Hen Lab - Laboratory for Nuclear Science @ MIT
Welcome to the Hen-Lab website; Here you can get to know the group, read about our research, and find our latest publications. We are (primarily) a scattering group that uses high-energy electron, neutrino, photon, proton and radioactive-ion scattering to study effects of QCD in the nuclear medium, the interplay between partonic and nucleonic degrees of freedom in nuclei (e.g. the EMC effect), neutrino-nucleus interactions and more. If you find our work interesting, feel free to contact us and learn about how you can get involved!
More information on working at the Hen-Lab is available in this document.
Recent News
Checkout this cool MIT News Feature on group graduate student Magdelena Allen who combines nuclear physics and medicine to help develope a novel brain PET and perform fundamental symmetry test. Great collaboration with the Harvard/MGH Catana Lab!
New paper on AI-assisted Optimization of the ECCE Tracking System at the EIC available on the arXiv.
New paper on Scientific Computing for the ECCE Detector at the EIC available on the arXiv.
Excited to formally kickoff the new EIC Detector-1 effort! This marks the completion of the EIC detector proposals review stage and the beginning of a unified community effort to design and build a great EIC detector!
Congratulations to Dr. (!!!) Afroditi Papadopoulou for sucsesfully defending her thesis on "Lepton-Nucleus Scattering Measurements for Neutrino Interactions and Oscillations". We're looking forword for the next great things Dr. Papadopoulou will acomplish in her new position as an M.G. Mayer Fellow at Argon National Lab.
Proud to share that the EIC Detector Proposal Advisory Panel (DPAP) concluded its review by stating that "The panel unanimously recommends ECCE as Detector 1". Working on ECCE was a remarkble experience and we look forword to working with all colleagues from the EIC science community to continue the desig and construction of the first EIC collider Detector!
Check out our exciting presentations of EIC detector proposal to the first review session of the EIC Detector Advisory Pannel (DPAP). All EIC detectors proposals employ novel and state-of-the-art designs, that are needed to realize the challanging EIC science mission. This is a great community milestone in a long and fun journy to gain new understanding of the fundamental strucutre of visible matter :)
Checkout the press coverage of our first Electron-4-Neutrino Measurements, now published in Nature.
New paper searching for a bound di-neutron 3H(e,e'p)X measurements avilalbe on the arXiv. [Published in Physics Letters]
New paper on Reciol Nucleon Tagging and SRC Measurements at the EIC available on the arXiv. [Published in PRC]
Congratulations to graduate student Jackson Pybus for receiving the 2021 EIC Center graduate fellowship!
DOE grants CD-1 to the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), taking us one step closer to realizing a new collider that will revolutionize our understanding of QCD.
New paper on studying the neutron spin structure via double spectator tagging off 3He at the EIC available on the arXiv. [Published in Physics Letters]
Congratulations to Undergrad Anjali Nambrath for receiving, in her graduation ceremony, three different department / institutional awards, and the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Membership, for her research and service works. Anjali is now going to grad school at Berkley and will be missed by our group!!
New paper on A=3 DIS data constraints on QCD SU(6) Symmmetry Breaking availalbe on arXiv.
New paper on Transport Estimations of FSI Effects on SRC Studies available on arXiv.
Congratulations to graduate student Afroditi for receiving MIT's prestigious George and Marie Vergottis Fellowship!
"From Quarks to Nuclei" - new article on SRC studies across the globe.
Group co-host the "3rd Workshop on Quantitative Challenges in SRC and EMC Research" workshop.
Checkout press coverage of our Inverse Kinematics Probes of Transparent Nuclei, now published in Nature Physics
New call for EIC Collaboration Proposals for Detectors released. Our group is co-leading the ECCE consortium that will address this call with a proposal for the main EIC detector.
Checkout new EIC Yellow-Report that just got on the arXiv. This ~1000 page document is a result of a community effort to outline the most significant physical processes to be measured at the EIC and the detection systems that are needed to realize these measurements. Or served a a co-convener of the Diffractive and Tagging working group and many of our group members contributed to various studies detailed in the report.
Excited to kickoff the first workshop for the EIC Coprehensive Chromodynamics Experiment (ECCE)! Working with many colleages, ECCE will present a proposal for an EIC detector that is based on a 1.5T magnet and will be ready by first collisions :)
New Science Prespective by Or on nuclear clusters and neutron stars.
New paper on high-x nuclear PDFs available on the arXiv. [Published in PRD]
Checkout this new article on our group-led first measurement of exclusive neutrino interactions with the MicroBooNE detector. (and published on Or's birthday! ;)
Checkout press coverage of our latest Nature Physics paper on the Generalized Contact Formalism.
