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Tag: Nuclear Physics

  • Dive Into the Elusive World of Particles With the Global Physics Photowalk Finalists

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    Here’s something you rarely see so up close. The photograph above shows one of 18 optical modules inside KM3NeT, a massive detector for neutrinos, which are nearly massless, neutrally charged particles that permeate every corner of the universe. The bubble-like demeanor of the module is reminiscent of where KM3NeT is located: deep under the Mediterranean Sea.

    The photograph, titled “Underwater Hunting,” was a finalist for the 2025 Global Physics Photowalk. The competition, held every three years, seeks to highlight the “visual testaments that capture the beauty, precision, and nature of humankind’s search to understand the universe,” according to the Interactions Collaboration.

    This year, 16 science laboratories around the world each submitted their top three images from the year. Then, a judging panel of physics experts and photographers chose three winners. The public also voted for their top three photographs during a brief selection period.

    “The photographs move between abstraction and lived experience—finding form, rhythm, and quiet beauty in scientific spaces, while foregrounding the people whose labor and curiosity make this work possible,” said Will Warasila, a freelance photographer for The New York Times who was part of the judging panel.

    You can see the list of winners here, but we’ve selected some of our favorites from the entire gallery of 48 finalists, which you can also find here. The Photowalk is also currently on display at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    Research at COLD

    © Marco Donghia

    In this photograph, a young researcher sits alone at the Cryogenic Laboratory for Detectors (COLD) at INFN National Laboratories of Frascati, Italy. In the foreground is the facility’s cryostat, which reaches −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (-273.14 degrees Celsius) in temperature—nearly absolute zero—so that physicists can probe some of the most enigmatic signals in the universe.

    This entry won first place in the judge’s choice category. Tanea Rauscher, a member of the panel and creative lead at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, praised the image’s “clear visual storytelling and masterful use of light … [which] creates a quiet, almost cinematic atmosphere that captures both the intensity and the solitude of scientific work.”

    The tunnel

    Le Tunnel
    © Yannig Van De Wouwer / GANIL / CNRS

    In contrast to the judges, the public’s choice for first place went to this bright photograph of a corridor at the Large Heavy Ion National Accelerator in Caen, France. According to Interactions, this particular section of the facility is much brighter than in other areas. The colors of the numerous cables and pipes pop against the backdrop of the metallic room, illuminated by star-shaped lights.

    UNDER 33.5m

    J Parc 1
    © Hisahiro Suganuma

    Advanced facilities in particle physics are huge. That’s because getting enough power to accelerate particles for experiments requires a ton of space, both for the particle flinging itself and the facilities to analyze data, maintain gadgets, etc.

    This often means physicists go underground. For Japan’s Proton Accelerator Research Complex, this added up to roughly 110 feet (33.5 meters). Fully capturing the vast scope of this hole took multiple composites, according to photographer Hisahiro Suganuma.

    Ab Profundis, Scientia,

    Here
    © Adam Tomjack

    As you can imagine, building a particle physics facility is truly a labor of love, tears, and grime. But mostly grime. In this photo, a person shines a headlamp on the wall of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, which recently got an expansion. Now, the facility lies up to 4,850 feet (1,479 meters) underground, which SURF says will “house future generations of science.”

    Eye of a Neutrino Telescope

    2 Cppm Eye Of A Neutrino Telescope Hugo Pardinilla
    © Hugo Pardinilla / CPPM / CNRS

    Let’s shift gears again and admire this close-up image of a photomultiplier, also from KM3NeT. Each optical module in KM3NeT holds 31 of these photomultipliers. Together, the entire system forms a gigantic line of neutrino detectors that instruments several million cubic meters of water on the seafloor. This image won third place in the judge’s choice category.

    Where’s Waldo?

    2 Ccin2p3 Mais Où Est Charlie Candicetordjmann
    © Candice Tordjmann / CC-IN2P3 / CNRS

    This photograph shows the dizzying array of wires and components making up a fully operating data center at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. We non-physicists get the privilege of seeing physics discoveries in the form of a neatly organized, peer-reviewed papers, but that underscores the sheer load of data collection that goes into these endeavors.

    Vacuum

    Sous Vide
    © Yannig Van De Wouwer / GANIL / CNRS

    Speaking of enormous volumes of data, an essential part of conducting research with accelerators is identifying patterns. This photograph, awarded second place in the public’s choice category, found some interesting patterns in the casing of a vacuum pipe at the Large Heavy Ion National Accelerator in France.

    FYI, the French title for the photograph is “Sous-vide,” literally French for “under vacuum,” but the phrase might remind English speakers of the meat-cooking technique. I wasn’t sure of the parallels at first, but it sure is funny to think of accelerators as machines that slowly cook particles at precisely regulated temperatures (which they kind of are, I guess).

    AGATA–PRISMA Setup for nuclear physics experiments

    Lnl Agata Prisma
    © Matteo Monzali

    Last but not least, this photograph captured the hearts of both the judging panel and the public, winning second and third place, respectively. Shown here is a photon detector coupled with a magnetic spectrometer at INFN National Laboratories of Legnaro, Italy. These instruments support low- and medium-energy experiments in nuclear physics, which investigates how heavy particles break apart.

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    Gayoung Lee

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  • Scientists Just Took a Giant Step Toward Scaling Up Nuclear Fusion

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    A team of researchers at MIT think they may have lowered one of the major barriers to achieving large-scale nuclear fusion—taking us one step closer to making an abundant form of energy a reality.

    By harnessing the same processes that power stars, we would have access to a clean, safe, and practically limitless energy source. Scientists have built reactors to try and tame fusion, with one of the most explored being the tokamak. Essentially a donut-shaped tube that uses strong magnets to confine the plasma needed to power fusion reactions, the tokamak has shown great potential. But to fully realize that, scientists must first navigate the potential pitfalls that such energy carries with it, including how to slow down a fusion reaction once it is in progress.

    That’s where the new research comes in: Using a combination of physics and machine learning, the researchers predicted how the plasma inside a tokamak reactor would behave given a set of initial conditions—something that researchers have long puzzled over (it is hard to look inside a fusion reactor mid-run, after all). The paper was published Monday in Nature Communications.

    “For fusion to be a useful energy source, it’s going to have to be reliable,” Allen Wang, study lead author and a graduate student at MIT, told MIT News. “To be reliable, we need to get good at managing our plasmas.”

    With great power comes great risks

    When a tokamak reactor is fully running, the plasma current inside can circulate at speeds of up to about 62 miles (100 kilometers) per second and at temperatures of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius). That is hotter than the Sun’s core.

    If the reactor has to be shut down for any reason, operators initiate a process to “ramp down” the plasma current, slowly de-energizing it. But this process is tricky, and the plasma can cause “scrapes and scarring to the tokamak’s interior—minor damage that still requires considerable time and resources to repair,” the researchers explained.

    “Uncontrolled plasma terminations, even during rampdown, can generate intense heat fluxes damaging the internal walls,” explained Wang. “Quite often, especially with the high-performance plasmas, rampdowns actually can push the plasma closer to some instability limits. So, it’s a delicate balance.

    Indeed, any misstep in operating fusion reactors can be costly. In an ideal world, researchers would be able to run tests in working tokamaks, but because fusion is still not efficient, running one of these reactors is incredibly costly, and most facilities will only run them a few times a year.

    Looking to the wisdom of physics

    For their model, the team found a delightfully clever method to overcome the limitations in data collection—they simply went back to the fundamental rules of physics. They paired their model’s neural network with another model describing plasma dynamics, and then trained the model on data from the TCV, a small experimental fusion device in Switzerland. The dataset included information about variations in the plasma’s starting temperature and energy levels, as well as during, and at the end of each experimental run.

    From there, the team used an algorithm to generate “trajectories” that laid out for the reactor operators how the plasma would likely behave as the reaction progressed. When they applied the algorithm to actual TCV runs, they found that following the model’s “trajectory” instructions were perfectly able to guide operators to ramp the device safely down.

    “We did it a number of times,” Wang said. “And we did things much better across the board. So, we had statistical confidence that we made things better.”

