NEWS RELEASES

University of Houston, in collaboration with SRI, has been awarded $3.6 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop PRIME-Fuel, a microreactor that converts carbon dioxide into methanol using renewable energy, supporting a sustainable fuel alternative.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) uncovered evidence that astrophysics models of massive stars and supernovae are inconsistent with observational gamma-ray astronomy. The discovery came after the team used an innovative new experimental method to investigate uncertain nuclear properties of an unstable isotope.

How to keep stray radiation from “shorting” superconducting qubits; a pair of studies shows where ionizing radiation is lurking and how to banish it.

So-called “XYZ states” defy the standard picture of particle behavior and have given rise to several attempts to understand their nature. But researchers with the Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics (Theory Center) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility say there is a simpler way to explain the abundance of exotic charmonium particles using lattice quantum chromodynamics.

Calculations of charge distribution in mesons provide benchmark for experimental measurements and validate widely used 'factorization' method for imaging the building blocks of matter.

Scientists have demonstrated a new way to use high-energy particle smashups at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to reveal subtle details about the shapes of atomic nuclei. The method is complementary to lower energy techniques for determining nuclear structure. It will add depth to scientists’ understanding of the nuclei that make up the bulk of visible matter.

Materials scientists can now use insight from a very common mineral and well-established earthquake and avalanche statistics to quantify how hostile environmental interactions may impact the degradation and failure of materials used for advanced solar panels, geological carbon sequestration and infrastructure such as buildings, roads and bridges.

To expand the potential use of diamond in semiconductor and quantum technologies, researchers are developing improved processes for growing the material at lower temperatures that won’t damage the silicon in computer chips. These advances include insights into creating protective hydrogen layers on quantum diamonds without damaging crucial properties like nitrogen-vacancy centers.