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NSD’s Nuclear Data Group becomes the Nuclear Data Program
The NSD is pleased to announce the reclassification of the Nuclear Data Group in the Low-Energy Program as the Nuclear Data Program! With this change comes the appointment of Lee Bernstein as the Nuclear Data Program Head and Mathis Wiedeking as Program Deputy.
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2024 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards honor PSA staff members
Congratulations to Physical Sciences Area staff members honored with 2024 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards.
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Passing of Rick Firestone
It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Rick Firestone on September 9th. Rick was a titan in the nuclear data world. In addition to his seminal work in the 8th edition of the table of isotopes, Rick was a visionary regarding the importance of neutron capture and scattering data who constantly pushed the nuclear…
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12th Annual Nuclear Science Day for Scouts Set for Nov. 9
Registration is open for the 12th Annual Nuclear Science Day for Scouts. The event will take place on Saturday, Nov. 9. The event is hosted by Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division, the Advanced Light Source, and Berkeley Lab K-12 Programs, and supported by many volunteers. Participating scouts will learn about the ABC of Nuclear Science,…
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NSD Research Scientist Jennifer Pore Receives DOE Early Career Research Award
Dr. Pore’s project, “Investigating the Fundamental Properties of the Heaviest Elements,” will be at the intersection of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry and utilize LBNL’s Berkeley Gas-Filled Separator (BGS) and FIONA devices to study the physical and chemical properties of Superheavy Elements.
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NSD Secures Funding to Train Future Nuclear Data Evaluators
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Nuclear Science Division has received United States Nuclear Data Program funding to train new nuclear data evaluators, addressing critical gaps in the future workforce needs. This initiative will strengthen global nuclear data resources, impacting fields from national security to nuclear astrophysics.
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In Memorium – Frank Samuel Stephens Jr.
It is with deep sadness that we have learned of the passing of Frank Stevens on Sunday, August 18, 2024. Frank will be remembered for the enormous impact on the field of Low Energy Nuclear Physics. He started at Berkeley Lab as a Research Chemist in 1955, became a Senior Scientist two years into his…
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Berkeley Lab scientists and engineers contribute to FCC Week 2024 in San Francisco on June 10-14
Berkeley Lab scientists and engineers contributed to CERN’s Future Circular Collider (FCC) Conference in San Francisco on June 10-14.
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A New Way to Make Element 116 Opens the Door to Heavier Atoms
Researchers at the 88-Inch Cyclotron successfully made superheavy element 116 using a beam of titanium-50. That milestone sets the team up to attempt making the heaviest element yet: 120.
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NSD’s Wick Haxton elected to the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society in May announced its Members elected to the Society in 2024. Election to the American Philosophical Society honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields. The APS is unusual among learned societies because its Membership is composed of top scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines. Wick Haxton was elected as part…
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Gabriel Orebi Gann receives 2024 ICFA Instrumentation Early Career Award
Gabriel Orebi Gann, a faculty scientist and lead researcher in the Eos Collaboration, has received the 2024 Instrumentation Early Career Award from the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA).
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Erich Leistenschneider named as award recipient for the 2024 Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Visiting Scholar Program
Erich Leistenschneider, a Staff Scientist in the Accelerator-Based Low Energy Research Program has been selected as an award recipient for the 2024 Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Visiting Scholar Program for Experimental Science. This award acknowledges Erich’s outstanding record and potential impact on the FRIB science program.
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In Memoriam – Joe Cerny
Joseph Cerny, a distinguished member of the UC Berkeley Chemistry faculty and a Berkeley Lab senior staff member for more than five decades, died on April 17, 2024, after a long illness. Cerny’s distinguished scientific career included the first identification of two new modes of radioactive decay, for which he received the EO Lawrence Award…
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Xin-Nian Wang receives 2024 Humboldt Research Award
Xin-Nian Wang, a senior scientist in the Nuclear Theory Program, has received a prestigious 2024 Humboldt Research Award. Wang’s main research interests lie in theoretical high-energy nuclear physics to explore a new state of matter in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Lab and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Quark-gluon plasma (QGP)…
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Lattice QCD Calculation of Electroweak Box Contributions to Superallowed Nuclear and Neutron Beta Decays
In a recent publication in Physical Review Letters, an international collaboration including NSD’s Keh-Fei Liu and Bi-Gebg Wang used Lattice QCD – a numerical approach that allows the theoretical exploration of the interactions between quarks and gluons – to shed new light on superallowed nuclear and neutron beta-decay. This work reduces the theoretical uncertainty in extracting the…
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NERSC aids hunt for cracks in Standard Model
With the help of NERSC computing power, researchers from the Majorana Collaboration used detectors at SURF to search for violations of quantum mechanics. Their analysis, published recently in ‘Nature Physics,’ confirmed our current understanding of the Standard Model.
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NSD’s Alan Poon announced as one of this year’s AAAS Fellows
Alan Poon is among five Berkeley Lab researchers elected into the 2023 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Joining him in this honor, also from Physical Sciences, is Michael Levi of the Physics Division.