    “We’re trying to tackle the science questions to make fusion routinely useful,” he added. “What we’ve done here is the start of what is still a long journey. But I think we’ve made some nice progress.”

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    Gayoung Lee

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  • Machine Learning Techniques Enhance the Discovery of Excited Nuclear Levels in Sulfur-38

    Machine Learning Techniques Enhance the Discovery of Excited Nuclear Levels in Sulfur-38

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    The Science

    Newswise — Fixed numbers of protons and neutrons – the building blocks of nuclei – can rearrange themselves within a single nucleus. The products of this reshuffling include electromagnetic (gamma ray) transitions. These transitions connect excited energy levels called quantum levels, and the pattern in these connections provide a unique “fingerprint” for each isotope. Determining these fingerprints provides a sensitive test of scientists’ ability to describe one of the fundamental forces, the strong (nuclear) force that holds protons and neutrons together. In the laboratory, scientists can initiate the movement of protons and neutrons through an injection of excess energy using a nuclear reaction. In this study, researchers successfully used this approach to study the fingerprint of sulfur-38. They also used machine learning and other cutting-edge tools to analyze the data. 

    The Impact

    The results provide new empirical information on the “fingerprint” of quantum energy levels in the sulfur-38 nucleus. Comparisons with theoretical models may lead to important new insights. For example, one of the calculations highlighted the key role played by a particular nucleon orbital in the model’s ability to reproduce the fingerprints of sulfur-38  as well as neighboring nuclei. The study is also important for its first successful implementation of a specific machine learning-based approach to classifying data. Scientists are adopting this approach to other challenges in experimental design.

    Summary

    Researchers used a measurement that included a machine learning (ML) assisted analysis of the collected data to better determine the unique quantum energy levels – a “fingerprint” formed through the rearrangement of the protons and neutrons – in the neutron-rich nucleus sulfur-38. The results doubled the amount of empirical information on this particular fingerprint. They used a nuclear reaction involving the fusion of two nuclei, one from a heavy-ion beam and the second from a target, to produce the isotope and introduce the energy needed to excite it into higher quantum levels. The reaction and measurement leveraged a heavy-ion beam produced by the ATLAS Facility (a Department of Energy user facility), a target produced by the Center for Accelerator and Target Science (CATS), the detection of electromagnetic decays (gamma-rays) using the Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETINA), and the detection of the nuclei produced using the Fragment Mass Analyzer (FMA). 

    Due to complexities in the experimental parameters – which hinged between the production yields of the sulfur-38 nuclei in the reaction and the optimal settings for detection – the research adapted and implemented ML techniques throughout the data reduction. These techniques achieved significant improvements over other techniques. The ML-framework itself consisted of a fully connected neural network which was trained under supervision to classify sulfur-38 nuclei against all other isotopes produced by the nuclear reaction.

     

    Funding

    This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics and by the National Research Council of Canada.



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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • Scientists Probe the Emergent Structure of the Carbon Nucleus

    Scientists Probe the Emergent Structure of the Carbon Nucleus

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    The Science

    Newswise — The element carbon is critical to organic chemistry and life as we know it. The physics of its most common isotope, carbon-12, are extremely complex. Many experimental and theoretical investigations have been devoted to determining the energies and underlying structures of the nuclear states of carbon-12. In this work, researchers computed these states from first principles—the most basic components of physics theory. The approach used supercomputers and nuclear lattice simulations to calculate the three-dimensional shape formed by the protons and neutrons comprising the nucleus. The results show that all of the low-lying energy states of carbon-12 have a substructure where the six protons and six neutrons cluster together into alpha particles. Alpha particles are helium-4 nuclei, which contain two protons and two neutrons.

    The Impact

    One well-known nuclear state of carbon-12 is the Hoyle state. This state has an energy that sits near the energy threshold for three alpha particles or helium nuclei. This energy thereby greatly enhances the production of carbon in helium-burning stars. This helps to explain the presence of carbon in the Universe. The results obtained in this research show that the Hoyle state is composed of a “bent arm” or obtuse triangular arrangement of alpha particles. All the low-lying energy states of carbon-12 have an intrinsic shape composed of three alpha particles forming either an equilateral triangle or an obtuse triangle. The new results give information about the possible geometrical shapes of nuclear states.

    Summary

    The carbon atom provides the backbone for the complex organic chemistry composing the building blocks of life. The physics of the carbon nucleus in its predominant isotope, carbon-12, are also full of complexity. Researchers from the University of Bonn, Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, the Gaziantep Islamic Science and Technology University in Turkey, the Graduate School of China Academy of Engineering Physics, Tbilisi State University, and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University calculated the structure of the nuclear states of carbon-12 using the ab initio framework of nuclear lattice effective field theory.

    The research found that all the low-lying states of carbon-12 have an intrinsic shape composed of three alpha clusters forming either an equilateral triangle or an obtuse triangle. The states with the equilateral triangle shape also have a dual description in terms of particle-hole excitations in a mean-field picture. The results agree with experimental data and provide the first model-independent density map of the nuclear states of carbon-12. The results help to explain the origins of carbon from the helium and hydrogen that made up the Universe shortly after the Big Bang.

    Funding

    This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (the German Research Foundation), the National Natural Science Foundation of China , the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative, the National Security Academic Fund of China, Volkswagen Stiftung, the European Research Council, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear Computational Low-Energy Initiative SciDAC-4 project, as well as computational resources provided by the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.


    Journal Link: Nature Communications, May-2023

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • New Way to Determine Arrow of Time

    New Way to Determine Arrow of Time

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    Newswise — One of the annoying side effects of being absorbed in a gripping novel is that the cup of tea on the table becomes cold! Unfortunately, the tea would not heat itself by absorbing the heat around it, just as pieces of a broken egg would not put themselves together or milk mixed in coffee would not separate by itself. Such things are irreversible, and define a fixed direction of time—that from the past towards the future. This apparent progression of time is called the ‘arrow of time’.

    In a recent study, Prof Mahendra Verma of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, suggests a way, different from any previous ones, to determine the direction in which time is progressing. He uses the concept of energy cascade to define the arrow of time.

    One would think that the ‘arrow of time’ is well captured in the laws of physics—those related to the fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the strong nuclear forces. However, the mathematical equations of these laws stay perfectly valid when we substitute t with -t, that is, reverse the time. So, using these laws, we cannot explain the world around us, so full of irreversible things and so clearly asymmetric in time. Then how could we capture this asymmetry of time?

    “The arrow of time is an important question from the perspectives of biology, consciousness, and cosmology,” says Prof Verma. The concept is of interest to biologists in their study of evolution and ageing, to cosmologists in understanding how the Universe began and is evolving, to philosophers in answering questions such as ‘is time real?’.

    Scientists believe that the second law of thermodynamics defines the arrow of time. They describe an entity called entropy, which is a measure of the amount of disorder in a system and can be expressed mathematically. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can never decrease; it can either stay the same or increase. Thus the direction of increasing entropy is the forward direction of time, and the direction of decreasing entropy is the reverse direction of time.

    Prof Verma offers an alternative definition of forward-moving time in this work published in the journal European Physical Journal B. He notes that in dissipative systems, energy always flows from large scale or bigger chunks to small scales or smaller chunks, and this defines the arrow of time.

    When we pour milk in a cup of coffee and stir it, we see a large blob of milk swirl and then turn into vortices, smaller and smaller in size. The white blobs gradually turn to brown and finally mix completely with the coffee. The energy that we supply by stirring is transferred to the large blob of milk, which breaks into smaller blobs. The energy then transfers to these smaller blobs, which break into even smaller blobs, and the ‘cascade of energy’ continues until the milk mixes completely with the coffee.

    Dissipative systems are those in which energy is lost to heat, via friction in mechanical systems, via resistance in electrical systems, and via viscosity in fluids. Similar to how milk mixes in coffee, in a dissipative system, the energy supplied at large scales gets transferred successively to smaller scales (energy cascade) and is finally dissipated at the smallest scale.

    “When we break an egg using a spoon, note that the initial strike causes the egg to break and that the initial energy injection by the spoon cascades down the scale. This energy transfer is asymmetric in time; the energy cannot flow from small pieces of the egg to the spoon that broke it. This asymmetry explains why we cannot put a broken egg together,” argues Prof Verma. The energy cascade thus defines the arrow of time.

