“If you could only attend one workshop a year, it should be TRIUMF’s Theory Workshop!” comments Dr. Ruprecht Machleidt to a full room of theorists and students as he kicks off TRIUMF’s fifth annual Theory Workshop. “What started out as a small, local workshop has risen to become one of the most important scientific events of the year, since here we pre-empt all other workshops with the latest research results,” he adds, moment before beginning his talk on Chiral Nuclear forces at the next-to-next-to-next-to-next Leading Order (or N4LO).
TRIUMF’s Nuclear Theory Workshop is a four day long collection of lectures, talks and colloquiums centred around the latest results from top research institutions and universities around the world. The physicists attending the theory workshop are at the forefront of research into the unknown and their subjects could easily prompt an entire week of discussion.
This year’s workshop focuses on nuclear forces inside of atoms and predictions of nuclear properties based on these features researchers and theorists presenting their latest, and often unpublished, results. Due to the nature of breakthrough research, the workshop is home to some of the most heated discussions in all of TRIUMF. As one of four organizers of the workshop, TRIUMF theorist Dr. Petr Navratil comments, “a little friendly competition is always good for science.”
“There is a great energy brought this year by all the young faces,” Dr. Sonia Bacca remarks. “Nuclear theory is attempting to describe very complex interactions inside the nuclei of atoms. This is a very challenging endeavour and I’m thrilled to see the students taking to it as much as we have.” With the most students attending this workshop than in any other year, the workshop has been modified slightly to include poster sessions and jamborees to entice and intrigue newcomers to the world of nuclear physics.
The physicists attending the workshop are working to solve today’s problems for the next decade’s breakthroughs. As Dr. Holt says, “By the end of this workshop, we will get a great preview for all the exciting results and papers that are going to be published this year.”
A special thank you to Dr. Sonia Bacca, Dr. Angelo Calci, Dr. Jason Holt and Dr. Petr Navratil for organizing the workshop, and a thank you to TRIUMF’s Science Division and Perimeter Institute for sponsoring the workshop this year.
If you would like to know more about the workshop, please visit the Theory Workshop website.
–Christopher Zaworski, Outreach Student
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