Nuclear Physics
The
mission of the Nuclear Physics (NP) program is to foster fundamental
research on the nature of matter and energy and develop the scientific
knowledge, technologies and trained manpower that are needed to underpin
the Department of Energy’s missions for nuclear-related national
security, energy, and environmental quality. The NP program provides
about 90% of the Federal support for nuclear physics research. With this
funding, the program seeks to understand how quarks bind together to
form nucleons and nuclei, to create and study the quark-gluon plasma
that is thought to have been the primordial state of the early universe,
and to understand energy production and element synthesis in stars and
stellar explosions.
Nuclear matter
makes up most of the mass of the visible universe. It is the stuff that
makes up our planet and its inhabitants. The program seeks to understand
the evolution and structure of nuclear matter, from the smallest
building blocks, quarks and gluons, to the elements in the Universe
created by stars; to unique isotopes created in the laboratory that
exist at the limits of stability and possess radically different
properties from known matter.
Office of Nuclear Physics
NP Program Highlights
Accelerator Technology for the Nation
NP Poster
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