Backgrounder: Nearly $31M Supports World-Class Isotope Research
Since 2001, four provincially supported projects worth a total of $63.9 million have been undertaken at TRIUMF, in addition to the $62.9-million ARIEL project announced today:
1. Muon beam line upgrade – to open in 2011
Muons are subatomic particles that can be used to probe small, local magnetic fields of electronic or nuclear origin. This $6-million upgrade, $2.4 million of which was provided by the Province, will increase the availability and quality of muon beams at TRIUMF, and will benefit teams throughout the world involved in molecular and materials research. The only other facility in the world with a comparable muon beam line is in Switzerland.
2. ATLAS Data Centre – opened in 2007
The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, uses proton-proton collisions at the highest energy ever achieved in the laboratory to look for answers for why matter has mass. ATLAS can produce up to five petabytes of data per year (one petabyte is one million gigabytes). For comparison, if this data were stored on double-density DVDs, the stack – without cases – would be four times as tall as Vancouver’s Scotia Centre.
CERN has co-ordinated an international network of large high-performance computing centres that are linked by “grid” tools to analyze this information. This network includes the $20.5-million ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre led by Simon Fraser University at TRIUMF, built with $4 million from the Province.
3. ISAC-II – $8.7 million – opened in 2003
The TRIUMF Isotope Separator and Accelerator – ISAC – produces high-quality beams of separated isotopes that can be delivered directly to a variety of experimental facilities. These unique beams support a diverse program of research spanning the fields of nuclear astrophysics, nuclear structure, fundamental interactions, and condensed matter physics, much of which cannot be carried out anywhere else in the world. ISAC-II, a $27.6-million facility, was built with $8.7 million in provincial funding.
4. Laboratory for Advanced Detector Development – opened in 2002
The Laboratory for Advanced Detector Development is used for developing innovative radiation detectors and their application to particle and nuclear physics, medical imaging and other fields.
This has enhanced work in this field at UBC and TRIUMF, as well as at the University of Montreal. The $9.8-million lab received $2.6 million from the provincial government.