The Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures Funded by the National Science Foundation

The Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures (CMAP) was awarded $12.96 million toward research focusing on understanding the physics and astrophysical implications of matter under pressures so high that the structure of individual atoms is disrupted. The Principal Investigator is Rip Collins, University of Rochester Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics and LLE’s Associate Director for Academics, Science, and Technology. The program will be hosted at the University of Rochester in collaboration with researchers from MIT, Princeton, the Universities of California at Berkeley and Davis, the University at Buffalo, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This is the first major initiative from the National Science Foundation in the field of high-energy-density science, and the research will help discover the nature of planets and stars throughout the universe, as well as the potential for new revolutionary states of matter here on Earth.