Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA): Breaking News

RIA Breaking News
Updated 12-17-08

Department of Energy announces Michigan State University has been selected to design and establish the $550M Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB)

On December 11, 2008, the Department of Energy announced that Michigan State University was selected to design and establish the $550M Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). The Department of Energy issued the following press release:

U.S. Department of Energy Selects Michigan State University to Design and Establish Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing, MI has been selected to design and establish the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a cutting-edge research facility to advance understanding of rare nuclear isotopes and the evolution of the cosmos. The new facility-expected to take about a decade to design and build and to cost an estimated $550 million-will provide research opportunities for an international community of approximately 1000 university and laboratory scientists, postdoctoral associates, and graduate students.

"The Department of Energy's new Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University promises to vastly expand our understanding of nuclear astrophysics and nuclear structure," said Acting Associate Director of the Office of Science for Nuclear Physics Eugene Henry. "This capability will allow physicists to study the nuclear reactions that power stars and stellar explosions, explore the structure of the nuclei of atoms and the forces that bind them together, test current theories about the fundamental nature of matter, and play a role in developing new nuclear medicines and techniques."

The research conducted at FRIB will involve experimentation with intense beams of rare isotopes-short-lived nuclei not normally found on earth-and is expected to advance critical applications in the areas of materials science, medicine, and stockpile stewardship.

The FRIB concept has undergone numerous studies and assessments within DOE and by independent parties such as the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. These studies-in addition to the joint DOE/National Science Foundation (NSF) Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) 2007 Long Range Plan-concluded that such a facility is a vital part of the U.S. nuclear science portfolio, complements existing and planned international efforts, and will provide capabilities unmatched elsewhere. Thus, the selection announced today is the culmination of studies, analyses, and recommendations conducted since the 1996 NSAC Long Range Plan first recommended the development of a next generation nuclear structure and astrophysics facility as a high priority.

The proposals received in response to the May 20, 2008, Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) were subject to a merit review process conducted by a panel of world-renowned experts from universities, national laboratories and federal agencies. The appraisal included rigorous evaluation of the proposals based on the merit review criteria described in the FOA, presentations by the applicants, and visits by the merit review panel to each applicant's site. MSU's application was judged to be superior based on the merit review criteria and the program policy factor contained in the FOA, including provision of a proposed budget that is reasonable and realistic, giving substantial confidence that MSU can establish the FRIB within the cost limitations of the FOA. MSU also offered a direct cost share to the project.

MSU currently hosts the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) led by Professor C. Konrad Gelbke and supported by NSF. Dr. Gelbke will lead the MSU team to establish FRIB on the MSU campus. The NSCL can continue operations during construction, which will allow compelling scientific opportunities to be pursued.

The selection is subject to the successful negotiation of a Cooperative Agreement with MSU and a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review of the proposed site. Funding is subject to annual appropriations by Congress. For more information on FRIB, visit:
http://www.sc.doe.gov/np/program/FRIB.html.

Results of Election for Executive Committee Members
10-30-08

The election for the Executive Committee has been completed and the winners for the three seats are:

Rick Casten (Yale University)
Augusto Machiavelli (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Jeff Blackmon (Louisiana State University)

Each will serve on the Executive Committee for a term of three years beginning on Jan. 1, 2009.

RIA Users Organization Executive Committee Elections Underway
10-17-08

In accordance with the charter of the RIAU Users' Organization, we are conducting our annual election to select members to serve on the Executive Committee. The Nominating Committee selected six candidates for an at-large election for the three seats. The candidates are:

Jeff Blackmon (Louisiana State University)
Rick Casten (Yale University)
Tim Chupp (University of Michigan)
Jolie Cizewski (Rutgers University)
Augusto Macchiavelli (Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory)
Alan Wuosmaa (Western Michigan University)

As was done last year, the election will be web-based and will be concluded at 2:00 p.m. EDT Monday, October 27, 2008.

In addition, at the conclusion of their current terms, we would like to extend the gratitude of the RIA Users' Organization to Rick Casten, Kirby Kemper, and I-Yang Lee for their past service on the Executive Committee.

Funding Opportunity Announced for Establishment of U.S. Facility for Radioactive Ion Beams
05-22-08

The Department of Energy released a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) regarding the submission of applications for the conceptual design and establishment of a Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB).

"We have waited a long time for this step forward and it is gratifying to see our project making progress in these financially difficult times," said Kim Lister and Thomas Glasmacher, co-chairs of the RIA Users Organization Executive Committee.

To read about the details of the draft FOA, go to the DOE Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS) at http://e-center.doe.gov, and look for Funding Opportunity Number DE-PS02-08ER41535.

The announcement can also be found using this direct link to the FOA.

Co-chairs and Secretary of the Executive Committee Elected
01-09-08

Following our recent election, the Executive Committee held its quarterly meeting via a conference call. The primary action on the agenda was to perform the annual election of the chair and secretary.

