A beam of excitement and anticipation accelerated among the scientists gathered to discuss MSU’s Cyclotron and the future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams on Monday and Tuesday.
The users meet at least once a year in East Lansing to discuss collaborating on projects. This year’s meeting was the first since the announcement that MSU would be the site for FRIB, said Geoff Koch, spokesman for FRIB.
The group of about 100 users of the current facility and potential users of the FRIB facility talked about opportunities related to the two facilities, said Konrad Gelbke, director of the Cyclotron and FRIB.
“So, (the meeting is) a very important interaction channel — we do a lot by telephone, by e-mail, but there’s nothing better than being in the same room with face contact and really talking things out both in public, and quite frankly, a lot of important communications occur when people break into small groups,” Gelbke said. “Scientists have the opportunity to (say), ‘I haven’t talked to this person for a long time’ and hash out new ideas and discuss what action can we take to bring ideas closer to fruition.”
In December 2008, MSU beat the federally funded Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to become the home for FRIB.
Construction on FRIB is tentatively scheduled to begin in fall 2012, with the facility set to begin operating in 2017.
Like the Cyclotron, FRIB will be a national user facility, which means researchers from around the world can use it. Currently, there are about 700 users in 32 countries for the Cyclotron, Koch said in a previous interview.
FRIB will allow researchers to study isotopes, which are rare forms of atoms.
Gelbke said although FRIB was a big topic of discussion, the Cyclotron also was the center of attention.
“Everybody wears a dual hat,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a little bit more toward (the Cyclotron), sometimes it’s a little toward FRIB, but at the end it all has to come together.”
In preparation for FRIB, Gelbke said they have begun “putting people to the side” who will be working for FRIB, as well as preparing for the first major review by the Department of Energy in about a month.
“It’s like a marathon — you wanted to sort of qualify for the competition and then you realize you have to sustain an intense effort for a long period of time to arrive at the goal,” Gelbke said.
This year’s Cyclotron users meeting had the highest attendance of any before, with 58 scientists from MSU and 62 from outside of MSU. The 62 from outside MSU hailed from 30 institutions in six countries. In addition, 35 scientists from outside MSU took part in the meeting via the Internet, Raman Anantaraman, assistant director for user relations at the Cyclotron, said in an e-mail.
I-Yang Lee, a Cyclotron user who works for the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., began working with MSU’s facilities in the late 1970s. He said the meeting had a special air of excitement because of FRIB.
“Over the years, it has grown from very small university lab to a (300-person) national lab,” Lee said. “I’ve never seen a university lab that can grow that fast; not only grow but the ability to get projects running and schedule and deliver the right beam is really amazing.”
Gelbke said he was pleased with the way the process was progressing and hoped it would continue.
“There are so many things I’d like to accelerate now that we have the opportunity, because clearly we want to regain some of the lost ground that in the last few years certainly has happened,” Gelbke said. “Now with (the decision) being made, I think we need to move as fast as we can with the science.”
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