International Nuclear Physics Conference 2010 (INPC2010)

The International Nuclear Physics Conference 2010 (INPC 2010) was held from 4–9 July in Vancouver, Canada, hosted by TRIUMF, the Canadian National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. The INPC is the main conference in the field of nuclear physics, endorsed and supported by IUPAP (International Union for Pure and Applied Physics) and held every three years. This year's conference was the 25th in the series and attracted over 750 delegates (150 graduate students) from 43 countries. The conference's hallmark is its breadth in nuclear physics; topics included structure, reactions, astrophysics, hadronic structure, hadrons in nuclei, hot and dense QCD, new accelerators and underground nuclear physics facilities, neutrinos and nuclei, and applications and interdisciplinary research. The conference started with a public lecture 'An Atom from Vancouver' by L Krauss (Arizona), who gave a broad perspective on how nuclear physics is key to a deeper understanding of how the Universe was formed and the birth, life, and death of stars. The conference opened its scientific plenary program with a talk by P Braun-Munzinger (GSI/EMMI Darmstadt) who highlighted the progress that has been made since the last conference in Tokyo 2007. The presentation showcased theoretical and experimental examples from around the world. All topics were well represented by plenary sessions and well attended afternoon parallel sessions where over 250 invited and contributed talks were presented, in addition to over 380 poster presentations. The poster sessions were among the liveliest, with high participation and animated discussions from graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Many opportunities were found to connect to fellow nuclear physicists across the globe and, particularly for conferences like the INPC which span an entire field, many unexpected links exist, often leading to new discussions or collaborations. Among the scientific highlights were the presentations in the fields of Hot and Dense QCD reporting on experimental and theoretical progress at the RHIC facility. The Nuclear Reactions session provided highlights from the many new and exciting facilities including the RIKEN RIBF in Japan, and an outlook of what we can expect from FAIR (Germany) and FRIB (USA). The quest towards the 'Island of Stability' for the Superheavy Element community is still on, and new progress was reported with the identification of element 114. Impressive progress in the theoretical sector, in particular with ab-initio approaches, was presented as well. Applications of these methods and progress in the nucleon–nucleon interactions were presented in the Nuclear Structure session, where 3-body forces interactions are now considered state of the art. Predictions of such calculations can then be tested by experiments, as presented, for example, for ground state properties of exotic nuclei with laser experiments and ion trap measurements. In-beam or in-flight experiments pave the way to even more exotic isotopes where new magic numbers for the nuclear shell model are appearing. This will also prove relevant for Nuclear Astrophysics, where significant progress was achieved experimentally with new direct capture reaction measurements with rare beams and background suppressed facilities located in underground laboratories. Neutron star research and new modeling results of core-collapse supernovae were presented, which clearly indicated the need for neutrino interactions. Neutrinos also played a large role in other sessions such as the New Facilities and Instrumentation session where, among other new exciting projects, the deep underground facilities were presented. The first beam results from long-baseline oscillation experiments showed progress in this field, and double-beta decay experiments are nearing their first possible results, something that the community of nuclear physicists, but also others, are keenly waiting for. The Standard Model Tests and Fundamental Symmetries session is always one of the conference highlights. There, progress on Standard Model tests employing atomic nuclei or nuclear physics methods – which are used to probe complimentary sectors to large particle physics experiments, for example atomic and neutron EDM experiments – is reported. Recent progress was reported in the sector of nuclear beta decay as related to the testing of the CKM unitarity matrix, as well as the W-mass and the Weak Mixing Angle. The muon anomalous magnetic moment and its sensitivity for probing new physics and future experimental improvements are anticipated and showcase the activity in the field. The large oral and poster presentation program was extended to include special presentations by the IUPAP young scientist award winners. This prize is given out in the field of nuclear physics every three years during the INPC conference, and this year's winners were: Kenji Fukushima (Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University), Peter Mueller (Argonne National Laboratory), and Lijuan Ruan (Brookhaven National Laboratory). These three scientists represent future excellence in nuclear physics in the fields of theoretical QCD, experimental techniques related to quark gluon plasma, and precision experiments in low energy nuclear halo physics. One keenly anticipated presentation, 'The Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen experiment', presented the results of the measurement of the proton rms charge radius. These results claimed a 5 sigma deviation from the established CODATA-value and in the future more tests will be needed to verify these findings. INPC 2010 made a special effort to attract many graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to the conference. This was achieved by a number of efforts, for example, TRIUMF combined its traditional summer school with the US National Science Foundation summer school for nuclear physics, and offered the school directly prior to the conference. This allowed the school to recruit some of the INPC delegates as lecturers, but also gave a broad overview of the field of nuclear physics before the conference. In addition INPC 2010 teamed up with the publishing house of Nuclear Physics A to provide awards to the best student oral presentation and the three top poster presentations at the conference. An international panel of judges together with members from the editorial board of Nuclear Physics A finally decided on the following award winners among a very strong field of applicants: P Finlay (Guelph, Canada), oral presentation; Y J Kim (Indiana, USA), E Rand (Guelph, Canada), and T Brunner (Munich, Germany) for posters. A treat of a different kind was in store for delegates at the conference banquet at the Museum of Anthropology. Olivia Fermi, the granddaughter of nuclear physics 'royalty' Enrico Fermi, was among the guests and shared in the after-dinner speech some anecdotes from her life growing up in the Fermi household. This, together with the unique setting of the museum of First Nations' artefacts and art pieces and overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the skyline of Vancouver, was a perfect fit for a very special conference. The field of nuclear physics clearly presented itself in a healthy and dynamic state, with many young people eagerly anticipating the advent of new experiments, theory, and facilities. At the end of the conference IUPAP announced the selection of the host of the next INPC conference: it will be held in 2013 in Florence, Italy. On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee we would like to acknowledge the great work of the Program Committee and the Session Chairs, who were responsible for the excellent selection and execution of the Parallel Session Program, the International Advisory Program and the work for the Plenary Session selections, and the judges for the Student Awards. Moreover, we would like to acknowledge the support of TRIUMF as the host and main organizer of the conference. Additional support was provided by the Canadian Institute for Nuclear Physics and the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). Very grateful acknowledgments go to the many volunteers and student helpers who ensured the frictionless and seamless execution of a very fruitful and exciting conference. We wish the organizers of the next INPC in Florence the best of luck and we hope to see you there. On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee Jens Dilling (Chair of INPC 2010)