NSD Research Scientist Jennifer Pore has been selected to receive funding through the DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program. 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. Funding for the five year award will be jointly provided by the DOE Office of Science Nuclear Physics and Basic Energy Sciences programs. Further details can be found here.

NSD’s Nuclear Data Group has secured funding of ~$1.2m from the United States Nuclear Data Program (USNDP) to train the next generation of nuclear data evaluators. This initiative is designed to address critical gaps in the availability of future nuclear data evaluators, with a focus on creating and updating essential databases that have far-reaching implications for national security, medical isotope production, nonproliferation, energy, and fundamental sciences like nuclear astrophysics.

The training program will primarily concentrate on developing a comprehensive Nuclear Level Density (NLD) database and updating the existing Photon Strength Function (PSF) database. These two specific types of nuclear data are essential to understanding nuclear interactions, particularly in the quasi-continuum — a region where energy levels within a nucleus are so dense that they cannot be identified individually. The PSF, which measures the probability of photon-induced excitations, and the NLD, which quantifies the number of available energy levels in a nucleus, are crucial for predicting nuclear behavior in scenarios involving unstable nuclei.

Recognizing the importance of accurate and comprehensive nuclear data, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initiated a project to improve the global availability of PSF data, resulting in the release of a new PSF database in 2019. Building on this foundation, the IAEA, in collaboration with the Nuclear Science Division and other institutes, aims to establish a dedicated NLD database by 2028. The new USNDP initiative will contribute significantly to this global effort while simultaneously training two emerging scientists to become fully proficient nuclear data evaluators.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Mathis Wiedeking, the trainees will be responsible for the annual update of the PSF database and will be key contributors to the establishment of the NLD database. Through this program, they will gain expertise in the compilation, assessment, and evaluation of quasi-continuum nuclear data, positioning the USNDP at the forefront of quasi-continuum data activities.

Berkeley Lab scientists and engineers served on the local organizing committee and presented talks for the tenth edition of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) Conference, hosted by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in San Francisco on June 10-14, 2024.

The event convened over 400 international scientists, with expertise spanning a diverse array of research domains, working together to advance the feasibility study for a visionary post-LHC research infrastructure at CERN. Presentations, breakouts, and poster sessions focused on research site infrastructure, accelerator design and operations, detector design, physics sensitivity, and cross-cutting considerations such as AI/ML and early career researcher participation.

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.

Today, an international team of researchers led by Berkeley Lab’s Heavy Element Group announced that they have made known superheavy element 116 using a titanium beam, a breakthrough that is a key stepping stone towards making element 120. The result was presented today at the Nuclear Structure 2024 conference; the science paper will be posted on the online repository arXiv and has been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.