Argonne physicist recognized for “Top Cited Paper” by Institute of Physics

(Press-News.org) A paper co-authored by physicist Filip Kondev of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has earned a “Top Cited Paper Award” from IOP Publishing, the publishing arm of the Institute of Physics.

The paper, “The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear physics properties,” provides researchers with recommended values of the basic nuclear physics properties for all known atomic nuclei. These data are provided for each nucleus in its ground state, its lowest energy level, and in its excited, isomeric state, a higher energy level that lives longer than what is typical. These data constitute the fundamental building blocks of research into nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. This information has numerous applications in the field of nuclear science.

“The fundamental nature of the information in this paper can be applied across nearly every field of scientific research — from basic science and astrophysics to energy, national security and medicine.” — Filip Kondev, principal physicist at Argonne

NUBASE2020 was one of the most frequently cited papers from North America in the entire IOP Publishing journal portfolio from 2020 to 2022. It also ranks in the top 1% of most cited articles in IOP’s physics subject category.

“The fundamental nature of the information in this paper can be applied across nearly every field of scientific research — from basic science and astrophysics to energy, national security and medicine. It is extremely gratifying to know that so many scientists are using it to inform their research,” explained Kondev.

NUBASE2020 is the most recent update of what is essentially a nuclear data library. Kondev has been helping to curate this library for more than 15 years with colleagues from China, France and Japan. Kondev participates in this effort as part of the United States Nuclear Data Program (USNDP). The program’s mission is “to provide current, accurate, authoritative data for workers in pure and applied areas of nuclear science and engineering.” The USNDP and Kondev’s work are funded by the Office of Nuclear Physics within the DOE’s Office of Science.

Kondev conducts a portion of his research at Argonne’s Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), a DOE Office of Science user facility. ATLAS is the world’s first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions and the premier DOE-funded stable-beam facility for nuclear physics. It hosts 200 to 300 users from universities, national labs and industry each year. 

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