Day one at the IoP Nuclear Physics Conference

The University of Surrey was closed today, as it kindly gives all, or most, staff a bit of extra holiday around the Easter weekend.  However, it was also the host site of this year's Institute of Physics Nuclear Physics Group conference, so I was in work as an attendee and local organising committee member (though really the chair Paddy Regan has done almost everything from the local commitee point of view). 

 It was nice seeing my colleagues from all over the UK and a few from farther afield.  Even before the pandemic-enforced cessation of face-to-face conferences it was probably a few years since I last attended one of the national ones, and it has been great to see old friends and colleagues.

The picture below was taken by the conference chair, and posted on Twitter.   I am in the picture, just, over at the right though quite cropped.  I'm wearing the stripy jumper and clearly part of a funny conversation with Kate Jones (University of Tennessee) and Carl Wheldon (University of Birmingham).  I think we were remembering the time around 20 years ago when we were all at the University of Surrey together.

As well as meeting old colleagues, I saw some recent ex-undergrads who are now PhD students.  My faviourite part of the day was talking to them, not least because they told me that my lectures were their favourites when then were undergraduates.  A lovely thing to say, and I could feel myself blush when they did so!

QCTIP 2022

 As promised in a post last month, I have come to the QCTIP conference in Bristol.  QCTIP stands for Quantum Computing Theory In Practice and the topic cover quantum computing from a largely mathematical and computer science point of view, with applications to various areas, including physics.  As something of an outsider, I found the talks ranged from very understandable to pretty hard to follow.   While online conference work pretty well for listening to and interacting with the talks, I wanted to attend in person so I could get to know some of the people working in the field, and get known by them.  For that, I think it was worth coming.  Particularly in the poster session, where I displayed a poster made by my student Isaac.  There was a pretty constant stream of people coming up and talking to me.  The idea that someone was applying quantum computing to nuclear physics was new to them, and they seemed genuinely interested.  I was also reasonably reassured that our neophyte forays into quantum computing were along the right lines.

The conference is organized by the mathematics department at Bristol.  As such, there are blackboards dotted around the building and people used them to discuss work during coffee breaks, as in the picture below

Conference week

 I mentioned earlier that I had a couple of conference coming up, happening in the same week.  This is the week:  There is the joint IoP Astroparticle Physics, High Energy Particle Physics, and Nuclear Physics Groups' conference (website: http://appheppnp2021.iopconfs.org/home, Twitter hashtag: #EdiIOP2021) and the YQIS Young Quantum Information Scientists' conference (website: https://indico.frib.msu.edu/event/31/).

With the IoP conference being in the UK and the YQIS conference in the US, I could in principle attend the IoP conference and the the YQIS meeting with only a small amount of overlapping time.  In practice, with childcare responsibilities that's not very practical, but everything is being recoreded, and I am trying to make a sensible combined programme of talks that I want to see and then arranging which ones I am able to watch live, and which I will watch after the fact.  This ability to watch pre-recorded lectures is just what many of our students are now finding useful in our taught undergraduate classes. 

Yesterday, when the conferences started, was a Monday, meaning my day for looking after my youngest children, so I wasn't planning on doing much live participation, though it also happened to be the day when my own talk was scheduled at the IoP conference, so I arranged to have the boys looked after for that time and gave the talk.  I perhaps could have strapped the baby to a sling and walked around while giving the talk, but it turned out to be easier to arrange a little time swap with my partner in childcare duties. 

Today, having cycled all the kids to school / nursery, I am able to attend the live sessions, which means that I have started with Jim Hough's talk on gravitational waves (screenshot below).  It's amazing how we have been able to observe so many events of merging black holes over the last few years, coming from a situation not so long ago when black holes were suspected to exist, but not definitively observed, even indirectly.  

I think it's a bit of a shame that the conference is set up using Zoom's webinar mode, in which I can't see who else is in the audience, can't send them a quick message to say hi, or do any of the other 'conferring' that I would do at a conference.  I know there is a formally-arranged coffee break as part of the schedule, but I don't quite get the point of limiting our ability to interact with other attendees.

Here is a snapshot from Prof. Hough's talk.  Right now there is a talk I'd like to listen to about the FAIR laboratory and the work going on / planned there, but the speaker's audio has a strange bass echo that makes it unlistenable to me.

