What and Why: Los Alamos Neutron Science Center

Download a print-friendly version of this article.

Since the nuclear age dawned with the Trinity test in 1945, Los Alamos National Laboratory has played a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of nuclear processes and ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of America’s nuclear stockpile. Today, this work continues at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), a premier particle accelerator and user facility that drives basic science in support of the security of the nation. Over the past 50 years, LANSCE has evolved and expanded to encompass five distinct experimental areas that enable discoveries ranging from cancer treatments and the structure of dinosaur skulls to armor innovations and insights into the physics that shaped the cosmos.

In an era marked by international tensions and artificial intelligence (AI)–empowered science, LANSCE has never been more vital to national and global security. Research at LANSCE produces much of the scientific knowledge and detailed data that go into supercomputer simulations of the most extreme processes in the universe. This irreplaceable facility is now being updated and modernized to ensure that LANSCE continues to provide vital capabilities for decades to come.

“Like nowhere else at Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANSCE is where the Lab’s weapons research and our science, technology, and engineering converge.”
—Pat Fitch, deputy Laboratory director for Science, Technology, and Engineering 

Critical Insights into Particle Interactions

LANSCE offers unique windows into the physics of nuclear processes. Its facilities provide a secure environment for testing materials from many distinct scientific and technical angles. By reproducing the extreme conditions of nuclear detonation, for example, LANSCE can generate complementary data from fundamental physics and improve our simulations of nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, earth system processes, astrophysics, and more. 

More about LANSCE and Dynamic Imaging.

AI and LANSCE: A Partnership for Precision

At LANSCE, scientists study physical processes by recording extreme, ultra-fast phenomena, like small explosions or implosions, that last just billionths of a second. To capture data from these dynamic experiments, scientists synchronize the timing of these fleeting phenomena with particles traveling near light speed. A discrepancy of even a millionth of a second could be the difference between a groundbreaking discovery and a recording of smoking debris. Now, Los Alamos scientists are using specialized AI to optimize the particle accelerator’s settings, so users can more precisely capture these rapidly changing events. This precision will improve experimental accuracy, paving the way for even more revolutionary science at LANSCE.

More about Computational & AI Breakthroughs at Los Alamos.

“LANSCE not only enables us to steward our nuclear stockpile, but, with the understanding of nuclear physics and materials science that LANSCE provides, improve it.”
—Bob Webster, deputy Laboratory director for Weapons 

LANSCE Helps Understand Material Aging

Understanding the effects of aging in complex systems involves meticulously testing every component within the system. At LANSCE, scientists use imaging to examine the microstructure of complex materials with industrial, electronic, aviation, and weapon applications, assessing the long-term functionality of these materials and designing replacements that can better stand the test of time. LANSCE is the only place in the country where essential work like this can be done.  

More Integrated Deterrence at Los Alamos.

Global Monitoring Enhanced by LANSCE

At LANSCE, scientists observe the behaviors, properties, and byproducts of dynamic materials, gathering data that is applied to defense systems. But this understanding is also invaluable to the nation’s nuclear forensics operations and supports global nuclear nonproliferation. The scientific signatures that enable the detection of nuclear activities, and even the detection devices themselves, stem directly from research conducted at LANSCE.  

More about LANSCE and Threat Response.

“LANSCE played a role in almost every major nuclear physics question—fundamental and applied—answered at Los Alamos in the past 50 years. Once upgraded, it will play a pivotal role over the next 50 years as well.”
—Charlie Nakhleh, associate Laboratory director for Weapons Physics 

Modernizing LANSCE

This year marks LANSCE’s 53rd anniversary, and the facility needs infrastructure updates. Reliant on outdated components and aging materials, some dating back to the 1960s, the facility is increasingly vulnerable to disruptions that compromise its functionality and safety. In 2030, a vital modernization project, known as the LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project (LAMP), will overhaul the accelerator’s front end—where the accelerated protons originate. Technology that wasn’t available when the facility opened in 1972 will be implemented, and these upgrades will improve just about every aspect of the linear accelerator and the five experimental areas it supports. It’s a major step toward ensuring that LANSCE continues to provide vital data for nuclear science far into the future.  

A conversation about the LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project.

LANSCE’s Leaders

Eric Brown is the director of the LANSCE user facility, where he’s leading near-term efforts to keep rolling out critical science at LANSCE. He’s also taking steps to ready the facility for its next 50 years of service to users worldwide.

“We have the opportunity, in the next five years, to enable a new generation of scientific discovery and mission success by modernizing LANSCE.” 
—Eric Brown, LANSCE user facility director

Greg Dale is technical director of the LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project. This multi-year, highly complex project will replace the particle accelerator’s front end, where the accelerated particles originate, resulting in an accelerator that can deliver more mission-critical science faster.

“So much of the science that we do at LANSCE can be done nowhere else. Because of that, we have an incredibly high demand from all sorts of scientific interests—defense, medical, industrial, aviation.”
—Greg Dale, LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project technical director