1. Introduction
This 5-year renewal proposal for the National Summer School in
Nuclear Physics recommends continuation of the annual series begun
in 1988. This school has been very successful in providing
experimental and theoretical graduate students and beginning
postdocs with a perspective of nuclear physics as a research field.
The main purpose of the school is to help young researchers gain
broader exposure to the major themes of our field. This is
important both for researchers in small university groups, which
may have few opportunities for learning about nuclear physics
broadly, and those at major laboratories, where the nuclear physics
may be primarily of one "flavor."
Some changes in the school's
governance are proposed: 1) We ask that funding be sufficient to
allow smaller university groups to organize schools: previously the
requirement that the host institution cover all lecturer costs made
this difficult. 2) In spring, 1999, the Division of Nuclear Physics
of the APS agreed to make the school's steering committee one of
its standing committees. This step will help the steering committee
remain broadly representative of the community.
The PIs will administer the grant
through the Institute for Nuclear Theory (INT). The INT remains
willing to help organizers with school administration, as desired.
This includes producing a poster, handling mailing, and maintaining
data bases.
2. Motivation and History
The challenge of broadly educating young researchers is a daunting
one for fields like nuclear physics. Some of our research groups
are small. Others may focus on a particular subfield, often because
this enhances the overall impact of the group. The field's
evolution towards larger facilities means more students work in a
user mode, often spending long periods at a national laboratory
where one subfield may be emphasized. Thus the student may have
very few opportunities to interact with students or senior
researchers from subfields other than his own.
Under these conditions students can
go through graduate training and postdoctoral experience without
developing clear ideas of the important outstanding questions in
nuclear physics outside of their specialty. Yet there are broad
physics themes and important techniques that do unite our field: a
student with too limited a perspective is unlikely to understand
this unity or to maximize his personal scientific development. The
experimental physicist must know what properties of nuclear and
hadronic/electromagnetic/weak interactions are most significant to
measure in order to further knowledge in nuclear physics or in
other fields that require nuclear physics input. The theoretical
student must appreciate better the important criteria for useful
models, the significance of reported measurements, and the
relevance of nuclear physics to sister fields, such as particle
physics, astrophysics, and condensed matter physics.
In Europe, the summer school has
proven to be a very successful way to broaden the perspective of
students. There are regular schools at Varenna, Italy; at Erice,
Italy; and many NATO sponsored schools, including the one at Les
Houches, France. The UK Nuclear Physics Summer School and the
Nordic Nuclear Physics Summer School are held regularly, and the
Finish Summer School often has a strong nuclear component. The Euro
Summer School on Exotic Beams is held in Leuven. In Eastern Europe,
there are regular schools in Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic. Elsewhere, the Brazilian Andre Swieca Physics Summer
School is primarily focused on nuclear physics, while the ANU
Australian Summer School often has a strong nuclear
component.
In this country the NSF has
sponsored regular advanced schools in the 1960's, an ad hoc nuclear
physics school in 1978 and 1981, and several series since 1983. In
particular, in 1988, a community group - which included the PIs of
this proposal and some members of the current steering committee -
began the current series. Initially it was supported year-by-year
with volunteer organizers, who had little administrative support.
The difficulty of this mode of operation contributed to the failure
of the 1994 effort.
It was then that the steering
committee, with a strong endorsement from the Executive Committee
of the Division of Nuclear Physics, opened discussions with the NSF
and INT to provide more stability to the school. The NSF agreed to
provide a 5-year grant to support participant costs at the school.
The INT agreed to administer the grant at no cost and to provide
administrative support to school organizers: poster production,
mailing, data base services, etc. The INT also agreed to act as a
back-up host for the school, if no other volunteer could be found,
and to provide supplementary funding to any schools held in the
Seattle area (provided by the UW Physics Department's Uehling
Fund). The INT hosted the 1995 and 1996 schools and is renewing the
above commitments for the lifetime of the present
proposal.
In recent years there have been ad
hoc schools in nuclear physics organized by CEBAF (annually) and by
Brookhaven (1998). (No BNL school is scheduled for 1999.) These
schools are sponsored by the host laboratories and focus on
research issues relevant to those laboratories. There has also been
an annual school at TRIUMF, but it was discontinued in
1999.
3. Requirements of the
school
There are a number of important considerations to produce a
successful advanced study school. First, one needs the best
lecturers from the field. Second, the school needs a corps of
students who have prospects for research careers and are at the
appropriate level to develop a perspective of the field of nuclear
physics as a whole. Third, the format of the school must allow
enough time for the students to reflect on the material presented
and to have thoughtful conversations among themselves and with the
lecturers.
3.1 Location
It is important that the school be held in an attractive setting.
The top researchers in a field are much more willing to serve as
lecturers, if the environment is pleasant and conducive to informal
discussion. This is a major feature in the success of the European
schools. If the setting is nice, it not only attracts good
lecturers, but also encourages them to stay for longer periods. The
sites, organizers, and lecturers for the current series are given
below:
Another environmental requirement of
the school is that the students and lecturers have many
opportunities to interact informally as well as in the lecture
hall. An isolated setting with housing and meals taken together
provides the ideal in this respect. This can be achieved with a
conference center in a vacation location, such as the 1996 Pack
Forest site near Mt. Rainier. Schools held on university campuses
can also meet the conditions, if careful arrangements are made. For
example, separate living and dining quarters were provided by UC
Santa Cruz for the 1990 school.
Recent National Nuclear Physics
Summer Schools tried to achieve these site goals while, at the same
time, encouraging a variety of universities and individuals to take
on the role of organizer. At times, these two goals require a
compromise: one role of the steering committee is to use its
experience to optimize such choices.
