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John Womersley The Science and Technology Facilities Council and Nuclear Physics John Womersley Director, Science Programmes October 2008.

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Presentation on theme: "John Womersley The Science and Technology Facilities Council and Nuclear Physics John Womersley Director, Science Programmes October 2008."— Presentation transcript:

1 John Womersley The Science and Technology Facilities Council and Nuclear Physics John Womersley Director, Science Programmes October 2008

2 10 -6 m 1m 10 3 m 10 7 m Climate Energy Environment Health, Security, the Economy, Education 10 -18 m 10 26 m Particle physics Astronomy Searching for life Facilities Competencies S&I Campuses STFC in partnership STFC leads

3 Nuclear Physics The UK has an active research community despite hosting no accelerator facility Top 16 research themes from 2007 grants round: JYFL Theory Isolde JLAB

4 Future direction A new generation of accelerators able to make beams of unstable nuclei are now becoming available Opens an important new window to explore why atomic nuclei exist, how the forces that hold them together behave, and how the chemical elements on which life depends were made in stars. We will focus our investment in nuclear physics on the highest priority programmes at international accelerator facilities - notably we will participate in the new Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI in Germany –Shifts emphasis from exploitation to construction

5 AGATA £4.1M approved over 4 years contribution to the construction of the first 1pi of the 4 pi detector Formal grant announcements soon Liverpool, Manchester, Daresbury, UWS, Surrey, York 11 academics, 3 PDRAs (new positions), ~4 FTE technical effort, 3 students.

6 NuSTAR £9.5M approved over 6 years Expecting to fund R3B and HISPEC (some flexibility to swap WPs with other countries to allow UK to maintain presence in DESPEC or LaSPEC) Negotiations ongoing. Will involve at least 6 institutions.

7 PANDA £2.7M approved over 6 years Magnet construction; Disc DIRC decision pending. Involves Glasgow + potentially Edinburgh

8 FAIR Launch event November 2007 Contributing through NuSTAR, PANDA (and work on AIDA which was funded through an EPSRC grant). FAIR GmbH to be set up by early 2009?

9 John Womersley LHC Our highest priority in particle physics is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN - its results will be transformative. The UK plays a strong and central role: two of the LHC experiments are UK-led. The UK research community has been a major player in constructing the LHC and the advanced computing infrastructure to handle the data; we will support its exploitation of the exciting results

10 LHC start-up The first beam circulated in the LHC on September 10th, to enormous media interest However, magnet problems mean the programme wont get underway properly until 2009

11 ALICE Relativisitic heavy ion collisions at LHC

12 Boulby Underground Laboratory NP groups involved in dark matter searches Interest in using Boulby for a nuclear astrophysics experiment

13 Neutrinos The recent discovery that neutrinos have mass and mix with each other may ultimately account for the very existence of our universe. We are taking this area of science forward with a programme of –accelerator neutrino experiments including a significant role in the T2K experiment in Japan, which is due to come on-line in 2009; –non-accelerator experiments including R&D towards the SuperNEMO experiment, which will test whether neutrinos and anti-neutrinos are actually the same thing.

14 Accelerator Research Accelerator technology is a key enabler across a large fraction of our research –Particle and nuclear physics –Synchrotrons and free electron light sources –Neutron sources In this area we support –Design studies for New Light Source project and for a future Neutrino Factory –Operation of test facilities - ERLP/ALICE, EMMA, MICE –Work on high power proton accelerators –Work on novel techniques (FFAG…) and underlying technologies (SCRF…) –The Cockcroft and Adams Institutes, ASTeC, and university groups

15 John Womersley Understanding our place in the universe

16 Wakeham Review of Physics Concerns about training and skills in nuclear disciplines The Panel recommends that RCUK develop a review of the priorities in nuclear physics research to ensure they best match the needs of the UK. RCUK accepts this recommendation, and over the next year STFC and EPSRC will jointly review the research portfolio in nuclear physics, engineering and related areas to assess how they can best support the skills needs of the UK.

17 John Womersley Interdisciplinary research facilities

18 Opening the door to Science and Innovation

19 Harwell Daresbury Science and Innovation Campuses Develop the Science and Innovation Campuses at Harwell and Daresbury as focal points for collaboration and knowledge exchange with industry and academic researchers, Should also be gateways to our in- house expertise and that of the communities we support We will increasingly try to focus our technology competencies on an outward facing collaborative role

20 Gateway Centres Funding for three new centres has been earmarked from the large facilities capital fund Detector Systems Centre - advanced detector technology Hartree Centre – a step-change in modelling and simulation Imaging Solutions Centre – transforming facilities access into solutions access To follow: Space Centre – a new space centre for the UK Joint Institute for Materials Design – integrating materials innovation with advanced characterization

21 Futures Programmes We will be identifying STFC coordinators and points of contact for technology applications in: Bio-medical Security Energy Environmental Change

22 Advisory Panels AGP PPRP PPGP NPGP ASTAB Accelerator Science and Technology Advisory Board Grants Panels Projects Review Panels Science Board PPAN PALS Science Committees Executive International Science Advisory Committee CouncilISAC FDRP Advisory Panels Advisory Panels Advisory Panels

23 John Womersley STFC facilities in the roadmap: The Daresbury and Harwell Science and innovation campuses Diamond Beamlines Phase III ISIS - TS2 instrumentation (Phase III) ESRF upgrade XFEL Diode Pumped Optical Laser for Experiments (DIPOLE) Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) European Extremely Large Telescope FAIR SKA New Light Source project European 3rd Generation Gravitational Wave Observatory Neutrino Factory Future Particle Physics Colliders Underground Science Initiatives HiPER Next generation neutron sources

24 Questions, comments? Your input is welcome: john.womersley@stfc.ac.uk 01793 442622


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