| AAAS | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| AD | antiproton decelerator |
| AEGIS | Antihydrogen Experiment Gravity Interferometry Spectroscopy |
| AGATA | Advanced Gamma Tracking Array |
| AGS | Alternating Gradient Synchrotron |
| ALICE | A Large Ion Collider Experiment |
| ALTO | Accélérateur Linéaire auprès du Tandem d’Orsay (Linear Accelerator Near the Tandem of Orsay) |
| AMS | accelerator mass spectrometry |
| ANDES | Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site |
| ANDESLab | Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site Lab |
| ANL | Argonne National Laboratory |
| APCTP | Asian Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics |
| APPA | Atomic, Plasma Physics and Applications (collaboration) |
| APS | American Physical Society |
| ARIEL | Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory |
| ATLAS | Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System |
| ATTA | atom trap trace analysis |
| AURA | Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy |
| AVF | azimuthal varying field |
| BaBar | B and B-bar experiment |
| BEC | Bose-Einstein condensate |
| BEPCII | Beijing Electron Positron Collider II |
| BES-III | Beijing Spectrometer III |
| BGO | bismuth orthogermanate |
| BNL | Brookhaven National Laboratory |
| BPA | Board on Physics and Astronomy |
| BRIF | Beijing Rare Ion Beam Facility |
| BSI | Basic Science Institute |
| CAREER | Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program (NSF) |
| CBM | Compressed Baryonic Matter |
| CEBAF | Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility |
| CERN | Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Organization for Nuclear Research) |
| CEU | Conference Experience for Undergraduates |
| CGC | color glass condensate |
| CI | configuration interaction |
| CKM | Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa |
| CLEO | Short for “Cleopatra” (a general-purpose particle detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring |
| CMS | Compact Muon Solenoid |
| CNEA | Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (National Atomic Energy Commission) |
| COMPASS | Common Muon and Proton Apparatus for Structure and Spectroscopy |
| COSY | Cooler Sychrotron facility (Germany) |
| CP | combination of C-symmetry and P-symmetry |
| CT | computed tomography |
| CUORE | Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events |
| CXC | Chandra X-Ray Observatory |
| CZT | cadmium zinc telluride |
| DANCE | Detector for Advanced Neutron Capture Experiments |
| DESIR | Désintégration, Excitation et Stockage d’Ions Radioactifs (disintegration, excitation, and storage of radioactive ions) |
| DESY | Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (German Electron Synchrotron) |
| DFT | density functional theory |
| DNP | Division of Nuclear Physics |
| DOE | Department of Energy |
| DUSEL | Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory |
| EBIS | Electron Beam Ion Source |
| ECT* | European Center for Nuclear Theory and Related Areas |
| EDM | electric dipole moment |
| EFT | effective field theory |
| EIC | electron-ion collider |
| ELENA | Extra Low Energy Antiproton Ring |
| ELI-NP | Extreme Light Infrastructure |
| ELSA | Electron Stretcher and Accelerator |
| EMC | European Muon Collaboration |
| EMMI | Extreme Matter Institute |
| EOS | equation of state |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| ESR | experimental storage ring |
| EURISOL | European ISOL facility |
| EXO | Enriched Xenon Observatory |
| FACA | Federal Advisory Committee Act |
| FAIR | Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research |
| FDG | fluorodeoxyglucose |
| FEL | free-electron laser |
| FLAIR | Facility for Low-Energy Antiproton and Ion Research |
| FNAL | Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory |
| FNPB | Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline |
| FRIB | Facility for Rare Isotope Beams |
| FUSTIPEN | French-U.S. Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei |
| GANIL | Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds (Large Heavy Ion National Accelerator) |
| GlueX | gluon experiment at JLAB |
| GRETA | Gamma Ray Energy Tracking Array |
| GRETINA | Gamma Ray Energy Tracking In-Beam Nuclear Array |
| GSFC | Goddard Space Flight Center |
| GSI | Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (Heavy Ion Research Center, now the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research GmbH) |
| HERA | Hadron-Elektron-Ring-Anlage |
| HEU | highly enriched uranium |
| HIE-ISOLDE | High Intensity and Energy ISOLDE |
| HIGS | High Intensity Gamma Source |
| HIRFL-CSR | Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou-Cooler Storage Ring |
| HPGe | high-purity germanium |
| HRIBF | Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility |
| HST | Hubble Space Telescope |
| IAEA | International Atomic Energy Agency |
| ICF | inertial confinement fusion |
| IJMPE | International Journal of Modern Physics-E |
| ILL | Institut Laue-Langevin |
| INO | India-based Neutron Observatory |
| INT | Institute for Nuclear Theory |
| IR | infrared |
| ISAC-I | Isotope Separator and Accelerator (part 1) |
| ISAC-II | Isotope Separator and Accelerator (part 2) |
| ISOL | Isotope Separator Online |
| ISOLDE | Isotope Separator Online Detector |
| ITER | International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor |
| IUPAP | International Union for Pure and Applied Physics |
| JILA | Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics |
| JINA | Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics |
| JINR | Joint Institute for Nuclear Research |
| JLAB | Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility |
| J-PARC | Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex |
| JPL | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
| JPS | Japanese Physical Society |
| JSC | Jülich Supercomputing Center |
| JUGENE | Jülich Blue Gene |
| JUSEIPEN | Japan-U.S. Experimental Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei |
| JUSTIPEN | Japan-U.S. Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei |
| KamLAND | KAMioka Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector |
| KamLAND-Xen | KAMioka Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector-Xenon |
| KATRIN | KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino |
| KEI or K | Japanese Supercomputer (named for word “kei,” meaning 10 quadrillion) |
| KEK | Kō Enerugi Kasokukī Kenkyū Kikō (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization) |
| KoRia | Korea Rare Isotope Accelerator |
| LANL | Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| LANSCE | Los Alamos Neutron Science Center |
| LBNL | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| LHC | Large Hadron Collider |
| LIGO | Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory |
| LINAC | linear particle accelerator |
| LLC | low-level counting |
| LLNL | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| LMA | large mixing angle |
| LRP | long-range plan |
| LSDS | Lead Slowing-Down Spectrometer |
| LSO | lutetium orthosilicate |
| LUNA | Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Physics |
| MAMI | Mainz Microtron |
| MAX-lab | Microtron Accelerator for X-ray Production (National |
| Electron Accelerator Laboratory for Synchrotron Radiation | |
| Research, Nuclear Physics, and Accelerator Physics) | |
| MEGa-Ray | Mono-Energetic Gamma-Ray facility (LLNL) |
| MERCOSUR | Mercado Común del Sur (Common Southern Market) |
| MIT | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| MoNA | Modular Neutron Array |
| MOX | mixed oxide fuel |
| MRI | magnetic resonance image/imaging |
| MSU | Michigan State University |
| MTAS | Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer |
| N | neutron number |
| NASA | National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
| NESR | new ESR |
| NFS | Neutron for Science |
| NIF | National Ignition Facility |
| NIH | National Insitutes of Health |
| NIST | National Institute of Standards and Technology |
| NNSA | National Nuclear Security Administration |
| NORDITA | Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, aka Nordic Institute for Theoretical and Atomic Physics |
| NPAC | nuclear, particle, astrophysics and cosmology |
| NPT | Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty |
| NRC | National Research Council |
| NSAC | Nuclear Science Advisory Committee |
| NSCL | National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory |
| NSERC | Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of |
| Canada | |
| NSF | National Science Foundation |
| NSM | New Standard Model |
| NuPECC | Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee |
| NuSTAR | Nuclear Structure, Astrophysics and Reactions |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| ORNL | Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
| ORRUBA | Oak Ridge |
| PANDA | Antiproton Annihilation at Darmstadt |
| PET | positron emission tomography |
| PHENIX | Pioneering High-Energy Nuclear Interaction Experiment |
| PI | principal investigator |
| PMT | photomultiplier tube |
| POPA | Panel on Public Affairs |
| PPC | p-type point contact |
| PREX | Lead Radius Experiment |
| PSI | Paul Scherrer Institut |
| PV | parity violating |
| QCD | quantum chromodynamics |
| QCDOC | QCD on a chip |
| QED | quantum electrodynamics |
| QGP | quark-gluon plasma |
| Qs | gluon momentum scale below which saturation is thought to arise |
| RBRC | RIKEN-BNL Research Center |
| RCNP | Research Center for Nuclear Physics |
| REX-ISOLDE | Radioactive Beam Experiment at ISOLDE |
| RHIC | Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider |
| RIB | radioactive ion beam |
| RIBF | Radioactive Ion Beam Facility |
| RIBRAS | Radioactive Ion Beams in Brasil |
| RIKEN | Rikagaku Kenkyujo (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) |
| RISAC | Rare Isotope Science Assessment Committee |
| SCET | soft-collinear effective theory |
| SciDAC | Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing |
| S-DALINAC | Superconducting Darmstadt LINAC |
| SEU | single event upset |
| SIS (number) | Schwerionen Synchrotron [numbers following indicate magnetic rigidity in tesla-meters (T m)] |
| SK | Super-Kamiokande |
| SLAC | Stanford Linear Accelerator Center |
| SNO | Sudbury Neutrino Observatory |
| SNO+ | SNO experiment with liquid scintillator |
| SNS | Spallation Neutron Source |
| SPECT | Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography |
| SPIRAL | Système de Production d’Ions Radioactifs Accélérés en Ligne (System for Producing Online Accelerated Radioactive Ions) |
| SPIRAL2 | new version of SPIRAL (in planning stages) |
| SRF | superconducting radiofrequency |
| SSAA | Stewardship Science Academic Alliance |
| SSRF | Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility |
| STAR | Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC |
| STScI | Space Telescope Science Institute |
| SURF | Sanford Underground Research Facility |
| TAMU | Texas A&M University |
| TANDAR | Tandem Accelerator |
| TPC | time projection chamber |
| TRIUMF | Tri-University Meson Facility |
| TWINSOL | twin dual superconducting solenoid magnets |
| UNILAC | Universal Linear Accelerator |
| USAF | U.S. Air Force |
| USQCD | U.S. lattice QCD |
| VIRGO | Virtual Roentgen and Gamma Observatory |
| WCU | world-class university |
| WIMP | weakly interacting massive particle |
| WIPP | Waste Isolation Pilot Plant |
| WNSL | Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory |
| Z | proton number |