Strategic Research at Los Alamos

Los Alamos National Laboratoryis a scientific institution whoseprimary mission is to be a

steward of the nation’s nuclear deter-rent. In a broader context, theLaboratory’s mission is to preservethe security and safety of the UnitedStates against present and futurethreats. To anticipate future threatsand develop the necessary ideas andtechnologies to detect, foil, and miti-gate possible attacks, we must beworking at the cutting edge ofresearch in many branches of engi-neering and science, and we mustsimultaneously integrate a wide rangeof research advances from academiaand industry.

The long-term success of any scien-tific organization is tied to its ability torecruit and retain exceptional peopleand to foster collaboration and mean-ingful relationships with the finestinstitutions worldwide. In addition, atLos Alamos and other mission-orientedlaboratories, an environment must bemaintained in which the creativity ofthe staff is readily tapped in order toimplement those missions. Sustainingthat kind of environment is a formidabletask. It has been made more complicatedbecause emerging threats—global ter-rorism, nuclear proliferation, poverty,disease, diminishing fossil-fuel andwater resources, stressed ecosystems—require that the Laboratory respond

from a broad base of scientific expert-ise and develop effective responses in atimely fashion.

Unlike many research environ-ments, ours must balance the freedomto explore new ideas with a strongcommunal commitment to meetingnational security challenges and tomaking sacrifices when necessary.This balance requires the presence ofscientific leaders who can inspire oth-ers to contribute innovative ideas andwho can lead the integration of thoseideas into practical solutions. Not onlymust we divide our efforts betweenbasic research and applied researchand development activities, but wemust also recognize and seek out syn-ergistic research opportunities inwhich progress in one field yieldsgreater understanding in another.Finally, there must be a deep recogni-tion that the evolution of ideas israrely predictable and that the Labmust position itself to encourage thecreation and exploitation of new ideasto meet future challenges.

After World War II, key decisionmakers recognized the value of pro-viding scientific organizations with theflexibility necessary to pursue innova-tive ideas. While serving as Armychief of staff, General Eisenhowerwrote, “Scientists and industrialistsmust be given the greatest possiblefreedom to carry out their research.

The fullest utilization by the Army ofthe civilian resources of the nationcannot be procured by prescribing themilitary characteristics and require-ments of certain types of equipment.Scientists and industrialists are morelikely to make new and unsuspectedcontributions to the development ofthe Army if detailed directions areheld to a minimum . . . .” This kind ofthinking is reflected again in theAtomic Energy Act of 1954: “Thecommission is directed to exercise itspowers in such manner as to insure thecontinued conduct of research anddevelopment and training activities inthe fields specified . . . .”

Currently, within the Departmentof Energy (DOE) structure, theLaboratory-Directed Research andDevelopment (LDRD) program pro-vides resources for discretionaryresearch. Although this particular for-mal structure is young compared withthe 60-year history of the Lab, the ori-gins of the program go back to thebeginning of the weapons program.Indeed, some have argued that the ini-tial work on spherical implosion rep-resents the first LDRD-like effort atLos Alamos. In late April 1943, SethNeddermeyer proposed that a three-dimensional implosion would be apotentially more effective means ofassembling a supercritical mass thanthe one-dimensional “gun assembly,”

200 Los Alamos Science Number 28 2003

Strategic Research at Los AlamosRajan Gupta and David E. Watkins

which was the baseline design con-cept. Neddermeyer’s concept was ini-tially considered unnecessary andoutside the mainstream of work.Although the spontaneous rate ofplutonium-239 fission is twice that ofuranium-235, the difference did notappear to warrant a different design.Nevertheless, Oppenheimer decidedto fund the work on spherical implo-sion to keep the option open. It wasnot until the data came in on thereactor-produced plutonium, whichcontained enough plutonium-240 tosignificantly increase the spontaneousfission rate, that the work on sphericalimplosion carried out byNeddermeyer and Kistiakowsky wasrecognized as essential. Today, theflexibility afforded through the LDRDprogram continues to provide thenation with science and technologycritical to our defense and security.