    In the current study, Prof Verma discusses the specific case of time reversal for turbulent flows. If we write the equations of energy transfers in turbulent fluids for reversed time (substitute t with -t), we get equations that indicate a flow of energy from small scale to large scale. Such energy transfers are never observed in reality (in dissipative systems). Thus, the energy flow from large scales to small scales defines forward-moving time, whereas energy flow from small scale to large scale defines reverse time.

    Prof Verma suggests that we can apply this very principle of energy transfers to several other physical systems such as earthquakes, thermal convection and magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. However, researchers will need to work out the details of the energy transfers for these systems. “We hope that this multiscale framework may be useful for resolving some of the longstanding issues on the arrow of time in physical and biological systems, as well as in cosmology,” he concludes. 

     

    About IIT Kanpur:

    Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur was established on 2nd November 1959 by an Act of Parliament. The institute has a sprawling campus spread over 1055 acres with large pool of academic and research resources spanning across 19 departments, 22 centres, and 3 Interdisciplinary programs in engineering, science, design, humanities, and management disciplines with 540 full-time faculty members and approximately 9000 students. In addition to formal undergraduate and postgraduate courses, the institute has been active in research and development in areas of value to both industry and government.

     

    For more information, visit www.iitk.ac.in.

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    Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

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  • Dance sparks magnetism’s birth

    Dance sparks magnetism’s birth

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    Newswise — Quantum materials hold the key to a future of lightning-speed, energy-efficient information systems. The problem with tapping their transformative potential is that, in solids, the vast number of atoms often drowns out the exotic quantum properties electrons carry.

    Rice University researchers in the lab of quantum materials scientist Hanyu Zhu found that when they move in circles, atoms can also work wonders: When the atomic lattice in a rare-earth crystal becomes animated with a corkscrew-shaped vibration known as a chiral phonon, the crystal is transformed into a magnet.

    According to a study published in Science, exposing cerium fluoride to ultrafast pulses of light sends its atoms into a dance that momentarily enlists the spins of electrons, causing them to align with the atomic rotation. This alignment would otherwise require a powerful magnetic field to activate, since cerium fluoride is naturally paramagnetic with randomly oriented spins even at zero temperature.

    “Each electron possesses a magnetic spin that acts like a tiny compass needle embedded in the material, reacting to the local magnetic field,” said Rice materials scientist and co-author Boris Yakobson. “Chirality ⎯ also called handedness because of the way in which left and right hands mirror each other without being superimposable ⎯ should not affect the energies of the electrons’ spin. But in this instance, the chiral movement of the atomic lattice polarizes the spins inside the material as if a large magnetic field were applied.”

    Though short-lived, the force that aligns the spins outlasts the duration of the light pulse by a significant margin. Since atoms only rotate in particular frequencies and move for a longer time at lower temperatures, additional frequency- and temperature-dependent measurements further confirm that magnetization occurs as a result of the atoms’ collective chiral dance.

    “The effect of atomic motion on electrons is surprising because electrons are so much lighter and faster than atoms,” said Zhu, Rice’s William Marsh Rice Chair and an assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering. “Electrons can usually adapt to a new atomic position immediately, forgetting their prior trajectory. Material properties would remain unchanged if atoms went clockwise or counterclockwise, i.e., traveled forward or backward in time ⎯ a phenomenon that physicists refer to as time-reversal symmetry.”

    The idea that the collective motion of atoms breaks time-reversal symmetry is relatively recent. Chiral phonons have now been experimentally demonstrated in a few different materials, but exactly how they impact material properties is not well understood.

    “We wanted to quantitatively measure the effect of chiral phonons on a material’s electrical, optical and magnetic properties,” Zhu said. “Because spin refers to electrons’ rotation while phonons describe atomic rotation, there is a naive expectation that the two might talk with each other. So we decided to focus on a fascinating phenomenon called spin-phonon coupling.”

    Spin-phonon coupling plays an important part in real-world applications like writing data on a hard disk. Earlier this year, Zhu’s group demonstrated a new instance of spin-phonon coupling in single molecular layers with atoms moving linearly and shaking spins.

    In their new experiments, Zhu and the team members had to find a way to drive a lattice of atoms to move in a chiral fashion. This required both that they pick the right material and that they create light at the right frequency to send its atomic lattice aswirl with the help of theoretical computation from the collaborators.

    “There is no off-the-shelf light source for our phonon frequencies at about 10 terahertz,” explained Jiaming Luo, an applied physics graduate student and the lead author of the study. “We created our light pulses by mixing intense infrared lights and twisting the electric field to ‘talk’ to the chiral phonons. Furthermore, we took another two infrared light pulses to monitor the spin and atomic motion, respectively.”

    In addition to the insights into spin-phonon coupling derived from the research findings, the experimental design and setup will help inform future research on magnetic and quantum materials.

    “We hope that quantitatively measuring the magnetic field from chiral phonons can help us develop experiment protocols to study novel physics in dynamic materials,” Zhu said. “Our goal is to engineer materials that do not exist in nature through external fields ⎯ such as light or quantum fluctuations.”

    The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (2005096, 1842494, 2240106), the Welch Foundation (C-2128) and the Army Research Office (W911NF-16-1-0255).

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    Rice University

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  • ORNL is poised to have a major role in the future of nuclear physics

    ORNL is poised to have a major role in the future of nuclear physics

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    Newswise — The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted.

    “The 2023 Long Range Plan lays out a compelling vision for nuclear science in the United States under multiple budget scenarios,” said Gail Dodge, physicist at Old Dominion University and chair of the NSAC. “Implementation of the Long Range Plan’s recommendations will maintain the nation’s leadership and workforce in nuclear science.”

    On Wednesday the NSAC, which advises DOE and the National Science Foundation on nuclear physics, approved a 10-year roadmap, or Long Range Plan. It includes four key priorities that would advance the nation’s nuclear science research program and set the direction of research for another generation of scientists.

    The recommendations would give ORNL a continuing critical role in helping maintain the nation’s leadership in nuclear physics for at least the next decade — solving mysteries of how the smallest particles in the universe behave and using that understanding to advance medicine, quantum science, energy, national security and other areas that improve the lives of people everywhere.

    Research in nuclear physics — the science of atomic nuclei and their constituents — helps us understand how virtually all ordinary matter in the universe originated and evolved. The cutting-edge research on particles is also used in isotope production, medical diagnosis, national security, energy, nuclear treaty verification, the environment and nuclear applications.

    The highest priority, according to the plan, is increasing the budget for nuclear physics in theoretical, experimental and computational research “to capitalize on the extraordinary opportunities for scientific discovery made possible by the substantial and sustained investment of the United States.” This would expand “discovery potential, technological innovation, and workforce development to the benefit of society.” This recommendation, if adopted, would ensure user facilities throughout the country would continue to operate at the highest level and reap the most scientific benefit.

    “Each one of the four recommendations has a large impact for ORNL,” said David Radford, ORNL physicist and head of the lab’s Fundamental Nuclear and Particle Physics Section. For example, another recommendation is for funding of multiple large experiments to search for neutrinoless double beta decay; one of these experiments has leadership and significant participation from ORNL scientists. The advisory committee recommends that construction of ton-scale detectors addressing fundamental physics should be a top budgetary priority.

    That research, which aims to solve the problem of how matter came to dominate over antimatter, will provide insight into the origin and mass of the neutrino, and in so doing could rewrite the Standard Model of particle physics. The research includes experiments known as CUPID, LEGEND and nEXO proposed by international collaborations. ORNL scientists, including Radford, are leading DOE’s contribution to building LEGEND.

    “This could help explain the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe,” Radford said. “This plan reiterates that the experiment should go forward. That’s very important for this extremely compelling and exciting physics.”

    Radford and Cynthia Jenks, ORNL’s associate laboratory director for the Physical Sciences Directorate, said the ORNL impacts at a rollout of the plan on Friday after the plan was released to the public on Wednesday.

