Argonne Physics Division

Physics Division News Archive

2012

New picture of atomic nucleus emerges

When most of us think of an atom, we think of tiny electrons whizzing around a stationary, dense nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, collectively known as nucleons. A collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne and Thomas Jefferson National Laboratories has demonstrated just how different reality is from our simple picture. More »

Krypton-81 isotope can help map underground waterways

Cataloguing underground waterways, some of which extend for thousands of miles, has always been difficult—but Argonne scientists are mapping them with some unusual equipment: lasers and a rare isotope. More »

2011

Argonne's CARIBU facility opens to study rare nuclei

A stream of highly unusual ions shot through a tiny nozzle at 76 million miles per hour—and CARIBU, a facility designed to study special nuclei normally only created in stars, officially opened for business. See the corresponding Argonne News article for more information. CARIBU has also been featured on DOE's EnergyBlog.

Atom Trap Trace Analysis of ³⁹Ar

Atom Trap Trace Analysis has reached new sensitivity limits in measuring the abundance of argon-39, a desirable isotope for dating environmental samples on the time scale of a few hundred years. More »

2010

Void that is truly empty solves dark energy puzzle

"New Scientist" reports on a recent publication in Physical Review C concerning the contribution of quarks and gluons to the vacuum energy of the universe. "In our picture, quarks and gluons can't flutter in and out of existence unless they are inside hadrons" explains co-author Craig Roberts of Argonne National Laboratory. This insight might help in solving the puzzle of dark energy. more ...

Richard Vondrasek at the CARIBU Charge Breeder

Argonne's CARIBU charge breeder breaks world record for efficiency

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have pushed the limits of charge breeding and broken a long-standing world record for ionization efficiency of solids. more ...

First Experiment with HELIOS: The Structure of ¹³B

The helical orbit spectrometer, HELIOS, at the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System is a new device designed to study reactions of unstable nuclei with high energy resolution. In a paper appearing in Physical Review Letters, the HELIOS collaboration now presents the results of a first experiment demonstrating HELIOS’ capabilities. This work is featured in APS Physics and IOP physicsworld.com.