A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers has found that the global climatic consequences of a regional nuclear weapons exchange could range from a minimal impact to more significant cooling lasting years.
Jefferson Science Associates has announced the award of ten graduate fellowships to doctoral students for the 2020-2021 academic year. The fellowships will support students’ advanced studies at their universities and research at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, a U.S. Department of Energy nuclear physics research laboratory managed and operated by JSA.
Chuck Kessel leads the national Blanket and Fuel Cycle program, the national Fusion Energy Systems Studies program and the Virtual Laboratory of Technology and co-leads the Liquid-Metal Plasma-Facing Components program. He's devoted his career to ensuring commercial fusion power is a viable future option.
Scientists use collisions of heavy ions moving near the speed of light to recreate and investigate the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). By measuring the attenuation of fast particles travelling through the QGP, physicists learn more about the QGP and the conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang.
For five years, a recycled MRI magnet has provided strong magnetic fields for cross-calibration and testing of equipment used in major physics experiments.
Scientists can now produce extremely precise snapshots of nuclear reactions using Time Projection Chambers to study the interactions of rare nuclei when they collide with gas. Researchers then study the resulting reactions and radioactive decay to better understand the strong nuclear force.
The “proton radius puzzle” arose in 2010, when a then-new experimental method for measuring the size of the proton revealed a value 4 percent smaller than obtained from previous methods. Nuclear physicists may have now solved the proton radius puzzle using a novel electron scattering technique.
ORNL has 3D printed a channel bracket to go into reactors at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant this spring, to demonstrate the viability of pre-qualified additively manufactured reactor components.
Two experts at Sandia National Laboratories have been honored for their achievements and leadership as top engineers and scientists from the Hispanic community.
Evaristo “Tito” Bonano, nuclear energy fuel cycle senior manager, and cyber assurance architect Angela “Ang” Rivas were recognized at the 32nd annual Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference by Great Minds in STEM.
Dorota Grabowska, a senior fellow in the department of theoretical physics at CERN, Europe's particle physics laboratory, has been named a recipient of the Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award. The award was established by the physics department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in honor of renowned physicist Leona Woods to celebrate the scientific accomplishments of outstanding female physicists and physicists from other under-represented minority groups, including the LGBTQ community--and to promote diversity and inclusion in the department.
Physicists are using new detector components to explore how quarks and gluons can be set “free” from confinement. Their measurements reveal that the “quark-gluon plasma” (QGP) of free quarks and gluons created in nuclear collisions destroys the J/psi particles that confines a quark and antiquark.
Electric semitrucks could revolutionize the transportation industry. But not until a convenient source of electricity is found. Could mini nuclear reactors at rest stops solve this problem?
A graduate student who will work with theorists at Jefferson Lab to better understand subatomic particles has received a supplemental research award from the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.
Five researchers who are affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have been selected by their professional peers for the distinct honor of Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Atomic nuclei exhibit increased stability when they have certain numbers of protons or neutrons. Proton-neutron pairs in these nuclei favor spherical shapes. However, deformed shapes can develop when the long-range part of the proton-neutron interaction overcomes the short-range interaction.
Argonne scientists were part of a team that constructed a nuclear physics model capturing the interactions between neutrinos and atomic nuclei. This model building is part of a larger project to understand the role of neutrinos in the early universe.
The U.S. Department of Energy has approved the next stage of the Versatile Test Reactor project, bringing a new advanced nuclear reactor design closer to reality.
Two physicists at DOE's Jefferson Lab have secured $2.16 million in funding for projects that harness the power of data analytics to make the work of studying the universe down to its smallest subatomic parts faster and more efficient.
A physicist at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Venanzoni will help prepare the Muon g-2 collaboration for its highly anticipated first scientific publication and work with partners to ensure a long life for the experiment, where scientists are searching for new particles emerging from the quantum foam that surrounds all matter.
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar, leaders from DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (Brookhaven Lab) and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab), and elected officials from New York State and Virginia today commemorated the start of the Electron-Ion Collider project.
To predict the properties of matter in a neutron star, physicists consider a theoretical model that consists of an infinite system of pure neutrons that interact by the strong nuclear force. This allows them to calculate the neutron matter equation of state and thus how much weight the star can support before gravity crushes it into a black hole.
The nuclei of some isotopes with a specific number of protons and neutrons are more tightly bound than isotopes with more or fewer protons or neutrons. Scientists have now gained a new understanding of the nucleus of mercury-207, an isotope with just two protons less than the magic number 82 and one neutron more than the magic number 126.
Researchers leveraged data from nuclear scattering experiments to make stringent constraints on how neutrons and protons arrange themselves in the nucleus. Their predictions are tightly connected to how large neutron stars grow and what elements are likely synthesized in neutron star mergers.
When scientists use two different techniques to measure the neutron lifetime, they get two different results. While it may be experimental uncertainties, it may also be a sign of new physics. With the Department of Energy’s support, scientists are working to figure out why this discrepancy exists.