    Another committee recommendation calls for the “expeditious completion” of the Electron-Ion Collider, a massive particle accelerator that would be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Already, ORNL physicists are hard at work designing and building a detector for the system, which, like a precision microscope, will illuminate three-dimensional images of nuclear matter, uncovering how particles like quarks and gluons interact and behave. Experiments on the machine could help answer longstanding questions about the fundamental particles of matter.

    An additional recommendation is to advance discovery science for society by investing in scientific projects that offer new strategic opportunities. Such opportunities advance computing, nuclear data for medicine, clean energy, national security, nonproliferation, the environment and space — all areas that are in ORNL’s wheelhouse of research and that would bolster ORNL’s research programs, Radford said.

    “ORNL certainly does work in these areas, using emerging technologies to meet national needs,” Radford said, adding that programs in nuclear data, advanced computing, sensing, quantum information and nuclear data all make use of not only physicists but engineers, data scientists and other experts. An example is ORNL’s Advanced Radiation Detection, Imaging, Data Science and Applications group, which is invested in these research areas. Also, high-performance computing research impacts physics experiments around the world, including at CERN in Switzerland and elsewhere.

    DOE facilities, such as ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source, or SNS, an Office of Science user facility, are critical to fundamental nuclear physics research by ORNL researchers and other laboratory and university scientists around the world. An important experiment at SNS is the neutron electric dipole moment experiment, which aims to make the world’s best measurement of this property, an accomplishment that would be “paradigm shifting,” the committee says. Similarly, ORNL scientists use DOE’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, also a DOE Office of Science user facility, at Michigan State University, which is producing exciting results on decays of never-before-produced isotopes. ORNL helped lead construction of a day-one detector for that facility that has already produced high-impact results.

    Such scientific advances rely on a workforce trained in science, and the plan calls for resources to help build the next generation of STEM researchers. This includes ensuring graduate students are fairly compensated and “expanding policies and resources to ensure an environment that is safe and respectful to everyone,” said Shelly Lesher, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. One of the architects of the workforce development section of the plan, Lesher added that the plan calls for exposure of the field to broader populations to increase representation. Like all 17 of America’s DOE national laboratories, ORNL stands to benefit from policies that make it possible for people from all walks of life to join the field, Radford said.

    Said Radford, “The training of the future workforce at this lab will help the security and economic prosperity of the country. This is the voice of the community saying what its priorities are and that the nation would benefit tremendously by buying into that and funding nuclear physics at the appropriate level.”

    UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.. — Lawrence Bernard

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    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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  • MSU, FRIB developing artificial intelligence tools to enhance discovery, technology and training

    MSU, FRIB developing artificial intelligence tools to enhance discovery, technology and training

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    BYLINE: Matt Davenport

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    Highlights: 

    • The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, or DOE-SC, is investing in machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to accelerate the speed of research and development in nuclear science. Michigan State University researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, are leading five of these new grant projects.
    • These projects aim to enhance the breadth of FRIB’s activities, covering nuclear physics experiments and theory, as well as particle accelerator operations.
    • FRIB is a DOE-SC user facility, meaning that these advances will serve the global research community while preparing students to become the next generation of leaders and innovators in nuclear science.

    EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, at Michigan State University is home to a world-unique particle accelerator designed to push the boundaries of our understanding of nature.

    Now, FRIB is accelerating that work with a form of artificial intelligence known as machine learning with support from the Office of Nuclear Physics, or NP, and the Office of High Energy Physics, or HEP, at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, or DOE-SC.

    “Artificial intelligence has the potential to shorten the timeline for experimental discovery in nuclear physics,” said Timothy Hallman, DOE associate director of science for Nuclear Physics. “Particle accelerator facilities and nuclear physics instrumentation face a variety of technical challenges in simulations, control, data acquisition and analysis that artificial intelligence holds promise to address.” 

    FRIB scientists have received several grants that aim to bring machine learning’s power to process immense data sets to bear in experiments, theoretical studies and the science and engineering that keeps the accelerator humming.

    The grants will be led by Christopher Wrede, Dean Lee, Peter Ostroumov, and Yue Hao. All are professors at FRIB and in MSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Natural Science. Lee is the head of FRIB’s Theoretical Nuclear Science Department, and Ostroumov is the associate director of the FRIB Accelerator Systems Division.

    With its grant “Machine Learning for Time Projection Chambers at FRIB,” Wrede’s team is working to shorten the time to discovery in experiments for nuclear astrophysics, helping better explain processes in stars.

    For the grant supporting theoretical work, titled “STREAMLINE Collaboration: Machine Learning for Nuclear Many-Body Systems,” Lee and his colleagues are using machine learning in a variety of ways. The common goal is to accelerate the quest for a more robust understanding of the physics at work in the cores of atoms.

    The third grant — “Online Autonomous Tuning of the FRIB Accelerator Using Machine Learning” — will have Ostroumov and his team leveraging massive amounts of operations data to help automate facility processes. In doing so, the team is working to minimize upkeep time and help more FRIB users conduct more science.

    And Hao is leading two grants: One is titled “Development of Differentiable Beam Dynamics Simulation Tools Including Collective Effects for HEP Accelerator Applications” and the other is “Artificial Intelligence Application in Nonlinear Beam Dynamics Study for Future HEP Accelerators.” 

    Both will help computational studies better integrate and leverage the power of machine learning in accelerator physics. Hao’s grants were awarded by the Office of High Energy Physics, while those led by Lee, Wrede and Ostroumov were awarded by the Office of Nuclear Physics, both of which are part of DOE-SC.

    FRIB is a DOE-SC user facility serving the global nuclear science research community. The work of these grants will help support that community and the DOE-SC mission to deliver transformative discoveries and scientific tools.

    Beyond creating new knowledge and technology, DOE-SC and FRIB are also dedicated to training the next generation of nuclear scientists — an effort that the teams will work to strengthen with these new grants. 

    “AI and machine learning are hot topics,” Lee said. “They’re not just useful, they’re helping us recruit new students to the field.”

    In addition to the five grants led by FRIB faculty, another award is supporting a collaboration between FRIB and Virginia State University. Led by Thomas Redpath, an assistant professor in VSU’S Department of Chemistry, the grant also enlists the services of Paul Guèye, associate professor of nuclear physics at FRIB and in MSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. The team’s project is titled “Neural Network Classifier for Analyzing Measurements of Fast Neutrons for Invariant Mass Spectroscopy.”

    By Matt Davenport

    Read on MSUToday.

    ### 

    Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 165 years. One of the world’s leading research universities, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery to make a better, safer, healthier world for all while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

    For MSU news on the Web, go to MSUToday. Follow MSU News on Twitter at twitter.com/MSUnews.

    Michigan State University (MSU) operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. User facility operation is supported by the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics as one of 28 DOE-SC user facilities. 

    The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of today’s most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.

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

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

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    The Science

    Not all of the material around us is stable. Some materials may undergo radioactive decay to form more stable isotopes. Scientists have now observed a new decay mode for the first time. In this decay, a lighter form of oxygen, 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). Scientists observed this decay by watching a single nucleus break apart and measuring the breakup products.

    The Impact

    Scientists have previously observed interesting modes of radioactive decay following the process called beta-plus decay. This is where a proton turns into a neutron and emits some of the produced energy by emitting a positron and an antineutrino. After this initial beta-decay, the resulting nucleus can have enough energy to boil off extra particles and make itself more stable. This new decay mode is the first observation of three helium-nuclei (alpha particles) and a proton being emitted following beta-decay. The findings can inform scientists about decay processes and the properties of the nucleus before the decay.

    Summary

    In this experiment, researchers used a particle accelerator known as a cyclotron at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University to produce a beam of radioactive nuclei at high energies (approximately 10% the speed of light). They sent this beam of radioactive material, oxygen-13, into a piece of equipment known as the Texas Active Target Time Projection Chamber (TexAT TPC). The material stops inside this detector, which is filled with carbon dioxide gas, and decays after about ten milliseconds by emitting a positron and a neutrino (beta-plus decay). By implanting the oxygen-13 into the detector one nucleus at a time and waiting for it to decay, the researchers measured any particles that boil off following the beta-decay using the TexAT TPC. Next, they analyzed the data with a computer program to identify the tracks the particles leave in the gas. This allowed them to identify the rare events (occurring only once per 1,200 decays) as those where four of the particles are emitted following beta-decay.

