Science Highlights | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Drawing of real charged particle tracks from a collision of two uranium nuclei, shown exaggerated in size and flattened by the effects of traveling close to the speed of light, over a sketch of the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Imaging Nuclear Shapes by Smashing them to Smithereens

Scientists use high-energy heavy ion collisions in a new way to reveal subtleties of nuclear structure with implications for many areas of physics.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Biruk Feyissa, left, holds a five-month-old poplar tree expressing high levels of the BOOSTER gene, while former colleague Wellington Muchero holds a tree of the same age expressing lower levels of the gene.

Landmark Photosynthesis Gene Discovery Boosts Plant Growth, Advances Crop Science

A novel gene, BOOSTER, enhances plants’ photosynthesis efficiency and productivity.

Quantum Shells Redefine X-ray Detection with Unmatched Speed and Sensitivity

A novel type of radiation-detecting scintillator could lead to benefits for medicine, national security, and particle physics.

A Subatomic Challenge Resolved: Supercomputer Calculations Produce the First Accurate Theoretical View of the Sigma Meson

In nuclear beta decay an up quark ‘u’ in a proton converts into an up down quark ‘d,’ turning the proton into a neutron and emitting a positron and a neutrino. This work affects interpretation of beta decay measurements across the chart of nuclides.

New Precise Calculation of Nuclear Beta Decays Paves the Way to Uncover Physics Beyond the Standard Model

Theorists identify new effects needed to compute the nuclear beta decay rate with a precision of a few parts in ten thousand.

Conceptual art showing the rare earth element promethium in a vial surrounded by an organic ligand. Scientists have discovered hidden features of promethium, opening a pathway for research on other lanthanide elements.

In an Advance for Promethium Production, Researchers Get a New View of the Element’s Properties

Scientists characterize a promethium coordination complex for the first time, furthering the understanding of difficult-to-study lanthanide elements.

The image using Coherent Correlation Imaging shows the areas where the borders of magnetic domains (called domain walls) accumulate over time and thus maps the presence of pinning sites. The image field of view is 700 nanometers.

Watching Magnetic Materials Get Organized in Real Time

A revolutionary Coherent Correlation Imaging method visualizes electronic ordering in magnetic materials and opens a path to new data storage technologies.

A depiction of proposed four-quark structures and their sizes relative to the proton. The labels u and c represent the up and charm quarks, respectively, while the labels u and c with bars indicate the corresponding antiquarks.

Can Four-Quark States Arise from Inside the Proton Itself?

Theoretical calculations suggest charm tetraquarks may be less compact than previously thought.

An artist’s impression of a quantum electrodynamics simulation using 100 qubits of an IBM quantum computer. The spheres and lines denote the qubits and connectivity of the IBM quantum processor; gold spheres denote the qubits used in the simulation.

Nuclear Physicists Create Scalable Quantum Circuits to Simulate Fundamental Physics

Researchers developed and executed algorithms for preparing the quantum vacuum and hadrons on more than 100 qubits of IBM quantum computers.

A photon (γ) and a jet of other particles emerges from a proton-proton (p-p) collision (left). But in a deuteron (d)-gold nucleus (Au) collision (right), the jet loses energy while the photon is not affected. Neutral pions (π0) are proxies for the jet.

Fresh Direct Evidence for Tiny Drops of Quark-Gluon Plasma

Particles of light from collisions of deuterons with gold ions provide direct evidence that energetic jets get stuck.

An artist’s impression of an analog quantum computer in which atoms are manipulated by lasers to simulate quantum many-body systems.

Scientists Take an Important Step toward Mitigating Errors in Analog Quantum Simulations of Many-Body Problems

A new framework for quantifying uncertainties increases the predictive power of analog quantum simulations.

Strong interactions between neighboring metal and sulfur atoms are found to influence the properties of electronic excited states created by light absorption, as shown by X-ray spectroscopy methods at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Excited Electronic States of Metallic Atoms Rely on their Sulfuric Neighbors

Scientists discover that bond covalency is an important property of excited states in molecules containing metal-sulfur bonds.