NP Early Career Opportunities Archives

2017

Kelly A. Chipps

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

“Next-Generation Particle Spectroscopy at FRIB”

Nuclear reaction studies with radioactive beams can provide crucial information on the
structure of exotic nuclei, the mechanisms by which they interact and self‐organize, and how strongly they participate in the reactions that drive explosive and quiescent astrophysical scenarios. A powerful tool for studying transfer reactions is the solenoidal spectrometer, such as the HELIcal Orbit Spectrometer (HELIOS) device at Argonne National Laboratory. By applying a large external magnetic field, a simple relationship between the position of a detected particle and its energy is obtained, and experiments do not suffer from the kinematic compression and worsened energy resolution of typical
transfer reaction measurements with radioactive beams. However, with increasingly exotic beams such as those anticipated from the flagship Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), target effects play a larger and larger role in the best achievable resolution of solenoidal spectrometers. A gas jet provides a dense,
localized, uniform, and robust target for radioactive beam reaction studies with many significant advantages over traditional target materials. For light‐ion‐induced nucleon transfer reactions, a gas jet provides a pure target of hydrogen, deuterium, or helium, without window materials or contaminants.
The target is also robust against radiation and heat damage. By providing a gas target that is localized, reaction products can be precisely measured, and coincidence measurements are improved. Transfer reaction measurements made with gas jet targets can be cleaner, can display better resolution than those made with traditional targets, and can overcome the current bottleneck in the best achievable resolution of HELIOS‐like devices. This research program will undertake a unique technical approach,
implementing a pure and localized gas jet target with HELIOS and exploiting the hybrid system to better
understand exotic nuclei and their astrophysical reactions. Such a device could then act as a blueprint for a next‐generation solenoidal spectrometer at FRIB. With the availability of a pure and localized gas jet target in combination with developments in exotic radioactive beams and next‐generation solenoidal spectrometers, the range of reaction studies that are experimentally possible with FRIB is vastly
expanded.

2017

Matthew R. Dietrich

Argonne National Laboratory

“Future Directions in the Hunt for the Electric Dipole Moment of Radium”

One great mystery is how our universe came to be dominated by matter when our current
understanding suggests that a nearly perfect symmetry should exist between matter and antimatter. The Big Bang should have yielded a universe with nearly equal parts matter and anti‐matter, with subsequent matter‐antimatter annihilation leading to a universe almost devoid of either. These considerations imply there must be some significant, undiscovered violation of time‐reversal (T) symmetry. Under Time‐reversal symmetry, physics should behave identically if time runs forward or backwards. The discovery of any new fundamental process or property that violates T‐symmetry would therefore provide a powerful clue toward solving the matter‐antimatter mystery. One such property is
an Electric Dipole Moment (EDM). This research will look for the EDM of a radium atom, which is
believed to have remarkable sensitivity to T‐symmetry violating forces due to the unusual “egg‐like,” asymmetric shape of the radium nucleus. To measure the EDM of this rare atom, lasers are used to cool and trap radium at a temperature less than one thousandth of a degree above absolute zero, and its
rotation in an intense electric field is observed. At present, radium’s EDM is known to be less than
1.4×10‐23 e‐cm, about 300 trillion times smaller than that of a water molecule. This work will improve experimental sensitivity more than 1000‐fold, thereby breaking new ground into the origins of the violation beyond the Standard Model that could explain matter’s dominance in the universe. This research will also study the possibility of performing a similar experiment on the molecule radium monofluoride, which could further improve the experiment’s sensitivity by a factor of hundreds due to the enormous electric fields that exist within a radium monofluoride molecule.