     

    Funding

    This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Science, and by the National Nuclear Security Administration through the Center for Excellence in Nuclear Training and University Based Research (CENTAUR). Several of the authors also acknowledge travel support from the IBS grant and the National Research Foundation of Korea grant, both funded by the government of the Republic of Korea.


    Journal Link: Physical Review Letters, Jun-2023

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • Calculations Predict Surprising Quark Diffusion in Hot Nuclear Matter

    Calculations Predict Surprising Quark Diffusion in Hot Nuclear Matter

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    The Science

    Scientists can use powerful colliders to smash atomic nuclei together to create a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This “soup” of quarks and gluons, some of the fundamental building blocks of matter, filled the early universe. Tracking how high energy jets of quarks travel through the QGP can reveal information about the QGP’s properties. Scientists’ simplest assumption is that local interactions with the quarks and gluons will deflect these energetic particles. But recent theoretical calculations that also include non-local quantum interactions—those interactions beyond a particle’s immediate surroundings—predict a super-diffusive process. This means that the complex  interactions in QGP deflect quarks faster and at wider angles than can be explained by local interactions alone.

    The Impact

    Testing these predictions at particle colliders will provide new insight into the interactions between quarks and gluons. These interactions are governed by the strong nuclear force, one of the four fundamental forces that govern the universe. The new theoretical explanation points to the importance of the non-local nature of these quantum interactions. The findings suggest that the description of the QGP as a collection of point-like particles may break down even at short distances. The discovery of the importance of longer-range quantum interactions might also offer a new perspective for understanding why the QGP flows like a nearly perfect fluid–a fluid with very low viscosity.

    Summary

    Scientists use particle colliders to recreate a form of early universe matter known as a QGP. Tracking how energetic jets of particles move through the QGP can reveal information about its properties. Early calculations based on the theory of strong interactions suggested that jets would undergo a diffusive process caused by random deflections as the energetic particles interacted with the quarks and gluons that make up the plasma—similar to the way pollen particles on the surface of a pond get “kicked” around by water molecules.

    Counter to these early calculations, nuclear theorists at Brookhaven National Laboratory recently discovered that including non-local quantum effects—which arise from long-lived gluon fluctuations—predicts significant deviations from the expected diffusion pattern in QGP. Including these non-local effects predicts that energetic jets will undergo a super-diffusive process, broadening the angle of the jet faster than local interactions alone can explain. The predictions can be tested by tracking energetic jets in the QGP created in high-energy heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (a Department of Energy user facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory) and the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

     

    Funding

    This research was funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics and by the National Science Foundation.


    Journal Link: Journal of High Energy Physics, Sep-2022
    Journal Link: Physical Review D, Sep-2022

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • Hi’CT: Revolutionary Pixel Sensor-Based Image Device Enhances Precision in Ion Therapy

    Hi’CT: Revolutionary Pixel Sensor-Based Image Device Enhances Precision in Ion Therapy

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    Newswise — By directly measuring Relative Stopping Power (RSP) with ions, a pixel sensor based named “Hi’CT” project with multi-layer structure reduces the risk of range uncertainty, a major contributor to dose imprecision in ion therapy. With enhanced high-precision imaging capabilities and a fully digital design, Hi’CT can be integrated into compact treatment room, ensuring efficient clinical pre-scanning and positioning verification. This novel approach reduces safety margins, significantly improving treatment accuracy and ultimately enhancing patients’ quality of life. The Hi’CT system heralds a promising future for the advancement of cancer treatment, providing new hope for more effective and precise radiotherapy.

    To fullfill the clinical demand for carbon ion therapy, this study presents the technical design of the Hi’CT system, which directly obtains precise estimates of carbon ion range, achieving precise image guide to protect healthy tissues around the target. Instead of using conventional X-CT, Hi’CT does not rely on HU value conversion but directly uses the reconstructed clinical ion trajectories for imaging, enabling an accurate estimation of RSP. Additionally, several imaging algorithms are proposed for various clinical purposes. Moreover, the system employs the same therapeutic beam for imaging, holding the potential for real-time image-guided therapy in the future.

    The Hi’CT system features a fully digital architecture with a compact length of approximately 10 cm, facilitating seamless integration into space-constrained heavy ion therapy devices. The core of Hi’CT is the digital segmented multi-layer detector, comprising upstream and downstream detectors, a compensator block, and sampling layers. This design accurately measures the endpoint of particle range near the Bragg peak with excellent detection efficiency. Its compact design allows for broader adaptability and easy integration, significant improving treatment qualities.

    The Hi’CT system equips rapid imaging algorithms that do not require tracking process, eliminating the need for lengthy pre-scanning wait times. Fast acquisition of carbon ion CT images facilitates fast patient positioning verification. The Hi’CT system aims to achieve real-time image-guided during ion therapy. It is expected that the imaging time can be shortened to within 3 min in the future, substantially reducing off-target shift caused by organ motion and breathing movement.

    ###

    References

    DOI: 10.1007/s41365-023-01251-x

    Original source URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41365-023-01251-x

    Journal: Nuclear Science and Techniques

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    Chinese Academy of Sciences

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  • Nuclear Charge Distribution Measurements May Solve Outstanding Puzzle In Particle Physics

    Nuclear Charge Distribution Measurements May Solve Outstanding Puzzle In Particle Physics

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    The Science

    What scientists call the “nuclear weak distribution” describes the distribution of “active” protons in a nucleus. These are protons that are eligible to transition into neutrons through what scientists call the “weak interaction.” Researchers recently reviewed the existing standard procedure to determine this distribution. In the study, they abandoned previous treatments using nuclear shell models. Instead, they related the weak distribution to the distribution of electric charges in a nucleus. Scientists can measure this distribution by scattering electrons off nuclear targets or by studying energy levels through atomic spectroscopy.

    The Impact

    The new data-driven analysis found significant differences with the results of previous model-based determinations of the nuclear weak distribution. This result advances the search for new physics based on nuclear beta decay experiments. It does so by providing a partial explanation for a discrepancy between predictions from particle physics theory and experimental measurement of a fundamental quantity called “Vud.” This term describes how quarks transition from one type to another inside a proton or neutron, thus changing the particles.

    Summary

    The extracted value of “Vud” from nuclear beta decays seems to be substantially smaller than what is required by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, the commonly-acknowledged best theory for elementary particle physics. This observed anomaly stimulates vibrant discussions of possibilities of new physics discoveries. To study its origin, researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University investigated the so-called “nuclear weak distribution.” They found that the current understanding of this distribution is based on rather simple models that assume non-interacting nucleons inside a nucleus. Furthermore, they showed that this distribution may be determined independently of models using measurements of nuclear charge distributions, which can be done either through electron-nucleus scattering experiments or through atomic spectroscopy.

    Upon analyzing existing data, the researchers found that the value of Vud moved closer to the Standard Model prediction. Future measurements of nuclear charge distributions, for example at FRIB, may provide further insights towards the resolution of the Vud anomaly.

     

    Funding

    This work is supported in part by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics.


    Journal Link: Physical Review Letters, Apr-2023

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • How Molten Salt Could Be the Lifeblood of Tomorrow’s Nuclear Energy

    How Molten Salt Could Be the Lifeblood of Tomorrow’s Nuclear Energy

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    Newswise — Salt isn’t just for popcorn anymore. In fact, molten salt has caught the eye of the nuclear industry as an ideal working fluid for reactor cooling, energy transfer, fueling and fission product absorption. Many of the salts being considered are inexpensive, nontoxic, and easily transportable. In fact, table salt is one of the constituents many reactor developers are choosing to use.  

    Heightened interest in molten salt reactors (MSRs) has led to increased investment in their research and development. Idaho National Laboratory has already dedicated efforts to establish comprehensive molten salt capabilities. In the coming years, these efforts will establish a molten salt characterization facility, irradiate fuel salt and, for the first time, start up an experimental “fast” reactor that runs on molten salt. 

