Physics

The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is a not-for-profit center for engineering, research and development. Its the largest division of one of the worlds premier research universities, Johns Hopkins. As a not-for-profit division of the Johns Hopkins University, APL serves as a technology resource to the Department of Defense and other Government agencies. Each business area comprises a set of programs grouped as a unit with common application of resources and management. Many business areas are based on capabilities and expertise supporting long-term programs, such as Air & Missile Defense or Strategic Systems. Some are relatively new or represent a more defined focus, such as National Security Space and Homeland Protection. As a division of one of the worlds great research universities, education is an important part of APLs mission. The APL Education Center comprises our on-site JHU Whiting School of Engineering graduate programs. Classes are open to both APL staff and members of the community at large. More than half of the faculty is made up of APL staff members.

FOCUS is a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center devoted to research at the frontier of optical coherent and ultrafast science. The FOCUS center includes 21 faculty and research scientists at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. The FOCUS mission is to provide leadership in coherent control in quantum, ultrafast, and high field physics. Click to learn about FOCUS Fellowships and FOCUS Seed Funding.

The Duke Free Electron Laser Laboratory has two FEL light sources capable of generating intense infrared and ultraviolet radiation. An infrared FEL associated with a 40 MeV Linac provides tunable radiation in the mid-infrared. An ultraviolet FEL installed on a 1.2 GeV storage ring provides tunable coherent radiation from 400 nm to 193 nm. Intense gamma rays are produced by internal backscattering. Active areas of research at DFELL include FEL physics, nuclear physics, materials science, and biological and biomedical sciences.

The International Linear Collider is a proposed new electron-positron collider. Together with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN , it would allow physicists to explore energy regions beyond the reach of today's accelerators. At these energies, researchers anticipate significant discoveries that will lead to a radically new understanding of what the universe is made of and how it works. The nature of the ILC's electron-positron collisions would give it the capability to answer compelling questions that discoveries at the LHC will raise, from the identity of dark matter to the existence of extra dimensions.

KamLAND stands for "Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector". KamLAND is the largest scintillation detector ever constructed. Apart from measuring reactor anti-neutrinos, the KamLAND experiment has sensitivity to detect electron anti-neutrinos produced by the decay of 238U and 232Th within the Earth (so-called geoneutrinos). Earth composition models suggest that the total radiogenic power due to these decays is 16TW, approximately half of the measured heat dissipation rate from the Earth. KamLAND has searched for these geoneutrinos and, assuming a Th/U mass concentration ratio of 3.9, finds that the 90% C.L. for the total number of detected geoneutrinos is 4.5 to 54.2. This result is consistent with the central value of 19 events predicted by geophysical models. While the present data has limited statistical power, it nevertheless provides an upper limit of 60TW for the radiogenic power of U and Th in the Earth, a quantity that is currently poorly constrained.

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, a division of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is operated by Stanford University for the Department of Energy. SSRL is a National User Facility which provides synchrotron radiation, a name given to x-rays or light produced by electrons circulating in a storage ring at nearly the speed of light. These extremely bright x-rays can be used to investigate various forms of matter ranging from objects of atomic and molecular size to man-made materials with unusual properties. The obtained information and knowledge is of great value to society, with impact in areas such as the environment, future technologies, health, and education.

We work on ultra-slow light, light storage, cold atomic beams, Bose-Einstein condensation, and superfluidity. We also have experiments on cold atom and carbon nanotube interactions and on surface-enhanced Raman scattering of biomolecules.

The primary goals of this experiment are to test for neutrino mass by searching for neutrino oscillations. Neutrino mass is important because it may lead us to physics beyond the Standard Model. Masses in the range accessible to MiniBooNE will expand our understanding of how the universe has evolved. The BooNE project began in 1997. The first beam induced neutrino events were detected in September, 2002.

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is taking data that has provided revolutionary insight into the properties of neutrinos and the core of the sun. The detector, shown in the artist's conception below, was built 6800 feet under ground, in INCO's Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario. SNO is a heavy-water Cherenkov detector that is designed to detect neutrinos produced by fusion reactions in the sun. It uses 1000 tonnes of heavy water, on loan from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), contained in a 12 meter diameter acrylic vessel. Neutrinos react with the heavy water (D2O) to produce flashes of light called Cherenkov radiation. This light is then detected by an array of 9600 photomultiplier tubes mounted on a geodesic support structure surrounding the heavy water vessel. The detector is immersed in light (normal) water within a 30 meter barrel-shaped cavity (the size of a 10 story building!) excavated from Norite rock. Located in the deepest part of the mine, the overburden of rock shields the detector from cosmic rays. The detector laboratory is extremely clean to reduce background signals from radioactive elements present in the mine dust which would otherwise hide the very weak signal from neutrinos.

