A town hall meeting on MaRIE, the Laboratory’s proposed signature experimental facility, drew a large turnout and generated discussion about its pivotal role in the Laboratory’s mission and its potential to deliver transformational solutions in support of materials-centric national security science.
MaRIE (Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes) is designed to deliver “game-changing advances in national security, energy security, and discovery science,” according to John Sarrao of the Science, Technology, and Engineering (PADSTE) directorate, capture manager for MaRIE.
The town hall meeting on November 7 was the start of a series of grassroots events scheduled to be held next week (November 26) and in early December to engage Laboratory researchers in further defining facility specifics.
Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio and Terry Wallace, principal associate director for Science, Technology, and Engineering, announced MaRIE at an all-employee meeting in August.
“This is a decade-long challenge for us,” Wallace said of the proposed MaRIE facility. “This is going to be a lot of hard work. Not only do we have to internally agree on what this thing is, but we have to be behind this.”
MaRIE vision
Susan Seestrom, associate director for Experimental Physical Sciences (ADEPS), described MaRIE as a “rich, complex facility” at the “high-level concept state” still to be “fleshed-out with details.” According to Seestrom, MaRIE is the right facility for Los Alamos and the right concept, even if that concept is more multifaceted than a three-word tag line promising the solution to a single scientific quandary, such as "discover the Higgs" or "achieve ignition in the Laboratory.”
MaRIE will be designed to create and exploit extreme radiation fluxes and to probe matter on unprecedented scales, in order to translate discovery science into practical application. The nuclear focus makes MaRIE unique to the Laboratory, said Sarrao, as does the commitment to focus on grand science challenges. “Because we are Los Alamos, these should not be easy, short-term barriers, but rather hard and important problems,” said Sarrao.
MaRIE challenges
MaRIE will provide three essential capabilities: creating extreme radiation fluxes through a Fission and Fusion Materials Facility and enhancements to the Weapons Neutron Research Facility; providing unprecedented probes of matter through the Multi-Probe Diagnostic Hall and enhancements to the Lujan Center; and translating discovery to solution through M4, a facility dedicated to making, measuring, modeling materials.
Aspects of MaRIE are less than specific, said Sarrao, who encouraged staff to communicate their ideas, concerns, and areas of interest to him and a team of capability liaisons (see below). Staff have the opportunity to help define the national-mission needs to be addressed with MaRIE; the revolutionary opportunities for advancing the state of science; the basis for credible Los Alamos leadership in these areas; how MaRIE can make a difference; and how this concept translates to general facility and hardware requirements, said Sarrao.
An open mike meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. November 26 in the Louis Rosen Auditorium at LANSCE, and a scoping workshop will follow on December 3 and 4 in the Physics Building Auditorium.
For more details on MaRIE, upcoming events, and links to the specific call for staff input, visit the Web site at marie.lanl.gov online.
MaRIE capability liaisons: Paul Follansbee and Doug Fulton, Experimental Physical Sciences (ADEPS) Jeanne Robinson, Chemistry, Life and Earth Sciences (ADCLES) Ed Kober and Joanne Wendelberger, Theory, Simulation, and Computation (ADTSC) Gary Read and John Erickson, Engineering and Engineering Sciences (ADE) Dave Funk and Kathi Alexander, Weapons Physics (ADWP) Randy Erickson, Threat Reduction (ADTR) Kurt Schoenberg, for LANSCE |
--Karen Kippen