The synergy between the nuclearweapons program and basic science isexemplified by the work of NobelLaureate Fred Reines. During the war,Reines worked on many differentaspects of nuclear weapons design.After the war, he became an expert onnuclear weapons effects and played alead role in nuclear weapons testing.Toward 1948, Reines wanted to returnto basic science. Carson Mark, hisdivision director actively encouragedthis transition and gave Reines thefreedom to “sit and think.” This he didfor almost a year, during which timehe decided to search for the elusiveneutrino, a neutral particle with littleor no mass, whose existence was pos-tulated on the basis of the fundamen-tal principle of energy conservation. Iftheory was correct, this particleshould be produced in copious quanti-ties during a nuclear explosion.

Under the nurturing eye of CarsonMark, Fred pulled together his vastexperience with detection of differentforms of radiation, his abilities to dobig science, and the technical capabil-ities of Los Alamos to build a detector

Number 28 2003 Los Alamos Science 201

Strategic Research at Los Alamos

Resolving the Solar Neutrino Problem

Andrew Hime

Since the seminal discovery of the neutrino by Los Alamos researchers ClydeCowan and Fred Reines in the late 1950s, there has been a continuous effortby Laboratory scientists to study neutrinos and their interactions. Central tothat study is the question of whether the different neutrino flavors—electron,muon, and tau—have mass, a question that has been answered decisivelywith recent data from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO).

SNO was built to resolve the long-standing solar neutrino problem, whereinthe measured flux of solar neutrinos reaching Earth is significantly lower thanpredicted. But all previous experiments had been sensitive to only electronneutrinos. Whereas those are the onlyneutrinos that can be created by thenuclear fusion reactions powering theSun, the other flavors can be “produced”if neutrinos have mass. Through theprocess of flavor mixing, massive elec-tron neutrinos from the Sun can “trans-form” into muon and tau neutrinos asthey travel to Earth. This process wouldexplain why the measured solar electronneutrino flux is lower than predicted bythe standard solar model.

A multinational decade-long effort, SNOwas designed to detect all neutrinoflavors. Los Alamos was involved inall aspects of the project, includingdetector construction, commissioning,simulation, and calibration, as well asdata analysis and scientific manage-ment. The primary detector contains1000 tonnes of ultrapure heavy waterin a large “bottle,” shown in (a). Thedeuterium in the water can interactwith high-energy electron neutrinosthrough charged-current (CC) weakinteractions and with all neutrino fla-vors through neutral-current (NC)weak interactions. All neutrino fla-vors also undergo elastic scattering(ES) with electrons, but the reaction is sensitive mostly to electron neutrinos.By enabling a direct comparison of the CC, NC, and ES reaction rates, SNOcould determine if the neutrinos from the Sun are a mix of electron, muon,and tau neutrinos. As seen in (b), the best fit to the data (dotted circles areconfidence limits) indicates that two-thirds of the electron neutrinos born inthe Sun transform into muon and/or tau neutrinos. (ΦNC

SSM is the NC flux pre-dicted by the standard solar model.) Together with data from other experi-ments, these results demonstrate that flavor mixing almost certainly resolvesthe solar neutrino problem and that neutrinos have mass. Moreover, the totalflux of neutrinos measured at SNO agrees with predictions and our basicknowledge of how the Sun shines.

CC: νe + d → p + p + e– – 1.44 MeVNC: νx + d → p + n + νx – 2.22 MeVES: νx + e– → νx + e–

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Flu

x o

f νµ ,

ντ

(106 c

m–2

s–1

)

Flux of νe (106 cm–2 s–1) 10 32 5 64

φSNOES

φSNOCC

φSNONC

φSSMNC

(a)

(b)

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A neutron will normally diffuse right through materialssuch as steel or lead, but if the neutron’s energy isexceedingly low, it will instead be reflected by those(or other) materials. We can now produce neutrons withkinetic energies less than about 300 nano–electronvolts. When placed in a “bottle”of the right material, these ultra-cold neutrons (UCNs) becometrapped, enabling us to collectthem and to make a high-densityUCN source.