EMC-SRC Workshop 22-26 March

 Last time I posted I mentioned the overlapping conferences in April that I plan to attend.   I got an email today about another interesting one taking place this month via Zoom, organised from Jefferson Lab in Virginia, USA.  It's a workshop on short-range correlations and the EMC effect.  This is to do with the way protons and neutrons inside the nucleus look different to free protons and neutrons, and how this shows up in scattering experiments of the sort that take place at Jefferson Lab. 

While it'd be interesting for me - and educational, since it is a bit far from my usual interests - the fact that it is a bit of an aside from that tasks that press me means I can't justify attending.   But I wish the organisers and participants every success! 

As a picture for this post, here's me outside Jefferson Lab in 2019 when I was visiting a student on his MPhys placement year.  The student was working on trigger systems for the experiments that support the Hall D physics programme at JLab, in particular to understand the magnetic structure within the nucleons.

Nuclear Physics Meetings in 2020

Bormio: Location of meetings in Jan and Feb 2020

Here is a post, which I will add to over the next 18 months or so, listing (mostly low-energy) nuclear physics meetings taking place in 2020 that I hear about.  Feel free to contact me or comment below with details of any that you think should be added

20/01–24/01: 58th Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics, Bormio, Italy

It's blurb calls it a long-standing conference, and indeed at #58, it may hold a record for the most-held nuclear physics meeting.  The remit is very broad, including what might once have been called nuclear physics, but is now particle physics.  It is preceded by a one-day pre-conference school for students, covering the basics of the main physics areas dealt with in the conference. 

Bormio is in the Italian Alps, and I understand that there is ample time in the programme for leisure activities, such as skiing. [website]

20/01–24/01: XIII LANSPA: Latin-American Symposium on Nuclear Physics and Applications, San José, Costa Rica
Aimed as a forum for groups in Latin America to share their research, the conference is nevertheless advertised more widely and open to anyone to attend.  [website]

04/02–09/02: Vth Topical Workshop on Modern Aspects in Nuclear Structure, Bormio Italy
Subtitled "The many facets of nuclear structure" this workshop's aim is to explore topical issues in nuclear structure, bringing experimental and theoretical collaborators together.  It's part of a series taking place every two years.  This year, the meeting is preceeded by a one-day satellite meeting on 03/02 on Beta-decay studies: present and future campaigns [website]

24/02–28/02: Conference on Neutrino and Nuclear Physics (CNNP), Cape Town, South Africa
A conference for those working on the interaction between neutrinos and nuclei, whether it be for beta decay, reactor neutrino studies, dark matter searches, solar and supernova modelling and detector technologies.  Or anything else closely related.  This is the followup to a first CNNP meeting held in Catania in 2017 [website] 

06/04–09/04: IoP Nuclear Physics Conferene, Edinburgh, Scotland
The annual UK Institute of Physics Nuclear Physics conference.  Date announced, and further details to come, presumably.  Update (Feb 2020): full details on [website]. Update CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19

15/05–22/05: 13th International Spring Seminar on Nuclear Physics Perspectives and Challenges in Nuclear Structure after 70 Years of Shell Model, Ischia, Italy
A meeting organised by the theory group at the University of Naples, hosted on the island of Ischia.  The topics are fairly broad, covering anything in low-energy nuclear structure.  Should be good, and a lovely setting.  [website]

20/05-22/05: 2020 JINA-CEE Frontiers in Nuclear Astrophysics Conference, South Bend, IN, USA
A save-the-date announcement has gone out (as of Dec 2019) about this conference, with more details to follow.  Update (Feb 2020): here is the [website] Update POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19

01/06–05/06: Nuclear Photonics 2020, Kurashiki, Japan
A conference on the emerging field of direct interaction and manipulation of nuclei with photons, coming about thanks to the new experimental sources of high-intensity lasers and monochromatic gamma rays.  [website] Update POSTPONED UNTIL 7-11/06/2021 DUE TO COVID-19

11/06–15/06: IWND2020: International Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics in Heavy-Ion Reactions, Zhuhai, China
A recurring workshop on what one learns from heavy-ion reactions.  Though an International workshop, it is China-based, focussing heavily on the research that takes place there.  [website]
  
