Münster 2002 – scientific programme

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HK: Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 1: Plenary Session

HK 1.2: Plenary Talk

Monday, March 11, 2002, 14:30–15:15, Plenarsaal

A Perspective on Nuclear Structure Physics in the Context of the U.S. Long Range Planning Process — •Richard F. Casten — Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8124, U.S.A.

Nuclear physics in the US is entering a crucial phase in which two major facilities – CEBAF at Jefferson Laboratory and RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory – are now running and obtaining significant new results, and in which a third facility, the exotic beam laboratory Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA), is being recommended as the highest priority for major new construction in the current Long Range Planning Process. These initiatives reflect the three major pillars on which nuclear physics research stands, namely, the interactions of quarks and gluons, the quark-gluon structure of hadronic matter, and of the structure of nuclei themselves. Each of these has wider ramifications, especially in regard to astrophysics and the Standard Model. This talk will focus on the recent Long Range planning effort in the US – both the nature of the process itself and on the Recommendations resulting from it. It will then go on to discuss in more specificity the major accomplishments in nuclear structure in recent years and the exciting prospects for future discoveries in this field. Especially important in this regard is the discovery potential inherent in the RIA facility. This work was supported by U.S. DOE under Grant No. DE-FG02-91ER-40609.