A Productive Collaboration: TRIUMF & the University of Victoria
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A Productive Collaboration: TRIUMF & The University of Victoria TRIUMF by Richard Keeler RIUMF and the Department of Physics and Pearce started and led a productive program of mesic Astronomy at the University of Victoria (UVic) and muonic X-ray physics. His untimely death was Tshare a common history and a long and productive a severe blow to this work and a sad personal loss to collaboration. Shortly after the founding of UVic in those who knew him. The University created a named 1963, the Department began hiring nuclear physicists. professorship in his memory Two years later, they began writing a proposal for an and, in 1983, Dr. Alan Astbury accelerator laboratory, and in 1968, UVic became a became the first holder of the founding member of the TRIUMF joint venture. Pearce Chair of Physics. His appointment changed the The team at UVic took responsibility for the design main focus of the UVic group of TRIUMF’s beam line optics. The original meson towards particle physics. production target as well as the first temporary beam dump were both designed and constructed in Victoria In the early 1980s, TRIUMF, and then transported to Vancouver. At TRIUMF, the with the UVic group, built one M9 muon beam line, which initiated the molecular and of the world’s first operating materials science studies that are now an important time projection chambers Dr. Michael Pearce research component of TRIUMF, was developed with (TPC) to make precision significant input from UVic. The design of the M8 measurements of pion decay modes to establish medical channel and the first design of the M11 septum stringent limits on lepton universality, a key component magnet were also done at Victoria. of modern particle theory. The collaboration was also actively involved in calculating the correction needed As the initial construction work at TRIUMF proceeded, to understand the new high-precision data. In 1983, an scientists in the UVic group began planning and important review article was published in The Review building physics experiments of international scope of Modern Physics (50:11-21) on double beta decay to exploit TRIUMF’s unique features, including the as well as calculations of branching ratios, radiative latest in its instrumentation technologies and high- corrections and strong interaction effects. A second performance computing. The BASQUE experiment, the group unraveled the subtle and complex atomic and first experiment in the then new TRIUMF Proton Hall, molecular interactions involved in muon catalyzed Fig. 2: Rear view of ATLAS Hadronic End Cap. was a collaboration among the University of Victoria, fusion. the University of British Columbia (UBC) and AERE Definition Study Director, and the UVic group became and half of the modules of the electromagnetic section Harwell, the University of Surrey, Queen Mary College Two years later, in 1985, TRIUMF proposed building involved in several critical design components. The were built at TRIUMF. A very nice engineering project and Bedford College in the UK. This collaboration a Kaon Factory. Alan Astbury was the Kaon Factory Kaon Factory was not to be, but the innovative work involved designing and testing earthquake protection, used TRIUMF’s cyclotron to accelerate done by TRIUMF and UVic as one of the partners called snubbers. In operation, the hydraulic liquid polarized protons to produce record was not completely lost. University of Victoria and changed phase and was supersonic; not a textbook intensity polarized proton beams. TRIUMF scientists began work on rare kaon physics at problem by any means. It is a credit to the advanced The UVic group contributed a liquid the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA, and engineering skills of the TRIUMF-UVic group that the deuterium target capable of producing the Victoria targets group designed a new target for the snubbers actually worked as predicted and prevented polarized neutrons and intense Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) that enhanced any significant damage from occurring to the SLD unpolarized intermediate energy neutron the kaon beam used in the observation of the ultra rare detector as a result of the hugely destructive 1989 San beams while surviving the high-radiation decay of a charged kaon into a charged pion and two Francisco earthquake. environment and a large deposited heat neutrinos. Ultimately, a project with many of the same load. Nucleon-nucleon cross sections goals as the TRIUMF Kaon Factory was proposed In 1991, TRIUMF and UVic scientists joined the OPAL and spin dependent measurements and is being built in Tokai Japan. It is an interesting collaboration at CERN, where they played a leading role published by the BASQUE collaboration coincidence that the present Pearce Professor of Physics, in designing and building an advanced silicon micro- in 1983 established unambiguous phase Dr. Dean Karlen, is playing a leading role with the Tokai vertex detector that led to the world’s best measurements shifts for kinetic energies