News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

A new study carried out at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has confirmed that increasing the number of neutrons as compared to protons in the atom's nucleus also increases the average momentum of its protons. The nuclear physics result, which has implications for the dynamics of neutron stars, has been published in the journal Nature.

New discovery published in Science explains what happens during the phase transition in Dirac materials, paving the way for engineering advanced electronics that perform significantly faster.

Cosmic gamma rays can provide us with important insights into the high-energy phenomena in our universe. The GRAINE (Gamma-Ray Astro-Imager with Nuclear Emulsion) collaboration aims to high resolution record high-energy cosmic gamma rays using a balloon-borne nuclear emulsion telescope. In April 2018 the team successfully completed another balloon flight test.

The nuclear reactions that form stars are often accompanied by astronomically high amounts of energy, a challenge for nuclear astrophysicists trying to study these reactions; the chances of re-creating such a spark are unfathomably low. However, after renovations to its accelerator, one laboratory reported record-breaking performance. Following six years of upgrades to the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source at the Laboratory for Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics, researchers report improved results, discussed in Review of Scientific Instruments.

A team of scientists from Skobelitsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, MSU together with their colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences synthesized dysprosium germanide in a metastable state. The compound revealed two instances of complex magnetism. The results of the study have been published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have trained computers to quickly and consistently detect and analyze microscopic radiation damage to materials under consideration for nuclear reactors. And the computers bested humans in this arduous task.