News Archive

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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Fragments

Norman K. Glendenning sadly passed away on September 5th 2022 at the age of 91, after a long illness. He was a distinguished nuclear theorist and a founding member of the Nuclear Theory Group in the NSD. An obituary written by James Symons, Xin-Nian Wang, and Fridolin Weber was recently published by Physics Today and…
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability Moments

On April 17, 2023, arXiv.org, a widely-used preprint server, held the 2023 arXiv Accessibility Forum. The purpose of this forum was to educate attendees on the access needs of people with disabilities, discuss the work that needs to be done to meet those needs, and to plan who is responsible for doing that work, all…
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sPHENIX MVTX Detector Started Commissioning

The MAPS-based VerTeX (MVTX) detector has been recently installed into the center of the sPHENIX experiment at BNL’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in late March. The sPHENIX detector has been under commissioning and together with the STAR detector started RHIC’s 23rd-year operation. The sPHENIX MVTX detector is based on Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS)…
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LEGEND-200 Enters Data Production Phase

The first phase of the LEGEND experimental program — LEGEND-200 — has entered its production data-taking phase recently. The LEGEND project was the amalgamation of two demonstrator experiments — GERDA in Europe and the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR (MJD) in the US — into a next-generation tonne-scale neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) experiment. Its first phase, LEGEND-200, reuses…
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Development of a high-current titanium beam for superheavy element production

The ion source and operations groups at the 88 Inch Cyclotron are developing a high-current titanium beam to be used for the production of superheavy elements.
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Coherence: a puzzle that keeps on giving

In a recent paper1 published in Phys. Rev. C, NSD Senior Scientist Spencer Klein pointed out an intriguing puzzle associated with the observation of coherent photonuclear reactions. The concept of coherence is well known to most physicists, from lasers, coherent light sources, and diffraction patterns. One adds the amplitudes for the identical process to occur…
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Director’s Corner

This spring has been very eventful. A highlight was the special Award Ceremony on June 6 at Berkeley Lab for the 2023 Enrico Fermi Presidential Award winners Darleane C. Hoffman and Gabor Somorjai. We were able to celebrate this event and a number of scientific highlights on the newly established NSD Twitter account (@LBNLNuclearSci). This…
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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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Fragments

In February, the final results from the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR were published in Physical Review Letters. The results set a limit on the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay of Ge-76. NSD Senior Scientist Volker Koch has been named as an Outstanding Referee by the Physical Review journals, as chosen by the journal editors for…
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability Moments

In 2019, the American Physical Society (APS) formed an Ethics Committee (EC), charged to provide guidance on how the APS can promote ethical behavior by members, and police unethical behavior, including scientific ethics (fabrication, falsification or plagiarism) and interpersonal misbehavior – sexual harassment or bullying, for example. EC member and NSD Senior Scientist Spencer Klein…
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Applied Nuclear Physics Program Aiding Clean-up of Cold War-Era Radioactive Contamination through Radiological Mapping

From 1955–1988, low-level waste solutions from the processing of uranium and irradiated nuclear fuel were discharged into unlined earthen storage basins at the Savannah River Site (SRS) F-Area [1]. Over the decades, radioactive contaminants including uranium and iodine-129 (I-129) have leaked out of the basins and into the groundwater of the surrounding wetlands, and are…
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Exploring Machine Learning at VENUS

In 2021, a collaboration of NSD scientists from the Applied Nuclear Physics, Low-Energy Nuclear Physics, and the 88” Cyclotron programs received funding through a DOE Office of Science FOA for “Data Analytics for Autonomous Optimization and Control of Accelerators and Detectors” to explore application of machine learning approaches to the operations of both the VENUS…
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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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A New Dimension to the Jet-induced Mach Cone in the Subatomic QGP Droplets

Projectiles traveling at a speed greater than the velocity of sound generate Mach cones, such as the sonic boom originating from a supersonic aircraft. These kinds of Mach cones are also produced on the femtometer scale inside the droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) by propagating jets in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-ion Collider…
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Director’s Corner

In March we celebrated Women’s History Month and in this context it is very fitting for Darleane C. Hoffman, a pioneering nuclear chemist, to receive the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award. We continue to celebrate and honor the contributions of all women in the Nuclear Science Division, past and present. During the past month, numerous events…
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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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Fragments

