Summary by J. Stöhr, SSRL:
An important event took place this week at the Basic Energy Sciences
Advisory Committee (BESAC) Meeting in Washington, DC. Among other things, BESAC advises
the Department of Energy on the scientific merit of newly proposed research facilities.
This week the committee heard the scientific case for the Linac Coherent Light Source or
LCLS that we hope to build at SLAC in the near future. At its Wednesday meeting BESAC
voted unanimously to support moving forward with the LCLS conceptual design, pending
positive peer reviews. The peer reviews from about 20 selected scientists should be
received by BES within the next month or so and we are hopeful that they will indeed be
positive. The positive BESAC response on the scientific case is an important milestone
toward LCLS construction and it is great news not only for SSRL but for all of SLAC.
At the BESAC meeting on Tuesday October 10, seven presentations were given on LCLS. Eric
Rohlfing from DOE gave an introduction placing LCLS in the context of table top x-ray
laser sources and short pulse programs at 3rd generation sources and, in particular, the
findings of the Leone Committee which requested the formulation of a stronger scientific
case. Keith Hodgson then presented an overview of the LCLS project and addressed the
flexible use of the machine ranging from probing to manipulation of matter. He also
pointed out the ongoing x-ray physics program (the sixth experiment which was not
separately presented), especially the efforts in pulse width reduction and
improvement in longitudinal coherence.
The five scientific presentations were given by Dan Imre, BNL (femtochemistry), Brian
Stephenson, APS (nanoscale dynamics), Phil Bucksbaum, U. Mich. (atomic physics), Dick Lee,
LLNL (plasma physics) and Janos Hajdu, Uppsala U. (biomolecule imaging). All speakers gave
excellent presentations. BESAC reconvened on Wednesday morning (October 11) to discuss
their impressions and to formulate a recommendation to BES DOE. Of the 16 voting members
(with Z. X. Shen and Jo Stöhr abstaining from the discussion and voting because of
conflict of interest) all commented on the quality of the presentations. Each BESAC member
was first given the opportunity to present their evaluation and recommendation. Many BESAC
members expressed their excitement about the proposed dynamic x-ray studies in systems
ranging from molecules to solids, covered by the first two talks. They also realized the
fundamental importance of the proposed atomic physics program and appreciated the
difference of x-ray rather than visible light excitation. A few people expressed their
specific excitement about the proposed warm and hot dense matter research, especially the
ability to do something so different and novel with LCLS. It is fair to say that the
biological imaging experiment obtained the highest marks. Everybody realized the great
potential (and risk) of the experiment. BESAC then voted unanimously to recommend moving
forward with the LCLS conceptual design, pending positive peer reviews.
Eric Rohlfing, Basic Energy Sciences, "Research in Novel Coherent Light Sources in BES" (671 KB)
Keith Hodgson, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, "Linac Coherent Light Source Scientific Case Overview" (3,503 KB)
Dan Imre, Brookhaven National Laboratory, "Femtochemistry" (422 KB)
Brian Stephenson, Argonne National Laboratory, "Studies of Nanoscale Dynamics in Condensed Matter Physics" (384 KB)
Phil Bucksbaum, University of Michigan, "Atomic Physics Experiments" (403 KB)
Richard Lee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, "Plasma and Warm Dense Matter Studies" (616 KB)
Janos Hajdu, Uppsala University, "Structural Studies in Single Particles and Biomolecules" (2,407 KB)
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