Posts Tagged ‘Nuclear Science Division’

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Sanford Lab’s LUX Goes Underwater in the Search for Dark Matter

Friday, November 16th, 2012

LUX, the Large Underground Xenon experiment, is the most sensitive search yet for WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), leading candidates for constituents of dark matter. For more than three years the LUX detector has been under construction in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. In July it was installed in its shielding tank, and last week the tank was filled with pure water. LUX will begin taking data early next year. Berkeley Lab scientists are members of the LUX collaboration, and Sanford Lab operations, funded by DOE’s Office of Science, are headed by principal investigator Kevin Lesko of the Nuclear Science Division. More>

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First Purified Germanium Delivered to MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

The Sanford Underground Laboratory’s MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR in South Dakota will search for signs that neutrinos are their own antiparticles using 30 kilograms of germanium enriched in germanium-76, one of the few isotopes possibly capable of telltale neutrinoless double-beta decay. Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) is directing fabrication of the detector and supplying the associated electronics. Last week Alan Poon of NSD, leader of the experiment’s detector group, delivered the first 9.13 kilograms of highly enriched germanium to AMETEK/ORTEC, the Oak Ridge company assembling the detector. Produced in Russia and purified by Electrochemical Systems, this batch is worth almost $1 million. More>

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Lab Director Congratulates Dubna for Elements 114 and 116

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos has congratulated Yuri Oganessian of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JTIF) in Dubna, Russia, and his colleagues there and at Lawrence Livermore Lab for their synthesis of elements 114 and 116, whose names — Flerovium for 114, after JTIF founder Gregory Flerov, and Livermorium for 116 — were recently approved by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). JTIF’s use of calcium-48 beams on actinide targets made the synthesis of these and other superheavy elements possible. A Nuclear Sciences Division team led by Heino Nitsche and Ken Gregorich confirmed element 114, clearing the path for IUPAC recognition.

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Dark Matter Search Underlines Need for More Sensitive Experiments

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Four-fifths of the matter in the universe is invisible dark matter. It’s still invisible. The XENON100 experiment at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy recently announced no evidence for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), the leading dark matter candidates, after 13 months of operation. XENON100 uses 62 kilograms of liquid xenon, and the null result underscores the need for far more sensitive detectors if the mystery of dark matter is to be solved. Enter the Sanford Underground Lab in South Dakota, where LUX will hunt for WIMPs with 350 kilograms of liquid xenon, with the capacity to scale up to 20 times that much with LUX ZEPLIN. More>

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Betting on Dark Matter and Majorana Neutrinos

Friday, July 20th, 2012

In this week’s Science magazine, Adrian Cho outlines the risks South Dakota has taken to attract federal government support for the Sanford Underground Research Laboratory. “Lab officials are hoping that once scientists see the new lab, they’ll flock to it. ‘It’s here, it’s world class, and the doors are open,’” Cho quotes Sanford principal investigator Kevin Lesko, of Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division. Cho cites the National Research Council’s conclusion that searches for dark matter and neutrinoless beta decay, experiments already underway at Sanford with LUX and the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, along with the proposed Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment, are of “paramount and comparable importance.” More>

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KALX Radio Features Lab’s Role in IceCube Today at Noon

Friday, July 13th, 2012

IceCube, the huge neutrino telescope buried beneath the South Pole, is the topic of conversation today at noon on the Spectrum science and technology show on KALX radio, 90.7 FM. Guests are Spencer Klein of the Nuclear Science Division and Thorsten Stezelberger of Engineering, both of whom have played major roles in the IceCube Collaboration. The program can also be streamed online or via an iPhone app. More>

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National Research Council Issues Decadal Survey

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

The National Research Council released “Exploring the Heart of Matter,” the fourth Decadal Survey of Nuclear Physics, on Tuesday. A roadmap for congress and the administration, the survey’s priorities include the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and underground science programs like the Sanford Underground Research Facility – programs where Berkeley Lab plays key roles. Stuart Freedman of the Nuclear Science Division led the writing committee and says the report shows “Nuclear physics can be applied to the most important of today’s problems in energy, health, and the environment.” Two videos highlight the benefits that flow from nuclear research. More>

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Laser Conference Approaching at Light Speed

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

laserThe 21st International Conference on Laser Spectroscopy, the world’s leading meeting for quantum optics, will be held next June in Berkeley. Although a year away, attendance is limited and by invitation only; contact the organizers for an invitation and student aid. Keynote speaker is 2005 Physics Nobel Laureate Theodor Haensch of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, with a public lecture by Eric Cornell of the University of Colorado, a 2001 Physics Nobel Laureate. The Advanced Light Source’s Roger Falcone chairs the local organizing committee, and Dmitry Budker, Nuclear Science Division, and Hartmut Haeffner, Materials Sciences Division (MSD), co-chair the event. Among the organizers are Holger Mueller of Chemical Sciences and MSD’s Dan Stamper-Kurn. More>

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Berkeley Lab and Campus Co-Sponsor Major Radiation Symposium

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Last week the 2012 Symposium on Radiation Measurement and Applications, one of the field’s major conferences, wrapped up four days of meetings at the Oakland Marriott City Center with a record-breaking 562 attendees in particle and nuclear physics, medical physics, and homeland security applications. Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley cosponsored the event, with researchers from the Nuclear Science Division, Life Sciences, Accelerator and Fusion Research, and Engineering Divisions widely represented as speakers and planners. Jasmina Vujic, UC nuclear engineering professor, was chair; James Symons, Berkeley Lab’s Associate Lab Director for General Sciences, was cochair; and Life Science’s Steve Derenzo was program chair. More>

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The Search for the Most Elusive Neutrino of All

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

In a cavern almost a mile underground in the Black Hills, an experiment called the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, 40 kilograms of pure germanium crystals enclosed in deep-freeze cryostat modules, will soon set out to answer one of the most persistent and momentous questions in physics: are neutrinos their own antiparticles? If the answer is yes, it will require rewriting the Standard Model of Particles and Interactions, our basic understanding of the physical world. Lab nuclear scientist Alan Poon chairs the MAJORANA Collaboration. More>

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