2017

Heiko Hergert

Michigan State University

“Advanced Ab initio Methods for Nuclear Structure”

Exotic neutron‐rich nuclei have moved firmly into focus in nuclear physics research. The
structure of these nuclei is governed by a complex interplay of nuclear forces, strong many‐body correlations, and continuum effects. It challenges our present understanding and has far‐reaching implications, ranging from the creation of elements in the cosmos to tests of fundamental symmetries of the Standard Model of Physics. The Department of Energy's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will make it possible to produce and study many of these exotic nuclei for the first time under laboratory conditions. The experimental efforts at FRIB and similar facilities go hand in hand with theory efforts to develop a reliable description of exotic nuclei. The present project will develop advanced theoretical methods for that purpose, with an emphasis on renormalization group ideas. It will leverage state‐of the‐art computational techniques to handle the enormous memory requirements of nuclear forces and the computational effort associated with the treatment of deformed, weakly bound nuclei. The goal is to create a framework that can scale from day‐to‐day applications in support of experimental data analysis to large‐scale simulations on leadership‐class computers.

2017

Richard L. Longland

North Carolina State University

“Measurements at the Facility for Experiments of Nuclear Reactions in Stars (FENRIS)”

Nuclear reactions in stars have transformed the universe since the Big Bang, turning hydrogen
and helium into the heavier elements we see around us today. These reactions fuel a star throughout its lifetime. These reactions fuel a star throughout its lifetime. When the star burns out, its ashes are ejected into space to enrich the next generation of stars. Thus, to understand the origin of the elements in the cosmos, we must learn how stars burn their fuel. In this stellar burning, the rates of nuclear reactions are key. The rates can, in principle, be determined by recreating the reactions in the laboratory. At the low energies characteristic of stellar burning, however, many of the reactions occur
too rarely to be measured. Novel, indirect measurements must be used. A research program will be developed to perform such measurements, primarily using the Facility for Experiments of Nuclear Reactions in Stars (FENRIS), a charged‐particle spectrometer at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL). At FENRIS, high‐energy nuclear reactions coupled with theoretical models will be used to ascertain the rate of the low‐energy nuclear reactions occurring in stars. Detailed analysis of the
data will reveal the structure of nuclei and how they affect stellar burning. High‐energy photons will be used as a different lens with which to examine these nuclei at another facility ‐ the High Intensity gamma‐ray Source – to supplement the measurements at FENRIS. In parallel to these experimental efforts, theoretical tools will be developed to identify which nuclear reactions are most critical for understanding stars, helping set the priorities for future measurements. This complementary suite of experiments and theoretical calculations will be used to answer one of the key questions facing the physics community: How did visible matter come into being and how did it evolve?

2017

Dennis V. Perepelitsa

University of Colorado

“Searching for Parton Energy Loss in Quark-Gluon Plasma Droplets”

Very high energy collisions of nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) create a Quark‐Gluon Plasma (QGP), a high‐temperature, high‐density form of matter in which quarks and gluons, collectively called partons, are freed from their normal state of being bound in protons and neutrons. The formation of a QGP is understood to have several experimental indications, including: (1) correlations in how the particles produced in the collision are distributed in
angle, attributed to a QGP that can “flow” with near perfect fluidity, and (2) the degradation of high energy collections of particles, called “jet quenching”, attributed to a QGP that attenuates any partons that attempt to pass through it. Remarkably, recent measurements of flow‐like correlations in much smaller collisions of protons and deuterons with nuclei suggest that a droplet, or small region, of QGP is formed even in these systems. However, the expected accompanying signature of jet quenching has yet to be observed. Given the complications in applying traditional observables to these small systems, a search for jet quenching requires the examination of individual events, such as those with a produced
photon and particle jet pair. In these events, the photon escapes the collision zone without interacting and provides an estimate for the energy of the balancing partons before they pass through the QGP. For this reason, photon‐tagged measurements have long been recognized by the theoretical and experimental communities as a “golden channel” probe of these effects. Through the analysis of highluminosity data recently collected by the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) detector at the LHC and that
to be collected with the sPHENIX (super Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment) detector at RHIC, this research seeks to determine how high‐energy partons are affected by the varying shapes and sizes of QGP regions they encounter.

