Major Accelerator Facilities for Nuclear Physics Experiments in the Asia Pacific Region
The Asian Nuclear Physics Association (ANPhA) is the central organization representing nuclear physics in the Asia Pacific. ANPhA is now preparing a list of accelerator facilities applicable for nuclear physics experiments in the Asia Pacific. Among them, characteristics of world class “Major” accelerator facilities will briefly be summarized in my talk in comparing to similar facilities in Europe and North America. Major facilities in the Asia Pacific region are mainly locating in China (Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), Beijing Tandem Accelerator National Laboratory (BTANL)), India (K500 Superconducting Cyclotron at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC)), Korea (RISP/RAON), and Japan (RIBF at Riken, J-PARC, and ELPH/LIPS). Most of them (HIRFL, BTANL, VECC, RISP/RAON and RIBF) are medium energy heavy-ion accelerator facilities and are comparable to European and American Facilities such as SPIRAL2, HIE-ISOLDE and ARIEL-II. In addition future extension plans of these Asian facilities are really aiming far beyond the wavefront of the research of this field of nuclear physics. Thus, Asian research facilities are keeping world best positions in medium energy heavy-ion physics. Hadron physics facility in Asia (J-PARC) is also a world-leading facility in the world. ELPH/LIPS facilities can provide world competitive photon beams. However, there are no high energy heavy-ion accelerators and colliders (such as ALICE in LHC, RHIC in USA, and NICA in Russia) in the Asia Pacific region. In other words, we concentrated our research resources to medium energy heavy ion physics and chose to promote high energy heavy-ion physics abroad (outside Asia). This strategy seems successful at present. However we have to check our strategy on the field of Nuclear Physics for our future research activities in the Asia Pacific.