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Berkeley Lab’s Engineering and Nuclear Science Divisions host ‘High School STEM Day’ activities on March 20
Berkeley Lab’s Engineering and Nuclear Science Divisions hosted tours and activities for visiting high school students as part of ‘High School STEM Day, a monthly program offered by Berkeley Lab’s K-12 STEM Education and Outreach Program and the WSEC.
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In Memorium – Doug Greiner
Doug will be remembered as a pioneer of experimental relativistic heavy-ion collisions, having worked on many key early experiments, including HISS at the Bevalac and NA-36 at CERN, before retiring in 1993. He had a particular interest in strangeness production in these collisions, having made early measurements of lambda production in sulfur-sulfur and sulfur-silver collisions.…
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Collaboration Fuels High-Speed, Data-Intensive Research to Understand How Nuclei Decay
A technical evaluation using data from a recent scientific-user experiment demonstrated how ESnet enables researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) – led by Heather Crawford, a staff scientist in the Nuclear Science Division – to send large amounts of data across the country, analyze it in near real-time, and return results, enabling…
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Berkeley Lab’s Physics and Nuclear Science Divisions host an ‘open house’ for prospective UC Berkeley graduate students on March 15
On March 15, Berkeley Lab’s Physics and Nuclear Science Divisions hosted Lab tours and information sessions as part of the UC Berkeley Physics Department’s two-day open house event for prospective graduate students interested in pursuing research careers in nuclear and particle physics as well as cosmology.
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New Method Could Explore Gluon Saturation at the Future Electron-Ion Collider
Theorists propose nucleon energy-energy correlator as a probe to the gluon saturation phenomena at the future electron-ion collider. The Science The U.S. nuclear physics community is preparing to build the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a flagship facility for probing the properties of matter and the strong nuclear force that holds matter together. The EIC will allow scientists to…
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Tests begin on Berkeley Lab’s Eos experiment
A sensitive new neutrino detector being built at UC Berkeley merges two types of neutrino detectors into one, for applications in nonproliferation as well as physics. A new type of neutrino detector now being tested in a vast underground lab at the University of California, Berkeley, is designed to leverage the latest technologies to enhance…
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Divining the mysteries of the atomic nucleus
Heather Crawford and Berkeley Lab’s GRETA project are featured in this recent article in ‘Chemical and Engineering News,’ which highlights how new research is illuminating the most powerful force in the universe.
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A Good Year for Tech Transfer in Physical Sciences Area
2023 was an excellent year for technology transfer in the Physical Sciences Area, with significant contributions from Lee Bernstein, Arun Persaud, and André Walker-Loud
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Chemistry World: Collaborations and Element Discovery
Berkeley led collaboration to search for Element 120 highlighted in an article about the evolution of international efforts on superheavy element research.
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Berkeley Lab researchers contribute to the most precise measurement of double beta decay rate in Mo-100
In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, the CUPID-Mo Collaboration reports on the most precise measurements of the two-neutrino double beta (2νββ) decay rate and the spectral shape in Mo-100.
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André Walker-Loud elected as one of this year’s APS Fellows
Congratulations to André Walker-Loud who has been announced as one of this year’s APS Fellows for definitive contributions to fundamental symmetries in nucleons and nuclei, utilizing lattice QCD and Effective Field Theory, including the high-precision computation of the nucleon axial coupling.
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Berkeley Lab to Test New Approach to Making Superheavy Elements
Nuclear Science Division researchers are starting to test techniques and equipment for a potential attempt at creating element 120 using the lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron.
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NSD’s Lee Bernstein and Brian Quitter Recognized with Director’s Awards
Congratulations to Lee Bernstein and Brian Quitter, part of the Physical Sciences Area staff members who have received 2023 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards.
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Making Rad Maps With Robot Dogs
In 2013, researchers carried a Microsoft Kinect camera through houses in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. The device’s infrared light traced the contours of the buildings, making a rough 3D map. On top of this, the team layered information from an early version of a hand-held gamma-ray imager, displaying the otherwise invisible nuclear radiation from the Fukushima…
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The Nuclear Science Division helps roll out the U.S. 2023 Long Range Plan for Nuclear Science
The Nuclear Science Division hosted a launch event for the U.S. 2023 Long Range Plan for Nuclear Science on Friday, October 6, one of over 20 simultaneous events held across the country at various Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) participating organizations.
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200 Scouts Head for the Hill this Saturday
Berkeley Lab will host the 11th annual Nuclear Science Day for Scouts this Saturday, Sept. 30. Learn how boys and girls will get hands-on experience from a cadre of volunteers, including Lab physicist Alan Poon, who was at the first event in 2009 as a way to give back to the community.
