Fragments
Xin-Nian Wang, a Senior Scientist in NSD’s Theory program has been awarded a prestigious 2024 Humboldt Research Award in recognition of his academic record. Xin-Nian plans to use this award to continue collaborative research with physicists at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and other institutes in Germany. Further details can be found here.

NSD Faculty Scientist Gabriel Orebi Gann was awarded the 2024 Instrumentation Early Career Award from the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). Gabriel was presented with this award at the 2024 Pisa Meeting on Advanced Detectors in La Biodola, Isola d’Elba. Further details can be found here.

Wick Haxton, a Faculty Senior Scientist in NSD’s Theory program was recently elected to the American Philosophical Society. More information can be found here.

Erich Leistenschneider, a Staff Scientist in the Accelerator-Based Low Energy Research Program was 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. Further details can be found here.

Several graduate students who performed their research in NSD, or under the guidance of NSD staff, recently graduated with PhDs. Congratulations to Kalie Knecht (PhD, Nuclear Engineering), Jaewon Lee (PhD, Nuclear Engineering), Kenneth Vetter (PhD, Physics), Max Smiley (PhD Physics), Yang Lyu (PhD, Physics), and Edward Callaghan (PhD Physics).
Yukiya Saito, a former graduate student at the University of British Columbia who was co-supervised by NSD Division Director Reiner Kruecken has been awarded the 2023-2024 DNP PhD Thesis Prize by The Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) for his thesis is entitled Development of Statistical Tools for Studies of the Rapid Neutron Capture Process.
NSD bids farewell to Zuting Lui, Kai Vetter, Xin-Nian Wang, and Don Gunter who all retired from LBNL in June. Thank you Ting, Kai, Xin-Nian, and Don for your many years of outstanding service!
We welcome new hires Corrigan Appleton (Postdoctoral Researcher), Mathis Wiedeking (Staff Scientist), Mark Regis (Electrical Engineering Associate), Rita Sadek (Postdoctoral Researcher), Javier Caravaca (Staff Scientist), David Konyndyk (Sr. Scientific Engineering Associate), Rachel Williams (Administrative Assistant), and Vance Siebert (Sr. Resource Analyst).
Tom Gallant has taken on the position of Division Deputy, Operations for the Nuclear Science Division. Congratulations on the new role, Tom!
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability Moments

The Nuclear Science Division welcomes a cohort of summer interns.
The summer is upon us, and with the longer daylight hours, NSD has welcomed a new cohort of summer interns. This year, the division is hosting nine interns who come from universities all across the country and are working on projects in the 88-inch Cyclotron, Neutrinos, Applied Nuclear Physics, and Low Energy programs.
Six of the summer students are sponsored by the underGraduate Research Educational Academic Traineeships in Nuclear Science (GREAT-NS) program, an outreach initiative funded by the DOE Office of Science (now the RENEW programs), and run by a collaboration of NSD staff. Others are participating in the DOE Office of Science’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Minority Serving Institutions Internship Program (MSIIP).
At a recent all-hands staff meeting we also heard a talk from Faith Dukes, who is the director of LBL’s K-12 STEM Education Programs office. She gave us tips for working with high school interns, such as what to expect of their educational profile, what software platforms they may be familiar with, and the need to communicate clear boundaries and expectations. And that to help them learn, we should allow them to work through hard problems while providing appropriate encouragement.
Best of luck to our summer students, we hope this summer is an inspiring and formative time. And for the staff, be sure to introduce yourselves and welcome our interns!

NSD Hosts 15th Workshop on Critical Point Onset of Deconfinement (CPOD2024)
In May, NSD hosted the 15th Workshop on Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement (CPOD2024) at LBNL. CPOD is a series of international meetings which focus on the physics of the QCD phase structure in high-energy nuclear collisions, especially in the region of high baryon density where a possible phase transition and a critical point are conjectured to be located.
A total of 95 participants enjoyed an exciting scientific program that included experimental and theoretical topics. Many experimental results were reported by international collaborations including ALICE at CERN, HADES at GSI, SHIAN(NA61) at SPS and STAR at BNL. The STAR experiment released the awaited new results on higher moments of the proton and anti-proton distributions from the RHIC beam energy scan phase II. The proton(anti-proton) high order correlations are believed to be sensitive to the QCD critical point. At the center of collision energy of 20 GeV, the experiment observed a 4-5sigma deviation of the data from known non-critical model calculations. The data points to the change of structure of the medium created in the heavy-ion collisions. The new results have stimulated engaged discussions during the workshop and on the internet.
Theorists also presented predictions on the location of the QCD critical point. Calculations from Lattice Gauge Theory, Functional Method, Holographic and Thermodynamic approaches were presented and, interestingly, all results point to the high baryon density regions around the baryon chemical potential of mu_B ~ 600 MeV and the temperature of T ~ 100 MeV. Recent theoretical progress regarding the inner structure of compact stars and its relation to high-energy nuclear collisions are also discussed in the meeting.NSD scientists Xin Dong, Volker Koch, Grazyna Odynier, and Nu Xu were the local organizers of the workshop.

