Feature Articles

Jefferson Lab’s Experimental Physics Software and Computing Infrastructure (EPSCI) group develops centralized computing software that can be shared by any of the lab’s experimental halls and used for future projects. 

The test represented the culmination of nearly three years of collaboration between Jefferson Lab and ESnet to develop a novel networking hardware prototype that can connect scientific instruments to computing clusters over a wide-area network such as ESnet’s in real time. The EJFAT device uses traffic-shaping and load-balancing field programmable gate arrays that are designed to allow data from multiple types of scientific instruments to be streamed and processed in real time (or near real time) by multiple high-performance computing facilities.

This article features Jefferson Lab's SRF Operations Department’s cryomodule assembly technicians, a team of master craftsmen who build, test and install cryomodules in particle accelerators. Their work enables scientific discoveries at Jefferson Lab and beyond.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are exploring how adding oxygen to the surfaces of particle accelerator cavities, one of the most critical parts of an accelerator, can help scientists custom-tailor their properties for maximum efficiency and minimum cost.

The Jefferson Lab LOVEwork is a testament to the lab’s commitment to partnering with other national labs, reducing its environmental impact by reusing scientific apparatus, and educating future scientists in the science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) disciplines. This is the lab’s first public art and STEAM education installation, and it was first unveiled on June 6 in preparation for Jefferson Lab’s 2024 Open House event. It is also the first and currently only LOVEwork in the commonwealth that embodies the new Virginia is for Science Lovers® theme.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists from Jefferson Lab, Old Dominion University and the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a conceptual device for quantum computing that could rival – or even outperform – other systems being developed. The “core” of this computer would be based on a compact, spin-transparent storage ring, which can maintain the entangled states of ions as they travel along a figure-eight path.

Jefferson Lab has teamed up with New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratories to bring the BoostPlatform to Hampton Roads, kicking off the partnership with a well-attended workshop in Newport News. The DOE initiative, led by Sandia Labs, brings national labs, startups, academia and entrepreneurs together to find solutions to big, community-based energy and technology challenges.

Accelerator scientists at Jefferson Lab have used an enhanced topographic analysis toolkit they developed to show that it not only successfully predicts particle accelerator component performance, but also points toward even better surface treatments not yet tested on a large scale. The results were recently published in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams.

From televisions to X-ray machines, many modern technologies are enabled by electrons that have been juiced up by a particle accelerator. Now, Jefferson Lab has teamed up with General Atomics and other partners to unlock even more applications. The team has designed, built and successfully tested a prototype of a key component of particle accelerators that could enable novel industrial applications of accelerators.

A team of scientists from Jefferson Lab and the University of Virginia have turned to machine learning in the quest to streamline beam tuning on the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility – and reduce accelerator downtime. The two-year project grew out of Jefferson Lab’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and was recently awarded $1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.