14/06–19/06: ARIS 2020, Avignon, France
ARIS stands for Advances on Radioactive Isotope Science (sic), and the conference series grew out of a combination of the earlier ENAM (Exotic Nuclei and Atomic Masses, I think) and RNB (Radioactive Nuclear Beams) conferences.  It's quite a general, large conference for work coming out of radioactive beam facilities -- i.e. most of the big nuclear physics labs.  [website]  Update: Postponed to 05/09–10/09

29/06–03/07: DREB2020: Direct Reactions with Exotic Beams, Santiago de Compostella, Spain
A save-the-date email has been sent out for the latest in the series of DREB conferences.  The first circular, with more details, has been promised in Sep 2019:  Update (Feb 2020); here is the full [website]

22/06–26/06: CLUSTER'20: 12th International Conference on Clustering Aspects of Nuclear Structure and Dynamics, Dubna, Russia
For all things to do with the formation and existence of larger-than-nucleon substructures inside a nucleus.  I have recently done some work on reactions leading to the Hoyle state, which can be described as a three-alpha cluster (see here) so may just find myself going along to this.  Dubna is a nice place, though getting a Russian visa is a bit irksome. [website]

29/06–04/07: 10th Intl. Workshop on Quantum Phase Transitions in Nuclei and Many-body Systems, Dubrovnik, Croatia
"Quantum phase transitions" here means things like the change in shape or some other bulk property of a nucleus as a function of the number of particles with the emphasis being on the interpretation of such phenomena with the language and mathematics of phase transitions.  I enjoyed going to a couple of the earlier outings in this series, but don't really feel connected enough to the field to justify attending any more, interesting though it would be [website] Update POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19

05/07–11/07: IWNT39-2020: 39th International Workshop on Nuclear Theory, Rila Mountains, Bulgaria
A venerable annual meeting organised by the nuclear theory group in Sofia.  I've been to a few of these in the past and have always enjoyed them for the rather relaxed environment with plenty of opportunity for discussion.  A nice way to end the academic year with a visit here [website]

06/07-10/07: EXON-2020: International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei, St Petersburg, Russia
A conference on the production and study of the most exotic, far-from-stability nuclei across the period table from lightest to heaviest.  Co-organised by labs around the world (JINR, RIKEN, GANIL, NSCL, GSI) [website]

26/07–31/07: Nuclear Structure 2020, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Part of a series of conferences on nuclear structure run by US national labs.  One of the first conferences I attended was one of these, organised by Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee when I worked there.  This one is organised by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab,  and held in Santa Cruz, a little south of the San Francisco bay area.  [website]

19/08–23/08: APFB2020; Yamada Conference LXXII: The 8th Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, Kanazawa, Japan
This one was advertised to me at the European Few Body conference that I helped organise.  I'm not typically a few-body person (more many-body) so my chance of going to this one are slim, unless the organisers get particularly wowed by the conference proceeding I produced for the European Few Body conference on the triple-alpha reaction [website]

30/08–06/09: 55th Zakopane Conference on Nuclear Physics, Zakopane, Poland
A regular conference taking place in Poland.  The official theme is "extremes of the nuclear landscape" though it's really rather a general conference with talks covering a snapshot of current research in nuclear physics.  I have never been to a Zakopane conference but I understand them to be enjoyable events, with good discussions of physics, and networking in a really nice-sized event (in a nice location, too).  The circulars for this have come out when much of Europe is locked down due to the Covid-19 virus and they are currently (March 2020) planning to go ahead with organizing the conference [website]

31/08–04/09: CGS17: 17th International Symposium on Capture Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy and Related Topics, Grenoble, France
Capture gamma-ray spectroscopy marries capture reactions, in which a nucleus captures a projectile, with gamma ray spectroscopy to study the decay of the resulting compound system.  This is a venerable series, dating back to the 1960s.  Still an active area of research -- perhaps even more so than when it started thanks to the advent of radioactive ion beams [website]

31/08–04/09: PANIC 2020: Particles and Nuclei International Conference 2020, Lisbon, Portugal
A major conference taking place every three years which explores the interface between nuclear and particle physics.  It covers a wide range of topics, from dark matter and cosmology, to applications of nuclear and particle physics technology, with everything experimental and theoretical inbetween.  [website]

