APPENDIX E
Glossary, Acronyms, and Abbreviations
GLOSSARY
Beamline
A corridor through which radiation (synchrotron or neutron) flows from the core facility to experimental instruments. Beamlines can be constructed and supported either by the facility or by outside groups and may provide radiation to multiple instruments.
Cold neutron
A neutron beam with especially long wavelengths produced by a reactor. Especially useful in conducting research on the properties of soft matter, such as proteins or polymers.
Core facility
The section of a facility producing the basic commodity necessary to conduct experiments, such as the synchrotron radiation, neutron beam, or high magnetic field, but generally not accessed by users.
Dedicated
A dedicated facility is one designed from the start to serve optimally the needs of experiments in condensed phase matter rather than high-energy physics. A dedicated beamline or instrument is one devoted to a particular experimental technique.
High magnetic field
With current technology, a field above approximately 15 T.
Materials science
Study of the structure and dynamics of condensed phase matter.
Parasitic
Attached to a core facility to take advantage of the byproduct of the core while it is being operated for other purposes.
Partners
Organizations that provide support for research conducted at a user facility, usually for the experimental units. Partners may be federal agencies, state governments, universities, for-profit corporations, or nonprofit organizations.
Reactor
A type of neutron source that creates continuous neutron beams through controlled chain reactions involving nuclear fission of certain radioactive elements.
Spallation
A type of neutron source in which a particle accelerator directs packets of high-energy protons at heavy metal targets, producing a burst of neutrons that can be used for condensed phase matter research.
Stakeholders
Interested participants in the facilities enterprise. These include individual users; facility-based user groups, organizations, and review committees; and more broadly based user groups, organizations, and committees.
Steward
The government body responsible for supporting the core of a user facility, generally a federal department or agency with a mission interest in the research conducted and that has the knowledge and experience necessary for construction and operation of the facility.
Stewardship
A system of funding, managing, and operating national, multiuser facilities whereby the core facility is entirely supported by one agency: the steward.
Subfacility
A subset of a user facility, usually supported by an agency other than the steward, designed to conduct research of a specific type, designated either by field or by type of instrumentation used. Examples are the Center for High Resolution Scattering, supported by NSF at NIST CNR, and MacCHESS, supported by NIH at CHESS, devoted to studies of macromolecular structures.
Synchrotron
A device creating radiation by accelerating relativistic charged particles and deflecting them with a magnetic field.
User facility
Any site or laboratory equipped to provide the synchrotron radiation, neutron beam, or high magnetic fields required to conduct research into the properties of matter that allows guest researchers to perform experiments to further their own research goals.
ALS
Advanced Photon Source
APS
Advanced Light Source
BERAC
Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee
BES
Office of Basic Energy Sciences (U.S. Department of Energy)
BESAC
Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee
CAMD
Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices
CAT
collaborative access team
CESR
Cornell Electron-positron Storage Ring
CHESS
Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source
CNR
Center for Neutron Research (NIST)
CRG
collaborative research group (Europe)
DOC
U.S. Department of Commerce
DOE
U.S. Department of Energy
EMR
electron magnetic resonance
ENSA
European Neutron Scattering Association
ESRF
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
FEL
free electron laser
FOB
facility-operated beamline
FRM-II
Neutron Reactor at the Technische Universität Munich, Germany
HFBR
High Flux Beam Reactor
HFIR
High Flux Isotope Reactor
ICRMS
ion cyclotron resonance mass spectroscopy
IDT
instrument development team
ILL
Institut Laue Langevin (France)
IPNS
Intense Pulsed Neutron Source
ISIS
Spallation Source at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford, United Kingdom
LANSCE
Los Alamos Neutron Science Center
MacCHESS
Macromolecular Diffraction Facility at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source
MURR
Columbia Research Reactor Center at the University of Missouri
NHMFL
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
NIH
National Institutes of Health
NIST
National Institute of Standards and Technology
NMR
nuclear magnetic resonance
NRC
National Research Council
NSF
National Science Foundation
NSLS
National Synchrotron Light Source
OECD
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
OMB
Office of Management and Budget
ORNL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ORPHÉE
Neutron Reactor at the Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, Saclay, France
OSTP
Office of Science and Technology Policy
PRT
participating research team
R&D
research and development
SANS
small-angle neutron scattering
SAXS
small-angle x-ray scattering
SDT
spectrometer development team
SINQ
Swiss Spallation Neutron Source
SNS
Spallation Neutron Source
SPEAR
Storage Ring at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
SRC
Synchrotron Radiation Center (University of Wisconsin)
SSRL
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
SURF
Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility
T (tesla)
A unit of magnetic flux density, equal to 10,000 gauss