In this important year for FRIB, the Executive Committee decided that a co-chair would best serve the needs of the RIA Users' Organization. Consequently, Kim Lister (ANL) and Thomas Glasmacher (NSCL) were elected co-chairs. Erich Ormand (LLNL) was re-elected secretary.

Results of Election for Executive Committee members
12-31-07

The election for the Executive Committee has been completed and the winners for the three seats are:

Thomas Glasmacher (NSCL/Michigan State University)
Kim Lister (Argonne National Laboratory)
Witek Nazarewicz (University of Tennessee)

Each will serve on the Executive Committee for a term of three years beginning on Jan. 1, 2008.

Long-Range Planning Meeting - Galveston, May 2007
06-04-07

This year, the Nuclear Physics community is in the process of developing a new Long-Range Plan (LRP). At the LRP meeting in Galveston earlier in May, the following four principal recommendations were adopted:

We recommend completion of the 12 GeV Upgrade at Jefferson Lab. The Upgrade will enable new insights into the structure of the nucleon, the transition between the hadronic and quark/gluon descriptions of nuclei, and the nature of confinement.
We recommend construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, FRIB, a world-leading facility for the study of nuclear structure, reactions and astrophysics. Experiments with the new isotopes produced at FRIB will lead to a comprehensive description of nuclei, elucidate the origin of the elements in the cosmos, provide an understanding of matter in the crust of neutron stars, and establish the scientific foundation for innovative applications of nuclear science to society.
We recommend a targeted program of experiments to investigate neutrino properties and fundamental symmetries. These experiments aim to discover the nature of the neutrino, yet unseen violations of time-reversal symmetry, and other key ingredients of the new standard model of fundamental interactions. Construction of a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory is vital to US leadership in core aspects of this initiative.
The experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have discovered a new state of matter at extreme temperature and densitya quark-gluon plasma that exhibits unexpected, almost perfect liquid dynamical behavior. We recommend implementation of the RHIC II luminosity upgrade, together with detector improvements, to determine the properties of this new state of matter.

2007 NSAC long-range plan
01-19-06

The 2007 town meeting for the NSAC long-range plan will be held January 19-21, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Chicago Illinois. Details of the meeting are on the meeting web site: http://www-mep.phy.anl.gov/atta/dnp/.

Statement from the Executive Committee of the RIA User's Organization regarding recent developments concerning an exotic beam facility in the U.S.
6-27-06

Recent statements by DOE concerning RIA have been widely reported. In this message we would like to try to clarify the situation as we understand it.

On February 15, 2006, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, in testimony before the Science Committee of the House, stated that there were no immediate plans to move forward with RIA at the present time but that DOE was planning to have preliminary engineering design for an exotic beam facility in about 5 years.

Two points should be made. For the first time, plans for a world-class U.S. exotic beam facility are part of the DOE Office of Science five-year plan presented to Congress. Secondly, if project engineering and design funds become available in 2011, this is effectively a two-year delay relative to the earliest they could have appeared (FY 2009) in the context of the FY 2007 budget.

We are optimistic that the prospects for forefront exotic beam research with an advanced facility in the U.S. remain bright and that recent statements from DOE are an encouraging step toward the realization of that goal.

JUSTIPEN formed at the Japan U.S. Institute for Physics with
Exotic Nuclei
4-19-06

JUSTIPEN, the Japan U.S. Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei, has just been formed at RIKEN (in Wako, Japan). The JUSTIPEN web page is "http://www.phys.utk.edu/JUSTIPEN".

Moreover, JUSTIPEN is pleased to announce its first solicitation for Calendar Year 2006. JUSTIPEN has been established in order to facilitate collaborations between U.S. and Japanese scientists whose main research thrust is in the area of the physics of nuclei.

JUSTIPEN is located at the RIKEN RIB Experimental Facility in Wako, near Tokyo. U.S. participation in JUSTIPEN will come in the form of travel grants and subsistence grants to individuals interested in collaborating with Japanese scientists.

JUSTIPEN's purview will be in the area of the physics of (or with) exotic nuclei, including nuclear structure and reaction theory, nuclear astrophysics, and tests of the standard model using exotic nuclei. While JUSTIPEN will primarily focus on theory collaborations, experimentalists with theoretical collaborators in Japan are also encouraged to apply. Funding for JUSTIPEN is being provided by the Office of Nuclear Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy.

If you have an interest in forging new or continuing collaborations with Japanese colleagues, this travel grant program is for you. During the first year, it is anticipated that around twelve short-term trips and three longer term visits will be funded. Students and postdocs are encouraged to apply.

In order to facilitate planning, please apply by completing the on-line web form at "www.phys.utk.edu/JUSTIPEN" (found toward the bottom of the page). Further questions can be directed to David Dean.

Rare Isotope Science Assessment Committee (RISAC) formed by National Research Council

The National Research Council is convening a panel of experts to assess the science agenda of a rare isotope accelerator.

Message from Timothy Meyer to Members of the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics

RIA Users Organization Meeting held September 10-11, 2005, Detroit, MI