UNEDF in the News

UNEDF research on nuclear boundaries widely featured: Calculations by current and former UNEDF researchers at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory establishing theoretical limits on what combinations of protons and neutrons can exist as atomic nuclei, which were recently published in the journal Nature, are being highlighted on MSNBC.com, Live Science, Supercomputing Online, Oak Ridge National Laboratory news and the University of Tennessee news. A team of faculty, postdocs, and students led by UNEDF co-director Witek Nazarewicz used the Jaguar supercomputer at ORNL to solve state-of-the-art energy density functionals to determine that about 6900 nuclides, plus or minus 500, should be possible.
UNEDF fission research featured in NNSA highlights: An article in the Stockpile Stewartship Quarterly for May, 2012 entitled "Quality Input for Microscopic Fission Theory", by UNEDF researchers Witek Nazarewicz, Nicolas Schunck, and Stefan Wild, describes a milestone energy functional that accurately predicts actinide fission barriers as well as global nuclear properties. This research by nuclear physicists at the University of Tennessee, Lawrence Livermore Naitonal Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with computational mathematicians at Argonne National Laboratory, is enabled through the SciDAC-2 UNEDF project and a Stewardship Science Academic Alliances grant.
Fission calculations featured in lab-wide Argonne "News & Announcements": An article entitled Finding functionals for fission describes recently published UNEDF calculations of nuclear fission based on a much-improved energy functional, which was optimized using the state-of-the-art algorithm POUNDERS developed by the applied mathematics team at Argonne National Lab.
Nuclear Physics as one of the driving applications for exascale computing: An article entitled Meet the Exascale Apps in HPCwire identifies potential application areas for exascale development. It notes the emergence of nuclear physics as a driver that was not evident in the 1990s.
Fission calculations featured in Argonne "News & Announcements": An article entitled Finding functionals for fission describes UNEDF calculations of nuclear fission based on a much-improved energy functional, which was optimized using the state-of-the-art algorithm POUNDERS developed by the applied mathematics team at Argonne National Lab.
INCITE in Review has article on UNEDF fluorine-14 computation: An article entitled Computation Proves Predictive Capabilities of Nuclei through Fluorine-14 Simulation describing calculations by a team of UNEDF researchers at Iowa State and LBNL of a never-before-measured nucleus has appeared in the July, 2011 INCITE in Review. This publication highlights research made possible through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, which provides computer time on leadership class supercomputers at Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories.
Calculations of carbon-14 by UNEDF researchers featured in New Scientist: A recent article entitled Quantum quirk makes carbon dating possible details how work by UNEDF members Pieter Maris and James Vary at Iowa State, together with their collaborators Petr Navratil (TRIUMF and LLNL), Erich Ormand (LLNL), Hai Ah Nam and David Dean (ORNL) explains the unusual longevity of carbon-14, which is crucial for carbon dating.
Calculations of oxygen isotopes featured in University of Tennessee Physics News: Research published in Physical Review Letters recently by UNEDF researcher Gaute Hagen (UT and ORNL) and his colleagues from the University of Oslo and Michigan State University is described in Fighting for Subatomic Independence: Mechanism behind correlations of protons in neutron-rich nuclei revealed. The full PRL is available as Quenching of Spectroscopic Factors for Proton Removal in Oxygen Isotopes.
UNEDF research on carbon-14 highlighted on PhysOrg.com: A recent article entitled Physicists explain the long, useful lifetime of carbon-14 details work by UNEDF researchers Pieter Maris and James Vary at Iowa State, together with their collaborators Petr Navratil (TRIUMF and LLNL), Erich Ormand (LLNL), Hai Ah Nam and David Dean (ORNL).
UNEDF research on superfluid dynamics is highlighted in Physics Today: A Physics Update entitled "Stirring Superfluids" that describes large-scale computational time-dependent density functional theory applied to fermionic superfluids by UNEDF researchers at the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (with colleagues in Poland and China) appears in the August issue.
Calculations by UNEDF researchers at Iowa State and LBNL featured in ScienceNewsline: An article entitled "Proton dripping tests a fundamental force in nature" about calculations of the exotic, short-lived fluorine-14 nucleus was posted on May 11, 2011. ScienceNewsline.com is a news portal about science and technology that is targeted at industry, science and educational experts.
UNEDF project featured in DOE Office of Science "Science Highlights Series": An article entitled "Universities and DOE National Laboratories Join Forces to Understand the Nucleus of an Atom" about the UNEDF collaboration is the February, 2011 highlight.
Improving density functionals for the UNEDF project is featured in DEIXIS: The universal energy density functional under development by UNEDF scientists requires the solution of density functional theory equations for nuclei and the adjustment of coupling constants to best reproduce a selected subset of nuclear properties. This optimization-minimization problem has been attacked in collaboration with applied mathematicians at Argonne National Laboratory, who have developed the POUNDERS algorithm for vastly imporved optimization.
Innovative algorithm developed for UNEDF is featured in DEIXIS: The POUNDERS algorithm, developed by Stefan Wild and collaborators at Argonne National Laboratory, addresses the critical need for rapid and detailed information to optimize energy functionals under development for the UNEDF project.
INCITE Award to UNEDF researchers featured in University of Tennessee Physics News: The recent DOE award of 43 million processor hours on top-level supercomputers to a UNEDF collaboration including UTK physicists is highlighted. A fact sheet gives further details on the award.
INCITE Award to UNEDF researchers featured in Iowa State University News: The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded of 43 million processor hours on top-level supercomputers to a UNEDF collaboration including Iowa State physicists James Vary and Pieter Maris. A fact sheet gives further details on the award.
Advances in UNEDF energy functional optimization featured in Argonne Science Highlights: A team of UNEDF applied mathematicians at Argonne (Jorge Moré, Jason Sarich, and Stefan Wild) has developed dramatically improved optimization and sensitivity analysis methods for next-generation energy density functionals. Successful tests in collaboration with UNEDF physicists at UT/ORNL (Markus Kortelainen, Thomas Lesinski, Witek Nazarewicz, Nicolas Schunck, and Mario Stoitsov) are published in Physics Review C.
UNEDF F-17 halo work featured in Science Daily: Ab initio coupled-cluster calculations of Fluorine-17 by UNEDF-members Gaute Hagen and Thomas Papenbrock of Oak Ridge National Lab and the University of Tennessee, together with Morten Hjorth-Jensen of the University of Oslo, pin down details of the proton-halo state. This research is reported in Physical Review Letters.
UNEDF projects recognized in ASCR Computing News: Three UNEDF sub-projects were recently highlighted in the monthly survey of computing news of interest to ASCR, the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, which is one of the sponsors of UNEDF. The news items are: Numerical Studies of Superfluid Quantum Systems by UNEDF members at the Pacific Northwest National Lab and the University of Washington; Nuclear Theorists Use Jaguar to Pin Down the Proton-Halo State in Fluorine-17 by UNEDF members at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, together with Morten Hjorth-Jensen of the University of Oslo; Pounding Away at the Mysteries of the Nuclear Landscape by UNEDF members at ANL.