Researchers Demonstrate Robotic Inspection for Nuclear Safeguards
Researchers from NSD’s Applied Nuclear Physics Program recently visited the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) to perform data collections in support of two projects focused on using computer vision technology to automatically identify nuclear material containers. The Container Counting project has developed software that analyzes camera images to automatically locate specific instances of nuclear material containers within a three-dimensional model. The Inventory Verification through Detectors on Robotic Inspection Platforms (IV-DRIP) project has begun leveraging the products from the Container Counting project and coupling them with radiological measurements and robotic autonomy.
The primary goal of the NNSS visit was to acquire data to validate the counting and container-type classification techniques for the Container Counting project, and to collect data for inventory verification with nuclear radiation mapping, both in handheld mode and on robotic platforms (mainly Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Boston Dynamics’ quadruped robot SPOT dog). The data collection was performed at container storage facilities and the low level nuclear waste facility.
The team utilized machine learning to perform object recognition and enable the robotic systems to autonomously navigate to, and investigate, radiation sources in the nuclear material containers. The two platforms were mounted with ANP-developed sensor systems referred to as Localization And Mapping Platforms (LAMPs) [1], allowing for precise detection of radioactive materials within a given area. The team’s visit to NNSS not only enhanced existing measurement capabilities but also demonstrated the effectiveness of automation in nuclear safeguards scenarios. The team looks forward to further advancements and continued collaboration with NNSS in the future.
The Container Counting and IV-DRIP projects are supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) Nuclear Safeguards portfolio. The Container Counting and IV-DRIP projects are led by Marco Salathe and Brian Quiter, respectively. Marco Salathe, Brian Quiter, Karthika Balan, and Emil Rofors took part in the measurement campaign at NNSS.

Figure 1: ANP researcher Karthika Balan operating a SPOT robot dog equipped with an ANP-developed multi-sensor system.

Figure 2: A multi-sensor radiation detection system mounted on a Unmanned Aerial System surveys a stack of containers.
References
[1] R. Pavlovsky et al., 3-D Radiation Mapping in Real-time with the Localization and Mapping Platform from Unmanned Aerial Systems and Man-portable Configurations, arXiV:1901.05038 (2018)
GRETA Makes Its First Move
In May, the Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA) project achieved a significant milestone with the move of the two mechanical assemblies that comprise the array structure. These structures moved from their assembly location in the high-bay of Bldg. 88 to the laboratory ‘K-area’ space where they will be integrated with the other technical systems of GRETA in the coming months.
This move happened in the beginning of May over the course of two days. Following detailed planning over several months with the LBNL rigging team led by Curt Howard and Taylor Silva, including the procurement of dedicated gantry cranes and measuring far more than twice, the move started bright and early at 8am on May 7, 2024. The planning more than paid off with an impressively smooth move of these >6000 lb assemblies. Figures 1 through 5 show a story-board of the move of the first structure. A lift onto a flatbed truck in the Bldg. 88 high-bay started the action, then travel around the building followed. A truck-mounted 50-ton crane was used to lift the structures off the flat-bed and to perform the delicate drop through the double doors into the K-area. The GRETA structures were then rolled into position alongside their final places and a coordinated lift and slide of the structures using the dedicated pair of gantry cranes completed the move on to the prepared plates. The pair of installed structures is shown in Figure 6. The LBNL riggers with support from the local Bldg. 88 mechanical crew, in particular John Garcia and Brian Bell, executed this complex move perfectly, twice.
Over the coming summer months, the GRETA structures will be built up with motion and cooling systems, aligned, and then load tested. Six GRETA Quad Module HPGe detectors will be installed in the August-September timeframe to demonstrate the performance of the array prior to completion of the DOE project and its ultimate delivery to the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) for scientific operation.
NSD scientist Paul Fallon is the GRETA Project Director and Heather Crawford is the manager for GRETA System Assembly, with staff from NSD and Engineering Division at LBNL, and from ANL, ORNL and FRIB on the project team.
Figure 1: The first half assembly of the GRETA mechanical structure being craned in the Bldg. 88 high-bay onto a flatbed truck for transport around the building.
Figure 2: The mechanical structure loaded on the flatbed and ready to roll with NSD DSC Jeff Bramble looking on.

Figure 3: The first half assembly staged on the west side of Bldg. 88 and ready for craning off the truck and into the K-area.

Figure 5: The first of the two GRETA mechanical assemblies being slid over on dedicated gantry cranes onto the prepared mounting surface.
Figure 6: The final pair of installed GRETA mechanical assemblies in the K-area at Bldg. 88.