Argonne scientists receive 2024 DOE Early Career Research Awards

sarah JonasAnnouncement

As winners of the 2024 U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program, four scientists from Argonne National Laboratory are each receiving an award of $550,000 a year for five years to help them answer complex questions.

Laser-Sharp Look at Spinning Electrons Sets the Stage for New Physics Discoveries

sarah JonasResearch Results

Spin is an intrinsic property of the electron. When electrons spin in the same direction at a given time, the quantity is called polarization. Understanding polarization helps examine the structure of nuclei of heavy elements. Now, nuclear physicists have measured the polarization of an electron beam more precisely than ever before.

Breaking Barriers in Scientific Discovery

sarah JonasFeature

A billion-billion floating point operations per second–that’s the power of exascale. The first exascale computer in the world, Frontier, resides at the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. The DOE’s Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research program has worked for decades to build supercomputers that break barriers in scientific discovery.

In Neutrinos, Quantum Entanglement Leads to Shared Flavor

sarah JonasResearch Results

Neutrinos can change their identities or “flavors” when they interact. Researchers recently found that the neutrinos in a very dense environment such as a core collapse supernova can develop strong correlations through mutual interactions. This means that over time, neutrinos with different initial flavors reach a similar equilibrium flavor and energy distribution.

Yuan Ping: Then and Now / 2013 Early Career Award Winner

sarah JonasFeature

Yuan Ping developed a suite of measurement methods and produced data that scientists used to benchmark energy transport models. These models increase scientists’ control of fusion energy losses. The research team improved the efficiency of the energy conversion from the lasers to the final hot fuel.

Exciting the Alpha Particle

sarah JonasResearch Results

An important part of physics research is examining why theoretical calculations and experimental results sometimes don’t match. A recent physics experiment on the helium-4 nucleus and how it transitions from its basic energy state to its first excited state found evidence of a disagreement between theory and experiment. Now new calculations of the observed transition found agreement with the recent experimental results.

U.S. Department of Energy Issues Request for Proposals for Contractor to Manage and Operate Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFPs) for the competitive selection of a management and operating contractor for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF).

Three Argonne postdocs invited to prestigious meeting of Nobel laureates

sarah JonasFeature

Three Argonne postdoc scientists have been invited to the prestigious Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany, where they will meet with past Nobel Prize winners in their fields.

Precision Measurements of Radioactive Molecules for Fundamental Physics

sarah JonasResearch Results

For the first time, nuclear physicists made precision measurements of the short-lived radioactive molecule, radium monofluoride (RaF). The researchers combined ion-trapping and specialized laser systems to measure the fine details of the quantum structure of RaF. This allowed them to study the rotational energy levels of RaF and determine its laser-cooling scheme.

Promethium bound: Rare earth element’s secrets exposed

sarah JonasResearch Results

Scientists have uncovered the properties of a rare earth element that was first discovered 80 years ago at the very same laboratory, opening a new pathway for the exploration of elements critical in modern technology, from medicine to space travel.

New Method Could Explore Gluon Saturation at the Future Electron-Ion Collider

sarah JonasResearch Results

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.

João Barata Awarded CERN Fellowship

sarah JonasFeature

João Barata, a physicist in the Nuclear Theory Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has received a fellowship at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. In October 2024, Barata will begin the three-year-long appointment in CERN’s Department of Theoretical Physics.

Argonne National Laboratory set to play pivotal role in realizing U.S. goals for nuclear science research

sarah JonasFeature

The Nuclear Science Advisory Committee recently unveiled its 2023 Long Range Plan for nuclear science. Argonne National Laboratory, with its world-class nuclear physics facilities and expertise, is poised to play a pivotal role in realizing the plan.

Jefferson Lab Welcomes Next Generation of Nuclear Physicists

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is proud to announce nine new graduate fellowships for the 2023-2024 academic year, thanks to ongoing funding from Jefferson Science Associates. These fellowships offer students a unique opportunity to collaborate with leading nuclear physicists at Jefferson Lab and pursue advanced studies at their respective universities.