Nuclear materials scientists have developed new artificial intelligence computer vision models that automate the detection of defects in alloys used for nuclear power plant reactors. This tool provides defect quantification to better understand the effects of irradiation damage on materials performance.
Hadrons are elusive superstars of the subatomic world, making up almost all visible matter, and British theoretical physicist Antoni Woss has worked diligently with colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to get to know them better. Now, Woss’ doctoral thesis on spinning hadrons has earned him the 2019 Jefferson Science Associates Thesis Prize.
A new Physics Frontier Center at UC Berkeley, supported by the National Science Foundation, expands the reach and depth of existing capabilities on campus and at neighboring Berkeley Lab in modeling one of the most violent events in the universe: the merger of neutron stars and its explosive aftermath.
As the Consortium for the Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors -- DOE's first Energy Innovation Hub -- ends and transitions to VERA Users Group, it has had a long-ranging impact on the nuclear industry.
An international team has made a key discovery related to “presolar grains” found in some meteorites. This discovery has shed light on stellar explosions and the origin of chemical elements. It has also provided a new method for astronomical research.
Nuclear physicists have developed a new method for quickly emulating the quantum properties of atomic nuclei. The emulator starts with a training stage that uses a small set of exact calculations, then generates 1 million predictions for the ground-state energy and charge radius of nuclei of oxygen-16. The process takes less than an hour on a personal computer.
Nuclear scientists recently found that the nucleus of the radioactive isotope selenium-72 has a football-like shape. This is similar to the stable, nonradioactive isotopes of selenium, but different from the disk-like shape of radioactive selenium-70 nuclei. This finding helps explain how the interaction between protons and neutrons in nuclei leads to collective behavior.
Bob May’s career-long aspiration has been to keep people from all walks of life and in different work environments safe from radiation in the workplace. Now, the deputy director of Environment, Safety and Health at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has been honored for his dedication to the field by being named a fellow of the Health Physics Society.
Cynthia Keppel has been named a DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow. Based at DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, she is one of three DOE National Laboratory scientist fellows who will receive $1 million to devote to developing better detectors for science and medicine.
Wenliang “Bill” Li won the 2020 JSA Postdoctoral Prize to run experiments that will examine proton structure from a lesser-studied perspective. A postdoctoral researcher at William & Mary, Li is studying proton structure just like many people who conduct their nuclear physics research at Jefferson Lab. But he’s studying a new aspect of it: the backward perspective.
Dien Nguyen (Zee-en Wen) studies some of the smallest units of matter on Earth to learn more about massive objects in space. Now, she’ll be conducting her research as the Nathan Isgur Postdoctoral Fellow in Nuclear Experiment at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
Nuclear physicists are trying to understand how particles called quarks and gluons combine to form hadrons, composite particles made of two or three quarks. New research suggests quarks in the hot soup created in particle collisions at RHIC recombine directly.
Small amounts of plutonium (Pu) were released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) reactors into the environment during the site's 2011 nuclear disaster. However, the physical, chemical, and isotopic form of the released Pu has remained unknown.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded $65 million in grants to support research that will advance safe, reliable, and clean nuclear energy. Among those projects are two led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which received a combined total of $1.2 million.
Nuclear physicists affiliated with Berkeley Lab played a leading role in analyzing data for a demonstration experiment in France that has achieved record precision for a specialized detector material.
William H. Goldstein today announced he will retire as director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and president of Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, (LLNS) following the selection of his successor.
Nuclear physicists have announced the most precise measurement yet of the ultra-short lifetime of the neutral pion. The result is an important validation of our understanding of the theory of quantum chromodynamics, which describes the makeup of ordinary matter. The research, carried out at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, was recently published in the journal Science.
The Electron-Ion Collider Center at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (EIC Center at Jefferson Lab) has announced the winners of six international fellowships. The fellows will pursue research over the next year related to advancing the science program of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a one-of-a-kind nuclear physics research facility to be built over the next decade at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, in partnership with Jefferson Lab.
Researchers at Argonne will share advances in offshore drilling safety and technology in the Eastern Mediterranean with a new five-year grant from the U.S.-Israel Energy Center.
Argonne scientists Michael Bishof, Maria Chan, Marco Govini, Alessandro Lovato, Bogdan Nicolae and Stefan Wild have received funding for their research as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program.
A team of scientists working at Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron has discovered a new form of the human-made element mendelevium. The newly created isotope, mendelevium-244, is the 17th and lightest form of the element, which was first discovered in 1955 by a Berkeley Lab team.
Computer scientists, software developers and system administrators are coming together under one roof in the newly established Computational Sciences and Technology Division at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Amber Boehnlein, Jefferson Lab’s chief information officer, has been promoted to associate director for computational sciences and technology, heading up the new division.
Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and General Atomics have demonstrated a method for stabilizing fusion plasmas by suppressing edge localized modes (ELMs).