New paper on GENIE modeling of Inclusive Electron Scattering available on the arXiv. [Published in PRD]
"Hen’s hunt for neutrinos" - check out this great article by MIT's Tech featuring our electrons-4-neutrinos work
Bringing Tritium back! Jefferson Lab PAC approved our new Tritium@CLAS12 proposals for precision studies of few-body nuclear dynamics
Adi Ashkenazi named 2020 Tollestrup Award recepient. “for substantial improvements to the modeling of neutrino interactions using electron scattering data and widespread contributions to data acquisition, background modeling and systematics on MicroBooNE”
Happy to welcome post-baccalaureate researchers Natalie Wright and Alex Kiral to the gruop!
Congratulations to Adi for delivering a great Neutrino2020 plenary talk on our e4nu effort to >1000 physicists!
New paper on SRC contribution to the EMC Effect in Deuterium and Helium-3 available on the arXiv. [Published in Phys. Rev. Research]
Wishing luck to (now former) group postdoc Dr. Holly Szumila-Vance as she starts a perminent-track staff scientist position at Jefferson Lab!
Congratulations to group postdoc Dr. Dien Thi Nguyen for recieving the prestigious JAS Nathan Isgur fellowship! See press release.
"Physicists Study Mirror Nuclei For Precision Theory Test" - JLab Press release on our new Tritium paper
Congratulations to group graduate student Jackson Pybus for receiving the 2020 EIC Center graduate fellowship!
New paper on measurements of neutrino-argon CCQE scattering differential cross-sections available on the arXiv [Published in PRL]
New paper on probing SRCs in the Deuteron via J/Psi production at an EIC available on the arXiv [Published in PLB]
Congratulations to Dr. Reynier Cruz Torres for recieving the Sergio Vazquez Prize for his graduate work in our group!
New paper on GCF analysis of high-x inclusive electron scattering data available on the arXiv. [Published in PRC Lett.]
New paper on the our laser callibration system for large time-of-flight detector arrays available on the arXiv [Published in NIM-A]
New paper on the CLAS12 BAND detector (laed by our group) available on the arXiv. [Published in NIM-A]
New paper on mapping a Tensor-to-Scalar NN interaction Transition at short-distances available on the arXiv. [Published in Physics Letters]
Congratulations to Dr. (!!) Reynier Cruz Torres for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis on "Two-Nucleon Short-Range Correlations in Light Nuclei". Wishing him luck in his next position as postdoc at Berkeley!
New paper on GCF analysis of 4He(e,e′pN) data available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
Or awarded the 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship
New paper on probing few-body nuclear dynamics in measurements of A=3 mirror nuclei available on the arXiv. [Published in PRL, Editor's suggestion]
New paper on the core of the strong nuclear interaction accepted for publication in Nature [Now published]
"There's a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe" - new article on our EMC work published in Fox News
Happy to welcome our four new postdocs: Dr. Holly Szumila-Vance, Dr. Tyler Kutz, Dr. Julian Kahlbow, and Dr. Florian Hauenstein!
Wishing luck to (now former) group postdoc Prof. Axel Schmidt as he starts his faculty appointment at George Washington University!
Or wins the 2018 G. Altarelli Award: “for his role in uncovering a striking relation of the nuclear EMC effect and the strength of nucleon-nucleon correlations, with implications for the constraint of the down and up quark distribution ratio at large x”
Or elected to join the Executive Committee of the APS New England Section (NES)
Florian Hauenstein recived the 2019 JSA Promising Young Scientist Award!
Jefferson Lab PAC approved our new GlueX proposals for SRC studies using high-energy exclusive photo production reactions. We are now formally running in all 4 JLab halls!
Or awarded the 2019 DOE Early Career Award for SRC studies using exclusive nucleon-knockout reactions at CLAS12
Or wins the APS 2019 Stuart Jay Freedman Award in Experimental Nuclear Physics: "For innovative, wide-ranging experiments that found important manifestations of nuclear neutron-proton short-range correlations."
Afroditi Papadopoulou awarded the 2019 URA Graduate Fellowship!
Or wins the 2019 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Nuclear Physics: “For extending our knowledge and understanding of short range correlations in nuclei, and for the discovery of a remarkable linear relationship between high-momentum correlations and the deviation of the quark momentum in a heavy nucleus.”
Group host the "2nd Workshop on Quantitative Challenges in SRC and EMC Research" workshop @ MIT.
Happy to welcome new postdoc Dr. Dien Nguyen to the group
Check out the press coverage of our new Nature paper on the EMC Effect.