Staff and students from the Applied Nuclear Physics (ANP) program attended the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference in Milan in November. The meeting is the largest annual radiation instrumentation conference. Members of ANP and affiliated graduate students delivered a total of 19 presentations. Nu Xu, from NSD’s Relativistic Nuclear Collisions Program has…
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability Moments

In September 2022, Jayson Vavrek, a postdoctoral researcher within the Applied Nuclear Physics program, gave a presentation at the NSD staff meeting about the need to consider the choice of colors when creating figures and other graphics so that we can better include those who are colorblind or are affected by another form of color…
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Scintillator Research Group moves to NSD

The LBNL Scintillator Research Group, formerly part of the Material Sciences Division, has joined the Nuclear Science Division. This move creates new opportunities for the development of novel radiation detection systems for a range of applications from basic science to nuclear security and medical imaging. The detection of ionizing radiation underpins many applications that cover…
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Diquarks in Nuclei: A Quantum Chromodynamics Basis for nearly 20% of Nuclear Structure

In a January 2023 publication by nuclear theory postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Rittenhouse West, a quantum chromodynamics (QCD) bond between quarks from different nucleons is proposed as the cause of short-range correlated pairs in nuclei – a fundamental particle physics explanation for roughly 20% of nuclear structure. Nuclei were found to have their own internal structure…
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Director’s Corner

2022 has been an eventful year for the Nuclear Science Division with many successes in science, funding, awards, and advancements of major projects.
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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…
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Fragments

NSD held a Staff Appreciation Lunch on September 13th. The event provided an opportunity for members of the Division to meet in-person for lunch, meet new Division Director Reiner Kruecken, and for the Division leadership to show their appreciation of the staff. NSD hosted the first post-pandemic in-person KamLAND Collaboration meeting from August 31 to…
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NSD Postdocs Compete in LBNL Research SLAM Final

Two Postdoctoral Researchers from NSD competed in the final of the Berkeley Lab Research SLAM. Fatima Garcia from the Low Energy Nuclear Physics Program and Emil Rofors from The Applied Nuclear Physics Program represented the Division in the SLAM competition where contestants are challenged to present a three-minute presentation of their research to a non-specialist…
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LBNL Participates in UF6 Cylinder Measurement Campaign at Fuel Fabrication Facility

Daniel Hellfeld, a Research Scientist in the Applied Nuclear Physics Program, traveled to the Pacific Northwest in April 2022 to participate in a week-long measurement campaign to collect gamma-ray spectra from Type-30B UF6 cylinders used to store and transport uranium of various enrichments for use in nuclear fuel assemblies (see Figure 1). During the week,…
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88-Inch Cyclotron Receives Funding for Upgrades

The 88-Inch Cyclotron facility provides high-intensity, medium-charge-state ions as well as low-intensity, high-charge-state ion beams to its users. The positively charged ion beams are used for experiments ranging from Super Heavy Element searches to radiation effects chip testing at the 88-Inch Cyclotron’s BASE Facility. This flexibility is especially important to the radiation effects testing community…
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Fragments

Safety Note – Kudos from your DSC Last October, RNC successfully completed a safety day/office clean-out exercise in B70. Staff from the program reviewed their offices for earthquake strapping, electrical, and housekeeping issues. The work they did assured us that employees will have a safe place to work and significantly reduced the amount of excess…
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability Moments

Best Practices for Hybrid Meetings As we enter a new phase in the pandemic when more and more people are able to safely work together at the lab, our use of fully remote meetings may be coming to a close. Now many of us find ourselves in the situation of holding meetings with in-person participants…
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LBNL Researchers guide “Detector One” Tracking Design at the EIC

The Electron Ion Collider (EIC) will be the next major facility in Nuclear Physics and LBNL’s Relativistic Nuclear Collisions (RNC) group is playing a leading role in its development. The EIC will be constructed at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and begin data taking in the 2030s, enabling detailed studies of protons, neutrons and atomic nuclei.…
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Illuminating two-photon exchange effects in e-p scattering

