The US government’s pockets for nuclear physics have holes in them, requiring a hard look at what can—and can’t—go ahead under new funding constraints. A panel charged with that tough task has until 7 January 2013 to formulate recommendations for the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), a body that advises the Department of Energy and NSF.
At least one of the country’s three major nuclear physics facilities faces closure. The options would be to shut down either the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory or the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or to postpone construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University. “And if you postpone FRIB, you probably don’t build it,” says panel chair Robert Tribble of Texas A&M University.
The financial squeeze comes at what NSAC chair Donald Geesaman calls an “incredibly exciting time”...
