A team of George Washington University physicists have been at the forefront of a new international collaboration to expand technological capabilities at a Virginia lab that could ultimately help researchers understand more about how particles were formed in the several microseconds after the Big Bang.
More than 150 researchers from 68 institutions in 20 countries will contribute to the construction of a new experimental facility at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, commonly known as Jefferson Lab, in Newport News, Virginia. The national lab, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, is a hub for international physics research, and is frequented by GW faculty and student researchers pursuing groundbreaking research in astrophysics.
"This is a big project, and GW researchers have played a key role as a driving force behind getting this proposal approved," said physics professor Igor Strakovsky, who is leading the university’s contributions on the project alongside professors Bill Briscoe, Michael Doering, Ali Eskanderian, Helmut Haberzettl, Maxim Mai, and Ronald Workman.
The team has advocated for new research and facilitated the large collaboration efforts at the JLab since 2015. GW’s physics researchers have a long history of making significant contributions to a greater understanding of the universe.