News

FLAIR Collaboration Meeting

February 21-22, 2011, Cockcroft Institute, UK

FLAIR Collaboration Meeting at the Cockcroft Institute, UK

Delegates from the international partner institutions of the FLAIR collaboration joined for a collaboration meeting at the Cockcroft Institute on February, 21./22. 2011. The meeting was chaired by the spokesman of the collaboration, E. Widmann, and hosted by C.P. Welsch (Cockcroft).

The meeting started with a talk about the recent foundation of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR). A FAIR representative (I. Augustin) presented the present time plan, the different build phases and answered critical questions from the collaboration.

Recent developments at CERN with regard to the AD physics program and the ELENA initiative were summarized by T. Erikkson and W. Ölert, before research progress on the main FLAIR research infrastructures, namely the low energy storage ring (H. Danared/A. Källberg), HITRAP (W. Quint) and the ultra-low energy storage ring (C.P. Welsch) was presented in half hour talks, followed by discussion sessions.

J. Waltz presented the recently founded Helmholtz Institute Mainz, where one focus lies on investigations into antimatter physics. New physics experiment proposals on fundamental tests with antihydrogen (K. Blaum/M. Raizen) and Antikaon bound states and meson spectroscopy with stopped antiprotons (J. Zmeskal) were also discussed.

In view of the changed time schedule at FAIR, the meeting was very important to re-establish the commitment of the different groups, to discuss the overall FLAIR management and dissemination strategy and to identify ways forward to ensure that FLAIR becomes reality.