Last Wednesday, TRIUMF’s auditorium was filled with physicists and scientists eager to learn about recent successes and future plans for TRIUMF at the Annual General Meeting of the TRIUMF User’s Group. The meeting was part of the joint two-day venture with the 1st International ARIEL Science Workshop, which followed the AGM.
The morning began with Director Nigel Lockyer providing an overview of TRIUMF, discussing the incoming hustle and bustle with the second year of the Five-Year Plan. He also discussed TRIUMF’s vision: to lead in science, leverage university research, connect Canada to the world, and create social and economic growth. TRIUMF is also working to articulate a set of core values that help define the institution and its relationship to the external world.
Afterwards, the morning turned toward recent science results, with a presentation on “T2K Neutrino Appearance Results” with TRIUMF’s Anthony Hillairet setting the bar. Following him were talks by Pavel Denisenkov and Falk Herwig from the University of Victoria, Duane Smalley from the Colorado School of Mines, Doug Schouten from Simon Fraser University, Don Fleming from the University of British Columbia, and Oren Ofer, Andrew Spray, Vanessa Simon, and Annika Voss of TRIUMF.
From here, the meeting focused on presentations about the main TRIUMF research areas. Reiner Kruecken began by presenting an overview of the Science Division. He discussed the core themes, recent highlights, and what is currently happening and/or planned for each of the experimental halls. Next, Lia Merminga presented an overview of the Accelerator Division, educating the audience on the cyclotron and ISAC annual performance metrics, including up-time and beams delivered to users, along with planned upgrades to improve efficiency. The last of the divisional summaries was by Paul Schaffer of the Nuclear Medicine Division, where he presented plans to increase core competencies to maintain, improve, and grow the core and new medical isotope programs.
Head of TRIUMF’s Engineering Division and Co-Leader of the ARIEL project Remy Dawson gave a presentation about the progress of ARIEL and the impact it will have on beam delivery in our facility. Afterward, Sydney Kreitzman of TRIUMF discussed the renovation of the Meson Hall’s beam lines, including the M20 beam lines and the M9A beam line for MuSR.
To round off the day, the floor was opened for discussion, providing users and scientists with an opportunity to constructively discuss challenges and opportunities with senior management. The common thread of the discussion was about improvements to delivery of isotopes to science experiments. While users recognized that TRIUMF’s rare-isotope beams are pushing the limits of technology and understanding, they were interested in the expected improvements in reliability and predictability. The group also discusses the current Experiment Evaluation Committee process, which advises TRIUMF on strengths and scheduling of high-priority experiments. Above all, scientific merit is the most important criterion, but technical readiness and overall feasibility also play roles in scheduling. For example, some experiments simply need more beam time than others. In the final discussion, Nigel talked about the steps going forward to begin framing the next Five-Year Plan for 2015-2020. The Users Group meeting next summer will likely be an important opportunity for shaping the plan and identifying the highest priority elements.
With a warm thank-you to everyone for participating, Users Executive Committee chair Andrew Macfarlane adjourned the meeting and invited all registered participants to join for the first annual users’ group barbecue dinner. On a sunny summer evening, the TRIUMF courtyard echoed with sounds of laughter, nuclear physics, and particle physics possibilities.
To read about the ARIEL Science Workshop, see the article ARIEL Finds its Footing.
-- Written by Lindsay Davies, Communications Assistant and Lena Sitnikova, Outreach Assistant