Physics Division ORNL Index Search Comments Disclaimers
Rev: Thursday, 12-Aug-2004 12:40:26 EDT
The Physics Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory is concerned primarily with studies of the fundamental properties of matter at the atomic, nuclear, and subnuclear level, and the development of experimental devices in support of these studies. With a staff of approximately 100, the Division hosts annually more than 400 scientific collaborators, facility users, and visitors as part of its programs.
The members of the Physics Division perform basic research in the fields of atomic and nuclear physics, and provide the supporting capabilities for this research.
In support of this mission, the Physics Division operates these experimental facilities:
The Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility (HRIBF), the largest of the three, is a first-generation, radioactive ion beam (RIB) facility. Located in the 6000 area of ORNL, this RIB capability incorporates the existing 25 MV Electrostatic Tandem accelerator and the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron. There are several experimental devices including an advanced design recoil-mass spectrometer with a variety of detectors at the target and focal plane and the Daresbury recoil-mass spectrometer for astrophysics research.
The Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator Pulsed Neutron Source (ORELA) produces intense, nanosecond bursts of neutrons, each burst containing neutrons with energies from 10e-03 to 10e08 eV. The mission of ORELA is nuclear astrophysics measurements of neutron capture cross sections necessary for understanding heavy element nucleosynthesis.
The ECR Ion Source Facility, located in Building 6000B, is operated in support of the atomic physics research community. A second, higher performance source has now been added to the ECR facility.
The experimental nuclear physics program of the Division emphasizes heavy ion studies, with most of the activity centered at the HRIBF. Work at higher energies is performed at a variety of accelerator facilities around the world, including the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University, the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute , Argonne National Laboratory and (GAMMASPHERE). At ultrarelativistic energies, we participate in the PHENIX collaboration at the RHIC accelerator of Brookhaven National Laboratory and the WA98 experiment at CERN .
A second major area of experimental research for the Division is atomic physics. This activity spans two programs: accelerator-based atomic physics, based primarily at the EN-Tandem, and atomic physics in support of the fusion energy program, which is based primarily at the ECR Ion Source Facility. In addition to research with multicharged heavy ions from the ECR source, the effort on atomic physics in support of the controlled fusion program includes a plasma diagnostics development program. This work is carried out in the Laser and Electro-Optics Laboratory located in Building 6000B.
The theoretical physics program in the Division concentrates on the areas of atomic physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics and physics at the nuclear-particle interface. These efforts represent independent theoretical studies as well as studies in support of the experimental programs. There is an expanding effort in nuclear structure theory and in the area of computationally intensive problems carried out within the theory program. Most of the theory activity is located in Building 6025.
The Physics Division also operates two efforts in data compilation and evaluation. The work of the Atomic Physics Data Center (CFADC) supports the national program in controlled fusion research. The work of the Nuclear Data Project (NDP) is part of the National Nuclear Data Network, an international collaboration on nuclear data.
Located in Buildings 6007 and 6008 is the Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research, which is a joint venture of the ORNL Physics Division, the University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University. The mission of the Joint Institute is to promote research at the HRIB Facility. This is done principally through support of meetings and visiting scientists. Short-term accommodations for HRIBF users are also provided by the Institute.
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Physics Division ORNL Index Search Comments Disclaimers Rev: Thursday, 12-Aug-2004 12:40:26 EDT |