News 2009

From Wednesday 28^th to Saturday 31^st October, the 37^th edition of the European Cyclotron Progress Meeting (ECPM) was held in the Hampshire Hotel Plaza Groningen.

On 23 October Alma de Groot will defend her thesis 'Salt-marsh sediment. Natural γ-radioactivity and spatial patterns'.

An application of Peter Dendooven of KVI together with Dennis Schaart of the TU Delft in the FOM-prgramme 'New physical instruments for health care' was recently awarded. The title of the project is 'In-silico studies on time-of-flight positron emission tomography for dose verification in proton therapy (ISoToPE)'. For this research FOM has given funds for two postdoc positions of 2.5 years plus a total running budget of k€ 51.

On Sunday 18 October KVI had a successful open day; 350 visitors found their way to the institute. Traditionally the open day was held in the framework of Oktober Kennismaand, this year with the theme 'Journey to the unknown'. As in preceding years, the KVI open day was organized together with other institutions at the Zernike campus, this year with SRON (space research), ScienceLinx and the Discovery Bus.

On 12 October Ahmad Ramazani-Moghaddam-Arani will defend his thesis 'Cross-section and analyzing-power measurements in three and four-nucleon scattering'.

KVI researchers Versolato and Giri et al. are the first in the world to succeed in trapping radium ions and to perform precision spectroscopy on the trapped ions. The ions were studied with the light of three lasers simultaneously. For this experiment, short-lived radium isotopes were produced with the AGOR cyclotron and the TRIµP facility.

On 21 September, Mohammed Eslamikalantari will defend his thesis 'Three-nucleon force effects in proton-deuteron break-up studied with BINA at 135 MeV'.

Emiel van der Graaf, now beam coordinator of the AGOR facility, has been appointed as the new KVI Deputy Director Techniques. Van der Graaf is the successor of Ad van den Berg, who has been Deputy Director for ten years.

On Sunday 8 February, an interview with Fred Zwarts of the KVI IT group was broadcasted in the EO programme Nederland zingt op zondag.

On Wednesday 4 February AGOR and the KVI irradiation facility were highlighted in the VARA science programme Nieuwslicht in an item on the plans for a proton-therapy facility in Groningen.

Klaus Jungmann, leader of the KVI TRIµP programme, has been appointed as the new KVI Director as of 1 January 2009, for a period of five years. Jungmann is the successor of Muhsin Harakeh, who had been KVI Director since 1996.