2017

Ted C. Rogers

Old Dominion University

“Fundamental QCD Theory and Transverse Momentum Dependent Physics”

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear interaction. It lies at the root of the interactions between the elementary particles (quarks and gluons) that are ultimately responsible for the structure of particles like protons and neutrons that form ordinary matter.
However, the precise mechanisms by which quarks and gluons interact to form the particles seen in nature remain mysterious and only partially understood. A major difficulty to forming a complete picture comes from the fact that QCD has dramatically different characteristics over large and small spacetime scales. Over small scales, quarks and gluons couple only loosely, so small‐coupling theoretical techniques (called “perturbative”) predict patterns of quark and gluon radiation with very high accuracy.
By contrast, interactions over large scales involve a very strong coupling and are characterized by the types of QCD interactions (called “non‐perturbative”) responsible for binding quarks and gluons tightly together. In high‐energy QCD experiments, an intricate combination of large‐scale and small‐scale interactions is responsible for physical observables like scattering cross‐sections. Therefore, one of the keys to understanding how QCD gives rise to measured physical quantities in nature is the ability to
disentangle these large‐scale and small‐scale interactions in theoretical calculations. A prescription for doing this is called a factorization theorem. A successful factorization theorem is the critical bridge between perturbative calculations of small‐scale physics, non‐perturbative calculations of large‐scale
physics, and experimental data. Experimental strategies continue to focus, with ever‐greater detail, on the precise momentum and energy distributions of final states produced in high‐energy particle collisions. At the same time, the associated factorization theorems necessary to interpret these data and extract meaningful information about fundamental QCD interactions become increasingly subtle. This project will improve existing factorization theorems to the point that they can be used most effectively in the future analysis and interpretation of transverse momentum dependent (TMD) observables. New theoretical techniques will be developed where needed, while incomplete aspects of established factorization theorems will be addressed. The outcome will be a unified factorization framework for combining non‐perturbative theoretical calculations consistently with perturbative QCD calculations,
such that descriptions of fundamental quark and gluon interactions can be meaningfully tested against TMD observables.

2017

Justin Stevens

College of William and Mary

“Strange Mesons and Gluonic Excitations”

In the standard model of particle physics, the interactions between the fundamental
constituents of nuclear matter, quarks and gluons, are governed by the theory of Quantum
Chromodynamics (QCD). A central goal of nuclear physics is to understand how hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, are formed from these underlying quark and gluon degrees of freedom. A hadron is primarily constructed from three quarks or a quark‐antiquark pair; however, the theory of QCD allows for much more exotic configurations. One of the predicted exotic configurations is known as a hybrid meson, which contains an excited gluonic field in addition to the usual quark‐antiquark pair. This project aims to search for and study these gluonic excitations using the Gluonic Excitation (GlueX) experiment at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, VA. The discovery potential of the experiment will be significantly extended by studying the quark flavor composition of the meson spectrum through the completion and use of an enhanced detector to identify mesons containing strange quarks. The unprecedented statistical precision of the data collected at GlueX will allow us to search for a pattern of light‐quark hybrid mesons, providing new insight into the interactions that bind the fundamental quarks and gluons
into the hadrons we observe in nature.

Classical novae and Type I X-ray bursts are the most common stellar explosions in the Galaxy. Both occur in binary star systems where hydrogen-rich matter from a companion star is accreted onto the surface of a white dwarf or neutron star, respectively. As matter builds up on the surface, pressure and density increase, leading to a rise in temperature that triggers a thermonuclear runaway on the surface of the accreting star. During these thermonuclear explosions, proton-rich nuclei are synthesized via a series of charged-particle capture reactions, which are dominated by resonances. As many of these reactions involve unstable nuclei, the reaction rates can be difficult, if not impossible, to measure directly using current technology. Rates must therefore be calculated by indirect means using experimentally determined nuclear structure properties of these resonances. Specifically, the properties of resonances for some of the most uncertain reactions in novae and X-ray bursts, such as those involving 26Al and 20Na, will be measured through this research. The experimental work will rely on state-of-the-art techniques for nuclear spectroscopy using both stable and radioactive ion beams at the John D. Fox Accelerator Laboratory at Florida State University and the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System facility at Argonne National Laboratory. Using these data, important reaction rates will be calculated accurately for the first time, eliminating key uncertainties in understanding classical novae and X-ray bursts.