    “Molten salt research is essential for the future of nuclear energy, and INL is the ideal resource for industry projects in this area,” said Advanced Technology of Molten Salts Manager John Carter. “MSRs are an attractive option for future power generation, and we are prepared to make significant progress toward full-scale operations.”  

    WHY SALT? 

    Molten salt, as a coolant and nuclear fuel, offers numerous safety, efficiency and flexibility benefits.  

    Interestingly, molten salt fuel comes with an inherent safety feature. If the salt overheats, it naturally expands and makes the fission reaction less effective, which shuts down the reactor. The MSR reactor core naturally changes its power level to match heat removal for electricity production, allowing it to appropriately meet consumer demand. 

    Another benefit: fuel flexibility. Uranium, plutonium and thorium all form salts that can be used as fuel for MSRs. At reactor operating temperatures, the salt is liquid, which means new fuel can be introduced and in-use fuel can be cleaned, filtered and managed during operation. This eliminates the need for refueling outages.  

    Molten salt fuel opens a whole new world of possibilities to reactor designers. The characteristically high temperatures in MSRs translate into efficient electrical power conversion, but the low-pressure feature eliminates the need for costly, thick-walled pipes and tanks.  

    The use of fast neutrons has its own set of benefits as well. 

    WHAT ARE FAST NEUTRONS? 

    A fast-spectrum nuclear reactor uses fast, high-energy neutrons to sustain the nuclear reaction. Fast neutrons are more effective than slow neutrons at consuming certain waste products. This greatly reduces the amount of long-lived waste that must be isolated from the environment.  

    While fast-spectrum reactors can produce clean and reliable electricity for the grid, they can also provide thermal energy for industrial needs such as water desalination, aluminum and steel production, hydrogen production, and carbon capture. Today, those processes burn fossil fuels to generate high-temperature heat. Getting that heat from the power of fission instead would further reduce the globe’s dependence on carbon-based energy sources.  

    With these benefits in mind, the prospect of adopting a fast-spectrum, salt-based MSR design is a high priority for the nuclear energy industry, the United States and international governments.  

    WHAT RESEARCH IS HAPPENING NOW? 

    INL researchers and engineers are helping answer some outstanding questions about MSR technologies.  

    For instance, as part of the Molten Salt Research Temperature Controlled Irradiation project, a Laboratory Directed Research and Development project at INL, researchers have designed the first fuel-bearing molten chloride salt irradiation experiment. This experiment places encapsulated fuel salt into an operating reactor to better understand how chloride fuel salt properties change during irradiation. The test is planned for later this year. 

    Another project, the Molten Salt Thermophysical Examination Capability, is a state-of-the-art facility where researchers will use specialized equipment inside a shielded glovebox to handle and closely examine irradiated fuel salt. Researchers hope to learn how materials will behave under operating conditions by observing their density, heat capacity and viscosity. The team should complete this National Reactor Innovation Center project next year.  

    INL is also part of a team developing the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE), a six-month sub-scale test that will demonstrate the first operational fast spectrum molten salt reactor in the world. In partnership with Southern Company and TerraPower, INL will synthesize and handle the fuel salt, load and operate the reactor, and perform all post-operation deactivation and disassembly work. The test-bed experiment, a public-private partnership under the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, is expected to begin operation as soon as 2027 and will provide the data necessary to take the next step toward licensing a commercial Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. 

    “It is incredible to see so much knowledge and talent come together for the MCRE Project” said Nick Smith, MCRE Project Director. “We are leveraging INL’s experience in fuel and reactor demonstrations, combining that with the innovative ideas and sense of urgency of our industry partners, and working through the engineering of a technology no one has ever built before. It is the most exciting thing I have ever been a part of.” 

    INL is also leading research related to molten salt properties, risk mitigation and MSR condition optimization with the help of dedicated computational modeling efforts.  

    Multiphysics computer modeling and simulations have been developed or customized specifically for MSRs using INL’s open-source Multiphysics Objected-Oriented Simulation Environment, or MOOSE, code. This application allows researchers to create precise digital models across multiple scales, materials and research areas. These high-fidelity simulations, informed by real-world experiments, help researchers and industry enhance MSR safety and performance by reliably predicting molten salt properties, thermodynamics and irradiation behaviors. 

    “The research activities going on at INL will help advance the technical readiness level of advanced molten salt reactors,” said research scientist Toni Karlsson. “INL has technical staff members with a passion for molten salts and unique experimental capabilities for actinide and irradiated salts not found anywhere else in the world. Along with industry partners, we are bridging the gap from advanced reactor development to deployment.”  

     

    About Idaho National Laboratory
    Battelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nation’s center for nuclear energy research and development, and also performs research in each of DOE’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visit www.inl.gov. Follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. 

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  • Resolving a Mathematical Puzzle in Quarks and Gluons in Nuclear Matter

    Resolving a Mathematical Puzzle in Quarks and Gluons in Nuclear Matter

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    The Science

    The building blocks of atomic nuclei are protons and neutrons, which are themselves made of even more fundamental particles: quarks and gluons. These particles interact via the “strong” force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. They make up the nuclei at the heart of every atom. They also make up forms of hot or dense nuclear matter that exhibit exotic properties. Scientists study the properties of hot and cold nuclear matter in relativistic heavy ion collision experiments and will continue to do so using the future Electron-Ion Collider. The ultimate goal is to understand how complex forms of matter emerge from elementary particles affected by strong forces.

    The Impact

    Theoretical calculations involving the strong force are complex. One aspect of this complexity arises because there are many ways to perform these calculations. Scientists refer to some of these as “gauge choices.” All gauge choices should produce the same result for the calculation of any quantity that can be measured in an experiment. However, one particular choice, called “axial gauge,” has puzzled scientists for years because of difficulties in obtaining consistent results upon making this choice. This recent study resolves this puzzle and paves the way for reliable calculations of hot and cold nuclear matter properties that can be tested in current and future experiments.

    Summary

    The exotic form of nuclear matter that physicists study in relativistic heavy ion collisions is called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This form of matter existed in the early universe. Physicists explore its properties in heavy ion collision experiments by recreating the extremely high temperatures last seen microseconds after the Big Bang. By analyzing experimental data from the collisions and comparing them with theoretical calculations, physicists can ascertain various properties of the QGP. Using a calculation method called “axial gauge” had previously seemed to imply that two QGP properties that describe how heavy quarks move through the QGP were the same. 

    Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Washington have now found this implication to be incorrect. The study also carefully analyzed the subtle conditions for when axial gauge can be employed and explained why the two properties are different. Finally, it showed that two distinct methods for measuring how gluons are distributed inside nuclei must yield different results. Gluons are the particles that carry the strong force, This prediction will be tested at the future Electron-Ion Collider.

     

    Funding

    This work is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics and by the Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, InQubator for Quantum Simulation (IQuS).


    Journal Link: Physical Review Letters, Feb-2023

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • New Insights on the Interplay of Electromagnetism and the Weak Nuclear Force

    New Insights on the Interplay of Electromagnetism and the Weak Nuclear Force

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    The Science

    Outside atomic nuclei, neutrons are unstable particles, with a lifetime of about fifteen minutes. The neutron disintegrates due to the weak nuclear force, leaving behind a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. The weak nuclear force is one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, along with the strong force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. Comparing experimental measurements of neutron decay with theoretical predictions based on the weak nuclear force can reveal so-far undiscovered interactions. To do so, researchers must achieve extremely high levels of precision. A team of nuclear theorists has uncovered a new, relatively large effect in neutron decay that arises from the interplay of the weak and electromagnetic forces. 

    The Impact

    This research identified a shift in the strength with which a spinning neutron experiences the weak nuclear force. This has two major implications. First, scientists have known since 1956 that due to the weak force, a system and one built like its mirror image do not behave in the same way. In other words, mirror reflection symmetry is broken. This research affects the search for new interactions, technically known as “right-handed currents,” that, at very short distances of less than one hundred quadrillionths of a centimeter, restore the universe’s mirror-reflection symmetry. Second, this research points to the need to compute electromagnetic effects with higher precision. Doing so will require the use of future high-performance computers.

