A Connected View of Nuclear Science
Nuclear science reaches from quarks and gluons inside protons to rare isotopes, exploding stars, advanced reactors, and medical treatments. Because these topics are often discussed as separate specialties, their shared scientific foundations can be difficult to see. In a new perspective article, Professor Yu-Gang Ma of East China Normal University and Fudan University reorganizes the field around ten frontier questions, presenting them as a single research map rather than a list of disconnected challenges.
Ten Questions That Span Fundamental Physics and Society
The roadmap begins with some of the deepest problems in modern physics: how quantum chromodynamics generates most of the mass of visible matter; how nuclear matter behaves at extreme temperature and density; how shell structure, clustering, deformation, and superheavy stability emerge; what new phenomena appear near the limits of nuclear existence; and how nuclear reactions create the elements in stars and stellar explosions. It then extends the same framework to fission and fusion energy, nuclear medicine and precision measurement, radioactive-waste stewardship, next-generation facilities, and international cooperation.
Three Objectives, One Research Ecosystem
The perspective arranges the ten questions around three overlapping objectives: scientific motivations, enabling methodologies, and strategic and societal coupling. Modern ab initio theory, effective field theory, continuum and open-quantum-system methods, accelerators, detectors, precision mass spectrometry, and data-driven tools form the bridge between questions and measurable results. This view treats theory, instrumentation, computation, and infrastructure as co-designed parts of the scientific process.
Precision and Physically Grounded AI
A central message is that precision must be pursued across the full workflow, not only in individual instruments. Lower uncertainties will require coordinated design of accelerators, detectors, data acquisition, theory, and analysis. AI-assisted methods are expected to become standard tools for experiment control, simulation, emulation, and data interpretation, but the article stresses that they must remain constrained by physical laws and accompanied by transparent uncertainty quantification, especially when predictions extend beyond existing data.
From Discovery to Public Value
The roadmap also places applications inside the scientific frontier. Advanced fission and fusion depend on nuclear data, materials under irradiation, plasma and reactor modeling, safety systems, and digital control. Radioisotopes, radiomedicine, and nuclear clocks connect nuclear structure with health care and precision metrology. Fuel cycles and radioactive-waste management require an integrated approach combining partitioning and transmutation, geological disposal, monitoring, regulation, and public trust. In each case, practical needs feed new questions back into fundamental research.
Facilities and Cooperation as Part of the Roadmap
The article translates broad questions into facility capabilities and research deliverables, highlighting the roles of rare-isotope accelerators, storage rings, underground laboratories, photon and neutron sources, isotope platforms, and energy-research facilities. It also emphasizes the global character of nuclear science: large experiments, benchmark data, safety standards, and long-term infrastructure planning benefit from international cooperation, while each country must also maintain the expertise and reliable capabilities needed for meaningful participation.
Looking Toward the Next Decade
The perspective anticipates closer integration among nuclear structure, reaction theory, continuum dynamics, astrophysics, data science, and engineering. Its central proposal is organizational as much as scientific: major facilities, theoretical methods, precision measurements, strategic applications, and governance should be planned as mutually reinforcing components of one evolving ecosystem. As Professor Ma writes, "The ten frontier questions do not merely describe where the field is going; they help define what it means for nuclear science to progress in a coherent and sustainable way."
Yu-Gang Ma, "Frontier Questions and Emerging Directions in Nuclear Science and Technology," arXiv:2608.26207v1 [nucl-th] (26 August 2026).
The complete study is available at DOI: Ma, YG. Frontier questions and emerging directions in nuclear science and technology. NUCL SCI TECH 37, 239 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-026-02049-3
