APS DNP 2026 Fall Meeting

Mini-Symposia

Session titles:

1. Aligning AI Innovation and Scientific Discovery
2. Neutrinos as a Probe of the Nucleus
3. Nuclear Structure from Laser Spectroscopy of Atoms and Molecules
4. Progress Towards Tests of Fundamental Symmetry Violations In The Hadronic Sector Using Atoms and Molecules
5. Science Advances at University Nuclear Facilities
6. Searching for QGP Signatures Across Systems: New Insights from RHIC and the LHC
7. Trustworthy AI/ML in Nuclear Physics
8. Understanding fission through gamma rays
9. The VudU Alliance: prospects for improving V_ud and tests of CKM unitarity
10. Revealing the nature and origin of matter through searches for neutrinoless double-beta nuclear decay

Overview for each session:

1. Aligning AI Innovation and Scientific Discovery: The American Science Cloud has been funded to facilitate scientific research, data sharing, and computational analysis across various disciplines. Under the new umbrella of Genesis, nuclear physics will be supported in at least three areas:  enhancing particle accelerators for discovery; unifying physics from quarks to the cosmos; and discovering quantum algorithms with AI.  This session will review ongoing work and look towards future efforts.
2. Neutrinos as a Probe of the Nucleus: Recent advances in nuclear-structure theory enable better calculations, both in density-functional and ab initio schemes, of neutrino-nucleus cross sections for neutrinos below a few 10s of MeV. Neutrinos in this energy range from the sun, from supernovae, from reactors, and from stopped pions can both teach us about nuclear structure and, together with nuclear-structure predictions, help us learn about astrophysics and physics beyond the standard model. This session will explore recent progress in theory and its application, and outline what we can achieve in the coming few years.
3. Nuclear Structure from Laser Spectroscopy of Atoms and Molecules: This session showcases the latest results and new developments in the laser spectroscopy of atoms and molecules. High resolution laser spectroscopy provides access to symmetry-conserving moments and distributions which benchmark and test nuclear structure calculations.
4. Progress Towards Tests of Fundamental Symmetry Violations In The Hadronic Sector Using Atoms and Molecules: Certain nuclei contained in suitable atoms and molecules have enhanced sensitivity to new physics within the hadronic sector.  This session showcases the latest results and new developments towards tests of fundamental symmetries using atoms and molecules containing these isotopes.
5. Science Advances at University Nuclear Facilities: University-based nuclear labs provide a wide variety of capabilities and much of the beam time for nuclear science in the U.S. These facilities serve as an incubator for new techniques and provide hands-on training for the future nuclear workforce. This minisymposium will highlight the scientific impact of university labs across a variety of science topics including  astrophysics, structure, symmetries, and applications.
6. Searching for QGP Signatures Across Systems: New Insights from RHIC and the LHC: RHIC concluded its final run earlier this year, marking a milestone in the field and setting the stage for the next phase of heavy-ion physics. There now exists high-statistics Au+Au and Pb+Pb data from RHIC and the LHC, respectively, that will enable detailed studies of QGP properties across multiple hard and soft observables. In addition, the availability of multiple collision species, including the newly collected O+O data from both facilities, enables a systematic system-size scan from p+p through light-ion to large A+A collisions, directly addressing the open questions of where jet quenching turns on and where QGP signatures emerge. These multi-system datasets will serve as valuable inputs to global Bayesian analyses to constrain QGP transport coefficients and deepen our understanding of QGP properties across different environments. It is timely to bring together experimentalists and theorists to synthesize this landscape. Contributed talks on hard-probe observables, bulk properties, and other QGP signatures across system sizes are welcome.
7. Trustworthy AI/ML in Nuclear Physics: As AI and ML become indispensable tools in nuclear science, the challenge is no longer just using them to solve problems, it is ensuring we trust their solutions. This minisymposium brings together practitioners applying AI/ML to many facets of nuclear physics—experiments, data analysis, control systems, and theory, with the focus this year being on trustworthiness: how do we know these models will not lead us astray, especially in hard-to-interpret scenarios? Speakers will showcase frameworks for rigorous testing, beyond standard data splits, such as controlled mock datasets and synthetic scenarios where ground truth is known. We will explore how AI/ML models extrapolate, when their uncertainty is trustworthy, and how to avoid fooling ourselves. Presenters will be encouraged to share well-commented code and testing pipelines, ensuring that every attendee leaves with tools to trust and verify their own models. We aim to carve out a path toward AI/ML that is not only smart but reliable for tomorrow’s nuclear discoveries.
8. Understanding Fission Through Gamma Rays: Gamma rays are a signature of many nuclear reactions, including fission.  In recent years, there has been a significant effort to understand underlying fission properties through measurements of the outgoing fragments, neutrons, gamma rays, and delayed particles. Although the properties of neutrons emitted from fission have been studied widely, there are fewer data on the gamma rays that are emitted, even though they provide rich information about the properties of the nuclei that are emitted during the fission process, their spin, nuclear structure, and mass.  The aim of this session is to bring together state-of-the-art measurements and theories involving fission gamma rays, focusing on the gamma rays that are emitted from fission, those that can be used as signature of the fragments that are produced, and those that can induce fission.
9. The VudU Alliance: Prospects for Improving V_ud and Tests of CKM Unitarity: Precise measurements of hadron and nuclear decays allow for the extraction of the  CKM matrix element V_ud, which provides stringent tests of the Standard Model. A new topical group, the VudU (V_ud Unitarity) alliance, has recently been proposed to foster further collaboration, strengthen theory benchmarking efforts, amplify the impact of focused experimental efforts, and sustain the leadership role of the beta decay community in precision CKM unitarity tests. This minisymposium provides a platform to discuss details of such a collaboration, as well as to summarize recent important works that contribute to the precise extraction of V_ud .
10. Revealing the nature and origin of matter through searches for neutrinoless double-beta nuclear decay: Neutrinoless double-beta decay is the only practical way to determine if the neutrino is a Majorana fermion. The existence of Majorana neutrinos would have profound implications on our understanding of the nature and origin of matter, as well as cosmology. This symposium will present recent theoretical and experimental results and discuss future efforts in the search for this rare nuclear decay.