Scientists have confirmed possible evidence of a new elementary particle, the sterile neutrino. The results from the Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) found that the germanium 71 yield was 20% to 24% lower than expected based on the intensity of the neutrino source and on scientists’ knowledge of how neutrinos are absorbed. This is consistent with earlier results on the so-called gallium anomaly.
Cell replication in our bodies is triggered by a cascade of molecular signals transmitted between proteins. Compounds that block these signals show potential as cancer drugs. Recently, scientists uncovered the molecular mechanisms that underlie a step in the signal-transmission pathway that requires three proteins to link up. This points the way to new targets for drugs that fight certain types of cancer.
Since starting operation in May 2022, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at Michigan State University, has enabled discoveries in the science of atomic nuclei, their role in the cosmos, and the fundamental symmetries of nature.
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 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL).
Plasma confinement in a tokamak can potentially cause pressure gradients that lead to instabilities in the plasma, disrupting tokamak performance.
In this study, researchers addressed the question of whether the liquids of nucleons and quarks are fundamentally different. Both liquids produce vortices when they rotate, but in quark liquids, the vortices carry a “color-magnetic field.” There is no such effect in nucleon liquids, so these vortices distinguish quark liquids from nuclear liquids.
The physics of carbon-12 are extremely complex. This research computed the nuclear states of carbon-12 from first principles using supercomputers and nuclear lattice simulations.
Colliding two heavy nuclei produces quark-gluon fireballs from which subatomic particles emerge. Fluctuations in the number of these particles from collision to collision carry important information about the QGP. Researchers used an approach called the maximum entropy principle to provide a crucial connection between experimental observations and the hydrodynamics of the QGP fireball.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it is accepting applications for the 2024 DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program to support the research of outstanding scientists early in their careers.
What a difference a year can make! As the nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, the steward of 10 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, and the lead federal agency supporting fundamental research for energy production and security, DOE’s Office of Science (SC) has made incredible headway over the course of 2023.
The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility, has an exceptionally large number of these powerful instruments. They have more than 200 different instruments available for researchers to use for free. To get access to these tools, a researcher submits a proposal for time on the equipment. Other scientists review this and other proposals and choose the strongest ones.
High-entropy alloys (HEAs) have potential uses in applications involving severe wear and tear, extreme temperatures, radiation, and high stress, but HEAs made using additive manufacturing often have poor ductility. Scientists have now used laser-based additive manufacturing to form stronger and more ductile HEAs.
Modern detectors are revolutionizing electron microscopy but collect massive amounts of data at ultrafast rates, requiring extensive amounts of computer time and power to analyze.
The Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES), at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, announced the release of its vision, Building Bridges: A Vision for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, during the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee hearing on December 13, 2023.
The extreme conditions in fusion experiments limit the ability of diagnostic tools to collect data on plasmas. This makes it difficult to compare models against measurements from experimental fusion devices.
As two neutron stars orbit one another, they release gravitational waves that sap energy from the orbit until the two stars eventually collide and merge.
Particle accelerators are incredibly complex. Operators must continuously monitor performance and sensors to identify problems in the devices.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $42 million for a program that will establish multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary hubs to advance foundational inertial fusion energy (IFE) science and technology, building on the groundbreaking work of the Department’s researchers into harnessing the power of the sun and stars.
Colliding nuclei at high speeds melts their constituent quarks and gluons into a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Quarks and gluons from the colliding nuclei also sometimes ricochet off one another very early on in the collision and form sprays of energetic particles known as jets. These jets lose their energy as they exit the plasma, with wide jets losing more energy than narrow jets. Researchers have confirmed that the plasma treats each prong of a jet independently only when the prongs are separated by a sufficiently large angle.
Fast ions that heat plasma in a fusion device can resonate with waves in the plasma, potentially causing waves to grow and kick the fast ions out of the device. This research used mathematical calculations and computer simulations to examine these resonant interactions to reveal how different types of collisions compete to determine the way energy transfers between the resonant particles and the plasma waves. The results will aid in models of how to keep plasmas hot enough to sustain fusion reactions.
Researchers are developing a synthetic form of a peptide that self-assembles into nanoscale fibers that conduct electricity when combined with heme. They determined how key properties of the peptide are affected by the length of the sequence of amino acids in the peptide and their identity. These properties include ease of binding the cofactor, assembly, and ability to conduct electricity.
New calculations predicting the spatial distributions of the charges, momentum, and other properties of the quarks within protons found that the up quarks are more symmetrically distributed and spread over a smaller distance within the proton than the down quark. The results imply that these two types of quarks contribute differently to a proton’s properties.
Researchers are making catalysts more efficient by designing nanoscale materials. Now scientists demonstrated that porous nanoscale silica films boost the catalytic activity of a metal palladium surface for carbon monoxide oxidation. The confined two-dimensional space between the metal catalyst and the silica film enhanced carbon monoxide conversion and increased carbon dioxide production by 12%, compared to palladium alone.
Researchers have developed a novel gate design that provides fast control of the flow of coherent information in electromagnonic devices. The design could be the basis for next-generation classical and quantum circuitry.
Particle collisions produce quarks and gluons that interact in structured ways. Scientists have for the first time directly observed a predicted “dead cone" in this structure. This finding helps to confirm a feature of the theory of strong interactions, which explains how quarks and gluons form protons and neutrons.
Neptunium and plutonium are harder to oxidize than uranium, making them more difficult to study. To address this challenge, scientists have designed donor ligands—molecules that contribute electron density to metal centers, stabilizing the metals as they become more electron-poor. This will aid in studies of the structure and behavior of unusual complexes of cerium, uranium, and neptunium.