    Summary

    A team of researchers computed the impact of electromagnetic interactions on neutron decay due to the emission and absorption of photons, the quanta of light. The team included nuclear theorists from the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington, North Carolina State University, the University of Amsterdam, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

    The calculation was performed with a modern method, known as “effective field theory,” that efficiently organizes the importance of fundamental interactions in phenomena involving strongly interacting particles. The team identified a new percent-level shift to the nucleon axial coupling, gA, which governs the strength of decay of a spinning neutron. The new correction originates from the emission and absorption of electrically charged pions, which are mediators of the strong nuclear force. While effective field theory provides an estimate of the uncertainties, improving on the current precision will require advanced calculations on Department of Energy supercomputers. The researchers also assessed the impact on searches of right-handed current. They found that after including the new correction, experimental data and theory are in good agreement and current uncertainties still allow for new physics at a relatively low mass scale.

     

    Funding

    This research was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics; the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los Alamos National Laboratory; the National Science Foundation; and the Dutch Research Council.

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • First-of-a-Kind Technology: INL Demonstrates Mobile Hot Cell for Radioactive Source Recovery

    First-of-a-Kind Technology: INL Demonstrates Mobile Hot Cell for Radioactive Source Recovery

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    Newswise — A crowd gathers around a black wooden box that resembles a short refrigerator, waiting for the motion of a pair of robotic arms sitting just outside the box. When the arms move, a wave of excited energy in the room at Idaho National Laboratory conveys how this simple action may alter the future of international radioactive source removal and disposal.  

    The team was observing the first demonstration of a mobile hot cell that could fundamentally change how a certain class of radioactive materials is handled. The robotic and mobile nature of the hot cell is poised to improve economics, employee safety and national security. 

    “In some of the areas where we plan to use this mobile hot cell, radioactive sources are just left on the shelf once they’ve been spent, where they are extremely vulnerable to theft and producing harmful emissions,” said Kathy McBride, the project manager for INL’s Radioactive Source Recovery Project. “Having access to a proper disposal method could be a game-changer for many of these facilities and their staff.” 

    WHAT IS SOURCE RECOVERY?

    Across the world, radiological materials play an important role in medical research and commercial facilities. If these radioactive sources were to fall into the wrong hands, they could be used in a radiological dispersal device (dirty bomb) or in other acts of terrorism. Safe removal of used radioactive sources requires new techniques and fabricated containers, which expand secure transportation opportunities.  

    The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Radiological Security (ORS) has funded INL’s efforts to develop a mobile hot cell.  

    “Our job is to recover used, abandoned and unwanted radioactive sources,” said Kevin Kenney, the relationship manager for INL’s Radioactive Source Recovery Project. “We’ve already been doing domestic removals. However, this hot cell will enable our program to take these efforts internationally.” 

    WHY A MOBILE HOT CELL? 

    This mobile hot cell project began about two years ago, with the goal of fabricating a first-of-its-kind mobile source recovery tool, or hot cell. ORS leaders hope to use this tool to reduce global radiological threats by providing tools and expertise to help international partners improve radioactive source end-of-life management. While standards for safely recovering and handling radioactive sources are strict in the United States, many other countries do not apply the same rigor.  

    As Kenney described it, the hot cell’s mobility is more like a carnival than a recreational vehicle. It is designed to be assembled and shipped in multiple pieces, which are created with maximum shipping weights in mind. The shielding walls are constructed like a Russian stacking doll, with between four and five walls of increasing size that can be added or removed as necessary based on the maximum source activity of the irradiators. 

    “Another thing that distinguishes this from traditional hot cells is that it uses robotics, as opposed to manipulator arms,” said Ted Reed, a mechanical engineer on the project. “This way, we can position our operators 50 feet away from the hot cell.” This distance allows for reduced shielding needed to protect source handlers, decreasing the weight of the cell and to follow principles for handling radioactive material. 

    IMPROVEMENTS AHEAD 

    Although it’s a vast improvement to current methods, the robot is still not perfect. Its joints can be damaged and rendered inoperable from the radiation of the sources. To mitigate this issue, the source recovery team prefers to preprogram the robot to perform discreet tasks, lessening the time it must spend moving around inside the hot cell. 

    At the end of September 2022, the team demonstrated a mock-up of the mobile hot cell with all of its components in place. The mock-up will be used to evaluate and optimize the design features over the next year. 

    Already, INL’s hot cell’s design stands out. Current designs use sand for shielding, which requires significant effort to set up and tear down. Because hot cell operators can stand a safe distance away from a source with INL’s design, the mobile hot cell enables a safe, rapid deployment.  

    Additionally, the mobile hot cell will allow radioactive sources from multiple devices to be prepared for consolidation into a single cask for transportation. This is a vast improvement over the current recovery method. It will minimize the resources required to complete any source recovery trip to remove several distinct devices from a country’s inventory. 

    WHAT’S NEXT? 

    During fiscal year 2023, the research team will finalize the design and it will undergo safety analyses. If all goes well, the hot cell will be demonstrated and deployed both internationally and domestically. 

    “Occasionally, we will encounter an irradiator in the U.S. that can’t be shipped in a cask due to limits on the amount of material that can ship at once,” Kenney said. “That’s another case where it would be essential to have a mobile hot cell that can be deployed.” 

    Eric Egan, the principal investigator within the source recovery team for the mobile hot cell project, emphasized the team effort required to complete this project. “This impressive accomplishment would not have been possible without support from inside and outside INL. This includes the technical expertise and advice from Southwest Research Institute, as well as the invaluable skill of our INL machinists, facility and nuclear safety engineers.” 


    About Idaho National Laboratory
    Battelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nation’s center for nuclear energy research and development, and also performs research in each of DOE’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visit www.inl.gov. Follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. 

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  • Zeroing in on a Fundamental Property of the Proton’s Internal Dynamics

    Zeroing in on a Fundamental Property of the Proton’s Internal Dynamics

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    The Science

    Inside the proton are elementary particles called quarks. Quarks and protons have an intrinsic angular momentum called spin. Spin can point in different directions. When it is perpendicular to the proton’s momentum, it is called a transverse spin. Just like the proton carries an electric charge, it also has another fundamental charge called the tensor charge. The tensor charge is the net transverse spin of quarks in a proton with transverse spin. The only way to obtain the tensor charge from experimental data is using the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) to extract the “transversity” function. This universal function encodes the difference between the number of quarks with their spin aligned and anti-aligned to the proton’s spin when it is in a transverse direction. Using state-of-the-art data science techniques, researchers recently made the most precise empirical determination of the tensor charge.

    The Impact

    Due to the phenomenon known as “confinement,” quarks are always bound in the proton or other hadrons (particles with multiple quarks). The challenge is to connect the theory of quark interactions (QCD) to experimental measurements of high-energy collisions involving hadrons. In this study, researchers used a complete collection of transverse-spin data from electron-positron, electron-proton, and proton-proton scattering in the first global analysis of its kind. They employed this data to make the most precise known empirical calculation of the tensor charge. Scientists need a precise and accurate determination of the proton’s tensor charge to understand the proton’s internal structure and the dynamics of QCD strong interactions. This information is also very important in searches for new physics.

    Summary

    Researchers from the Coordinated Theoretical Approach to Transverse Momentum Dependent Hadron Structure in QCD Topical Collaboration (TMD Collaboration) , working in conjunction with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) Angular Momentum Collaboration (JAM Collaboration), analyzed data from a wide range of experiments where protons and/or quarks were transversely polarized. This allowed for the most precise empirical determination of the proton’s tensor charge. The tensor charge is not only a fundamental property of the proton but also needed in searches for new physics. The results were then compared to computations of the proton’s tensor charge by lattice QCD, which simulates the proton’s structure on a supercomputer. After about a decade of results showing disagreement between empirical methods and lattice QCD for the proton’s tensor charge, researchers for the first time found agreement between the two.

    The empirical study was performed using QCD theory and state-of-the-art numerical methods. A crucial part of the analysis was the utilization of data from electron-positron, electron-proton, and proton-proton scattering. This opens a new frontier in QCD global analyses to simultaneously include all possible measurements, like those from the future Electron-Ion Collider and Jefferson Lab 12 GeV, to continue to increase the precision and accuracy of extracting the proton’s tensor charge.