At the heart of all ordinary matter lie the protons and neutrons (hadrons), dynamic conglomerates of quarks and gluons (partons) bound together by the strong interaction, described by the well-established theory of Quantum Chromodynamics. Yet there remain some basic puzzles to be explained. Among these are the detailed structure of the proton in terms of its partonic constituents and how the partons' angular momentum adds up to the total proton spin; the precise value of the strong coupling that sets the size of the strong interaction, for which a number of existing determinations are in tension; and the precise effect of nonperturbative hadronization (binding of partons) on strong interaction cross sections. This research will develop and apply the powerful tools of effective field theory aimed at high precision understanding of these phenomena. The project will focus especially on hadronic jet cross sections in electron-proton and proton-proton collisions that are sensitive to the strong coupling, to hadronization, and to the details of parton distributions inside protons. This work brings the power of the modern Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) into the arena of medium-to-high-energy nuclear physics being pursued at the U.S. experimental frontier at facilities such as Fermilab, the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, Jefferson Lab, and the planned Electron-Ion Collider as well as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. SCET makes possible the factorization of physics at widely separated energy scales in hadronic cross sections, the resummation of perturbative predictions for them to high accuracy, and the identification of universal nonperturbative effects across different observables. Reaching new levels of accuracy and precision in these theoretical predictions will lead to new and more precise extractions of the strong coupling and parton distributions that reveal the inner structure of the proton.

In relativistic heavy ion collisions, a new form of matter consisting of liberated quarks and gluons, the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), is predicted by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) calculations. This strongly interacting matter, first discovered at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), was found to flow more freely than any other known fluid. One typical way to study a new medium of interest is to understand the passage of particles through it. However, studies of this kind are very difficult because the QGP created in the collider lasts for just yoctoseconds (10-24seconds). To overcome this difficulty, one studies heavy ion collisions, which produce not only the QGP but also energetic gluons and quarks. Those high energy probes then lose energy by radiating gluons or by colliding with the other quarks and gluons as they traverse through the QGP medium. This sizable in‐medium energy loss, observed as the suppression of high energy particles at RHIC or the attenuation of quark and gluon jets at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), shows that the stopping power of the QGP is incredibly strong. Models based on QCD predict that the gluons, which carry larger color charge, lose more energy than quarks. At the same kinematic energy, the heavy quarks, which are moving more slowly than the light quarks, are expected to radiate less energy than the light quarks. Due to their smaller in-medium radiative energy loss, heavy quarks are ideal tools for the study of energy loss though elastic scatterings in the QGP. This research program will fully exploit the capability of the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at the LHC and utilize new means of selecting interesting events to collect high statistics data on heavy quarks in heavy ion collisions. The program of heavy quark data analysis will aim to provide important information on the elastic scattering power of the QGP to test theoretical calculations based on QCD and models connected to quantum gravity and string theory.