New paper on the isospin asymmetry dependence of spectroscopic factors and SRCs available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
New paper on Scale and Scheme Independence and Position-Momentum Equivalence of SRC available on the arXiv. [Published in Nature Physics]
New paper on comparing proton momentum distributions in A=3 via 3H and 3He (e,e'p) measurements available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
New paper on constraining the flavor dependence of the nucleon valence structure using nuclear DIS data available on the arXiv [Published in PRL]
New paper on "Modified Structure of Protons and Neutrons in Correlated Pairs" accepted for publication in Nature [Now published]
New paper on Rejecting cosmic background for exclusive neutrino interaction studies with Liquid Argon TPCs available on the arXiv [Published in EPJC]
New paper on Measurement of Nuclear Transparency Ratios for Protons and Neutrons available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
Congratulations to Dr. (!!) Longwu Ou for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis on "Precision Measurements of Electron-Proton Elastic Cross Sections at Large 𝑄^2"
New paper on the study of np-SRC dominance in heavy nuclei via the A(e,e'Np) reactions available on the arXiv [Published in PRL]
Adi Ashkenazi named 2018 Intensity Frontier Fellow at Fermilab
Congratulations to Dr. (!!) Barak Schmookler for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis on "Nucleon Structure and Its Modification in Nuclei". Wishing him luck in his next position as postdoc at Stony-Brook!
Check out the press coverage of our new Nature paper on correlations in neutron-rich nuclei
Reynier Cruz Torres wins Gordon Conference poster competition for his works on Tritium scattering and Contact Formalism
MIT led BAND detector sucsesfully installeed at JLab Hall B, towards intergration into CLAS12
Adi Ashkenazi received the 2018 National Postdoctoral Award for Advancing Women in Science (lead by the Weizmann Institute of Science)
Jefferson Lab PAC approved our new CLAS12 proposals for Exclusive SRC studies and Electron-4-Neutrinos with 'A' rating. Co-spockspersons include group postdocs Dr. Adi Ashkenazi and Dr. Axel Schmidt, as well as JLab postoc Dr. Holly Szumila
Anjali Nambrath and Kristen Surrao receive the APS CEU fellowship to present their work on OLIVIA (Kristen) and BAND (Anjali) at the DNP-JPS summer meeting in Hawaii!
New paper on the nuclear spectral function in the contact formalism and exclusive scattering reactions available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
Reynier Cruz Torres awarded the 2018 JSA Graduate Fellowship!
Axel Schmidt elected to join the Jefferson-Lab Hall A Coordinating Committee
New paper on measurements of SRCs in neutron-rich nuclei accepted for publication in Nature
Or servs as a scientifc advisor for a new NOVA documentary series on physics of atoms and nuclei
New paper on SRCs and the charge radii of neutron-rich nuclei available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
New paper on the extraction of the c.m. motion of SRC pairs in heavy nuclei available on the arXiv [Published in PRL]
New paper by group postdoc Dr. Axel Schmidt and collaborators on SRCs and the nuclear charge density available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
Or joins the APS Devision of Nuclear Physics (DNP) Program Committee for 2018- 2019
Axel recives the MIT School of Science 'Spot Award'. The award sets to "acknowledge and demonstrate appreciation and recognition for the exceptional contributions of individuals and teams"
Adi Ashkenazi received the 2017 dissertation prize of the Israeli Physical Society. The award covers all areas of experimental and theoretical physics.
Or named 'Bose Fellow'. OLIVIA project awarded the Professor Amar G. Bose Research Grant
New paper on the nuclear correlation function available on the arXiv [Published in Physics Letters]
Afroditi Papadopoulou receives the Fermilab URA Fellowship!
Adrian Silva receives the APS CEU fellowship to present his 'Electrons 4 Neutrinos' work at the DNP Fall meeting!
Happy to welcome new postdoc Adi Ashkenazi to the group!
Adi Ashkenazi receives the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Fellowship
Or wins the 2018 G. Altarelli Award: “for his role in uncovering a striking relation of the nuclear EMC effect and the strength of nucleon-nucleon correlations, with implications for the constraint of the down and up quark distribution ratio at large x”
Group host the "Table-Top Experiments with Skyscraper Reach" workshop.
New paper on the nuclear symmetry energy available on the arXiv [Published in Chin. Phys. C]
JLab PAC approved our new proposal "The CaFe Experiment: Short-Range Pairing Mechanisms in Heavy Nuclei"
Adrian Silva receives the Paul E. Gray (1954) Endowed Fund for his UROP project with the group!
JINR PAC approved our proposal "Study of Short-Range Correlation in Inverse Kinematics at BM@N"
Reynier Cruz Torres wins HUGS 2017 "Best Speaker Award"
Group members gave a great set of invited talks at the "High-Density Nuclear Matter" workshop @ WI
Or named new JLab Data-Mining collaboration spokesperson
New paper on the nuclear contact formalism available on the arXiv [published in Physics Letters]
New review paper on Short-Range Correlations and the EMC Effect available on the arXiv [Published in Reviews of Modern Physics]
Group host the "Quantitative Challenges in EMC and SRC Studies" workshop.
Efrain Segarra receives NSF and Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowships
Happy to welcome new postdocs Axel Schmidt and Georgios Laskaris to the group