Such a source can offer orders-of-magnitude improvements toexperiments that make precisemeasurements of neutron prop-erties. For example, Los Alamosis vigorously pursuing an exper-iment to measure the angularcorrelation between a neutron’sspin and the momentum of theelectron that emerges when theneutron decays. The experimentshould provide a precise meas-ure of the ratio of the vector andaxial-vector coupling constantsin the electroweak interaction inthe Standard Model, and so canbe used to test the unitarity ofthe CKM matrix (the matrixthat rotates the complete set ofquark mass states into the com-plete set of quark weak states).Another experiment aims atimproving the limit set on theas-yet-unobserved neutron elec-tric dipole moment (EDM), theexistence of which would vio-late parity and time reversalsymmetry. The neutron EDM,therefore, serves as a critical testof fundamental particle theoriesthat are extensions to theStandard Model.

We have recently conducted experiments to under-stand and characterize the performance of solid deu-terium as a so-called superthermal UCN source. Asseen in graphic (a), a pulse of high-energy protonsfrom the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is

directed to a tungsten target thatsits inside a liquid nitrogen dewar.High-energy spallation neutronsexit the target, lose most of theirenergy in a layer of polyethylene,and enter the liquid helium dewarthat holds the solid deuterium. Aneutron can collide with a deuteriummolecule and resonantly transferessentially all of its kinetic energyto the deuterium lattice. By thissuperthermal process, a relativelylarge fraction of the incomingneutrons become ultracold. Theythen diffuse to the UCN bottleregion, where the sequenced clos-ing of valves B and A trap them.

We have demonstrated a proto-type, solid deuterium source,shown in (b), that produced about120 UCNs per cubic centimeterinside the bottle region, a muchhigher value than can be providedby other facilities. A source withpotentially six to seven times thatUCN density is being engineeredfor the angular correlation experi-ment mentioned above. We arealso investigating solid oxygen asa candidate for the next generationsuperthermal UCN source. Ourpreliminary calculations indicatethat this new material might yielda UCN flux output 250 timesgreater than than that achievedwith solid deuterium.

A New Source of Ultracold Neutrons

Chen-Yu Liu, Steve K. Lamoreaux, Thomas J. Bowles, and Christopher Morris

58Ni coated stainless guide

Liquid N2

Be reflector

LHe

Solid D2

Polyethylene

Tungsten target

B

To experiment

Valves A

Proton beam

(a)

(b)

The National High Magnetic FieldLaboratory (NHMFL) at LosAlamos has emerged as one of theleading pulsed-magnetic-fieldresearch centers in the world,hosting an international user pro-gram that attracts around 150 vis-iting scientists a year to LosAlamos. Part of the NHMFL con-sortium (which has other facilitiesat Florida State University and theUniversity of Florida and is joint-ly funded by the National ScienceFoundation, the State of Florida,and the Department of Energy),the NHMFL–Los Alamos is amultipurpose facility, powered notonly by a 1.4-billion volt-amperespower generator (the country’slargest) shown in (a) but also bythe intellectual energy of its per-sonnel and user community.

In (b), researchers are shownexamining data that come frommagnets in cells 3 and 4 of thefacility, each of which contains a60-tesla “short-pulse” magnet thatprovides a 25-millisecond mag-netic pulse. These magnets are theworkhorses of the NHMFL userprogram and are used for magne-totransport, magnetization, andradio-frequency conductivityexperiments. Researchers in thebackground are clustered aroundcell 2, which contains a 50-tesla“midpulse” magnet, shown in (c),that is primarily used for opticsexperiments, such as photolumi-nescence. Another frequently usedmagnet is the “large-bore” 50-tesla magnet that is used formeasurements requiring some“elbow room,” such as angle-dependent magnetization and

magnetoresistance measurements, orpulse-echo ultrasound and gigahertzspectroscopies.