Exploring Stellar Hydrogen Burning via Muons and Nuclei

sarah JonasResearch Results

When a muon binds with a deuteron, it forms a system with two neutrons in a process analogous to proton-proton fusion. Nuclear theorists examined this muon capture process to quantify theoretical uncertainty relevant for comparison with experimental data and to test predictions involving proton-proton fusion. The study supports ongoing efforts to enhance the accuracy of muon capture measurements and to apply the same theoretical framework to other processes.

Department of Energy Announces up to $500 Million for Basic Research to Advance the Frontiers of Science

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced up to $500 million in funding for basic research in support of DOE’s clean energy, economic, and national security goals.

Department of Energy Announces $73 Million for Basic Research to Accelerate the Transition from Discovery to Commercialization

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $73 million in funding for eleven projects which focus on the goal of accelerating the transition from discovery to commercialization of new technologies that will form the basis of future industries.

Scientists Make the First Observation of a Nucleus Decaying into Four Particles After Beta Decay

sarah JonasResearch Results

Scientists have observed a rare new radioactive decay mode for the first time. In this decay mode, oxygen-13 (with eight protons and five neutrons) decays by breaking into three helium nuclei (an atom without the surrounding electrons), a proton, and a positron (the antimatter version of an electron) following beta decay. The findings expand scientific knowledge of decay processes and the properties of the nucleus before the decay.

Theoretical and Experimental Physics Team Up in the Search for Particle Flavor Change

sarah JonasResearch Alert

Scientists recently discovered that neutrinos have mass, counter to long-held understanding. This means that neutrinos can change flavor. Now, advances in theory and experiment are helping scientists to determine whether the neutrinos’ charged counterparts—electrons, muons, and tauons—can also change flavor and how future experiments can look for those changes.

DOE Awards $135 Million For Groundbreaking Research By 93 Early Career Scientists

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the selection of 93 early career scientists from across the country who will receive a combined $135 million in funding for research covering a wide range of topics, from artificial intelligence to astrophysics to fusion energy. The 2023 Early Career Research Program awardees represent 47 universities and 12 DOE National Laboratories across the country. These awards are a part of the DOE’s long-standing efforts to develop the next generation of STEM leaders to solidify America’s role as the driver of science and innovation around the world.

Discovering Evidence of Superradience in the Alpha Decay of Mirror Nuclei

sarah JonasResearch Results

Nuclei can absorb energy, pushing the nuclei into excited states. When these states decay, the nuclei emit different particles. The interplay between these decay channels and the internal characteristics of the excited states gives rise to phenomena such as superradiance. In superradiance, a nucleus with high excitation energy has excited states so dense that neighboring excited states overlap. Scientists recently found evidence of the superradiance effect in the differences between decaying states in Oxygen-18 and Neon-18.

New Driver for Shapes of Small Quark-Gluon Plasma Drops?

sarah JonasResearch Results

New measurements of how particles flow from collisions of different types of particles at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have provided new insights into the origin of the shape of hot specks of matter generated in these collisions. The results may lead to a deeper understanding of the properties and dynamics of this form of matter, known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP).

Direct Photons Point to Positive Gluon Polarization

sarah JonasResearch Results

A new publication by the PHENIX Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provides definitive evidence that gluon “spins” are aligned in the same direction as the spin of the proton they’re in. The result, just published in Physical Review Letters, provides theorists with new input for calculating how much gluons—the gluelike particles that hold quarks together within protons and neutrons—contribute to a proton’s spin.

STAR Physicists Track Sequential ‘Melting’ of Upsilons

sarah JonasResearch Results

Recent data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider show how three distinct variations of particles called upsilons “melt,” or dissociate, in the hot particle soup that existed in the very early universe. The results from the STAR experiment support the theory that this hot matter is a soup of “free” quarks and gluons. Measuring how different upsilons dissociate helps scientists learn about the quark-gluon plasma.

Calculation Shows Why Heavy Quarks Get Caught up in the Flow

sarah JonasResearch Results

Theorists have calculated how quickly a melted soup of quarks and gluons—the building blocks of protons and neutrons—transfers its momentum to heavy quarks. The calculation will help explain experimental results showing heavy quarks getting caught up in the flow of matter generated in heavy ion collisions.