FRIB’s research is leading to new discoveries that expand our understanding of nuclear structure, elucidating the sub-atomic forces shaping the universe.

Nuclear structure explores how protons and neutrons bind to form atomic nuclei, complex sub-atomic systems governed by quantum mechanics. This field addresses fundamental questions about the nuclear forces and reveals unexpected behaviors, such as proton-neutron clustering, unusual properties of weakly-bound nuclei, and changes in the decay properties of nuclei very far from stability. Some phenomena in nuclear structure, such as shell structure or pairing, are universal and appear in other quantum systems.

Breakthroughs often come from studying nature’s extremes, such as probing nuclei that have many more neutrons than protons and that can only be produced in neutron-star mergers, supernovae, or at FRIB. Nuclei at the extremes of proton-neutron imbalance offer new insights into nuclear interactions and stability. FRIB can produce rare nuclei that have been predicted to exists but never observed, pushing the frontiers of nuclear science.

Key research questions in nuclear structure research FRIB include:

• What combinations of neutrons and protons can exist as a nucleus?
• How does subatomic matter arrange itself to form nuclei, and what nuclear properties emerge?
• How are the elements created in the universe via reactions and decays that we can recreate in the Laboratory?