Protons and neutrons, the building blocks of the atomic nucleus, are understood to be different quantum states of a single entity known as the nucleon. The nucleon is a bound state of three elementary particles known as quarks, confined in nucleons by the strong interaction. Owing to recent advances in experimental capability and theoretical understanding, it is now possible to map the nucleon’s three‐dimensional quark structure in both coordinate and momentum space through detailed studies of energetic electron‐nucleon collisions. The recently completed 12 gigaelectronvolt (GeV) upgrade of Jefferson Lab’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) nearly doubles the maximum beam energy for electron scattering experiments in the existing experimental Halls A, B and C. Combined with the unparalleled intensity and polarization of CEBAF’s continuous beam, the 12 GeV upgrade enables a three‐dimensional (3-D) nucleon imaging program of unprecedented breadth and precision. The major objective of this research is the execution of a family of experiments in Jefferson Lab’s experimental Hall A known as the Super BigBite Spectrometer (SBS) program. The SBS is a novel magnetic spectrometer designed for the detection of forward‐going, high‐energy particles produced in electron-nucleon collisions at the highest achievable intensities of CEBAF. The planned physics program of SBS will dramatically improve the world’s knowledge of two complementary aspects of nucleon structure. Measurements of proton and neutron form factors using SBS will determine the spatial distributions of the nucleon's electric charge and magnetism at distance scales approximately twenty times smaller than the charge radius of the proton. The SBS will also probe the neutron's three dimensional spin structure with unprecedented precision. Planned measurements of spin asymmetries in electron scattering from polarized 3He nuclei will provide critical input to the 3‐D imaging in momentum space of the spin and orbital motion of quarks in the neutron.

The nuclear force, which is responsible for holding the nucleus of an atom together, has been under investigation for more than a century. Over the last decade, tremendous progress has been made with the experimental evidence of a special configuration of protons and neutrons called short-range correlations. These short-range correlations consist of protons and neutrons so close to one another that they end up overlapping in the nuclear medium. Understanding their properties is not only important to elucidate where the nuclear force’s missing strength is coming from but also has potential to clarify a forty-year-old-question about how the structure of protons and neutrons are modified inside the nucleus. Short-range correlation studies will also help in the area of astrophysics in modeling the cooling process of the neutron stars and also in the area of neutrino physics, where very precise nuclear models are needed to find the small signal created by neutrino oscillations. This project will conduct several approved experiments scheduled to run using the upgraded Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory in Newport News, VA. The results from these experiments will provide different insights into the manifestation of the nuclear force that have the potential to answer a any-decades-old-question related to the origin of the nuclear force and its effects on the substructure of protons and neutrons.

It is firmly established that neutrinos have a small but non-zero rest mass, contrary to the Standard Model prescription of exactly massless neutrinos. Neutrino mass could have broad consequences for physics, ranging from the microscopic details of quantum field theories for physics beyond the Standard Model to the understanding of large-scale structure in the universe. Evidence for neutrino mass follows from the observation of oscillations among the three Standard Model neutrino flavor eigenstates. Oscillation phenomena reveal the mass differences but do not depend on the absolute scale of neutrino mass. Furthermore, of the two independent mass differences, the sign is only determined for one, leading to an ambiguous hierarchical ordering of masses. The most auspicious way to measure the absolute neutrino mass scale is by the tritium endpoint method in which neutrino mass is revealed by its effects on the endpoint region of a precisely measured tritium beta-decay electron spectrum. This research will develop the recently demonstrated technique of cyclotron radiation emission spectroscopy (CRES) into a tritium endpoint experiment. The ultimate neutrino mass sensitivity of CRES has been estimated to be sensitive to neutrino masses typical of the so-called inverted mass hierarchy. An existing CRES instrument will continue to provide data for systematic studies and early tritium endpoint results. A new CRES instrument will be established with the goal to produce a neutrino mass limit comparable to existing upper limits from tritium endpoint experiments at Mainz (Germany) and Troitsk (Russia). These results will lay the foundation for the proposal of Project 8, the ultimate CRES tritium endpoint experiment to reach the neutrino mass scale of the inverted hierarchy.