Working laser-powered quantum computers will need a system that can accurately and reliably count and distinguish 50 or more photons every few nanoseconds.
Scientists have developed a new type of lens that focuses an X-ray beam to nanometer levels. The monolithic 2D multilayer Laue lenses (MLLs) can focus an X-ray beam to approximately 10 nanometers. The system overcomes the alignment challenges typically associated with these ultra-high resolution focusing optics. This development was recognized with a Microscopy Today Innovation Award in 2022.
The exotic properties of 2D materials can be manipulated by stacking layers of these materials then modifying them by, for example, applying twists. Researchers have developed a novel microscopy technique to study twisted, layered 2D materials at high spatial resolution using interferometric four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM).
The complexity of microbiomes makes it difficult for scientists to study and predict microbes’ interactions. One solution is to use custom assemblies of microbes called synthetic communities. This study used a four-member community involved in the breakdown of cellulose into the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide to study responses to increases in sulfate due to climate change.
Researchers combined the features of clinical drugs to treat hepatitis C and viruses similar to COVID-19. This allowed them to synthesize BBH-1, a promising inhibitor that targets the breakdown of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The researchers characterized samples using X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques to provide atomic-level insights on the structure of the BBH-1 inhibitor and how it binds to the SARS-CoV-2 protein.
Defects in two-dimensional (2D) materials can give these materials special properties, but analyzing defects for useful variants is time consuming. Researchers developed an automated method to analyze these materials that combines scanning tunneling microscopy with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Microbe-semiconductor biohybrids merge the power of living systems to produce biological products with the ability of semiconductors to harvest light. They use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into useful chemicals such as bioplastics and biofuels. To better understand how biohybrids work, researchers developed a way to image these biohybrids with single-cell resolution.
Polymers experience changing conditions during manufacturing, which can affect their final properties and performance. The way they react to manufacturing forces can be extremely complex and hard to measure. Researchers combined theory and modeling to characterize melted polymers under steady flow and revealed universal features that can inform the design of advanced materials for manufacturing.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $11.4 million for six projects in quantum information science (QIS) with relevance to fusion and plasma science.
For effective molecular sensing, imaging, and signaling, materials must meet strict crystalline quality requirements. Researchers found an improved way to make high-quality ribbon-shaped nanocrystals that resonate strongly with infrared light. They tested these nanoribbons using a unique, ultrabroadband infrared probe and found the highest quality reported for such materials to date. This quality makes the crystals excellent prospects for use in high-performance infrared devices.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science (SC) will support nearly 140 high schoolers, recent high school graduates, and early undergraduate students from underrepresented groups and underserved schools in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through awards for six Pathway Summer Schools at six national laboratories.
Predictions based on the Standard Model of particle physics don’t always agree with what scientists see in experimental data. One way to examine these differences is emissions of neutrinos from nuclear reactors. As part of this research agenda, scientists in the PROSPECT Collaboration have reported the most precise measurement ever of the energy spectrum of antineutrinos emitted from the fission of uranium-235, providing a new reference energy spectrum and new constraints on the origin of the disagreements between data and models.
Conventional sensors usually lack the sensitivity needed for studies of quantum phenomena and other complex cases. One solution is to use superconducting sensors, but amplifying their signals is challenging. Researchers built on advances from quantum computing to add a special type of amplifiers, superconducting traveling-wave parametric amplifiers, to superconducting sensors. These amplifiers are almost noiseless and operate at relatively high temperatures.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $137 million in funding for 80 projects in high energy physics. The scope of the research spans the full gamut of topics in experimental and theoretical high energy physics.
In a plant microbiome, the microbial community assembles and changes by exchanging signals between the host plant and the microbes. Researchers have gathered and filtered a large amount of data using a combination of computational approaches to identify new mechanisms in this signaling process. The study discovered a host transport mechanism and a chemical signal that influences beneficial bacterial colonization of plants’ roots.
Applications are currently being accepted for the Summer 2024 term of the DOE Office of Science’s Visiting Faculty Program (VFP). The application deadline is January 9, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Applications are currently being accepted for the Summer 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 application deadline is January 9, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. EST.
Lithium-ion batteries are useful for electric vehicles but use raw materials that are costly and face potential supply chain issues. The performance of one alternative, sodium-ion batteries, declines rapidly with repeated charges and discharges.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the selection of the High Performance Data Facility (HPDF) hub, which will create a new scientific user facility specializing in advanced infrastructure for data-intensive science. The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) will be the HPDF Hub Director and the lead infrastructure will be located at JLab.
The nuclear reactions that power stellar explosions involve short-lived nuclei that are hard to study in the laboratory. Researchers used a combination of methods to measure a reaction where a neutron from a deuterium target is exchanged with a proton from a radioactive projectile, a reaction equivalent to a process in exploding stars.
Researchers have discovered a way to tune some semiconductors to reduce the amount of energy needed to eject electrons. The approach works by placing a bilayer coating of an insulator and graphene on top of the semiconductor then applying a voltage between the semiconductor and graphene. This bilayer approach could improve the efficiency of electromechanical devices and electron accelerators.
For the first time, scientists have direct evidence of an exotic state of ice that may form inside Uranus, Neptune, and other water-rich gas giants due to extreme temperatures and pressures.
Researchers mapped the locations of 1,034 proteins inside the chloroplast of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas. This map is a spatial atlas of the chloroplast proteome—all of the proteins that the organism can produce in the algae’s structure that drives photosynthesis.
Using a combination of experimental facilities, researchers directly measured a key reaction that takes place in the explosions on the surfaces of neutron stars. This is the first-ever measurement of this reaction. Contrary to expectation, the experimental data agreed with predictions from a common theoretical model used to calculate reaction rates.
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