The Division of Nuclear Physics has experienced strong membership growth over the past few years. Between 2010 and 2014, the number of members was fairly constant, between 210 and 220. Since then, membership has grown steadily to about 340, an increase of nearly 60% in two years. This increase is entirely due to the recruitment of new student members, underlining the vitality of a field that has a long, distinguished history in Canada, with world-renowned facilities such as Chalk River, TRIUMF, and SNOLAB.
The 2016-17 DNP thesis award competition received a historically strong total of six submissions. The winner will be invited to present a talk at the 2018 Congress in Halifax. We are currently planning for at least 13 sessions with DNP involvement during Congress. Modern nuclear physics has close ties to particle and atomic/optical physics and a strong theory component. Not surprisingly, eight of these sessions are jointly sponsored with the Division of Theoretical Physics, the Particle Physics Division, and the newly merged Division of Applied Physics and Instrumentation. This program is headlined with a plenary talk by Nobel Prize winner Eric Cornell, reporting on his group’s exciting search for a time-reversal-violating, permanent electric dipole moment in a trapped molecular ion. We are looking forward to an outstanding DNP program at this year’s Congress.
Another important area of activity for the DNP is the sponsorship of conferences, in particular student participation. For the Winter Nuclear and Particle Physics Conference (WNPPC) in Banff in February 2017 and the upcoming WNPPC 2018 at Mont Tremblant, we contributed $250 for student prizes. We also sponsor annual student presentation prizes at the CAP Congress (1st and 2nd prize for talks, and one poster prize).
In June 2017, the current DNP executive was put in place: Gerald Gwinner (U Manitoba) chair, Corina Andreoiu (Simon Fraser) chair-elect, Barry Davids (TRIUMF) treasurer, Reiner Kruecken (TRIUMF) past-chair. Corina will take over as DNP Chair at the 2019 CAP Congress.
Dr. Gerald Gwinner, University of Manitoba
Chair, CAP Division of Nuclear Physics