2014

Lisa Kaufman

Indiana University

Neutrinoless double beta decay could occur if an atomic nucleus decays radioactively by emitting only two electrons, in contrast to the ordinary double beta decay in which two neutrinos emerge as well. Observation of this exotic decay mode would provide evidence that neutrinos are their own anti‐particles, and that the symmetry of lepton number conservation is violated. Its observation would also provide strong experimental guidance for theories that go beyond the Standard Model, yielding insights into the origin of neutrino mass and the unexplained excess of matter over antimatter in the observable universe. The goal of this research is to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in the context of the Enriched Xenon Observatory experiment both in its current form (EXO‐200), as well as in its next phase (nEXO or “next EXO”).

2014

Wei Li

William Marsh Rice University

In relativistic heavy‐ion collisions, a new state of hot and dense matter with quarks and gluons freed from the protons and neutrons into which they are normally bound is created as predicted by the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The most striking feature of this quark‐gluon plasma (QGP) matter is the evident flow of particles out of the collisions. Previously thought to only be possible in nucleus-nucleus collisions, evidence of flow in proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (pPb) collisions has been recently discovered.  The proposed research will explore the properties of particle flow in pp and pPb collisions in detail to explore the possibility that a QGP may be formed in such light systems.

2014

Bjoern P. Schenke

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Most of the visible matter in our universe is located in the nuclei of atoms. Our goal is to gain deeper understanding of nuclear matter and its interactions governed by the theory of quantum chromo‐dynamics (QCD). Nuclear collisions performed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can probe the structure of nuclei and create a novel state of matter, the Quark‐Gluon‐Plasma (QGP). Its properties include almost perfect fluidity, opaqueness to highly energetic jets, and long‐range correlations between produced particles. A detailed physical understanding of these fascinating properties and extraction of quantitative information from experimental data requires a complete theoretical description of the produced system and its space‐time evolution.

2014

André Walker-Loud

The College of William and Mary

…to establish a systematic framework for parity violation in few-nucleon systems by analyzing interactions between quarks, calculating reliable and testable relations between observables in light nuclei, and establishing extensions to more complex nuclei.  The project will support and guide ongoing and planned experimental efforts in parity violation at various facilities.

2013

Jason Detwiler

University of Washington

Participation in research with the Majarona Demonstrator project to search for  neutrinoless double beta decay.  Coordination of data analysis and simulations efforts as well as studies with test equipment to further understand crucial background in the experiment.

2013

William Detmold

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

…to extend the numerical techniques of Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (LQCD), applied successfully to individual hadrons, to the more intricate dynamics of complex nuclei of increasing mass number, as far as possible.  This includes direct calculations of the spectrum of light nuclei from the Standard Model, studies of hyperon-nucleon interactions and three-neutron interactions via LQCD, and the study of the sensitivity of nuclear physics to the parameters of the Standard Model.

2013

Carla Frohlich

North Carolina State University

…to advance the theoretical understanding of the origin of the heavy elements via detailed modeling of nucleosynthesis in core collapse supernovae.  A particular focus of attention is the interaction of supernova ejecta with the neutrinos emanating from the explosion.  The model aims to include the microphysics and neutrino processes, while remaining computationally efficient.   

2013

Gabriel Orebi Gann

University of California/Berkeley

Research with the Sno+ detector to investigate neutrinoless double beta decay and the study of neutrinos from the sun and other sources.  New techniques to perform calibrations essential to improve the detector performance will be pursued.

2013

Matthias Schindler

University of South Carolina

…to establish a systematic framework for parity violation in few-nucleon systems by analyzing interactions between quarks, calculating reliable and testable relations between observables in light nuclei, and establishing extensions to more complex nuclei.  The project will support and guide ongoing and planned experimental efforts in parity violation at various facilities.

2013

Gaute Hagen

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

…to carry out state-of-the-art microscopic calculations of electroweak processes and decays in nuclei, and to address the long-standing open problem of quantifying uncertainties of weak observables in nuclei starting from optimized interactions and currents from chiral effective field theory.  By addressing key nuclei in neutrinoless double beta decay, at rare isotope facilities, and in astrophysics, successful completion of this project is likely to have strong impact in several areas of NP supported nuclear physics research. 

