Discovering the mixing matrices for quarks (CKM) and leptons (MNS) is currently an active topic of research both experimentally and theoretically. The goal of this year's Summer Nuclear Institute at TRIUMF (SNIT 2003, July 21 to August 1) was to give the students a background in this important area. In general this series of Institutes is designed to give graduate students an improved understanding of topics surrounding their research areas.
The school attracted 39 students (close to the goal of 40 students). As in previous years they came from many different parts of the world: North America, Europe and Asia. Over a third of the students were working on SNO with the next largest group working at TRIUMF. The 10 invited speakers came from Canada, the United States and Japan. In addition to the lectures, TRIUMF tours where given by Shawn Bishop and Sabine Engel. Attendance at the lectures was consistently high with some TRIUMF staff and Research Associates also attending.
Next year's Summer Nuclear Institute will be held July 5-16, 2004, just prior to the Nuclei in the Cosmos conference and Jens Dilling will be the lead organizer.
You can find out more about SNIT at the SNIT website.