Nuclear Physics Division

LEARN staffs study the process and mechanisms at work in nuclear reactions and provide expertise to address issues in related topics or societal issues. Activities include the description and prediction of elementary-particle- (photons, neutrinos) or nucleon-induced nuclear reactions and development of the experimental and modeling tools needed for those studies.

The LENA group laboratory conducts experimental programs on the structure and spectroscopy of the nucleus in extreme states, following three research axes:

• the structure of exotic nuclei with neutron halos or skins, low energy resonances, modifications of the standard shell structure,
• shapes and deformations of nuclei, which may have very different shapes in the vicinity of their ground state,
• and the spectroscopy of very heavy nuclei (region of transfermium nuclei and beyond).

The LENA Nuclear Structure Theory Group develops models that aim to extend our understanding of the emergence of nuclear phenomena based on theories of low-energy nuclear interactions. In particular, the scope is to develop a complete interpretation of the experimental results on the nuclear chart by carrying out ab initio calculations.  

The Nucleon Structure Laboratory leads research programs in hadron physics and Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with a specific focus on the internal structure of hadrons. Its activities can be classified into three major branches:

• Experimental nuclear physics: propose, conceive, build and run new experiments, perform data acquisition and analysis, prospect for future experimental facilities, apply statistical methods for physics analysis.
• Theoretical nuclear physics: modelling the hadron structure, ab initio computations, study of polarization effects in lepton or hadron scattering, theoretical analysis of experimental data, phenomenology of hadron structure functions.  
• Detector physics: research and development of innovative detectors, including potential applications beyond nuclear and particle physics.

The research programs of the Nucleon Structure Laboratory cover in a consistent way all the modern aspects of nucleon structure, from the theoretical motivation of some key problems to the design of the required associated detectors. 

The Nucleon Structure Laboratory consists in 24 members, including staff, PhD students and postdocs.

The quark-gluon plasma laboratory studies ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions to create and characterize the new state of nuclear matter in which the quarks and gluons are deconfined, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). A few micro-seconds after the Big Bang, the Universe was in such a QGP state. The LQGP participated in the PHENIX experiment at RHIC, BNL and is currently involved in the ALICE experiment at the LHC, CERN. The LQGP is building its future by its strong involvement in the upgrade programs of ALICE, MFT and MUON electronics, and sPHENIX.