2013

Marian Jandel

Los Alamos National Laboratory

New techniques will be utilized to perform significantly more precise measurements of neutron capture and neutron-induced fission reactions on actinides and other isotopes important to basic and applied nuclear science.

2013

Lijuan Ruan

Brookhaven National Laboratory

The study of fundamental properties of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), including temperature, density profile, and color screening length via the
detection of di-leptons.  The measurements rely on a new detector for muons and the project includes work to bring that detector online for physics.

2013

Mike Williams

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research with the GLUEX detector at Thomas Jefferson National Lab.  In addition to physics analyses novel algorithms for triggering the detector will be pursued and opportunities for improved particle identification essential for the program will be explored.

2012

Silviu Covrig

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

Application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to the study of the thermal response of liquid hydrogen targets in intense electron beams during experiments on parity violating electron scattering (PVES) at Halls A and C at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory (TJNAF).

2012

Chris Crawford

University of Kentucky

Support for experimental work on fundamental neutron physics at the SNS: Development of prototype precision magnets required for the neutron electric dipole moment experiment nEDM; data-taking and analysis for the pion-nucleon weak coupling experiment NPDgamma; construction and testing of a data acquisition system for the neutron beta decay experiment Nab.

2012

Huaiyu Duan

University of New Mexico

…inputs from supernova simulations, the project will perform large-scale numerical simulations of neutrino oscillations in supernovae, and investigate the potential impacts of neutrino oscillations on supernova physics.  This will contribute to solving an important piece of the supernova puzzle and help answering fundamental questions, such as the origin of the elements.

2012

Charles Folden

Texas A&M University

Studies of the production processes of heavy transactinide elements; development of new techniques for the characterization of the chemical properties of these elements. Application of these techniques to transactinide homologues  and to superheavy elements 113-115.

2012

Daniel Kasen

University of California/Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Numerical modeling of astrophysical explosions, with a focus on radiation transport and its role in the supernova explosion mechanism, r-process nucleosynthesis, and observable spectra and light curves.  3D simulations of core collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers will be carried out using recent advances in high-performance computing.

2012

Steven Pain

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Direct reaction measurements of unstable nuclei with significantly increased sensitivity, to better determine the trends in nuclear properties with proton and neutron number, and to clarify the role of exotic nuclei in energy production and nucleosynthesis in supernovae.  Specific goals include improved energy resolution, determination of decay modes of populated states and studying their use in surrogate reactions studies, and exploring the transition from single-particle to collective modes far from nuclear shell closures.

2012

Paul Romatschke

University of Colorado

To model the initial phase of a heavy ion collision by numerically simulating a related gravitational problem using the AdS-CFT correspondence. Rigorous calculations are proposed in the context of the model to provide orientation for experimental studies of both central and non-central collisions.

2012

Ivan Vitev

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Theoretical studies in heavy ion collisions, including:  Studies of jet production and evolution beyond leading and sub-leading particles; use of jets as probes of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP); identifying experimental observables that can differentiate between competing descriptions of jet modifications.  Reducing uncertainties in QGP properties such as its density and transport coefficients.

2011

Jozef Dudek

Old Dominion University

Investigate the physics of the light meson spectrum using a novel combination of numerical lattice quantum chromodynamics and phenomenological modeling, leading to predictions of meson photoproduction with the GlueX experiment at 12 GeV.

2011

Paolo Ferracin

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Demonstrate the feasibility of fourth generation Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources by designing, fabricating, and testing a magnet system based on NB3Sn superconducting sextupole coils, NbTi solenoid coils, and an aluminum shell pre-tensioned with water pressurized bladders.  For the first time, the shell-based concept will be adapted to the combined solenoid-sextupole configuration of an ECR ion source.

