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Victor M. Zavala: Then and Now / 2012 Early Career Award Winner

DOE/US Department of Energy

Victor M. Zavala, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a computational mathematician in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, is developing scalable algorithms and software to handle the nation’s energy infrastructure challenges.

Unveiling the existence of the elusive tetraneutron

DOE/US Department of Energy

Nuclear physicists have experimentally confirmed the existence of the tetraneutron, a meta-stable nuclear system that can decay into four free neutrons. Researchers have predicted the tetraneutron’s existence since 2016. The new results, which agree with predictions from supercomputer simulations, will help scientists understand atomic nuclei, neutron stars, and other neutron-rich systems.

Journal: Nature

Department of Energy announces $50 million for a milestone-based fusion development program

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $50 million to launch a new milestone-based fusion development program as authorized in the Energy Act of 2020. This program will support for-profit entities, who may team with national laboratories, universities, and others to meet major technical and commercialization milestones toward the successful design of a fusion pilot plant (FPP) that will help bring fusion toward technical and commercial viability. The program is informed by recent reports from the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; community workshops; and input from private industry.

Smashing heavy nuclei reveals proton size

DOE/US Department of Energy

Understanding how protons and neutrons are distributed in nuclei can reveal how large those nucleons appear when probed at high energy and contribute to understanding of their constituent quarks and gluons. This work used comparisons between model calculations and new precision data from collisions of heavy ions to access the distribution of gluons and predict the size of the proton. This knowledge can eliminate significant uncertainties about the initial state of the quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

Department of Energy announces $30 million for research on high energy physics through advanced computing

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $30 million in funding for five projects in computation and simulation techniques and tools to understand the universe via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE high-performance computers. The Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) partnership in high energy physics brings together applied mathematicians and computer scientists with physicists to deliver scientific discoveries that would not be possible without advanced high-performance computers (HPCs).

Department of Energy announces $8.5 million in high-performance algorithms for complex energy systems and processes

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $8.5 million in funding for basic research in the development of randomized algorithms for understanding and improving the properties and behavior of complex energy systems. Problems involving the design of scientific experiments or energy and communication infrastructures can often be viewed as a discrete, networked system of systems that needs to be optimized. Such discrete optimization problems cannot be efficiently solved with conventional algorithms that are not well-suited for graphs, networks, and streaming data.

Deep matters: microbes’ sensitivity to environmental change depends on soil depth

DOE/US Department of Energy

The role of microbes in the carbon cycle is likely to shift as microbial communities respond to environmental shocks such as drought and wildfire. This research studied how depth below the ground surface affects bacterial communities’ resistance to these shocks. It found that bacterial communities closer to the soil surface were more sensitive to drought and fire, suggesting that deeper soils may serve as a refuge.

Journal: Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Department of Energy announces $15 million in exploratory research for extreme-scale science

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $15 million in funding for basic research to explore potentially high-impact approaches in scientific computing and extreme-scale science. The projects will address disruptive technology changes from emerging trends in high-end computing, massive datasets, artificial intelligence, and increasingly heterogeneous architectures such as neuromorphic and quantum computing systems.

The building blocks for exploring new exotic states of matter

DOE/US Department of Energy

Researchers have created a new intrinsic ferromagnetic topological insulator consisting of layers of manganese, bismuth, and tellurium atoms. The material requires no external magnetic field to study its unique properties, providing opportunities to explore novel phases of matter and the basic science of quantum material and to develop new technologies.

Journal: Science Advances

Record-breaking radiation detection pins down element formation in stellar novae

DOE/US Department of Energy

To simulate stellar novae accurately on computers, researchers need accurate inputs for nuclear reaction rates. Nuclear physicists have now determined an important and challenging proton-capture reaction rate using laboratory experiments. A state-of-the-art nova simulation incorporates the new experimental information, allowing physicists to compare the results for comparison to actual nova observations.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

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