     

    Funding

    This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Nuclear Physics program under the Coordinated Theoretical Approach to Transverse Momentum Dependent Hadron Structure in QCD (TMD Topical Collaboration). This work was also supported in part by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation and the agencies’ Early Career Programs.


    Journal Link: Physical Review D, Aug-2022

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  • Understanding the Origin of Matter with the CUORE Experiment

    Understanding the Origin of Matter with the CUORE Experiment

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    The Science

    There is so much that we do not yet know about neutrinos. Neutrinos are very light, chargeless, and elusive particles that are involved in a process named beta decay and that can help us to understand the origin of matter in Universe. Beta decay is a type of radioactive decay that involves a neutron converting into a proton emitting an electron and an antineutrino. Beta decay is very common– it occurs about a dozen of times per second in a banana. There might also be an ultra-rare kind of beta decay that emits two electrons but no neutrinos. Nuclear physicists around the world are searching for this neutrinoless-double beta decays (NLDBD) in different nuclei. The interest in these decays arises from their potential to reveal unsolved mysteries related to the Universe’s creation of matter. They can also provide hints towards our understanding of the currently unknown mass of neutrinos.

    The Impact

    The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) can search for these rare NLDBD processes using different nuclei. Scientists rely on complementarity among searches using different nuclei to have a better understanding of the underlying physics in the process. Complementarity in physics involves theories that contrast with each other but that both explain part of the same phenomena. CUORE recently searched for NLDBD using a nucleus that had not previously been studied with CUORE, Tellurim-128. The researchers have so far found no evidence for NLDBD. However, they show that the half-life of Tellurim-128 to decay by NLDBD is longer than 3.6 septillion years (ultra-rare decays have very long half-lives). This lower limit is about 30 times higher than those from prior experiments using the same technique. This new search pushes forward scientists’ knowledge on these rare nuclear decays. This opens another path to our understanding of the origin of matter in our Universe.

    Summary

    CUORE is one of the world-leading experiments searching for extremely rare nuclear processes. Because of the rareness of these processes, CUORE needs a very low-radioactivity environment achieved by using extremely clean materials and by the Gran Sasso Mountain, which shields the experiment from cosmic rays. CUORE consists of almost 1,000 crystals that are kept at a temperature close to absolute zero by a dedicated refrigeration structure. The temperature of the crystals is measured 1,000 times per second, saved to disk, and analyzed to spot the tiny amount of temperature variations caused by the rare decays. Since the beginning of its operation in 2017, CUORE has collected a huge amount of data and it will continue for at least two more years. Researchers expect better results in the search for NLDBD processes on the nucleus Tellurim-128 in the near future. After CUORE, the next-generation experiments have the potential to unravel several nuclear and particle physics mysteries through the exploration of these elusive processes.

     

    Funding

    This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics; the National Science Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the University of Wisconsin Foundation; Yale University; and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. 


    Journal Link: Physical Review Letters, Nov-2022

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  • Arif Efendi applauds global renewable energy efforts

    Arif Efendi applauds global renewable energy efforts

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    Newswise — The demand for renewable energy is continuously growing worldwide. Arif Efendi previously of Doyen Sports notes that the latest efforts in renewables will be crucial to the future of power sourcing. Current efforts include innovations in solar energy, wind power, nuclear energy, hydrogen fuel, and more.

    According to Euro News, “Renewable energy is to become the world’s top source of electricity by 2025.” The benefits of cleaner and more efficient energy are becoming increasingly attractive to top businesses and corporations globally. Such entities do not only turn to renewables for efficiency. They also rely on them for long-term cost benefits and overall environmental impact. Aspects like these serve as optimistic predictions of higher stability and safety levels.

    Arif Efendi is a passionate businessman and investor. His work spans various industries. Due to this, Efendi makes a loyal effort to stay updated on current events and provide solutions for the future. He applauds renewable energy efforts, as it’s one of the only solutions to a safer and cleaner world.

    Moving forward with renewable energy has been in question for far too long. Over the years, people and companies have asked, “How will we switch to renewable energy?” Fortunately, there are now many tangible solutions to this elongated debate. According to the United Nations (UN), “while about 5 million jobs in fossil fuel production could be lost by 2030, an estimated 14 million new jobs would be created in clean energy.”

    The positive environmental effects

    In February, UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefed the General Assembly meeting on the organization’s top priorities for 2023. In his speech, he noted the importance of renewable energy and how it will change the course of the year ahead.

    He noted, “We must focus on two urgent priorities: cutting emissions and achieving climate justice.” There is no other option. Suppose companies and manufacturers do not implement solid plans to reduce emissions or achieve net zero. In that case, the world will experience further issues that it environmentally cannot afford to bear.

    Another powerful statement from the Secretary-General warned fossil-fuel producers. He dedicated these words to those who manage the field: “I have a special message for fossil-fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits: If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business. Your core product is our core problem. We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil-fuel resurgence.” The UN is taking renewable energy importance to a new level this year.

    We must rely on these sources

    Renewable energy is the only way the world can move forward to sustain communities and global corporate operations. Many are already making the change, demonstrating the significance and relative ease of implementing such measures.
    Instead of simply depleting natural resources, renewable energy provides regenerated power for years. For the health of humans, animals, and nature alike, renewable energy must be used to preserve the environment.
    Solar energy adaptation in the Amazon rainforest is an excellent example of impactful renewable energy implementation. Due to dedicated efforts, many communities in the region now have access to the internet and larger amounts of clean water. The new access to daily items, such as ice and electricity, was especially helpful throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as isolated communities were at higher risk of dangerous viral spreading. Providing more resources like this is highly encouraged to upkeep the natural state of communities in places like the Amazon rainforest.
    Within the next three years, renewables will be the top energy source globally. Predictions like these provide a sense of promise in limiting toxic emissions. Moreover, Efendi reiterates that renewable energy is vital to the continuation of human activity and health.

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  • Signs of Gluon Saturation Emerge from Particle Collisions

    Signs of Gluon Saturation Emerge from Particle Collisions

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    The Science

    Nuclear physicists collide protons with heavier ions (atomic nuclei) to explore the fundamental constituents that make up those ions. By tracking particles that stream out of the collisions, they can zoom in beyond the ions’ protons and neutrons to study those particles’ innermost building blocks—quarks and gluons. Recent results revealed a suppression of certain back-to-back pairs of particles that emerge from interactions of single quarks from the proton with single gluons in the heavier ion. The suppression was greatest in collisions with the heaviest nuclei. The results suggest that gluons in heavy nuclei recombine, as predicted by the theory of the strong force, quantum chromodynamics.

    The Impact

    Previous experiments have shown that when ions are accelerated to high energies, gluons split to multiply to very high numbers. But scientists suspect that gluon multiplication can’t go on forever. Instead, in nuclei moving close to the speed of light, where relativistic motion flattens the nuclei into speeding gluon “pancakes,” overlapping gluons should start to recombine. Seeing evidence of recombination would be a step toward proving that gluons reach a postulated steady state called saturation, where gluon splitting and recombination balance out. The new results match with theoretical models postulating this saturated state.

    Summary

    To search for signs of gluon recombination, scientists with the STAR Collaboration used the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility. They were looking for a telltale signal produced in collisions of protons with a range of ions when a single quark from the proton interacts with an individual gluon in the ion. That signal is a pair of neutral pions striking a forward detector at back-to-back angles. If gluons in the nuclei recombine, scientists would expect to see a suppression in this back-to-back signal because fewer gluons would be available for the quark-gluon interactions. They looked for the signal in collisions of protons with different sized ions.

    Theorists had predicted that gluon recombination would be more prominent the larger the ion. That’s because heavy ions (nuclei) have more quark-and-gluon-containing protons and neutrons. When accelerated to near the speed of light, these ions flatten out, making the abundant gluons overlap and more likely to merge. Bigger nuclei with more gluons, should mean more merging and more suppression in the signal. That’s exactly what the scientists found. The results provide evidence that gluons recombine—and a strong suggestion that gluon splitting and recombination could produce the predicted saturated state.

     

    Funding

    This research was funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Nuclear Physics program, the National Science Foundation, and a range of international agencies listed in the published paper.

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