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Title: A New Era of Discovery: The 2023 Long-Range Plan for Nuclear Science (V.1.2)

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2212868· OSTI ID:2212868
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  1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  2. University of Notre Dame, IN (United States)
  3. Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany)
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  6. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  7. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  8. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  9. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  10. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
  11. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
  12. Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA (United States)
  13. George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (United States)
  14. College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA (United States); Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
  15. Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States)
  16. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  17. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
  18. Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States)
  19. Chicago State Univ., IL (United States)
  20. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  21. The Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC (United States)
  22. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
  23. Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)
  24. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  25. Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
  26. TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
  27. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  28. Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)
  29. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
  30. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  31. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  32. Univ. of Texas at El Paso, TX (United States)
  33. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
  34. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  35. Ohio Univ., Athens, OH (United States)
  36. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  37. Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
  38. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  39. Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA (United States)
  40. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  41. Florida A & M University, Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  42. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States)
  43. State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook, NY (United States)
  44. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  45. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
  46. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States)
  47. Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA (United States)
  48. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States)
  49. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Nuclear science is the investigation of how protons and neutrons are formed from elementary particles and how the forces between those particles produce both nuclei and the vast variety of nuclear phenomena that occur in the universe. It has evolved into a broad field that addresses profound scientific questions: Where does the mass of visible matter come from? How do stars ignite, live, and die? How do nuclei illuminate the search for new laws of nature? This science points the way to using nuclei to build new technologies that benefit society. The 2015 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by nuclear physicists Art McDonald and Takaaki Kajita for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which confirmed that neutrinos have mass. Our progress on big questions like this one since 2015 has been remarkable owing to new experimental tools, theoretical breakthroughs, powerful computational techniques, and the talented people who make these innovations possible. Focusing on these new tools, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University is already producing exciting results on decays of never-before-produced isotopes a year after it was completed on time and on budget. The energy upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) was also completed on schedule and on budget—new data from this facility are revealing the spectrum, structure, and dynamics of protons, neutrons, nuclei, and mesons. On the theory front, we can now calculate the distribution of quarks inside the proton from first principles. The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques has led to improved data analysis and increased efficiency in running experiments and theoretical calculations. The impact of nuclear science goes beyond expanding the frontiers of knowledge about matter in the universe. We simultaneously develop a STEM work force that advances the security, technology, health, and wealth of our nation. Some connections are obvious. Expert scientists trained to work with radioactive nuclei are in demand in nuclear security arenas and are highly sought after by various government agencies and private industries. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) obtain extensive computational, modeling, and data science skills that are similarly in high demand. Less obvious but equally important is the connection between these trained scientists and success in other professions, including medicine, energy, and entrepreneurial pursuits. The workforce that enables discovery in nuclear science also makes breakthroughs in technologies with tremendous impact on the nation’s economic advancement.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
2212868
Report Number(s):
LLNL-TR-857241; 1086788
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS