Planning Experiments

TRIUMF has four Experiments Evaluation Committees (EECs) which convene as indicated below:

• Life Sciences Projects Evaluation Committee (LSPEC) meets once a year in April (usually)
• Nuclear Physics Experiments Evaluation Committee (NP-EEC) meets twice a year in June and January (usually)
• Molecular & Materials Science Experiments Evaluation Committee (MMS-EEC) meets twice a year in June and January (usually)
• Particle Physics Experiments Evaluation Committee (PP-EEC) meets once a year in March/April (usually)

The purpose of these committees is to review new research proposals which are presented at the meetings and advise TRIUMF’s management on the feasibility of research proposals and the allocation of beam time in appropriate priority sequence. They also review the progress of ongoing experiments. Committee members are comprised of members from both national and international scientific communities, and are selected based on their expertise in various areas, including:

• nuclear and particle physics
• nuclear astrophysics
• muon spin rotation and condensed matter physics
• chemistry
• life sciences
• nuclear medicine

Two months prior to each scheduled meeting, TRIUMF issues a call for submissions, with a deadline set for submission, to all TRIUMF users representing national and international scientists.

Each spokesperson must submit a proposal containing:

• a concise summary of the scientific problem under investigation, with appropriate literature references
• clear justification for the proposed experiment
• the names of collaborators
• support required from TRIUMF
• a description of the experimental techniques to be used, naming the facility required
• an analysis of beam time requirements including, for example, a prioritized list of samples
• safety considerations
• an indication of start-up dates for preparation and start of data acquisition

Each proposal is then assigned for a detailed review to two committee members with relevant expertise and the proposals are evaluated solely on their scientific merit.

All accepted proposals and progress reports are distributed to the TRIUMF Library, Publications Office, and Operations group after the meeting, as well as to our member universities with the report that was generated for the specific meeting.

Other resources:

• The list of experiments are available online at the TRIUMF Experiments Database.

• TSOP-07 Experiment Management Physical Sciences Division
  (requires TRIDENT login)

• TSOP-14 Approval of Experiments for the Life Sciences Division 
  requires TRIDENT login)

• Email Announcements: Sign up for the experimental-program and/or mms-experimental-program listserves; these listserves are for all announcements regarding the experimental program at TRIUMF, i.e. for meetings of the Experiment Evaluation Committee reviews (EEC), beam requests, beam schedules, etc

We are no longer accepting beam requests for Beam Schedule 145 (October 4th – December 21, 2023).

After an experiment has been approved by the Experiments Evaluation Committee (EEC), spokespersons will be able to submit a beam request in order to receive beam time on a given Beam Schedule.

The Beam Request Application is usually open in January and July of each year. An email will be sent out from sciencediv@triumf.ca to the experiment program mailing lists when the Beam Request Application is open. If you would like to be on the mailing list for Nuclear or Particle Physics, you can subscribe at http://lists.triumf.ca/mailman/listinfo/experimental-program. For MMS experiments, you can subscribe at http://lists.triumf.ca/mailman/listinfo/mms-experimental-program. 

Beam Requests are to be submitted by spokespersons for a given experiment (only spokespersons have access to submit beam requests for the their experiments). Spokespersons will need to login to the Beam Request Application with their TRIUMF login. When a spokesperson logs onto the Beam Request Application they will see a list of the experiments they are the spokesperson for, they should click on “place a new request” beside the experiment number they would like to request beam for and follow the prompts. With this application spokespersons will be able to edit and delete their beam requests. If another spokesperson has already made the request they will be able to view, edit, and delete it, so please communicate with your fellow spokespersons. Multiple requests can be submitted for a single experiment, in order to handle cases where there are varying beam requirements at different times during the schedule.

For further information, assistance, or problem reporting, please contact the Physical Sciences Division Administrative Assistant via email.

Submit your beam requests at either of these websites:

• Beam Request Application
• Experimenters’ Dashboard