|
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a new National User Facility for nuclear science, funded by the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Physics (NP) and operated by Michigan State University (MSU). FRIB will cost approximately $550 million to establish and take about a decade for MSU to design and build. The new facility will provide intense beams of rare isotopes (that is, short-lived nuclei not normally found on Earth). FRIB will provide scientists critical information about the properties of these rare isotopes in order to better understand the origin of the elements and the evolution of the cosmos. In a November 2002 article, Science magazine neatly summed up the overarching question that motivates most rare isotope research this way: "We are all made of starstuff," wrote journalist Charles Seife. "The big bang created hydrogen, helium, and a little bit of lithium and other light atoms. But everything else--the carbon, oxygen, and other elements that make up animals, plants, and Earth itself--was made by stars. The problem is that physicists aren't quite sure how stars did it." The plan to establish FRIB has been the subject of numerous studies and assessments within DOE and by independent parties such as the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science. They have concluded that such a U.S. facility is a vital part of the U.S. nuclear science portfolio needed to complement existing and planned international efforts, will provide capabilities unmatched elsewhere, and should be a high priority for the United States
|