08/09–12/09:  7th IEA International workshop Clustering aspects in nuclei and reactions, São Paulo, Brazil
A workshop dedicated to the memory of Mahir Hussein, who died in 2019. [website]

13/09–19/09: Applied Nuclear Physics Conference 2020, Prague, Czechia
A new conference series being set up under the aegis of the European Physical Society Nuclear Physics Division.  As per the title, the conference covers applications of nuclear physics, with a stated particular emphasis on "energy, health, space, security, environment, material science, preservation and study of cultural heritage". Abstract submission opening in December 2019 [website]

02/11-06/09: Shapes and Symmetries in Nuclei, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
A conference on experimental and theoretical work to determine the underlying shapes of nuclei and the symmetries that give rise to them.  Part of a series, always held at Gif-sur-Yvette.  I've not been to these before but it might be a good place to highlight my work on shape-induced mixing of giant resonances that I've been working on inspired by some experimental work from Osaka [website]

15/11–20/11: FUSION20, Shizuoka, Japan
A conference on heavy-ion fusion at energies near the Coulomb barrier.  This topic is a mainstay of my research activities, so I expect to attend this one (as I did the previous outing of the conference in Hobart) [website]

24/11–27/11: International Worshop on Multi-facets of EOS and Clustering, Caen, France
An interesting slew of topics that are not often given co-prominence in a workshop (though of course all aspects of nuclear physics are part of a unified whole): "IWM-EC 2020 will focus on open questions in the domain of nuclear dynamics and thermodynamics, clustering phenomena and also the links between the nuclear Equation of state and Astrophysics." [website] 

2019 Nuclear Physics Meetings

There was a spate of emails leading up to Christmas from conference and workshop organisers sending reminders or announcements about their conferences.  I thought I would assemble the details, along with some other relevant meetings coming up in low-energy nuclear physics here.  It will help me decide which I might attend.  I'll add more 2019 meetings as I hear about them. (last updated 06/03/2019)

25/02–27/02: ENSAR2 NUSPRASEN Workshop, GSI, Germany

Very much a workshop by the sounds of it, with an aim to stimulate cooperation between laboratories working on superheavy element synthesis research.  The blurb says "It is the opportunity to dwell on topics which are not usually treated in regular conferences or collaboration meetings" [website]

25/03–26/03: Workshop AGATA@LNL for stable beams, Padua, Italy
The first of two meetings in Padua on this list.  This one primarily for those interested in undertaking gamma ray spectroscopy experiments in Legnaro.  If I go to any meetings on this date, it'll be the next one in the list.  [website]

25/03–27/03: 54th ASRC International Workshop "Nuclear Fission and Structure of Exotic Nuclei", Tokai, Japan
From the website: "The meeting will mainly be devoted to new experimental and theoretical achievements in fission, super-heavy nuclei, nuclear reaction and structure of exotic nuclei. Especially, our group is driving a dedicated program using the rare target material, einsteinium-254, for which new results and new proposals will be discussed."  I've set some calculations with einsteinium–254 going to see whether I might find anything interesting enough to talk about.  If so, I'll tell the organisers and see if they'd like to hear my talk.  [website]

01/04–05/04: XVII Workshop on Nuclear Physics WONP-2019, Havana, Cuba
This series of Workshops in Cuba cover a wide range of nuclear physics topics, with a particular emphasis on radiation physics and applications, as these are what the local group in Cuba mostly work on.  I attended a previous conference in the series (in 2005) and enjoyed learning about the applications that were going on there.  I enjoyed the chance to go to Cuba, too.  When I then went to the US shortly after, the border guard saw the Cuban visa in my passport and asked me what I was doing there.  "Scientific conference" I said, and he nodded and waved me through.  I'm glad he didn't grill me about which area of science.  "Nuclear Physics" might not have gone down well.  [website]

18/04–19/04: AGATA campaign at GANIL Pre-PAC workshop 2019, Caen, France
A bit niche this, but if you are working on any physics that relates to the proposed experiments at the AGATA + MUGAST + VAMOS setup at GANIL, then attending this workshop might be for you so that you can inform the discussion of the proposals taking place at the PAC right after the workshop. [website]