When energized at peak fields, thedifferent magnets have magneticenergies between 0.5 and 100 mega-joules. As a megajoule is roughly theenergy equivalent of two sticks ofdynamite, research involving highmagnetic fields is, in part, an exer-cise in applied metal fatigue. Withpressures in the magnets approaching1.4 gigapascals (200,000 pounds persquare inch), not only does copperwire stretch and rupture, but evengarden-variety steels fracture cata-strophically. To combat the metalfatigue, the Los Alamos engineersand metallurgists working with theNHMFL have helped to develop avariety of nanostructured conductorsand exotic reinforcing materials withgreatly enhanced mechanicalstrength.

The technical expertise needed tomaintain the NHMFL magnets is anasset, and it is frequently applied toproblems involving pulsed-power,electromagnetic modeling, and otherprojects that serve the Laboratory’sbroader mission. The pulsed magnetsthemselves provide a unique scientif-ic platform for developing and test-ing experimental techniques in areadily reproducible transient envi-ronment. Finally, NHMFL scientistsactively collaborate with other LosAlamos researchers on fundamentallyimportant missions ranging fromnanoscience to plutonium.

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory—A User Facility

Alex H. Lacerda and Gregory S. Boebinger



(a)

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that would “see” the neutrino. In1956, Reines and his team discoveredthe neutrino using the Savannah Rivernuclear reactor as the neutrino source.That work opened up the field ofexperimental neutrino physics, whichis still actively pursued at LosAlamos. Recently, Laboratory scien-tists played a leading role in an inter-national collaboration that presentedthe first evidence that neutrinos oscil-late from one type to another. Suchconversion of electron-type to muon-type neutrinos is now believed tosolve the solar neutrino riddle—explaining why the number of elec-tron neutrinos detected at the earth’ssurface is far smaller than the numberthat solar models predict (see the box“Resolving the Solar NeutrinoProblem” on the previous page).

To highlight how ideas in scienceand technology merge into major pro-grams, we look back to biologicalresearch in the 1960s. The principle offlow cytometry—a flow method inwhich cells are rapidly interrogatedone cell at a time—was inventedthrough Laboratory-directed research,and the first device was reported byMack Fulwyler in 1965 in Science(Volume 150). A few years later, LosAlamos flow cytometers could sortcells by DNA content, enabling scien-tists to study the effects of exposure toradiation or to carcinogenic chemi-cals, issues relevant to worker safetywithin the DOE. By 1985, theLaboratory and Lawrence LivermoreNational Laboratory were sorting thedifferent chromosomes in the humangenome with 95 percent accuracy andsupplying libraries of cloned frag-ments for each chromosome to molec-ular biologists around the world. Inthe meantime, George Bell, a theoreti-cal physicist formerly in the nuclearweapons program, had founded aunique group in theoretical immunol-ogy using LDRD funds. Georgeencouraged his longtime collaborator



EpiSims

Stephen Eubank

EpiSims is a novel software system for simulating the spread of disease in alarge urban population. It is built upon the very detailed models of populationmobility provided by UPMoST (Urban Population Mobility SimulationTechnology), a simulation system that was also developed at Los Alamos.UPMoST fuses informa-tion from different typesof data, such as local cen-sus data, household activi-ty data, transportationdata, and others and usesthem to build a syntheticpopulation of individualswho move about an urbanregion in a realistic net-work of contact patterns.EpiSims takes this modelof population mobility andadds to it models for howdisease is transmitted fromperson to person or con-tracted from contaminatedenvironments.

These graphics show theprogression of a smallpoxepidemic as estimated byan EpiSims simulation. Thevirus was released amongstudents at a university indowntown Portland,Oregon. Six hours afterhaving been exposed, theinfected people—seegraphic (a)—have quicklyspread through the down-town area. The height ofeach bar indicates the num-ber of infected people ateach location. Graphic (b)shows that, after 40 days,and without a mitigationstrategy, the virus hasspread throughout the city. The simulation shows that the contagion has touchedmany demographic groups, so any strategy designed to mitigate the effects ofthe contagion must accurately take this demographic mixing into account.Graphic (c) shows the viral progression 40 days after the initial infection, but itincludes a mitigation strategy that targeted those people who came into contactwith contagious people. People who showed symptoms of smallpox were isolat-ed, and their contacts were vaccinated starting 14 days after the attack.