CERN (Conseil Eurpeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics centre. Here physicists come to explore what matter is made of and what forces hold it together. CERN exists primarily to provide them with the necessary tools. These are accelerators, which accelerate particles to almost the speed of light and detectors to make the particles visible. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe's first joint ventures and includes now 20 Member States.

The F.R. Newman Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) is a research laboratory of the Cornell University Department of Physics engaged primarily in experimental and theoretical Elementary Particle Physics (EPP) and Accelerator Physics.

Argonne National Laboratory is one of the U.S. Department of Energy's largest research centers. It is also the nation's first national laboratory, chartered in 1946. Argonne is a direct descendant of the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory, part of the World War Two Manhattan Project. It was at the Met Lab where, on Dec. 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and his band of about 50 colleagues created the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction in a squash court at the University of Chicago. After the war, Argonne was given the mission of developing nuclear reactors for peaceful purposes. Over the years, Argonne's research expanded to include many other areas of science, engineering and technology -- some of which are highlighted in this virtual tour. Argonne is not and never has been a weapons laboratory.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is a world-class scientific research facility that began operation in 2000, following 10 years of development and construction. Hundreds of physicists from around the world use RHIC to study what the universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its creation. RHIC drives two intersecting beams of gold ions head-on, in a subatomic collision. What physicists learn from these collisions may help us understand more about why the physical world works the way it does, from the smallest subatomic particles, to the largest stars.

NSLS-II is a proposed new state-of-the-art medium energy storage ring designed to deliver world leading brightness and flux with top-off operation for constant output. The facility will be able to produce x-rays up to 10,000 times brighter than those produced at the NSLS today. Brookhaven proposes that the design and engineering of the new light source will begin in 2005, construction in 2008, and operations in 2012. The superlative character and combination of capabilities will have broad impact on a wide range of disciplines and scientific initiatives in the coming decades, including new studies of small crystals in structural biology, a wide range of nanometer-resolution probes for nanoscience, coherent imaging of the structure and dynamics of disordered materials, greatly increased applicability of inelastic x-ray scattering, and properties of materials under extreme conditions.

JET is the world's largest nuclear fusion research facility. Its unique features allow us to explore the unknown; to investigate fusion's potential as a safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy source for future generations. Situated at Culham in the UK, the Joint European Torus is run as a collaboration between all European fusion organisations and with the participation of scientists from around the globe.

The ORELA is a powerful electron accelerator-based neutron source located in the Physics Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It produces intense, nanosecond bursts of neutrons, each burst containing neutrons with energies from 10e-03 to 10e08 eV. ORELA is operated about 1200 hours per year and is an ORNL User Facility open to university, national laboratory and industrial scientists. The mission of ORELA has changed from a recent focus on applied research to nuclear astrophysics. This is an area in which ORELA has historically been very productive: most of the measurements of neutron capture cross sections necessary for understanding heavy element nucleosynthesis through the slow neutron capture process (s-process) have been made at ORELA.

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is a forum for organizing technical and scientific research in LIGO. Its mission is to insure equal scientific opportunity for individual participants and institutions by organizing research, publications, and all other scientific activities. It includes scientists from the LIGO Laboratory as well as collaborating institutions. It is a separate organization from the LIGO Laboratory, with its own leadership and governance, but reports to the Laboratory Directorate for final approval of its research program, technical projects, observational physics publications, and talks announcing new observations and physics results.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a facility dedicated to the detection of cosmic gravitational waves and the harnessing of these waves for scientific research. It consists of two widely separated installations within the United States one in Hanford Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana operated in unison as a single observatory. LIGO is being built by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Funded by the National Science Foundation, LIGO will function as a national resource for both physics and astrophysics. When it reaches maturity, this observatory will be open for use by the national community and will become part of a planned worldwide network of gravitational-wave observatories. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is the forum organizing technical and scientific research in LIGO. Its mission is to insure equal opportunity for individual participants and institutions within the scientific community.

The World Year of Physics 2005 plans to bring the excitement of physics to the public and inspire a new generation of scientists. Timed to coincide with the centennial celebration of Albert Einstein's "miraculous year," the World Year of Physics will be coming to YOU before you know it.

JILA is one of the nation's leading research institutes in the physical sciences. Its faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral research associates explore some of today's most challenging and fundamental scientific questions. Research at JILA ranges from the small, cold world of quantum physics through the design of precision optics and atom lasers to the processes that shape the stars and galaxies, encompassing these seven broad categories:Astrophysics, Atomic & Molecular Physics, Biophysics, Chemical Physics, Materials Physics & Chemistry, Optical Physics Precision, Measurement. JILA's faculty includes two Nobel laureates and two John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Fellows. Each year, JILA scientists publish more than 200 original research papers in national and international scientific journals and conference proceedings. Creative collaborations among JILA Fellows and their groups play a key role in generating the pioneering research JILA is known for around the world.