13/05–17/05: NSD2019 Nuclear Structure and Dynamics, Venice, Italy
This is one of a series of conferences hosted by one of a number of University-based research groups somewhere around the Adriatic.  I went to a very enjoyable one in Dubrovnik some years ago, and this is a nice medium-sized general low-energy nuclear physics conference that always has lots of talks on-topic for me.  Though I don't think I'll be going to this one. [website]

19/05–24/05: PLATAN 2019, Mainz, Germany

I didn't put the whole title of this one in the bold header line, because its name is "Merger of the Poznan Meeting on Lasers and Trapping Devices in Atomic Nuclei Research and the International Conference on Laser Probing".  I've been tangentially involved in work related to laser trapping and excitation of nuclei in the form of calculations of isotope shifts, but it's not something I've done much of lately, and I don't expect to attend this one.  [website]

20/05–21/05: TNP19 Theoretical Nuclear Physics in Padova, Padua, Italy

The subtitle is "a meeting in honor of Prof. Andrea Vitturi" and the meeting is organised due to his retirement.  I suppose the attendees will be largely drawn from his collaborators, and those whose research overlaps strongly.  Vitturi has done a lot of work on giant resonances (among many other things), which is relevant to me.  [website]

20/05–24/05: 2019 JINA-CEE Frontiers in Nuclear Astrophysics, East Lansing, USA
Ninth in a series of workshops aimed at those affiliated to JINA-CEE (Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics – Centre for the Evolution of the Elements) and other interested physicists working on astrophysical nucleosynthesis and neutron star physics.  [website]

27/05–31/05: 7th Workshop on Level Density and Gamma Ray Strength, Oslo, Norway
I've been to one of these before, in 2015.  The lab in Oslo have a technique (named after them) to measure the quantities used to name this workshop.  I can calculate them, or at least closely related things, and it's not crazy to think of going.  And Oslo is lovely.  [website]

31/05–01/06: 28th HNPS Symposium
The 28th Hellenic Nuclear Physics Symposium is being held in Thessaloniki.  Though ostensibly a regional meeting it is advertised widely and open to interested participants to apply to speak and attend.  The topics cover nuclear structure, reactions, astrophysics, and applied nuclear physics.  [website]

03/06–07/06: Procon2019, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
Taking place every 4 years, Procon is a conference about proton-emitting nuclei, so those isotopes with an extremely low proton-to-neutron ratio such that they exhibit proton radioactivity.  I've been involved in performing structure calculations for proton-emitting nuclei in the past, and have featured as a co-author in the proceedings of previous editions of this conference, but have yet to attend one.  Don't see myself travelling to this one, either, with no particularly recent work done by me that is on-topic (though that doesn't seem in general to stop many conference speakers, now I think about it) [website]

23/06–29/06: International Workshop on Nuclear Theory #38, Rila Mountains, Bulgaria

The annual workshop organised by the theoretical nuclear physics group in Sofia.  I've been to this a few times and always like to come.  I had to stop when I took over running the MPhys Research Year programme at Surrey, as this meeting is always during our exam board meeting and my attendance became more or less compulsory.   [website]

24/06–28/06: NUSPIN, Orsay, France
A workshop for those allied to gamma-ray spectroscopy using the AGATA gamma-ray tracking array.  [website]

01/07–05/07: ANPC African Nuclear Physics Conference, Kruger National Park, South Africa

I heard about this when attending COMEX6 in Cape Town in October.  It's a broad conference of fundamental and applied nuclear physics which I'm sure I'd enjoy, and it's in a lovely location.  I've used their website photo on this post above.  I can't really justify going, though.  [website]

16/07–19/07: The 13th International Conference on Stopping and Manipulation of Ions and related topics (SMI-2019), Montreal, Canada
Held in beautiful Montreal, this conference is all about doing nuclear physics on (mostly exotic, unstable) ions by stopping them first after their production in a radioactive ion beam.  [website]

24/07–26/07: Ab Initio Nuclear Theory Workshop, Guildford, Surrey
This is a small meeting organised by my colleagues (Carlo and Arnau) here at Surrey as a satellite meeting to the INPC2019 meeting in Glasgow, to allow people to easily attend both while in the country.  It's open to those working in ab initio theory connecting the underlying strong nuclear interaction to calculated results of finite nuclei.  [website]