2011

James Kneller

North Carolina State University

Improve the understanding of flavor transformation in hot and dense environments through construction of new calculational approaches to the problem of neutrino propagation in media where neutrino-neutrino interactions are important; simulate signals of a Galactic supernovae neutrino burst in current and future neutrino detectors; and study the simulated signals to determine the ability to extract information on the missing neutrino mixing parameters and the dynamics of the supernova explosion.

2011

Suzanne Lapi

Washington University

Measure relevant nuclear cross sections, develop solid targetry systems, and develop processing systems to enable the in-house capability to routinely produce 99mTc for nuclear medicine patient procedures and recycle the enriched target material, and to translate this capability to other nuclear medicine departments.

2011

Daniel Melconian

Texas A&M University

Probe the electroweak interaction and look for new physics beyond the standard electroweak model; study a new class of superallowed transitions that study possible corrections to existing results, thereby increasing their accuracy to make more stringent tests of the Standard Model.

2011

Peter Mueller

Argonne National Laboratory

Precision study of the 6He beta decay by confining neutral 6He atoms in a laser trap and measuring the beta-neutrino angular correlation through coincidence detection of the beta-particle and the recoiling 6Li ion; provides a precision test of the Standard Model of electro-weak interactions which predicts the 6He decay to be governed by pure axial-vector couplings.

2011

Sofia Quaglioni

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Develop a comprehensive approach leading to a fundamental description of light nuclei, describing both their structure and their reactions, leading to an accurate description of reaction between light ions in a thermonuclear environment, such as stellar interiors or a terrestrial fusion facility.  This approach will incorporate the three body force in nuclear reactions.

2010

Daniel Bardayan

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2010

Michael Kohl

Hampton University

Upgrade and utilize the Time Reversal Experiment with Kaons (TREK) at J-PARC (Japan) to measure the T-violating transverse muon polarization in decays of stopped charged kaons as a sensitive search for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

2010

Christina Markert

University of texas

Utlize A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMCal) at the LHC to measure partonic lifetime on the medium formed in lead-lead collisions, determine chiral symmetry restoration in heavy ion collisions through measurements of resonances in jets, measure quark scaling to distinguish resonance formation from partonic and hadronic coalescence, and measure baryonic-to-mesonic resonance ratios to study possible gluon splitting in partonic media.

2010

Denes Molnar

Purdue University

Develop and apply theoretical approaches and tools to study the early thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma, including radiative and hadron transport, hydrodynamics; and compute essential heavy-ion observables to constrain the equation of state and viscosity of hot, dense nuclear matter.

2010

Benjamin Monreal

University of California

Participate in the KATRIN collaboration (build key calibration systems) to measure the kinematic endpoint of tritium beta decay to measure or limit the electron neutrino mass; and conduct R&D, build testbed experiments, do simulations, and design a new type of tritium endpoint experiment (utilizing electron microwave emission in a strong magnetic field) with 0.05 eV neutrino mass sensitivity.

2010

Tsuyoshi Tajima

Los Alamos National Laboratory

To produce a prototype multi-cell Superconducting Radiofrequency cavity that generates an accelerating gradient on 100 MV/m or higher with a quality factor of 2E+10 or higher, utilizing thing film technology to improve the substrate Nb surface, developing an adequate coating technique, measuring the RF critical fields, developing a technique to coat cavities, and fabricate and test prototype cavities.

2010

Xiaochao Zheng

University of Virginia

Measure parity-violating asymmetry in polarized electron—deuteron deep inelastic scattering to provide the first precision data on the axial quark neutral-current coupling constants to test the Standard Model; to test the limits of quantum chromodynamics in describing the nucleon spin structure using 11 GeV beams on a polarized Helium-3 target.

2010

Feng Yuan

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

To apply perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics theory to extract relevant non-perturbative nucleon structure from various experiments, focusing on the difference and relevance in proton spin rules, transverse spin phenomena, gluon saturation and its effects on transverse momentum dependent quark distribution, and the associated factorization properties.