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2024 DNP Dissertation Award Awarded to Evan Rule
Evan Rule, a former graduate student in the UC Berkeley Physics Department has been awarded the 2024 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics by the American Physical Society (APS). Dr. Rule conducted his graduate research at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. Wick Haxton who is a faculty member in the UC Berkeley Physics Department, and…
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New DOE funding for AI/ML projects in the Nuclear Science Division
Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division has received two Department of Energy (DOE) funding awards for two-year projects focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). A collaboration of Nuclear Science Division (NSD) scientists from the Low-Energy Nuclear Physics, 88” Cyclotron, and Applied Nuclear Physics programs will develop new methods to optimize a large gamma-ray spectrometer and an ion source for low-energy nuclear…
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New Insights into How Strange Matter Interacts with Ordinary Matter
Scientists reported the first observations of how nuclei containing strange quarks flow from particle collisions that smash atomic nuclei together at high energies. They specifically tracked the flow patterns of so-called hypernuclei. These hypernuclei contain particles called hyperons (made of at least one strange quark) in addition to ordinary protons and neutrons (known as nucleons).
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In Preparation for DUNE, Scientists Examine Modern Nuclear Theory for Neutrino Oscillation Physics
The U.S. particle physics community is preparing for a major research program with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). DUNE will study neutrino oscillations. These quantum mechanical oscillations are only possible because neutrinos have mass, albeit it very small masses. Research at DUNE will address key questions about neutrinos, such as whether they and their…
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Spin alignment of vector mesons in heavy-ion collisions as a barometer for fluctuation of strong force fields
Xin-Nian Wang, a senior scientist in the Nuclear Theory Group in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD), and his collaborators have recently published new research (out today in Physical Review Letters) that explains the spin alignment of vector mesons in heavy-ion collisions, as observed by the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
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STAR experiment observes directed flow of hypernuclei connected to neutron stars
June 7, 2023 ~ In research recently published in Physical Review Letters, the STAR collaboration has released the first observations of directed flow of hypernuclei. Xin Dong and Nu Xu, senior scientists in the Relativistic Nuclear Collisions group in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD), are actively involved in this new research.
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A Low-Energy ‘Off Switch’ for Quark-Gluon Plasma
June 5, 2023 ~ Physicists can create an exotic state of matter known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) by colliding gold nuclei together. By systematically varying the amount of energy involved in the collision, scientists have shown that the QGP exists in collisions at energies from 200 billion electron volts (GeV) down at least to…
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Applications Now Open for New Darleane Hoffman Fellowship
May 15, 2023 ~ Applications for a new fellowship named for Nuclear Science Division scientist Darleane Hoffman are now being accepted. The fellowship is open to all postdocs who are working in fields related to the Department of Energy’s nuclear nonproliferation mission.
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SNO+ researchers unveil new findings: reactor neutrinos detected by water
May 15, 2023 ~ In this new paper in Physical Review Letters, researchers in the SNO+ Collaboration – including Gabriel Orebi Gann (Nuclear Science Division and UC Berkeley Physics Department) and Logan Lebanowski (UC Berkeley Physics and NSD Affiliate) – have reported the first signals in a water-filled Cherenkov neutrino detector from neutrinos emitted by…
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First Experimental Results from FRIB Led by NSD
April 12, 2023 ~ A new DOE Office of Science Highlight features the first experimental results from FRIB from a team led by NSD’s Heather Crawford.
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Understanding the Origin of Matter with the CUORE Experiment
Physicists use a detector under an Italian mountain to search for rare nuclear processes to explain why our Universe has more matter than antimatter. 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…
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Darleane Hoffman Receives the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced Darleane Hoffman and Gabor Somorjai as recipients of the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award, one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology honors bestowed by the U.S. government.
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Volker Koch honored as a 2023 Physics Review ‘Outstanding Referee’
Volker Koch, a Senior Scientist in the Nuclear Theory Group, has been selected as a 2023 Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review journals.
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STAR Collaboration researchers report that QGP production ‘turns off’ at low energy
Physicists in the STAR Collaboration – including Nu Xu, a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) – have recently reported new evidence that production of an exotic state of matter in collisions of gold nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) – an atom-smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory…
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Particles Pick Pair Partners Differently in Small Nuclei
The protons and neutrons that build the nucleus of the atom frequently pair up in fleeting partnerships called short-range correlations. Correlations can form between a proton and a neutron, between two protons, or between two neutrons.
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NSD Theory Group researchers receive DOE funding awards for topical theory collaborations in nuclear physics
Researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Theory Group, part of the Nuclear Science Division (NSD), have received DOE funding support for topical theory collaborations in nuclear physics. Theory Group researchers will be involved in all of the five project teams chosen to receive awards as part of this program.
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Agnieszka Sorensen receives 2023 APS Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics
Agnieszka Sorensen, who carried out a substantial amount of her research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) under the supervision of NSD’s Volker Koch, has received the American Physical Society’s 2023 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics for her work using an innovative approach to study the speed of sound in dense nuclear matter.
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Nuclear Science Division’s New Division Deputy, Science
Dr. Reynold (Ren) Cooper, Staff Scientist and Deputy Program Head of the Applied Nuclear Physics Program, announced as new Division Deputy of Science for the Nuclear Science Division
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Former Berkeley Lab Scientist John Clauser Among Three Awarded the 2022 Nobel for Physics for Work on Quantum Mechanics
Clauser’s work with NSD’s Stuart Freedman in the early 1970s helped lay the groundwork for conventional quantum mechanics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” Read…