The first school of the new 5-year
grant period (2000) has been approved by the steering committee. It
will be organized by Wick Haxton and Larry McLerran at UC Santa
Cruz. This is an example of a site that provides, at reasonable
cost, a somewhat rural setting with common dining and housing
facilities.
3.2 Lecture format
Previous schools have been successful with the following format,
which we propose to continue. The school is held for a 12-day
period, with lectures on weekday mornings. Students arrive Sunday
afternoon and depart midday Friday. This allows five to seven
lecturers to participate, taking about 4 lectures apiece. At this
pace, the lecture material is presented in a way that can be
genuinely useful to someone learning the subject. The students also
have an opportunity to deliver seminars on their own research.
These sessions, which have proven very popular, are organized and
chaired by the students, a choice that promotes
discussion.
The school attendance will be
limited to no more than 50. This number is only partly dictated by
space and financing limitations. The number cannot be made much
higher and still preserve an informal and lively atmosphere, in
which the participants ask questions and take part in the
discussion. With 50 students each year, there are also enough
places that no nuclear physics graduate students near completing
their Ph.D.s would need to be excluded.
3.3 The students
The school can only accomplish its purpose if it is attended by
students capable of becoming career researchers in nuclear physics.
An important part of the organization of the school has to be the
recruitment of these individuals. It is essential that the
organizer of the school, members of the steering committee, and the
grant PIs make strong personal efforts to recruit students by
bringing the school to the attention of their colleagues throughout
the country. Other mechanisms for recruiting include a poster
(which is sent to both individuals and research groups and
universities) and advertisements in the Division of Nuclear Physics
newsletter (both hard copy and emailed to the membership), in the
DOE DNP Monthly Activities Report, in Nuclear Physics News (the
European newsletter), and in the INT's newsletter.
Students can only be expected to
attend if their travel costs are covered. In past schools, cost
sharing between the school and the research group of the student's
home university worked out well to support the participants. With
some contribution to the support from home institutions, only
students who are regarded by their professors as ready for the
advanced school will be encouraged to attend. Typically the NSF
grant has provided about 75% of local student costs, with the
remainder plus the travel costs coming from the student's research
group/university.
3.4 Modifications for
2000-2004
A number of steps have been taken to improve the school during the
next five years (2000-2004). These are summarized in the
following:
a) To help the steering committee
remain broadly representative of the nuclear physics community, it
has been taken under the wing of the Executive Committee of the
DNP. As a DNP standing committee, new members will be chosen by the
Executive Committee. The steering committee consists of eight
regular members serving four-year terms, plus the grant PI.
(Barrett will take this duty for 2000-2004.) Thus the Executive
Committee will replace two members each year, generally choosing as
replacements one experimentalist and one theorist.
Each year the steering committee
will elect from among its first- and second-year members a
vice-chair, who will become chair and past-chair in successive
years.
b) To provide a longer lead time for
organizing future schools, the steering committee will choose new
organizers and sites two years in advance of the school. This
procedure was put into effect this past year: the Haxton/McLerran
proposal has been accepted for 2000.
A request for new proposals, which
are received by the steering committee chair, has appeared in INT's
February newsletter for the past five years. In future years we
intend to use the DNP newsletter as well. Recruiting efforts by
members of the steering committee are also very important and
effective.
c) The INT has constructed a web
site to advertise the school and to serve as a collective memory
for the community (http://int.phys.washington.edu/NPSS/NPSS.html).
It includes a summary of the school's procedures, the 1995-99 NSF
proposal, the programs of the past schools (1988-98), the history
of the steering committee, and information for organizers. In
addition, it contains the poster for the current school. We will
soon post the final reports for the 1995-99 schools.
d) The INT will endeavor to put
convenient software in place so that lecture notes and/or
transparencies can be scanned onto the home page. This will allow
students to refer back to the lectures they have heard and may
allow nonstudents to make use of the lecture materials.
We do not plan to ask lecturers to
write up their talks. This is a large undertaking and would
diminish our ability to attract the best lecturers, who are often
very busy.
e) Good sites and organizers were
found for the 1995-8 schools: The University of Washington
(Seattle) (1995); the Pack Forest retreat (Mt. Rainier) (1996);
Yale University (1997); and Gull Lake (1998). The 1995-99 NSF
proposal required the host institution to cover the costs of the
speakers in addition to ancillary costs, such as a reception,
weekend outings, local secretarial support, etc. The speaker costs
can range up to $10K. As very few smaller groups can afford this
expense, it is not surprising that the volunteer hosts for the
1995-8 (Seattle, Yale, MSU) were larger University
groups.
In 1999 an attractive site (UC San
Diego) was found, but the organizer, George Fuller, is a single
investigator. He agreed to organize the school only after the NSF
expressed its willingness to provide supplemental
support.
We believe the 1999 school has to be
the model for the next five years. It will make the National
Nuclear Physics Summer School a true community activity, allowing
both small and large groups to act as organizers. It will increase
the number of attractive sites and good organizers that the
Steering Committee can choose among.
4. Leadership and oversight of
the schools
4.1 The organizer
It is clear that a well-organized school requires a lot of work
and effort by some individual. This is the designated organizer of
the school. He/she prepares the program of lecturers (subject to
the approval of the steering committee), selects the students to
attend, and manages the day-to-day activities of the school. The
organizer also has the main responsibility for recruitment of
students. (If requested, the organizer will be assisted by one of
the experienced workshop coordinators of the INT, who will handle
correspondence, do financial projections, prepare and mail the
poster, handle advertising, and answer any travel or visa
questions.) The organizer will be chosen by the steering committee
from community volunteers, as described previously.
4.2 Steering committee
The new procedures for the steering committee - including the role
of the DNP - has been described earlier. The current and past
membership of the steering committee are:
