And
From The University of California-Berkeley
And
And
From The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Via
7.18.23
Kamioka Observatory in Japan. Credit: ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), the University of Tokyo/NHK Enterprises, INC.
Physicists worldwide are trying to detect dark matter (DM) particles and their interactions with visible matter using various strategies and detectors. As these particles do not emit, reflect or absorb light, they have so far proved to be very difficult to observe, particularly using common experimental methods.
Researchers at TRIUMF, University of Minnesota, University of California Berkeley and Stanford University recently proposed a new approach that could help to detect these mysterious particles, unexplained by the standard model. This approach, introduced in a paper published in Physical Review Letters [below], aims to detect signals hinting at the annihilation of dark matter to visible matter inside large neutrino detectors.
“Earth-bound DM (DM particles that are being trapped in the Earth via collisions with Earth’s constituents) that interacts sufficiently strongly with the ordinary baryonic matter can have a tantalizingly large density, almost 15 orders of magnitude larger than the Galactic DM density (~ 0.3 GeV/cm^3),” Anupam Ray, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.
“Now the big question was: how to detect such DM particles which are quite abundant in the Earth-volume? Since their kinetic energy is tiny (~ 0.03 eV), their detection in the traditional direct detection experiments is almost impossible as these experiments are not sensitive to such a low energy deposition. So, we were thinking of novel ways to detect such DM particles.”
Instead of searching for signals hinting at the scattering of DM particles, as most direct detection efforts have done so far, Ray and his colleagues suggested looking at their annihilation signals. These are signals that occur when DM are annihilated, or in other words when they collide with other particles and are obliterated, releasing energy in the process.
In contrast with scattering signals, annihilation signals are not limited to tiny amounts of kinetic energy, thus they could potentially be easier to look for and detect. As Earth-bound DM particles are theorized to be abundant, the researchers suggested looking for them by searching for signals hinting at their annihilation inside large-volume neutrino detectors, such as Super-Kamiokande. This is a large-scale Čerenkov detector located under Mount Ikeno in Japan, which is being used to study neutrinos originating from the sun, supernovae, the atmosphere and other sources.
“Earth-bound DMs that interact strongly with ordinary baryonic matter are copiously present inside any large volume neutrino detectors, such as Super-Kamiokande,” Ray explained. “If they annihilate inside the Super-Kamiokande fiducial volume, it could induce observable signatures. Super-K can easily search these annihilation products, and from these searches, one could provide unprecedented sensitivity to DM parameters. It is important to stress that, even if these strongly interacting Earth-bound DM particles make up a very fraction of the whole DM density (there is no reason to believe that DM is made up of a single species), our proposed method can provide world-leading sensitivity to the DM parameters.”
The recent work by this team of researchers introduces a new method that could help to probe Earth-bound strongly interacting DM particles, which are theorized to be highly abundant and yet have so far been very difficult to observe. Even if these specific particles only make up a tiny fraction of the present-day DM density, this new method could work remarkably well and could thus contribute to the ongoing search for DM.
“We now want to explore the neutrino signatures from strongly interacting Earth-bound DM,” Ray added. “In this study, we are not sensitive to a relatively heavy DM mass (say DM mass of 10 GeV or more). Because, as the DM gets heavier, they concentrate towards the center of the Earth, and as a consequence, their number density inside Super-Kamiokande volume significantly depleted, resulting in a negligible signal. However, by using the neutrino signal, we are hopeful to probe the heavy DM parameter space.”
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The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN. The Twin Cities campus comprises locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) apart, and the St. Paul location is in neighboring Falcon Heights. The Twin Cities campus is the oldest and largest in The University of Minnesota system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 51,327 students in 2019-20. It is the flagship institution of the University of Minnesota System, and is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units.
The Minnesota Territorial Legislature drafted a charter for The University of Minnesota as a territorial university in 1851, seven years before Minnesota became a state. Today, the university is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. The University of Minnesota is a member of The Association of American Universities and is ranked 17th in research activity, with $954 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year 2018. In 2001, the University of Minnesota was included in a list of Public Ivy universities, which includes publicly funded universities thought to provide a quality of education comparable to that of the Ivy League.
University of Minnesota faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 26 Nobel Prizes and three Pulitzer Prizes. Among its alumni, the university counts 25 Rhodes Scholars, seven Marshall Scholars, 20 Truman Scholars, and 127 Fulbright recipients. The University of Minnesota also has Guggenheim Fellowship, Carnegie Fellowship, and MacArthur Fellowship holders, as well as past and present graduates and faculty belonging to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences , The National Academy of Sciences , The National Academy of Medicine, and The National Academy of Engineering. Notable University of Minnesota alumni include two vice presidents of the United States, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, and Bob Dylan, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers compete in 21 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference and have won 29 national championships. As of 2021, Minnesota’s current and former students have won a total of 76 Olympic medals.
The University of Minnesota was founded in Minneapolis in 1851 as a college preparatory school, seven years prior to Minnesota’s statehood. It struggled in its early years and relied on donations to stay open from donors including South Carolina Governor William Aiken Jr.
In 1867, the university received land grant status through the Morrill Act of 1862.
An 1876 donation from flour miller John S. Pillsbury is generally credited with saving the school. Since then, Pillsbury has become known as “The Father of the University.” Pillsbury Hall is named in his honor.
Academics
The university is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units:
Center for Allied Health Programs
College of Biological Sciences
College of Continuing and Professional Studies
School of Dentistry
College of Design
College of Education and Human Development
College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
Graduate School
Law School
College of Liberal Arts
Carlson School of Management
Medical School
School of Nursing
College of Pharmacy
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
School of Public Health
College of Science and Engineering
College of Veterinary Medicine
Institutes and centers
Six university-wide interdisciplinary centers and institutes work across collegiate lines:
Center for Cognitive Sciences
Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences
Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota
Institute for Translational Neuroscience
Institute on the Environment
Minnesota Population Center
In 2021, the University of Minnesota was ranked as 40th best university in the world by The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which assesses academic and research performance. The same 2021 ranking by subject placed The University of Minnesota’s ecology program as 2nd best in the world, its management program as 10th best, its biotechnology program as 11th best, mechanical engineering and medical technology programs as 14th best, law and psychology programs as 19th best, and veterinary sciences program as 20th best. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2021-22 ranked Minnesota 46th in the world and 26th in the United States. The 2021 Nature Index, which assesses the institutions that dominate high quality research output, ranked Minnesota 53rd in the world based on research publication data from 2020. U.S. News and World Report ranked Minnesota as the 47th best global university for 2021. The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Minnesota 86th worldwide, based primarily on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
In 2021, The University of Minnesota was ranked as the 24th best university in the United States by The Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 20th in the United States in Washington Monthly’s 2021 National University Rankings. The University of Minnesota’s undergraduate program was ranked 68th among national universities by U.S. News and World Report for 2022, and 26th in the nation among public colleges and universities. The same publication ranked The University of Minnesota’s graduate Carlson School of Management as 28th in the nation among business schools, and 6th in the nation for its information systems graduate program. Other graduate schools ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report for 2022 include The University of Minnesota Law School at 22nd, The University of Minnesota Medical School, which was 4th for family medicine and 5th for primary care, The University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, which ranked 3rd, The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which ranked 9th, The University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, which ranked 10th for education psychology and special education, and The University of Minnesota School of Public Health, which ranked 10th.
In 2019, The Center for Measuring University Performance ranked The University of Minnesota 16th in the nation in terms of total research, 29th in endowment assets, 22nd in annual giving, 28th in the number of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine memberships, 18th in its number of faculty awards, and 14th in its number of National Merit Scholars. Minnesota is listed as a “Public Ivy” in 2001 Greenes’ Guides The Public Ivies: America’s Flagship Public Universities.
Media
The Minnesota Daily has been published twice a week during the normal school season since the fall semester 2016. It is printed weekly during the summer. The Daily is operated by an autonomous organization run entirely by students. It was first published on May 1, 1900. Besides everyday news coverage, the paper has also published special issues, such as the Grapevine Awards, Ski-U-Mah, the Bar & Beer Guide, Sex-U-Mah, and others.
A long-defunct but fondly remembered humor magazine, Ski-U-Mah, was published from about 1930 to 1950. It launched the career of novelist and scriptwriter Max Shulman.
A relative newcomer to the university’s print media community is The Wake Student Magazine, a weekly that covers UMN-related stories and provides a forum for student expression. It was founded in November 2001 in an effort to diversify campus media and achieved student group status in February 2002. Students from many disciplines do all of the reporting, writing, editing, illustration, photography, layout, and business management for the publication. The magazine was founded by James DeLong and Chris Ruen. The Wake was named the nation’s best campus publication (2006) by The Independent Press Association.
Additionally, The Wake publishes Liminal, a literary journal begun in 2005. Liminal was created in the absence of an undergraduate literary journal and continues to bring poetry and prose to the university community.
The Wake has faced a number of challenges during its existence, due in part to the reliance on student fees funding. In April 2004, after the Student Services Fees Committee had initially declined to fund it, the needed $60,000 in funding was restored, allowing the magazine to continue publishing. It faced further challenges in 2005, when its request for additional funding to publish weekly was denied and then partially restored.
In 2005 conservatives on campus began formulating a new monthly magazine named The Minnesota Republic. The first issue was released in February 2006, and funding by student service fees started in September 2006.
Radio
The campus radio station, KUOM “Radio K,” broadcasts an eclectic variety of independent music during the day on 770 kHz AM. Its 5,000-watt signal has a range of 80 miles (130 km), but shuts down at dusk because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. In 2003, the station added a low-power (8-watt) signal on 106.5 MHz FM overnight and on weekends. In 2005, a 10-watt translator began broadcasting from Falcon Heights on 100.7 FM at all times. Radio K also streams its content at http://www.radiok.org. With roots in experimental transmissions that began before World War I, the station received the first AM broadcast license in the state on January 13, 1922, and began broadcasting as WLB, changing to the KUOM call sign about two decades later. The station had an educational format until 1993, when it merged with a smaller campus-only music station to become what is now known as Radio K. A small group of full-time employees are joined by over 20 part-time student employees who oversee the station. Most of the on-air talent consists of student volunteers.
Television
Some television programs made on campus have been broadcast on local PBS station KTCI channel 17. Several episodes of Great Conversations have been made since 2002, featuring one-on-one discussions between University faculty and experts brought in from around the world. Tech Talk was a show meant to help people who feel intimidated by modern technology, including cellular phones and computers.
Leland and Jane Stanford founded Stanford University to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened its doors in 1891, and more than a century later, it remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great challenges of the day and to preparing our students for leadership in today’s complex world. Stanford, is an American private research university located in Stanford, California on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus near Palo Alto. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, including 19 current faculty members.
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university located in Stanford, California. Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Stanford is consistently ranked as among the most prestigious and top universities in the world by major education publications. It is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.
Leland Stanford was a U.S. senator and former governor of California who made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates’ entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley.
The university is organized around seven schools: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. All schools are on the same campus. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. It has gained 126 NCAA team championships, and Stanford has won the NACDA Directors’ Cup for 24 consecutive years, beginning in 1994–1995. In addition, Stanford students and alumni have won 270 Olympic medals including 139 gold medals.
As of October 2020, 84 Nobel laureates, 28 Turing Award laureates, and eight Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, faculty, or staff. In addition, Stanford is particularly noted for its entrepreneurship and is one of the most successful universities in attracting funding for start-ups. Stanford alumni have founded numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, roughly equivalent to the 7th largest economy in the world (as of 2020). Stanford is the alma mater of one president of the United States (Herbert Hoover), 74 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. It is also one of the leading producers of Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, and members of the United States Congress.
Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford’s previous Palo Alto farm.
Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities, most specifically Cornell University. Stanford opened being called the “Cornell of the West” in 1891 due to faculty being former Cornell affiliates (either professors, alumni, or both) including its first president, David Starr Jordan, and second president, John Casper Branner. Both Cornell and Stanford were among the first to have higher education be accessible, nonsectarian, and open to women as well as to men. Cornell is credited as one of the first American universities to adopt this radical departure from traditional education, and Stanford became an early adopter as well.
Despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I. The Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), established in 1962, performs research in particle physics.
Land
Most of Stanford is on an 8,180-acre (12.8 sq mi; 33.1 km^2) campus, one of the largest in the United States. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula, in the northwest part of the Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley) approximately 37 miles (60 km) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles (30 km) northwest of San Jose. In 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped.
Stanford’s main campus includes a census-designated place within unincorporated Santa Clara County, although some of the university land (such as the Stanford Shopping Center and the Stanford Research Park) is within the city limits of Palo Alto. The campus also includes much land in unincorporated San Mateo County (including the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve), as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park (Stanford Hills neighborhood), Woodside, and Portola Valley.
Non-central campus
Stanford currently operates in various locations outside of its central campus.
On the founding grant:
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a 1,200-acre (490 ha) natural reserve south of the central campus owned by the university and used by wildlife biologists for research.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a facility west of the central campus operated by the university for the Department of Energy. It contains the longest linear particle accelerator in the world, 2 miles (3.2 km) on 426 acres (172 ha) of land. Golf course and a seasonal lake: The university also has its own golf course and a seasonal lake (Lake Lagunita, actually an irrigation reservoir), both home to the vulnerable California tiger salamander. As of 2012 Lake Lagunita was often dry and the university had no plans to artificially fill it.
Off the founding grant:
Hopkins Marine Station, in Pacific Grove, California, is a marine biology research center owned by the university since 1892., in Pacific Grove, California, is a marine biology research center owned by the university since 1892.
Study abroad locations: unlike typical study abroad programs, Stanford itself operates in several locations around the world; thus, each location has Stanford faculty-in-residence and staff in addition to students, creating a “mini-Stanford”.
Redwood City campus for many of the university’s administrative offices located in Redwood City, California, a few miles north of the main campus. In 2005, the university purchased a small, 35-acre (14 ha) campus in Midpoint Technology Park intended for staff offices; development was delayed by The Great Recession. In 2015 the university announced a development plan and the Redwood City campus opened in March 2019.
The Bass Center in Washington, DC provides a base, including housing, for the Stanford in Washington program for undergraduates. It includes a small art gallery open to the public.
China: Stanford Center at Peking University, housed in the Lee Jung Sen Building, is a small center for researchers and students in collaboration with Beijing University [北京大学](CN) (Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University(CN) (KIAA-PKU).
Administration and organization
Stanford is a private, non-profit university that is administered as a corporate trust governed by a privately appointed board of trustees with a maximum membership of 38. Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually.[83] A new trustee is chosen by the current trustees by ballot. The Stanford trustees also oversee the Stanford Research Park, the Stanford Shopping Center, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Medical Center, and many associated medical facilities (including the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital).
The board appoints a president to serve as the chief executive officer of the university, to prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, to manage financial and business affairs, and to appoint nine vice presidents. The provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report. Persis Drell became the 13th provost in February 2017.
As of 2018, the university was organized into seven academic schools. The schools of Humanities and Sciences (27 departments), Engineering (nine departments), and Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (four departments) have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of Law, Medicine, Education and Business have graduate programs only. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators, but most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 55 elected representatives of the faculty.
The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.
Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.
Endowment and donations
The university’s endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $27.7 billion as of August 31, 2019. Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 21.8% of university expenses in the 2019 fiscal year. In the 2018 NACUBO-TIAA survey of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, only Harvard University, the University of Texas System, and Yale University had larger endowments than Stanford.
In 2006, President John L. Hennessy launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised a total of $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale. Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in “Seeking Solutions” to global problems, $1.61 billion for “Educating Leaders” by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for “Foundation of Excellence” aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. The new funding also enabled the construction of a facility for stem cell research; a new campus for the business school; an expansion of the law school; a new Engineering Quad; a new art and art history building; an on-campus concert hall; a new art museum; and a planned expansion of the medical school, among other things. In 2012, the university raised $1.035 billion, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.
Research centers and institutes
DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Stanford Research Institute, a center of innovation to support economic development in the region.
Hoover Institution, a conservative American public policy institution and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, a multidisciplinary design school in cooperation with the Hasso Plattner Institute of University of Potsdam [Universität Potsdam](DE) that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education).
Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, which grew out of and still contains the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project.
John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Center for Ocean Solutions
Together with UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, Stanford is part of the Biohub, a new medical science research center founded in 2016 by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan.
Discoveries and innovation
Natural sciences
Biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Arthur Kornberg synthesized DNA material and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his work at Stanford.
First Transgenic organism – Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer were the first scientists to transplant genes from one living organism to another, a fundamental discovery for genetic engineering. Thousands of products have been developed on the basis of their work, including human growth hormone and hepatitis B vaccine.
Laser – Arthur Leonard Schawlow shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work on lasers.
Nuclear magnetic resonance – Felix Bloch developed new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements, which are the underlying principles of the MRI.
Computer and applied sciences
ARPANET – Stanford Research Institute, formerly part of Stanford but on a separate campus, was the site of one of the four original ARPANET nodes.
Internet—Stanford was the site where the original design of the Internet was undertaken. Vint Cerf led a research group to elaborate the design of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) that he originally co-created with Robert E. Kahn (Bob Kahn) in 1973 and which formed the basis for the architecture of the Internet.
Frequency modulation synthesis – John Chowning of the Music department invented the FM music synthesis algorithm in 1967, and Stanford later licensed it to Yamaha Corporation.
Google – Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford. They were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP). The SDLP’s goal was “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library” and it was funded through the National Science Foundation, among other federal agencies.
Klystron tube – invented by the brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian at Stanford. Their prototype was completed and demonstrated successfully on August 30, 1937. Upon publication in 1939, news of the klystron immediately influenced the work of U.S. and UK researchers working on radar equipment.
RISC – ARPA funded VLSI project of microprocessor design. Stanford and University of California- Berkeley are most associated with the popularization of this concept. The Stanford MIPS would go on to be commercialized as the successful MIPS architecture, while Berkeley RISC gave its name to the entire concept, commercialized as the SPARC. Another success from this era were IBM’s efforts that eventually led to the IBM POWER instruction set architecture, PowerPC, and Power ISA. As these projects matured, a wide variety of similar designs flourished in the late 1980s and especially the early 1990s, representing a major force in the Unix workstation market as well as embedded processors in laser printers, routers and similar products.
SUN workstation – Andy Bechtolsheim designed the SUN workstation for the Stanford University Network communications project as a personal CAD workstation, which led to Sun Microsystems.
Businesses and entrepreneurship
Stanford is one of the most successful universities in creating companies and licensing its inventions to existing companies; it is often held up as a model for technology transfer. Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing is responsible for commercializing university research, intellectual property, and university-developed projects.
The university is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.
Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world.
Some companies closely associated with Stanford and their connections include:
Hewlett-Packard, 1939, co-founders William R. Hewlett (B.S, PhD) and David Packard (M.S).
Silicon Graphics, 1981, co-founders James H. Clark (Associate Professor) and several of his grad students.
Sun Microsystems, 1982, co-founders Vinod Khosla (M.B.A), Andy Bechtolsheim (PhD) and Scott McNealy (M.B.A).
Cisco, 1984, founders Leonard Bosack (M.S) and Sandy Lerner (M.S) who were in charge of Stanford Computer Science and Graduate School of Business computer operations groups respectively when the hardware was developed.[163]
Yahoo!, 1994, co-founders Jerry Yang (B.S, M.S) and David Filo (M.S).
Google, 1998, co-founders Larry Page (M.S) and Sergey Brin (M.S).
LinkedIn, 2002, co-founders Reid Hoffman (B.S), Konstantin Guericke (B.S, M.S), Eric Lee (B.S), and Alan Liu (B.S).
Instagram, 2010, co-founders Kevin Systrom (B.S) and Mike Krieger (B.S).
Snapchat, 2011, co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy (B.S).
Coursera, 2012, co-founders Andrew Ng (Associate Professor) and Daphne Koller (Professor, PhD).
Student body
Stanford enrolled 6,996 undergraduate and 10,253 graduate students as of the 2019–2020 school year. Women comprised 50.4% of undergraduates and 41.5% of graduate students. In the same academic year, the freshman retention rate was 99%.
Stanford awarded 1,819 undergraduate degrees, 2,393 master’s degrees, 770 doctoral degrees, and 3270 professional degrees in the 2018–2019 school year. The four-year graduation rate for the class of 2017 cohort was 72.9%, and the six-year rate was 94.4%. The relatively low four-year graduation rate is a function of the university’s coterminal degree (or “coterm”) program, which allows students to earn a master’s degree as a 1-to-2-year extension of their undergraduate program.
As of 2010, fifteen percent of undergraduates were first-generation students.
Athletics
As of 2016 Stanford had 16 male varsity sports and 20 female varsity sports, 19 club sports and about 27 intramural sports. In 1930, following a unanimous vote by the Executive Committee for the Associated Students, the athletic department adopted the mascot “Indian.” The Indian symbol and name were dropped by President Richard Lyman in 1972, after objections from Native American students and a vote by the student senate. The sports teams are now officially referred to as the “Stanford Cardinal,” referring to the deep red color, not the cardinal bird. Stanford is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in most sports, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in several other sports, and the America East Conference in field hockey with the participation in the inter-collegiate NCAA’s Division I FBS.
Its traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley, the neighbor to the north in the East Bay. The winner of the annual “Big Game” between the Cal and Cardinal football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe.
Stanford has had at least one NCAA team champion every year since the 1976–77 school year and has earned 126 NCAA national team titles since its establishment, the most among universities, and Stanford has won 522 individual national championships, the most by any university. Stanford has won the award for the top-ranked Division 1 athletic program—the NACDA Directors’ Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup—annually for the past twenty-four straight years. Stanford athletes have won medals in every Olympic Games since 1912, winning 270 Olympic medals total, 139 of them gold. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, and 2016 Summer Olympics, Stanford won more Olympic medals than any other university in the United States. Stanford athletes won 16 medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics (12 gold, two silver and two bronze), and 27 medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Traditions
The unofficial motto of Stanford, selected by President Jordan, is Die Luft der Freiheit weht. Translated from the German language, this quotation from Ulrich von Hutten means, “The wind of freedom blows.” The motto was controversial during World War I, when anything in German was suspect; at that time the university disavowed that this motto was official.
Hail, Stanford, Hail! is the Stanford Hymn sometimes sung at ceremonies or adapted by the various University singing groups. It was written in 1892 by mechanical engineering professor Albert W. Smith and his wife, Mary Roberts Smith (in 1896 she earned the first Stanford doctorate in Economics and later became associate professor of Sociology), but was not officially adopted until after a performance on campus in March 1902 by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
“Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman”: Stanford does not award honorary degrees, but in 1953 the degree of “Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman” was created to recognize individuals who give rare and extraordinary service to the University. Technically, this degree is awarded by the Stanford Associates, a voluntary group that is part of the university’s alumni association. As Stanford’s highest honor, it is not conferred at prescribed intervals, but only when appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucile Packard, and John Gardner.
Big Game events: The events in the week leading up to the Big Game vs. UC Berkeley, including Gaieties (a musical written, composed, produced, and performed by the students of Ram’s Head Theatrical Society).
“Viennese Ball”: a formal ball with waltzes that was initially started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed Stanford in Vienna overseas program. It is now open to all students.
“Full Moon on the Quad”: An annual event at Main Quad, where students gather to kiss one another starting at midnight. Typically organized by the Junior class cabinet, the festivities include live entertainment, such as music and dance performances.
“Band Run”: An annual festivity at the beginning of the school year, where the band picks up freshmen from dorms across campus while stopping to perform at each location, culminating in a finale performance at Main Quad.
“Mausoleum Party”: An annual Halloween Party at the Stanford Mausoleum, the final resting place of Leland Stanford Jr. and his parents. A 20-year tradition, the “Mausoleum Party” was on hiatus from 2002 to 2005 due to a lack of funding, but was revived in 2006. In 2008, it was hosted in Old Union rather than at the actual Mausoleum, because rain prohibited generators from being rented. In 2009, after fundraising efforts by the Junior Class Presidents and the ASSU Executive, the event was able to return to the Mausoleum despite facing budget cuts earlier in the year.
Former campus traditions include the “Big Game bonfire” on Lake Lagunita (a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall), which was formally ended in 1997 because of the presence of endangered salamanders in the lake bed.
Award laureates and scholars
Stanford’s current community of scholars includes:
19 Nobel Prize laureates (as of October 2020, 85 affiliates in total)
171 members of the National Academy of Sciences
109 members of National Academy of Engineering
76 members of National Academy of Medicine
288 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
19 recipients of the National Medal of Science
1 recipient of the National Medal of Technology
4 recipients of the National Humanities Medal
49 members of American Philosophical Society
56 fellows of the American Physics Society (since 1995)
4 Pulitzer Prize winners
31 MacArthur Fellows
4 Wolf Foundation Prize winners
2 ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners
14 AAAI fellows
2 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners
The University of California-Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the state’s first land-grant university, it was the first campus of the University of California system and a founding member of the Association of American Universities . Its 14 colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students. Berkeley is ranked among the world’s top universities by major educational publications.
Berkeley hosts many leading research institutes, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Space Sciences Laboratory. It founded and maintains close relationships with three national laboratories at The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and The DOE’s Los Alamos National Lab, and has played a prominent role in many scientific advances, from the Manhattan Project and the discovery of 16 chemical elements to breakthroughs in computer science and genomics. Berkeley is also known for student activism and the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.
Berkeley alumni and faculty count among their ranks 110 Nobel laureates (34 alumni), 25 Turing Award winners (11 alumni), 14 Fields Medalists, 28 Wolf Prize winners, 103 MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipients, 30 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 19 Academy Award winners. The university has produced seven heads of state or government; five chief justices, including Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren; 21 cabinet-level officials; 11 governors; and 25 living billionaires. It is also a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars, MacArthur Fellows, and Marshall Scholars. Berzerkeley alumni, widely recognized for their entrepreneurship, have founded many notable companies.
Berkeley’s athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA, primarily in the Pac-12 Conference, and are collectively known as the California Golden Bears. The university’s teams have won 107 national championships, and its students and alumni have won 207 Olympic medals.
Made possible by President Lincoln’s signing of the Morrill Act in 1862, the University of California was founded in 1868 as the state’s first land-grant university by inheriting certain assets and objectives of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. Although this process is often incorrectly mistaken for a merger, the Organic Act created a “completely new institution” and did not actually merge the two precursor entities into the new university. The Organic Act states that the “University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and professional pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions”.
Ten faculty members and 40 students made up the fledgling university when it opened in Oakland in 1869. Frederick H. Billings, a trustee of the College of California, suggested that a new campus site north of Oakland be named in honor of Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley. The university began admitting women the following year. In 1870, Henry Durant, founder of the College of California, became its first president. With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students.
Beginning in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, funding a number of programs and new buildings and sponsoring, in 1898, an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect Émile Bénard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan.
20th century
In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California-Davis. In 1919, Los Angeles State Normal School became the southern branch of the University, which ultimately became the University of California-Los Angeles. By 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard.
In 1917, one of the nation’s first ROTC programs was established at Berkeley and its School of Military Aeronautics began training pilots, including Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Berkeley ROTC alumni include former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Army Chief of Staff Frederick C. Weyand as well as 16 other generals. In 1926, future fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first Naval ROTC unit at Berkeley.
In the 1930s, Ernest Lawrence helped establish the Radiation Laboratory (now DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and invented the cyclotron, which won him the Nobel physics prize in 1939. Using the cyclotron, Berkeley professors and Berkeley Lab researchers went on to discover 16 chemical elements—more than any other university in the world. In particular, during World War II and following Glenn Seaborg’s then-secret discovery of plutonium, Ernest Orlando Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley founded and was then a partner in managing two other labs, The Doe’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and The DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).
By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.
In 1952, the University of California reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus given its own chancellor, and Clark Kerr became Berkeley’s first Chancellor, while Sproul remained in place as the President of the University of California.
Berkeley gained a worldwide reputation for political activism in the 1960s. In 1964, the Free Speech Movement organized student resistance to the university’s restrictions on political activities on campus—most conspicuously, student activities related to the Civil Rights Movement. The arrest in Sproul Plaza of Jack Weinberg, a recent Berkeley alumnus and chair of Campus CORE, in October 1964, prompted a series of student-led acts of formal remonstrance and civil disobedience that ultimately gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, which movement would prevail and serve as precedent for student opposition to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 1982, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was established on campus with support from the National Science Foundation and at the request of three Berzerkeley mathematicians — Shiing-Shen Chern, Calvin Moore and Isadore M. Singer. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year.
21st century
In the current century, Berkeley has become less politically active and more focused on entrepreneurship and fundraising, especially for STEM disciplines.
Modern Berkeley students are less politically radical, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives than in the 1960s and 70s. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 9:1. On the whole, Democrats outnumber Republicans on American university campuses by a ratio of 10:1.
In 2007, the Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from BP and Stanley Hall, a research facility and headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, opened. The next few years saw the dedication of the Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, funded by a lead gift from billionaire Li Ka-shing; the opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society; and the unveiling of Blum Hall, housing the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Supported by a grant from alumnus James Simons, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing was established in 2012. In 2014, Berkeley and its sister campus, University of California-San Fransisco, established the Innovative Genomics Institute, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science.
Since 2000, Berkeley alumni and faculty have received 40 Nobel Prizes, behind only Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology among US universities; five Turing Awards, behind only MIT and Stanford University; and five Fields Medals, second only to Princeton University. According to PitchBook, Berkeley ranks second, just behind Stanford University, in producing VC-backed entrepreneurs.
Triumf Campus
World Class Science at Triumf Lab (CA), British Columbia, Canada, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics Member Universities:University of Alberta (CA), University of British Columbia (CA), Carleton University (CA), University of Guelph (CA), University of Manitoba (CA), The University of Montréal [Université de Montréal](CA)Simon Fraser University (CA), Queen’s University (CA), University of Toronto(CA), University of Victoria (CA), York University (CA). Not too shabby, eh?
Associate Members:
University of Calgary (CA), McMaster University (CA), University of Northern British Columbia (CA), University of Regina (CA), Saint Mary’s University (CA), University of Winnipeg (CA)
TRIUMF is organized into four divisions that focus on varying aspects of research and operations:
• The Accelerator Division, responsible for the operation, maintenance, and upgrades required for all of the 520 MeV Cyclotron, ISAC, and TR-13 facilities. It is also responsible for the design, construction and commissioning of future on-site accelerators, and provides support for external accelerator projects.
• The Engineering Division, responsible for the engineering, design and fabrication of mechanical, structural and electronic components, and for electrical and mechanical services and site maintenance.
• The Physical Sciences Division, responsible for scheduling experiments approved by the Experimental Evaluation Committee (EEC), and for the design, installation, operation and maintenance of components, systems and subsystems for all experimental operations at the site. It is also responsible for the coordination of infrastructure support for external programs.
• The Life Sciences Division, responsible for the support of projects approved by the Life Science Projects Evaluation Committee (LSPEC), and provides support for collaborations with the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre (PPRC), BC Cancer Agency (BCCA), Nordion and other university faculties relying on radio-tracers from TRIUMF for their research. It is also responsible for the design, installation, operation and maintenance of components, systems and subsystems for the radioisotope production and processing facilities for tracers to be used in research projects both at TRIUMF and other laboratories. TRIUMF’s nuclear medicine department is part of this division.
As TRIUMF has selectively applied its expertise to other areas of research, and to the generation of entrepreneurial opportunities, its core program of nuclear, particle and accelerator physics has expanded to cover key areas in life, molecular and materials sciences.
Main cyclotron and proton beam lines
At the heart of TRIUMF is the 520 MeV cyclotron that produces the primary proton beams. A large fraction of the TRIUMF program relies on these beams, including the ISAC, the Centre for Molecular and Materials Science programs in μSR and β-NMR, and the Proton Treatment Facility. The operation of the main cyclotron has enabled TRIUMF to acquire the expertise to operate the three medical cyclotrons for Nordion and the TR-13 medical cyclotron used to produce medical isotopes, and assist companies to exploit commercial opportunities for the sale of cyclotron and other accelerator technologies.
The 520 MeV cyclotron
TRIUMF produces negatively charged hydrogen ions (H−: 1 proton, 2 electrons) from an ion source. The ions are transported through an evacuated electrostatic beam line containing elements to focus and steer the beam over 60m to the cyclotron. The 520 MeV (million electron volts) variable energy cyclotron accelerates these ions with a high frequency alternating electric field and uses a massive six-sector magnet to confine the beam in an outward spiral trajectory. Inserting a very thin graphite extraction foil strips, or removes, the electrons from the H− ion while allowing the proton to pass through. The proton, because it is a positively charged particle, is deflected in the outward direction due to the magnetic field and is directed to a proton beam line.
The accelerating process takes approximately 0.3 ms before the proton achieves three-quarters the speed of light. The success of TRIUMF’s programs depends on the ability to deliver protons from the cyclotron reliably. Typically, the cyclotron, although over 35 years old, averages an up-time of greater than 90% (2000–2007), with the 15-year average just under 90%. Typically the beam is delivered for about 5,000 hours per year with one major (three month) and one minor (one month) maintenance periods. The cyclotron beam properties and capabilities have improved over the years as a result of systems upgrades and the fundamental infrastructure providing the magnetic and electrical fields and the RF resonators as well as the vacuum vessel will serve TRIUMF for many more years.
The Four Proton Beamlines
TRIUMF has four independent extraction probes with various sizes of foils to provide protons simultaneously to up to four beam lines. Because of the high energy of the proton beam, these beamlines use magnetic rather than electrostatic focusing and steering elements.
Beamline 1A (BL1A)
can deliver 180 to 500 MeV protons to two target systems. The beam power ranges from 50 to 75 kW. The first target, T1, services three experimental channels. The second target, T2, services two μSR experimental channels. Downstream of T2 is a 500 MeV facility used to produce strontium isotopes for medical-imaging generators as well as the Thermal Neutron Facility (TNF).
Beamline 1B
separates off BL1 at the edge of the cyclotron vault and provides international users with the Proton Irradiation Facility (PIF) that is used for radiation testing of electronic circuits, for example, mimicking space radiation for testing computer chips.
Beamline 1U (BL1U)
shares the proton beam with beamline 1A and is designed to divert up to 20 kW of its beam power onto a spallation source for ultracold neutrons, which can be used to study fundamental properties of the neutron.
Beamline 2A (BL2A)
capable of providing 475 to 500 MeV proton beams at up to 50 kW to the ISAC target facility that produces rare-isotope ion beams for a host of Canadian and international experiments.
Beamline 2C (BL2C)
used for the Proton Therapy Program to treat choroidal melanomas (eye tumours) and proton irradiation to produce strontium isotopes, which are chemically processed and then used for medical imaging generators. This beam line also has the flexibility to provide protons of lower energy for PIF users. The energy range for this line is 70 to 120 MeV.
Beamline 4 North (BL4N)
A new 500 MeV beamline used for the proposed expansion of ISAC with a specialized actinide target.
ISAC and ARIEL facilities for rare-isotope beams
The ISAC and ARIEL facilities produces and uses heavy ion beams to produce short-lived isotopes for study. Proton beam from the main accelerator is used as a driver beam at ISAC via beamline BL2A and one of the two ARIEL target stations via beamline BL4N (under construction) to produce beams of exotic isotopes which are further accelerated using linear accelerators. The second target station at ARIEL uses an electron beam from the TRIUMF elinac as a driver beam. Several experiments study the properties and structure of these exotic isotopes along with their nucleosynthesis. Between ISAC-I and ISAC-II, many experiments can be completed.
ISAC-I facility
In the ISAC-I facility, 500 MeV protons at up to 100 μA can be steered onto one of two production targets to produce radioactive isotopes. The isotopes pass through a heated tube to a source where they are ionized, accelerated off the source’s high-voltage platform at up to 60 kV and sent through a mass separator to select the ion beam of choice. The beam is transported in the low-energy beam transport (LEBT) electrostatic beam line and sent via a switch-yard to either the low-energy experimental area or to a series of room-temperature accelerating structures to the ISAC-I medium-energy experimental area. Experiments at ISAC-I include:
8π spectrometer
A microscope used to examine the behaviour of atomic nuclear produced, which are collected at the centre of 8pi where they undergo radioactive decay. The main component of the 8π spectrometer are the Hyper-pure Germanium detectors used to observe gamma rays emitted from excited states of daughter nuclei.
DRAGON
The Detector of Recoils And Gammas Of Nuclear Reactions (DRAGON) is an apparatus designed to measure the rates of nuclear reactions important in astrophysics, particularly nucleosynthesis reactions which occur in the explosives environments of nova, supernova, and x-ray bursters.
