A TRIUMF science and technology delegation travelled to Beijing this previous week to participate in the joint Sino-Canadian Workshop on Nuclear Physics. Representing TRIUMF were Robert Laxdal (Deputy Head of the Accelerator Division), Pierre Bricault (Head of the Target and Ion Sources Department), Yi-Nong Rao (Accelerator Physicist), Jens Dilling (Head of Nuclear Physics), Reiner Kruecken (Head of the Science Division), and Nigel Lockyer (Director). Representing the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE), were Weiping Liu (Associate President), Tianjue Zhang (Head of the BRIF project), several senior research staff, and Wan Gang (President of CIAE). Also in attendance was Yanlin Ye, Vice Director of the Nuclear Science College, Peking University and incidentally a former TRIUMF researcher and Yuanrong Lu from Peking University. In addition, representatives from CERN, Yorick Blumenfeld, Isao Tanihata from Osaka University Japan and Beihang University China, and Xiaodang Tang from Notre Dame University, USA, participated in the workshop on Thursday and Friday.
The meeting was two-and-a-half days in duration and consisted of presentations with emphasis on the Beijing Rare Ion Facility (BRIF) Isotope Separation Online (ISOL) facility under construction at CIAE and the China Advanced Rare Ion Facility (CARIF) facility being planned for CIAE. The CARIF project starts by using the new 60 MW research reactor just completed as a source of 10^14 neutrons/cm^2/s and then plans to introduce an ISOL target system, followed by a post accelerator, thin target, and a greater than 150 MeV/u fragment separator. The neutron rich nuclei tin-132 (SN-132) and krypton-91 (Kr-91) are the main isotopes to be fragmented after the ISOL target system. The CARIF facility, if built, would be world leading and unique.
The meeting concluded on the Saturday morning with a signing of the Sino-Canadian "umbrella" Memorandum of Understand (MOU) between TRIUMF and CIAE, signed by CIAE President Wan Gang and TRIUMF Director Nigel Lockyer. This was followed by detailed discussions on collaboration topics which included, long term visitor exchange, target and ion sources, superconducting linear accelerator technology, cyclotron technology, and detectors for nuclear astrophysics.
TRIUMF thanks CIAE President Wan Gang and Associate President Weiping Liu and their staff for the well organized meeting, the hospitality, and warm welcome during the visit. The next face-to-face meeting will be at the ARIEL international workshop being planned for summer 2012 at TRIUMF in Vancouver.
--Nigel S. Lockyer, Director