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Observations of the cosmos reveal that in the center of most massive galaxies lies asupermassive black hole. These enigmatic objects form by packing 108 solar massesinto a region the size of our solar system, and roughly 1062 ergs of gravitationalenergy are released during the formation process. A part of this energy is ejectedfrom the region of the black hole as a giant jet or outflow. Such an outflow is visibleas the collimated luminous emission in (a), which is a color-coded “radio map” ofthe giant galaxy M87 in the constellation Virgo. It has been a great challenge tounderstand the formation of these outflows. Furthermore, where the outflow breaksup, we see radio lobes, which are identified as large regions of space filled with mag-netic-field energy and high-energy particles. By studying approximately100 galaxies with radio lobes, we found that the total energy of the lobes canbe up to 10 percent of the energy released when the black hole formed. Theidentification of this enormous amount of magnetic energy has, among otherthings, led us to a model of black-hole formation in which gravitational energyis transformed into magnetic energy by a galactic-scale dynamo.

In the early stages of galaxy formation, circulating matter typically forms adisk because of its finite amount of angular momentum. Transporting angularmomentum away from the central disk region is essential if the matter is tomove inward and collapse to form a supermassive black hole. We have iden-tified a global angular-momentum transport mechanism and performedhydrodynamic simulations to show that large-scale vortices, indicated by col-ors in (b), can efficiently transport angular momentum outwards. The innerportion of the disk is a conducting plasma that completes roughly 1011 revo-lutions during the 108 years it takes for the black hole to form. We proposethat a dynamo process will convert that rotational kinetic energy into magnet-ic-field energy. A cut-away view of the inner region is shown in (c). Becauseof the differential rotation, the disk twists and amplifies a poloidal “seed”magnetic field (with a radial component in the disk) into a toroidal field.Simultaneously, a large number of stars are swarming in and around the disk,and we expect an exceedingly large number of star/disk collisions to occurduring the period of black-hole formation. Each collision makes a plumethat transforms a fraction of the enhanced toroidal field back into thepoloidal field. Calculations indicate that this process can lead to a posi-tive dynamo gain, allowing the seed field to be exponentially amplified.We are conducting a laboratory experiment using liquid sodium to modelthis dynamo process.

Our calculations also show that the fraction of the poloidal field thatextends outside the disk is wrapped up by the disk into a force-freehelix, carrying away the energy released by the black-hole formation asa Poynting flux—see graphic (b). After tens of millions of years, thehelix extends well beyond the galaxy to nearby galaxies. This fact, alongwith the observation that supermassive black holes are ubiquitous, led usto suggest that a significant fraction of the volume of the universe isfilled with magnetic fields. We are still trying to understand how magnetic reconnection can reconfigure those fields and leadto the distorted shapes seen in (a). We are also trying to find out whether our model can lead to the acceleration of the high-energy particles (for example, cosmic rays) and whether, in the ultimate “global warming” scenario, the field heats up thewider intergalactic medium.

Outeraccretion disk

Magnetic helix

1 MPc

Electromagnetic Poynting flux

Force-free helix conducting medium

Star

Black hole

Disk

~100 A.U.

Poloidal seed field

Toroidal field

Collision plume

Extended toroidalflux

Flux expanded and rotated into poloidal plane

Rapidreconnection

The Magnetized Universe

Hui Li and Stirling A. Colgate

(a)

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Walter Goad to follow his visionaryideas regarding molecular biologyand start the first data bank (knownas GenBank in 1983) for the storageand analysis of DNA sequences.Subsequently, one of George’syounger collaborators, CharlesDelisi, left Bell’s group for an influ-ential position at DOE, and Delisileveraged those two LDRD-sponsoredinitiatives, the DNA libraries and databank, to win DOE sponsorship of thenation’s Human Genome Project. Theefforts to understand, at a fundamentallevel, how genomes function have hada direct and continuing impact on ournational security. Throughout the1990s and continuing to this day, tech-nologies from the Human GenomeProject have helped combat the threatof biological warfare agents. RapidDNA analysis tools and miniaturizedinstruments continue to be developedand fielded for either military orhomeland security applications.