29/07–02/08: INPC2019, Glasgow, Scotland

As the conference flyer says, "INPC is the biggest conference in the world for fundamental nuclear physics".  And it's in the UK this year, so the chances of me going are very high.  And it's in one of the UK nicest cities, so that helps too.  I like INPC, with its very broad coverage of nuclear physics areas.  I end up going to a combination of sessions which are right up my street, and others which broaden my horizons.  [website]

12/08–16/08: MICRA2019: Microphysics in Computational Relativistic Astrophysics, Jena, Germany
The 'microphysics' in question is the nuclear equation of state, nucleosynthesis reactions and neutrino-nucleus interactions.  Part of a biennial series of nuclear astrophysics workshops that alternates between Europe and North America.  Our turn this time.  [website]

25/08–30/08: 6th International Conference on the Chemistry and Physics of the Transactinide Elements (TAN 19), Wilhelmshaven, Germany

I haven't been to editions 1-5 in this series.  I don't expect I an add this to my list of conferences to attend, though fusion reactions (leading to superheavy nuclei) is one thing I work on.  [website]

28/08–30/08: Fundamentals of Nuclear Particle Decay, Stockholm, Sweden
A workshop to bring together those working on understanding the properties of nuclei by studying how they decay.  [website]

01/09–07/09:  XXXVI Mazurian Lakes Conference, Piaski, Poland
Every year there is a large nuclear physics conference in Poland – either the Zakopane conference or the Mazurian lakes conference.  I've never been to either.  Maybe one year, but not this, since it clashes with the next conference, which I am co-organising.  [website]

02/09–06/09: 24th European conference on few-body problems in physics, Guildford, UK

Well, I'm a local organiser of this, so I will definitely attend, though more for the scientific interest than because I am any kind of expert with few-body systems.  Mostly I deal with nuclei made of many (rather than few) particles which means particular kinds of approximation in theoretical study, while "few-body" implies a different method of solution.  [website]

05/09–06/09: SADO2019, Sado Island, Japan
A workshop on many–body correlations in microscopic nuclear models.  This one is right up my street, but I'll be busy at the few-body conference that I am co-organising at Surrey. [website] 

09/09–13/09: HIAS2019 Heavy Ion Accelerator Symposium, Canberra, Australia

A long way away from me, in Canberra, but this annual meeting all about heavy-ion reactions of the sort that can be performed at the Canberra accelerator is very relevant to me through my time-dependent Hartree-Fock work.  This year, I (as coordinator of the Surrey MPhys Research Year) have placed two students for research work in Canberra, and I will have to visit them roughly at that time of year, so it wouldn't be crazy to make my visit coincide with the symposium.

09/09–13/09: 21st Colloque GANIL, Strasbourg, France
Coinciding  with HIAS, this colloquium is dedicated to review and discuss work carried out at the GANIL facility, along with relevant related work elsewhere.  [website]

15/09–20/09: Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics IX, Frankfurt, Germany
I've been involved with work on nuclear physics for neutron stars, actually going back to my PhD a long time ago which included calculating properties of predicted neutron stars from a particular form of the nuclear interaction.  While I've also done follow-up things more recently, I don't think I will be able to present anything sufficiently interesting and on-topic here.  Of course, attending conferences is more about learning new things than telling everyone else your latest results, but without the latter, it's harder to justify attending.  [website]

20/09–22/09: JINA–CEE International Workshop on “Beta-decay and Charge-exchange Reactions for Nuclear-Astrophysics"
A workshop to discuss beta-decay, its links to charge-exchange reactions, their role in nuclear astrophysics, theoretical advances, recent experiments, and what experiments could be done in future.  [website] 

24/09-29/09: XXVI Nuclear Physics Workshop, Kazimierz Dolny, Poland
This is the annual conference set in the beautiful town of Kazimierz Dolny in Poland, organised by the group at the University of Lublin.  It has a theory slant, but covers all aspects of low-energy nuclear physics. I went to one of these a long time ago, and enjoyed it, though I did have to share a bedroom with another delegate who apologised to me on the first night that he was a loud snorer, which he certainly was. [website] 

30/09–04/10: NuSYM-2019, Danang City, Vietnam
Part of a series of conferences on the nuclear symmetry energy.  This is well up my street, but Vietnam is a long way to go at a busy time of year when semester is starting up again, so a long shot for me.  [website]