up to 500 to Kamioka (T2K) neutrino experiment. of B meson and tau lepton lifetimes. TRIUMF-UVic’s MeV. (see Fig.1) detector expertise was on the international stage again In the late 1980s, the University of Victoria joined the in 1997 when the large drift chamber at the heart of The second focus of the UVic group SLD experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator the BaBar experiment was assembled at TRIUMF. was on the “other side” of the cyclotron, (SLAC). TRIUMF and Victoria were responsible for The detector was instrumental in the discovery of CP using low energy pions. Dr. Michael the mechanical design of the liquid argon calorimeter violation in B mesons. Fig. 1: Aligning the Basque experiment beam line. TRIUMF Financial Report 2006-2007 TRIUMF Financial Report www.triumf.ca 14 15 A Productive Collaboration: TRIUMF & The University of Victoria TRIUMF by Richard Keeler RIUMF and the Department of Physics and Pearce started and led a productive program of mesic Astronomy at the University of Victoria (UVic) and muonic X-ray physics. His untimely death was Tshare a common history and a long and productive a severe blow to this work and a sad personal loss to collaboration. Shortly after the founding of UVic in those who knew him. The University created a named 1963, the Department began hiring nuclear physicists. professorship in his memory Two years later, they began writing a proposal for an and, in 1983, Dr. Alan Astbury accelerator laboratory, and in 1968, UVic became a became the first holder of the founding member of the TRIUMF joint venture. Pearce Chair of Physics. His appointment changed the The team at UVic took responsibility for the design main focus of the UVic group of TRIUMF’s beam line optics. The original meson towards particle physics. production target as well as the first temporary beam dump were both designed and constructed in Victoria In the early 1980s, TRIUMF, and then transported to Vancouver. At TRIUMF, the with the UVic group, built one M9 muon beam line, which initiated the molecular and of the world’s first operating materials science studies that are now an important time projection chambers Dr. Michael Pearce research component of TRIUMF, was developed with (TPC) to make precision significant input from UVic. The design of the M8 measurements of pion decay modes to establish medical channel and the first design of the M11 septum stringent limits on lepton universality, a key component magnet were also done at Victoria. of modern particle theory. The collaboration was also actively involved in calculating the correction needed As the initial construction work at TRIUMF proceeded, to understand the new high-precision data. In 1983, an scientists in the UVic group began planning and important review article was published in The Review building physics experiments of international scope of Modern Physics (50:11-21) on double beta decay to exploit TRIUMF’s unique features, including the as well as calculations of branching ratios, radiative latest in its instrumentation technologies and high- corrections and strong interaction effects. A second performance computing. The BASQUE experiment, the group unraveled the subtle and complex atomic and first experiment in the then new TRIUMF Proton Hall, molecular interactions involved in muon catalyzed Fig. 2: Rear view of ATLAS Hadronic End Cap. was a collaboration among the University of Victoria, fusion. the University of British Columbia (UBC) and AERE Definition Study Director, and the UVic group became and half of the modules of the electromagnetic section Harwell, the University of Surrey, Queen Mary College Two years later, in 1985, TRIUMF proposed building involved in several critical design components. The were built at TRIUMF. A very nice engineering project and Bedford College in the UK. This collaboration a Kaon Factory. Alan Astbury was the Kaon Factory Kaon Factory was not to be, but the innovative work involved designing and testing earthquake protection, used TRIUMF’s cyclotron to accelerate done by TRIUMF and UVic as one of the partners called snubbers. In operation, the hydraulic liquid polarized protons to produce record was not completely lost. University of Victoria and changed phase and was supersonic; not a textbook intensity polarized proton beams. TRIUMF scientists began work on rare kaon physics at problem by any means. It is a credit to the advanced The UVic group contributed a liquid the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA, and engineering skills of the TRIUMF-UVic group that the deuterium target capable of producing the Victoria targets group designed a new target for the snubbers actually worked as predicted and prevented polarized neutrons and intense Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) that enhanced any significant damage from occurring to the SLD unpolarized intermediate energy neutron the kaon beam used in the observation of the ultra rare detector as a result of the hugely destructive 1989 San beams while surviving the high-radiation decay of a charged kaon into a charged pion and two Francisco earthquake.