Breaking News

March 2010:
Ninth Summer School on Exotic Beam Physics

The Ninth Summer School on Exotic Beam Physics will be held at ORNL from August 2 - 6, 2010. The aim of this annual school is to educate young researchers on the excitement and challenges of radioactive ion beam physics. Through these schools, the research community will be able to more fully exploit the opportunities created by the next generation exotic beam facilities, such as the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). A unique feature of this summer school series is the hands-on activities where students spend their afternoons in the lab of a radioactive beam facility, learning about the techniques and instrumentation needed to carry out experiments with unstable beams.
For a list of lecturers, an online application, and more information on the summer school, please visit our page on the summer school.

March 2010:
Scientific Advisory Committee Report and February Workshop Presentations Available

The report of the FRIB Science Advisory Committee on the February 2010 FRIB Equipment Workshop is now available online at this link. Additionally, the Workshop summary presentations are also available online. More details on this very successful meeting can be found on our meeting page and also at the workshop website http://meetings.nscl.msu.edu/frib-equipment-workshop2010/

Spring 2010:
Drafting of the FRIB CDR Science Case

In Spring 2010, the FRIB Users Organization will begin to help draft the science case for the Conceptual Design Report (CDR) for FRIB. More details on the mechanism and schedule for CDR drafts will be posted as they become available.

News Archive

February 20 - 22, 2010:
FRIB Experimental Equipment Meeting at MSU

There will be an FRIB meeting on experimental equipment needs on February 20-22 (noon Saturday to noon Monday) on the campus of Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

The goals of this meeting include ensuring that alternatives for experimental equipment have been considered, that adequate space is provided in the experimental halls, and that all users communicate their specific equipment needs to FRIB and to each other. The workshop will provide a venue for detailed consideration of concepts for specific instruments and consideration of the physics they will enable. Attendance by all those interested in the development of instrumentation for FRIB, regardless of whether they are specifically involved in one of the equipment collaborations or not, is necessary in formulating plans for FRIB. Prior to this workshop, users and user collaborations will develop equipment ideas to be presented at the workshop. Based on expressions of interest, a number of working groups for the workshop will be formed and announced shortly. For more information, see our meeting page as well as the workshop website at FRIB.

February 13, 2010:
APS Meeting / Congressional Visits

Dear FRIB User:

This year the APS April Meeting is being held in Washington DC from February 13-16, 2010. It is an opportunity for our community to visit and meet our representatives in the House and Senate, and to encourage their support of basic scientific research. Many expert panel assessments have highlighted the importance of basic research to the nation, however it is necessary for the scientific community to carry that message to their representatives so they recognize it as a local issue as well as a national priority.

If you will be attending the APS April meeting and/or otherwise would like help in arranging a personal visit to your congressional offices, please contact Brad Sherrill (Sherrill at frib.msu.edu). The Michigan State University Washington Office will provide logistical support and help arrange visits on the dates of Monday February 15th and Tuesday February 16th. In addition, they will offer a briefing on how to meet with congress and staff on the evening of February 15th at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park starting at 19:30 following the DNP Town Meeting.

Please take the time to participate in this important activity.

Sincerely,
Brad Sherrill
FRIB Chief Scientist

JANUARY 11, 2010:
Message from the FRIB Users Organization Chairman

Happy New Year to all our (potential) FRIB Users. This is an important year for FRIB as we move into the CDR phase of the project, and start planning for real experiments. We encourage you to visit the FRIB Users website http://fribusers.org/ (or Google fribusers) as that will be our forum for keeping you updated on our progress.

FRIB Users List
The original RIA mailing list is a decade old, and 30% of the e-mail addresses are now incorrect. This is important to remedy, as most of the changes apply to younger scientists who have changed jobs. We need to fix this situation and get a reliable mailing list in order to keep everyone involved in the process. As we move forward more rapidly, a single reliable mailing list becomes essential. It will prevent you from getting the same e-mail from multiple sources, which is the situation we have now. It will also give us a more solid and reliable determination of the current and potential user community. PLEASE, PLEASE take a moment to re-register for the FRIB User group NOW. Just go to the link http://fribusers.org/6_JOIN/join.html and fill in the online form. We will be using the new list for the February workshop, so register now.

EQUIPMENT WORKSHOP in MSU 20-22 Feb. 2010
An equipment workshop is being held in MSU on 20-22 Feb 2010 aimed at evaluating the status of plans for equipment for FRIB. This involves clarifying the match of equipment to the scientific goals, indentifying the experimental infrastructure needs at FRIB and making sure they are properly accounted for in the CDR for the facility, identifying what equipment exists and may be useful, what can be constructed and deployed prior to FRIB coming online, and the workshop provides a forum for developing strong teams to work on these projects. Many Working Groups are already in place and are discussing requirements for equipment, and planning detailed designs of detectors. You can find more information on Working Groups at the FRIB User website at http://fribusers.org/3_GROUPS/groups.html . This is a real opportunity for you to get involved. We hope you can come to the workshop and participate. You can find more information on our meeting page and also at the workshop website http://meetings.nscl.msu.edu/frib-equipment-workshop2010/ where you can register. Whether or not you can attend, we also hope you will join the some of the Working Groups. Most groups have information about their activities on this FRIB Users web site. Please contact the Conveners of the Groups that you are interested in and add your name, suggestions and ideas. The trains are leaving the station! We would like to encourage the involvement of younger scientists, at the senior graduate and post-doc level, as this facility will be "their" machine. We hope to have a modest fund to help support travel and accommodation for special cases. Please contact Kim Lister (Lister at anl.gov) if travel funding is a critical issue.

November 2009:
FRIB Users Organization Election

The winners of the election of the FRIB Users Organization Executive Committee are:

Ani Aprahamian (University of Notre Dame)
Michael Smith (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Ingo Wiedenheover (Florida State University)

Each will serve on the Executive Committee for a term of three years beginning on Jan. 1, 2010. They replaced outgoing Executive Committee members Erich Ormand and Michael Wiescher whose terms expired in 2009. See the Organization page for a complete list of the Executive Committee Members.

October 2009:
FRIB Users Organization Meeting at the DNP Meeting in Hawaii

The FRIB Users Organization held a meeting at the DNP meeting in Hawaii in October 2009. A summary of the meeting will be posted when available on this page in our Gatherings Archive.

August 10, 2009:
Meeting of FRIB Equipment Collaborations at MSU

A workshop for FRIB collaborations was held immediately preceding an MSU NSCL Users Meeting. Approximately 80 researchers participated in four different collaboration meetings. More details can be found on this page in our Gatherings Archive.

May 30 - 31, 2009:
First FRIB Users Organization Meeting

The inaugural meeting of the FRIB Users Organization was held at Saturday, May 30 - Sunday, May 31, 2009, at Argonne National Lab, Argonne, Illinois. Information on the entire meeting, including a workshop summary, can be found on this page in our Gatherings Archive.