Laser spectroscopy
The Collinear Fast-Beam Laser Spectroscopy (CFBS) experiment at TRIUMF is designed to exploit the high beam-intensity and radioisotope-production capability of TRIUMF’s ISAC facility, as well as modern ion-trap beam-cooling techniques, in order to measure the hyperfine energy levels and isotope shifts of short-lived isotopes using laser spectroscopy.
TITAN
TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear Science (TITAN) measures the mass of short-lived isotopes with high precision. Radioactive isotopes from ISAC are sent to TITAN to undergo cooling, charge-breeding and trapping. The entire process occurs in about 10 milliseconds, allowing radioactive isotopes with short half lives to be studied.
TRINAT
TRINAT, TRIUMF’s Neutral Atom Trap, holds a cluster of neutral atoms suspended in a very small space, in high vacuum, allowing for the study of decay products of radioactive atoms.
ISAC-II facility
The rare-isotope beams produced in the ISAC-II facility are transported in the low-energy beam transport (LEBT) electrostatic beam line and sent via a switch-yard to either the low-energy experimental area or to a series of room-temperature accelerating structures in the ISAC-I medium-energy experimental area. For high-energy delivery, the drift tube linac (DTL) beam is deflected north along an S-bend transfer line to the ISAC-II superconducting linear accelerator (SC-linac) for acceleration above the Coulomb barrier (5–11 MeV/u). TRIUMF began developing superconducting accelerator technology in 2001 and is now a leader in the field with a demonstrated accelerating gradient (at low beta) significantly above other operating facilities. Experiments at ISAC-II include:
EMMA
The ElectroMagnetic Mass Analyzer (EMMA) (completion date 2016) is a recoil mass spectrometer for TRIUMF’s ISAC-II facility. ISAC-II will provide intense beams of radioactive ions with masses up to 150 atomic mass units to international scientists studying nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. The energies of these beams will depend on the specific nuclei being accelerated, but typical top speeds will range from 10–20% of the speed of light.
HERACLES
Formerly known as the Chalk River/Laval array, HERACLES consists of 150 scintillators detectors covering almost 4-pi. It was used in over a dozen of experiments in the last ten years for multi-fragmentation studies at intermediate energies (10 to 100 MeV/A).
TIGRESS
The TRIUMF-ISAC Gamma-Ray Escape Suppressed Spectrometer (TIGRESS) is a state-of-the art new gamma-ray spectrometer designed for a broad program of nuclear physics research with the accelerated radioactive ion beams provided by the ISAC-II superconducting linear accelerator.
ISAC-I/II
The experiments listed below utilize both facilities.
TUDA
A general purpose facility for studying nuclear reactions of astrophysical significance with solid state detectors.
TACTIC
An ionization chamber with full track reconstruction capabilities for studying reactions of astrophysical importance.
DSL
TRIUMF’s Doppler Shift Lifetimes facility, which is an experimental setup for the measurement of the lifetimes of excited states of nuclei.
ATLAS Canadian Tier-1 Data Centre
The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN uses proton-proton collisions at the highest energy ever achieved in the laboratory to look for the Higgs Boson, the particle central to the current model of how subatomic particles attain mass. ATLAS will also search for phenomena “beyond the standard model” of particle physics such as supersymmetry, extra dimensions, and quark compositeness. The ATLAS detector will observe the particles emerging from the roughly 900 million proton-proton collisions per second and, although fast electronics will filter the events so that only those most likely to be of interest will be recorded, ATLAS will produce 3.5–5.0 petabytes of data per year (one petabyte is one million gigabytes). In addition, secondary data sets will be produced that could double the amount of data produced.
In order to analyze this enormous amount of information, CERN is coordinating an international network of large high-performance computing centres that are linked by grid computing tools so that they act as one huge system. This network is called the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG). The Canadian Tier-1 Data Centre, located at TRIUMF, works with nine of the other ATLAS Tier-1 centres in the world to process the raw data produced by the experiment. In addition, Tier-2 centres located in universities, both in Canada and abroad, are used to further process the results of the Tier-1 analysis and extract groundbreaking physics results from the data. The Tier-2 centres will also be the primary sites for computer simulations of ATLAS, which is an integral part of the data analysis.
Centre for Molecular and Materials Science
TRIUMF uses subatomic particles as probes of materials structure at the Centre for Molecular and Materials Science (CMMS). The chief techniques are μSR and β-NMR.
μSR
TRIUMF utilizes a technique called μSR, a powerful probe into materials like semiconductors, magnets and superconductors. Beams of positive muons are created with their spins lined up in the same direction. When these beams are shot into a material, the muons’ spins precess (wobble like a top) around the local magnetic fields in the material. The unstable muons soon decay into positrons; since these antielectrons tend to be emitted in the direction of the muons’ spin, μSR scientists can examine how the internal magnetic fields of different materials have affected the muons’ spins by observing the directions in which the positrons are emitted.
β-NMR
β detected NMR is an exotic form of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in which the nuclear spin precession signal is detected through the beta decay of a radioactive nucleus. The central question to be studied is how the local electronic and magnetic properties near an interface or surface of new materials (e.g.,. a high Tc superconductor) differ from those of the bulk.
Detector development
TRIUMF uses its expertise gained from the development of detectors for particle and nuclear physics, in collaboration with Canadian universities, to support advanced detector development, including for molecular and materials sciences and nuclear medicine. TRIUMF’s Science and Technology Department designs and constructs complete detector systems including mechanics, services, front end electronics, digital signal processing and data acquisition.
Nuclear medicine laboratories
The core of the TRIUMF nuclear medicine program is Positron Emission Tomography or PET imaging, a technique whereby tiny amounts of radioactive nuclei known as radioisotopes are combined with certain bio-molecules and injected into the body. The biomolecules can be “traced” by imaging the decay products (two photons produced by the decay of the radioactive nucleus via the emission of a positron) outside the body. PET allows the concentration of positron-labeled compounds to be determined quantitatively in space and time within the living body. PET is more sensitive than any other human imaging method, such as MRI or CT, especially for the detection of cancer.