As new threats emerge, new areasof science crop up to help mitigatethem. A particularly interesting exam-ple is the application of quantummechanical principles to informationtechnology. Richard Feynman recog-nized that processing informationusing quantum physics would result insignificant differences compared withclassical physics approaches. Today,we are witnessing the emergence of atechnology based on quantummechanical principles that can guaran-tee secure communications. RichardHughes, originally a postdoctoral fel-low in the elementary particles andfield theory group, used LDRD fundsto start an experimental effort in quan-tum cryptography, a technique thatexploits the properties of single pho-tons to distribute cryptographic keyswith guaranteed security againstunwanted interception. Hughes andhis colleagues made rapid progressand are now supported by program-matic funds. This technology hasimmediate potential to improve our

national security. We do not yet knowall the long-term implications ofquantum information technology.However, we have a strong sense thatcontinued research in quantum phe-nomena will play a major role in thetechnological edge and security of thenation.

These examples of innovationamply demonstrate that intelligent,technically gifted, tenacious peoplewith broad interests create revolutionsthat change society. But how does aninstitution identify such creative peo-ple, and how long should they be sup-ported to think and explore withoutconstraint? Should a person whoseinterests do not match the immediateneeds or mission of an institution besupported?

The diversity of past success sto-ries tells us that there is no simpleanswer, nor is there a cookbookrecipe. The best one can do is toassign the task to peers, assuming themaxim that it takes one to know one.The system works provided a suffi-ciently large community exists, whosemembers, in spite of large egos and avery high degree of competition, valuetruth and the quest for truth. For manyyears, the Laboratory has used techni-cal peer review as its decision mecha-nism when confronted with fundingdiscretionary research. That mecha-nism produced high standards in thepast, and the Laboratory will best suc-ceed in meeting future challenges bysustaining that tradition.

We will also continue to supportthe Laboratory’s vigorous postdoctor-al program. It is a superb mechanismfor attracting the best youngresearchers to our programs. Eachyear, the Laboratory makes a specialstrategic investment by recruitingabout 25 postdoctoral fellows and 6distinguished postdoctoral fellowsthrough a highly competitive process.The latter group is evenly dividedamong the J. Robert Oppenheimer,Feynman, and Reines categories.

Both these groups of fellows areselected on the basis of academicrecord, research activities and inter-ests, and leadership potential. Theyare then supported fully for 2 to3 years to pursue their own researchinterests, develop a familiarity withthe Laboratory’s programs, and inves-tigate ways in which they can matchtheir talents with the needs of theLaboratory. Over time, this programhas proved to be extremely success-ful—a significant fraction of thosefellows join programs early in theirstay at Los Alamos and eventuallybecome leaders, both as scientists andmanagers. Furthermore, many of theother outstanding candidates who par-ticipate in this competition but are notselected as “fellows” are hired as pro-grammatically funded postdoctoralresearch associates. The competitionis intense, and the combined pool ofhired candidates, superb. Thisapproach has ensured the highestpossible quality of the technicalstaff recruited through the postdoc-toral program. On average, there are300 postdoctoral fellows andresearch associates working at theLaboratory at any one time. Many ofthem become part of the permanentstaff. Those who leave Los Alamosfor positions in academia or industryoften continue to contribute to ourintellectual vitality through collabora-tions with our staff.

Many of those recruits considertheir postdoctoral experience as oneof the most productive periods oftheir lives. As permanent staff, how-ever, they often experience too manyconstraints on their productive time.Proposal writing, delivery on pro-grammatic milestones, and managingbusiness aspects can take too muchtime away from creative thinking andinnovative problem solving. TheLaboratory is working to change thissituation. No doubt, from an institu-tional perspective, the Laboratoryneeds to hire from among the best



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and brightest postdocs and hire thosewho can work effectively on teams,who see the value of multidiscipli-nary approaches to complex prob-lems, and who can contribute to ourdiverse work—from fundamental sci-ence to pragmatic solutions, and fromthose to complicated national technol-ogy and security needs. But theLaboratory also needs to enable theseyoung scientists to contribute cre-atively over many decades. The pay-offs from basic science are generallylong term, and basic science resultsare seldom accomplished without sus-tained effort. That effort is possibleonly through maintaining a good sup-port infrastructure in all the businessaspects of the Laboratory and secur-ing stable funding for science.

