On Thursday, September 2, 2010, the Consul General of Japan for Vancouver visited TRIUMF. Mr Hideki Ito met with leading researchers from Japan and Canada and learned about the history of strong partnerships between TRIUMF and the Japanese research community.
After acknowledging that the green tea at the Japanese Consulate was better tasting than at TRIUMF, Director Nigel Lockyer presented an overview of TRIUMF. He noted that the Consul General's namesake, Professor Hideki Yukawa, was the first Nobel prize winner in Japan and that his theory about particles known as mesons were actually part of the original raison d'etre for building TRIUMF in the late 1960s. Ito-san then spoke with a number of researchers about their programs and the connections with Japan.
Jean-Michel Poutissou talked about nuclear medicine at TRIUMF and acknowledged the world-leading capabilities for particle-beam-based therapies being developed in Japan. Hiro Tanaka from UBC spoke about the Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) neutrino experiment; this experiment is the largest particle-physics experiment in Japan and Canada is the largest foreign partner. Toshio Numao spoke about the high-precision particle-physics experiments such as the PIENU experiment here at TRIUMF. Gordon Ball talked about the visiting scientists from Japan who come to TRIUMF for experiments with rare-isotope beams. He also spoke about the complementary nature of the RIKEN RIBF facility and TRIUMF's ISAC facility. Akira Konaka spoke about the T2K experiment and some of the components built at TRIUMF. On sabbatical at TRIUMF for a year, Jiro Murata spoke about the detector he is building for tests of fundamental symmetries. Gerald Morris spoke about the materials-science programs and the international involvement; many researchers from Japan come to TRIUMF to characterize the magnetic properties of their samples.
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| Consul General Hideki Ito visiting the TIGRESS facility. From left to right: T.I. Meyer, J.-M. Poutissou, A. Konaka, N.S. Lockyer, Consul General Ito-san, T. Isono, and A. Garnsworthy. |
The Consul General and his associate Mr Tetsuya Isono then participated in a tour of TRIUMF and met additional researchers. Ito-san was pleased with what he learned about the diversity of TRIUMF's programs and the depth of the connections with Japan.
Thank you to everyone at TRIUMF who contributed this successful visit. We look forward to a renewed and expanding relationship with our Japanese colleagues.
-- T.I. Meyer, Head, Strategic Planning and Communications