The PET program facilities at TRIUMF include cyclotron systems for the production of radioisotopes, chemistry labs for the synthesis of radiopharmaceuticals and quality control labs. TRIUMF currently uses the TR-13 medical cyclotron and target systems for the production of 18F, 11C, and 13N. Radiopharmaceutical production facilities include the small modular clean room at the cyclotron for the synthesis of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). for BCCA as well as three chemistry annex labs for production and development of radiopharmaceuticals used in brain research and other programs at UBC.
Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre (PPRC) is a joint TRIUMF/UBC program studying central nervous system disorders. Approximately 80% of the studies are related to Parkinson’s disease, and the remainder are related to mood disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. The program has explored the origins, progression, and therapies of the disease as well as the complications arising from therapy using molecular imaging as the primary tool.
The Functional Imaging Program at the BCCA is a collaboration among the agency, TRIUMF, UBC, and the BC Children’s Hospital. Capital acquired through the BC Provincial Health Services Authority Emerging Technologies Fund allowed purchase of the province’s first hybrid PET/CT scanner in 2004. The clinical PET/CT program, located at BCCA’s Vancouver Centre, was enabled by TRIUMF supplying 18F, the positron emitting radionuclide used in production of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). FDG, as a marker of glucose metabolism, is the tracer used in oncologic PET imaging, a diagnostic study which has become a standard of care in the management of many cancer types.
Proton and neutron irradiation facilities
Beginning in 1995, TRIUMF has built up several beamlines that provide low-intensity, energetic proton and neutron beams to simulate radiation exposures either in space or terrestrial environments. Even at low intensity, several minutes of exposure in these beams can correspond to years of operation in space, air, or ground so that accelerated testing of electronics can be carried out.
These TRIUMF facilities, PIF & NIF, have since become recognized as premier test sites for space-radiation effects using protons and, with the capability of using these protons to produce a neutron-energy spectrum similar to that found at aircraft altitudes and at ground level, testing with neutrons is also possible. A large fraction of the proton users are Canadian space-related companies such as MDA Corporation, while neutron use is primarily by international companies for avionics, microelectronics and communications equipment, such as The Boeing Company or Cisco Systems, Inc.
Additionally, one of the beamlines was used for the cancer treatment of ocular melanoma at the Proton Therapy Centre which was operated in conjunction with the BC Cancer Agency and the UBC Department of Ophthalmology. Before proton treatment became available, the most common course of action was removal of the eye. Other possible treatments included surgical removal of the tumour (which has severe limitations), or implanting a radioactive disk on the wall of the eye under the tumour for some days. These alternatives were unsuitable for large tumours, and could damage sensitive parts of the eye, often resulting in loss of vision. After proton therapy, however, patients can retain useful vision. The protons enter the eye at a carefully controlled energy, and come to rest at a precise, predictable distance inside. They deposit their energy of motion (kinetic energy) in a very narrow layer, destroying living cells in that layer. Because the beam of protons is so concentrated and deposits its energy so predictably, we can successfully destroy a tumour while better preserving the other nearby parts of the eye. The proton therapy program at TRIUMF was discontinued in 2019.
External scientific collaborations
TRIUMF is also involved in the development and construction of detectors and equipment for larger particle physics experiments located all over the world.
ALPHA
The international ALPHA Collaboration, focused on trapping antihydrogen with experiments based at CERN, includes members from TRIUMF. The ALPHA-Canada team, led by TRIUMF research scientist Dr. Makoto C. Fujiwara, was recognized with the 2013 NSERC John C. Polanyi Award for their work with the ALPHA team at CERN in understanding antimatter. The Canadian team included over a dozen scientists and students working in plasma, atomic, condensed matter, particle, detector, and accelerator physics, from the University of British Columbia (CA), Simon Fraser University (CA), the University of Calgary (CA), York University (CA), and TRIUMF.
KEK
TRIUMF has a longstanding collaborative relationship with Japan’s KEK, which was further enhanced in December, 2015 when it was announced that each organization would be establishing branch offices at the other’s respective institution to facilitate the advancement of their physics research activities.
Large Hadron Collider
TRIUMF accelerator physicists, engineers, and technical personnel have unique expertise for the design and construction of critical parts of the accelerator, such as assembling the liquid argon end cap calorimeters for the ATLAS detector. As well, TRIUMF was involved in the construction and procurement of several magnets and power supplies for the LHC itself. The resulting accelerator contributions were a necessary part of the Canadian investment in the project. TRIUMF is also home to the ATLAS-Canada Tier-1 Data Centre, funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CA). This centre will pre-process the raw data from the experiment prior to analysis by Canadian and foreign researchers. It will also provide domestic detector experts access to raw data for detailed calibration and monitoring.
SNO
TRIUMF first became actively involved in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (CA) when the project needed engineering help. TRIUMF’s Design Office and Machine Shop built key components of the detector. Moreover, TRIUMF scientists were involved in the project which was honored with the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 2016 Fundamental Physics Prize for the discovery of neutrino oscillation.
SNOLAB
TRIUMF is involved with a number of projects at SNOLAB (CA). Notable examples include the Helium and Lead Observatory (HALO) supernova neutrino detector which is part of the SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS) and Dark Matter Experiment using Argon Pulse-shape discrimination (DEAP) the most sensitive weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) detector to date.
T2K
TRIUMF is part of the T2K (Tokai-to-Kamioka) neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan. TRIUMF is involved in constructing a time projection chamber and fine-grained detectors composed of plastic scintillators for the T2K near detector, to measure the properties of the neutrino beam at its production site in Tokai before it travels 295 km to Kamioka, over which distance neutrino oscillations are expected to take place.
TRIUMF Users’ Group
The TRIUMF Users Group (TUG) is an international community of scientists and engineers with a special interest in the use of the TRIUMF facility. Its purpose is:
• to provide a formal means for exchange of information relating to the development and use of the facility;
• to advise members of the entire TRIUMF organization of projects and facilities available;
• to provide an entity responsive to the representations of its members for offering advice and counsel to the TRIUMF management on operating policy and facilities.
Any qualified scientist can join the users group. The group’s interests are looked after by an elected committee (TRIUMF Users’ Executive Committee or TUEC). Part of TUEC’s responsibilities is to organize meetings on behalf of the membership were necessary. At least one meeting, the annual general meeting (AGM), is held each year near the beginning of December. A link to the TUG website is listed in the external links below.
sciencesprings 