Historically, very smart peoplewillingly sacrificed their self-interestsand worked collectively on projectswhen they believed in the urgencyand importance of the mission. Twooutstanding examples of such projectsare the Manhattan Project, conductedat a time when eminent scientistsunderstood the danger posed by NaziGermany and its allies, and the callby President John F. Kennedy in 1961to put an American on the moon bythe end of the decade. Today, we facea similar challenge in the war onglobal terrorism and on poverty, dis-ease, and diminishing resources. Howdoes an institution retain the capabili-ty to respond to such new challengesafter years of working on one mis-sion, the stewardship of the nuclearstockpile? Once again, one comes tounderstand and appreciate the soundjudgment and farsightedness of theLaboratory’s founders, who put a pre-mium on strategic investment inskilled and talented people and oncreating an environment that rewardsand nurtures them.

Many of the broad and intercon-nected challenges being addressed byLaboratory scientists are evident inthe topics covered in this section on

strategic investments. In the articlefollowing this one, for example, LosAlamos scientists discuss how theyare using sophisticated mathematicaltools to combat HIV, how they deter-mined when the virus entered thehuman population, and how theycame to understand the complex battlethat rages between the virus and theimmune system. In another article,scientists describe their latest high-resolution techniques for modelingEarth’s oceans. The research promisesto increase our ability to predict cli-mate change. For the emerging fieldof nanotechnology, we have devel-oped a new type of laser based onnanometer-size bits of matter, pavingthe way for ultraefficient opticaldevices. Other researchers discuss theLaboratory’s seminal role in fuel cellresearch and development as well asour efforts to simulate the flow ofwater into and out of a regional basin.The Laboratory is strongly committedto supporting an array of activities inbasic science to sustain its vitality andmeet the long-term challenges of itsmissions. The boxes accompanyingthis overview highlight but a few suchprojects undertaken by the LosAlamos staff.

At this critical juncture in history,we are rededicating ourselves to thepursuit of excellence in science andtechnology at Los Alamos. We arealso finding new ways to communi-cate to society at large the essentialnature of our basic and appliedresearch and give the nation confi-dence in the integrity of our scienceand technology. �



Rajan Gupta graduated from the University ofDelhi in 1975 and obtained his Ph.D. in theo-retical physics from the California Institute ofTechnology in 1982. Hecame to Los Alamos as aJ. Robert Oppenheimerfellow in 1985 and iscurrently the leader ofthe Elementary Particlesand Field Theory Group.He is an elected fellowof the AmericanPhysical Society, and hismain areas of researchare in lattice QCD and the phenomenology ofthe Standard Model, and in computationalphysics. He is also deeply involved with accel-erating the delivery of education and healthcare globally and with issues of internationalsecurity.

David Watkins is a native son, who grew up inNew Mexico and obtained a bachelor’s degree inphysics from New Mexico Tech. He first came toLos Alamos as a graduate student for the sum-mer of 1975, beforeattending the Universityof Washington, where hereceived a Ph.D. inphysics. He returned toLos Alamos in 1979 towork on the laser fusionprogram, developingsolid-state nonlinear opti-cal technology. Davidspent the next ten yearsof his career as a technical staff member, work-ing on various program—from laser isotope sep-aration to Department of Defense programs.Between 1988 and 1989, David worked at theRoyal Signals and Radar Establishment inMalvern, England, as part of a technicalexchange for the Strategic Defense Initiative.Upon his return to Los Alamos, he joined thesemiconductor physics team in the Electronicand Electrochemical Materials and DevicesGroup. David served as both deputy leader andleader for that group. In 1999, on April Fools’Day, David joined the LDRD program office andlater became LDRD program manager.

Strategic Research at Los Alamos

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