03/10–05/10: SDANCA–19, Sofia, Bulgaria
The conference acronym stands for "Shapes and Dynamics of Atomic Nuclei: Contemporary Aspects", and this is the third in the series, which has taken place every two years since 2015.  I was at the first one, and only didn't go to the second one due to illness.  I'd like to go to this and present some work I'm doing on giant resonances as probes of nuclear shapes, but I need to have a think about logistics.  This is taking place in the freshers week at the start of our new academic year, which may cause some clashes.  [website]

06/11–08/11: Nuclear Physics Research-Technology Coaction 2 Workshop, Seville, Spain
A workshop aimed at joining those working on basic nuclear physics research with those involved in the development of associated technologies -- detectors, accelerators etc.  [website]

12/11–15/11: Microscopic Approaches to Nuclear Structure and Reactions, Lawrence LIvermore Laboratory, California, USA
This is the third in a series of workshops in honour of the late Daniel Gogny, concentrating on the areas of nuclear physics he worked most in.  This is very much up my street and I would have accepted the invitation to go if it were not for the fact that my partner has a baby due right around then.  [website]

25/11–27/11: NUSPRASEN Workshop on Nuclear Science Applications, Helsinki, Finland
Part of the ENSAR2 European Union–funded project, this workshop concentrates on applied nuclear physics, in medical, nuclear safety and cultural heritage [website]
 

Pictures and Slides from COMEX6

The organisers of the COMEX6 conference which I attended earlier this year have just sent me an email with a link to the slides of presentations, and the photo gallery from the official conference photographer. 

I pass on a direct link to my slides if you should want them, and I post the nicest picture of me (on the right, with my colleague Bastian Schuetrumpf from GSI on the left)

COMEX6: Day 1

We've had a first, and rather full, day at the COMEX6 conference.  From the hotel at 7:45 to get a bus to iThemba Labs, who are organising the conference (though for the rest of the week we will use the hotel conference room, so no busing back and forth).  The labs are about a 30m ride from downtown Cape Town, and are a fairly typical nuclear physics facility with their big buildings housing accelerators, and their own unique set of animals wandering around outside (different from GANIL's many rabbits) .  The conference room is great, with probably the most comfortable lecture room seats I have come across.  Well done iThemba Labs.

As at most conference, they handed out a pad of paper on which we delegates can make notes.  No doubt we don't all use it:  some will not make notes, some will do it on computer or in their own notebooks.  I did make notes, filling up about half the 50-page A5 notebook, as well as start a list of calculations I can make that relate to the talks (that's taken up one of the pages, so far).  So plenty of interesting ideas out there in the conference for me.  I've started some of the calculations going, to try to understand the question posed in the title of one of the talks; "Are the molybdenums fluffy too?"  If course, the answer given in the talk follows the rule that the answer to questions posed in the title of science talks is "no".

The day ended with a tour of the lab, during which I took the pictures posted here.  Then we had the poster session and a dinner, which was mostly a braai (a kind of barbecue) except for us vegetarians, who got vegetable curry.  Yummy.

Nuclear Physics at 78ºN

I've been out of action lately;  off work on sick leave for the last few months of 2017.   Upon my return I notice that the next in the series of Nordic Meetings on Nuclear Physics is taking place in Longyearbyen, Norway.  This has to rank as one of the most exotic places for a nuclear physics conference to take place in.  It's about as far north in the world that one is able to get to using scheduled transport.  It's further north than anywhere in mainland Canada or Russia, and the northernmost place with civilian inhabitants.  While it is sorely tempting to go there given the opportunity, I have no good justification for using up travel budget on a relatively expensive location for a conference which, while interesting and relevant to me, is not vital to my research.

Although it was quite a while ago, I have actually been to Longyearbyen once before.  I was on a cruise as a companion of someone employed to play harp recitals on the ship.  My only task was to do a bit of harp-lugging, for which I got a free cruise from Newcastle, up the coast of Norway, stopping off at various points, and then up to Spitsbergen, where Longyearbyen is.

I don't have my photos of the trip to hand, so here's one that I found from google maps of the town of Longyearbyen.  My trip was in October, so there was snow on the ground as in the picture.