Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
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News Highlights
  • Electron Resources
    Jefferson Lab's CEBAF accelerator has been furnishing electrons for nuclear physics experiments for more than a decade. Now that accelerator expertise is being put to use developing the International Linear Collider, the next super-high-energy machine on the drawing board for particle physics. Jefferson Lab's Ken Surles-Law (pictured above) is conducting research to develop rugged components for the ILC's source of spin-polarized electrons.
  • Origin of the Proton's Spin
    The quest to discover how the proton's spin is distributed among the quarks and gluons of which it is composed is one of the most fascinating challenges in modern nuclear physics. In the simplest model, the proton spin arises from the spins of its three constituent quarks. More realistically, the quarks and the gluons that bind them carry both spin and orbital angular momentum. Read more in this article by Tony Thomas, which is currently featured on the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics webpage. A related article can also be found in the JLab OnTarget Newsletter.
  • Bright Light/Dark Matter
    While two accelerators have been operating at Jefferson Lab for more than a decade, only one was known for its research probing the particles that make up our universe. But things have changed. A particle physics experiment recently performed with Jefferson Lab's Free-Electron Laser, powered by the lesser-known and smaller accelerator (shown above), has had its results published in Physical Review Letters.
  • Symmetry Breaking Physics Gets Nobel Prize
    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2008 to Yoichiro Nambu "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" and to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature." The full announcement can be found on the Nobel Prize website.
  • Upgrade Approved
    Jefferson Lab has received approval from the U.S. Department of Energy to begin construction on its $310 million 12 GeV Upgrade project. The upgrade will provide physicists worldwide with an unprecedented ability to study the basic building blocks of matter - quarks and gluons - that make up 99 percent of the mass of our everyday world. Shown are sample photos from project R&D work..
  • JLab's 12 GeV Upgrade Project Clears Critical Hurdle
    The U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility successfully completed on July 24 a major review as it seeks approval to start construction on a planned $310-million project that will double the energy of the electron beam used in nuclear physics experiments.
  • Safety Comes First
    When it comes to providing for the safety of employees and visiting researchers and protecting the environment, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is one of the best.
  • A Bigger Chill
    Members of Jefferson Lab's Cryogenics Department are among the planet's best at what they do. Now they're lending their super-cool expertise to a project that's out of this world. They're helping NASA in testing its James Webb Space Telescope, the next generation of space-based technology that will replace the Hubble.
  • Nuclear Pairs
    Like children playing a game of tag, some protons and neutrons link up briefly inside the nucleus of the atom and then rapidly split apart. These pairings have now been quantified in the first simultaneous measurement of such pairings and their constituents. The result was published in Science Express on May 29.
Montage
LAB EVENTS
Science Series: NextGen Air Transportation System
November 18, 2008		  
Revealing the Structure of Hadrons
November 21, 2008		  
JLAB CLOSED: Thanksgiving
November 27 - 28, 2008		  
SCIENCE EDUCATION
As a world-class research facility, Jefferson Lab is a valued partner to the local, regional and national education community.