Electron scattering is a powerful tool for studying hadron and nuclear structure. In particular, one‑photon (OPE) and two‑photon exchange (TPE) mechanisms play an important role in the scattering of electrons on nuclei. The OPE mechanism is the dominant interaction, while the TPE is a small but sometimes critical contribution. In terms of the state of…
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Advanced sensor networks for radiological detection

A team from LBNL’s Applied Nuclear Physics program, in collaboration with scientists from Argonne National Laboratory, have been working to realize a city-scale multi-sensor testbed with which to explore new techniques in intelligent, networked sensing for radiological and nuclear detection. Figure 1 shows a prototype system installed at LBNL for evaluation. In June and July,…
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Heather Crawford leads the first FRIB experiment

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) officially began operations and started its user program in May. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held May 2, 2022 to officially mark the “start of FRIB’s scientific mission” with U. S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and the president of Michigan State University Samuel Stanley in attendance. The first…
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Mapping Distributed Radiation Sources Quantitatively

Mapping distributed radiation sources is vital for radiological emergency response, for example, in reactor accidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.
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Dawn of a New Era in Neutrino Detection Technology

Monolithic optical detectors have a long history of success in neutrino physics, from water Cherenkov detectors such as Super-Kamiokande and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, to liquid scintillator detectors such as Borexino, KamLAND, and Daya Bay. While those two worlds have existed in parallel for decades, the next generation of detectors is about to exploit the…
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How the Neutron Gets its Spin – The search is underway

The building blocks of matter, protons, and neutrons, are made of quarks and held together by gluons. (See Figure 1.) Each of these objects – quarks, gluons, protons, and neutrons – has spin. Quarks and gluons have an internal spin, with values of 1/2 and 1 in particle physics units. They can also orbit around…
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability Moments

Native American Heritage and Land Acknowledgements/ As a part of recognizing Native American Heritage Month in November, we discussed the use of land acknowledgments as a way to honor Native American cultures. A land acknowledgment is a way of understanding and honoring the long-standing history that came before and has led us to reside or…
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LHC and LHC experiments recommissioning – First collisions since 2018

The Large Hadron Collider is emerging from Long Shutdown #2. This three-year break in the operations schedule was spent on intensive work to improve the accelerator performance (e.g. new and more powerful intensity setup, in particular) and upgrades to the detectors. LBNL scientists from the Nuclear Science and Physics divisions worked on two of these…
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Mirror Nuclei Reflect the Quark Structure of Protons and Neutrons

A great deal is known about the quark structure of nucleons (protons and neutrons), yet key questions remain. Of particular importance is understanding the difference between the up- and down-quark contribution. The difference between up and down quarks manifests itself in the difference between the proton (u-u-d) and neutron (u-d-d) structure. However, measurements of neutrons…
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CUPID Proceeds Towards Critical Decision One (CD-1)

CUPID is an experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (NLDBD). The DOE Nuclear Physics program granted Critical Decision Zero (CD-0, “mission need”) to the experiment in 2018. CUPID, and two other US efforts to search for NLDBD (nEXO & LEGEND), recently participated in a DOE Portfolio Review and an interagency North American and…
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NSD Teaching Scholar to be Recognized

Teaching Scholars Lisa Claus (Applied Math & Comp Sci) and Rebecca Carney (Nuclear Science), who have completed over 100 hours of service dedicated to various K-12 programs and Career Pathways Office professional development activities, will be honored during the Teaching Scholars Recognition Event on Nov. 2.
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88-Inch Cyclotron accelerates titanium for heavy-element search

Many of the superheavy elements discovered in the last few decades were produced by bombarding heavy-element targets with high-current beams of neutron-rich isotopes like 48Ca. We need ion beams of yet-more-massive neutron-rich elements to extend the periodic table further using similar methods. The Ion Source Group in Building 88 has been using the superconducting electron…
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In Memoriam – Art Poskanzer

Art Poskanzer, Distinguished Senior Scientist Emeritus in the Nuclear Science Division at LBNL, died peacefully at home on June 30 after a long illness, two days after his 90th birthday. Art was an outstanding scientist, who maintained an active research career for over sixty years. He began his career as a nuclear chemist at Brookhaven National…
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ANP Article Featured in PRR

The Applied Nuclear Physics Program recently had an article, “Determining urban material activities with a vehicle-based multi-sensor system”, featured in Physical Review Research (PRR).
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