Establishment of Asian Nuclear Physics Association (ANPhA)

On 18 July 2009 the Asian Nuclear Physics Association has been officially launched in Beijing by the representatives from China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

The main objectives of ANPhA are:

  1. to strengthen "Collaboration" among the Asian communities in nuclear research through the promotion of basic nuclear physics and its applications,
  2. to promote "Education" in the Asian nuclear science communities through mutual exchange and coordination of resources,
  3. to encourage "Coordination" among the Asian nuclear scientists for active utilization of existing research facilities, and
  4. to discuss future planning of the nuclear science facilities and instrumentation among member countries.

Initially, the need of an organization like ANPhA was raised from time to time at the meetings of the Commission on Nuclear Physics (C12) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) as well as at its Working Group (WG.9) on the International Cooperation in Nuclear Physics (ICNP). The first step was taken during the meetings of WG.9 and C12 in May 2008 held at CERN, where Shoji Nagamiya (KEK/J-PARC, Japan), Dong-Pil Min (SNU, Korea), Hideyuki Sakai (U. Tokyo, Japan), and Wenqing Shen (NSFC, China) met together after the dinner of WG.9 and agreed to launch an initiative to form some organization in Asia similar to NuPECC in Europe. In Asia, the world class facilities, such as RIBF at RIKEN and J-PARC at Tokai in Japan, a new initiative on a heavy ion accelerator in Korea, Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) and BRIF(II) at CIAE in China, etc. are in operation or being planned.

It was widely recognized among the member countries that systematically organized usage of these facilities was still missing and a collaborative scheme was highly desirable to make the best use of them. Thus one of the major roles of ANPhA was to provide a common ground to discuss those issues in harmony. Another important role of ANPhA was to promote education in nuclear science among the Asian countries through various means.

The first preparation meeting was held in Tokyo, Japan in October 4, 2008 followed by the second one in Seoul, Korea in February 21, 2009.

On July 18, 2009 the Inauguration Ceremony took place in the Ying Jie Conference Center of Peking University in Beijing. First, the board members from China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam were officially confirmed. These board members gave their official approval to the Bylaws. These initial board members are Weiping Liu, Yugang Ma, Guoqing Xiao, and Yanlin Ye from China, Tohru Motobayashi, Shoji Nagamiya, Takaharu Otsuka and Hideyuki Sakai from Japan, Seung-Woo Hong, Wooyoung Kim, and Dong-Pil Min, from Korea, and Dao Tien Khoa from Vietnam. Second, for the first term Hideyuki Sakai was elected as the Chair of ANPhA, Dong-Pil Min and Yanlin Ye were elected as Vice-Chairs, and Tohru Motobayashi was later appointed by the Chair as Scientific Secretary.

During the Inauguration Ceremony, congratulatory addresses were given by Wenqing Shen (Deputy Director of NSFC), Wenlong Zhan (Deputy Director of CAS), Huanqiao Zhang (Chair of NPSC), Jiaer Chen (Former President of PKU) and Guangda Zhao (Director of the Scientific Committee of the School of Physics of PKU), which were followed by speeches by the ANPhA board members representing the nuclear physics communities in their own countries. The ceremony was also witnessed by professors Boqiang Ma, Yuxin Liu and Furong Xu of Peking University. Finally, the commemorative photograph was taken.

After the ceremony, the first business meeting of ANPhA took place. The main topics of the discussion were:

1. Invitation of new member countries and regions,

2. Preparation of documents for the existing research facilities and computing resources in member countries and regions,

3. ANPhA support for symposiums and schools,

4. Discussion on the long-range plan of ANPhA,

5. Decision on the second ANPhA meeting.

It is decided that the official ANPhA Office is located at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan. A very preliminary ANPhA home page is currently available at http://ribf.riken.jp/ANPhA/.

Concluding the first ANPhA board meeting, it was proposed to organize the First ANPhA Symposium on Asian Nuclear Physics Facilities on January 14-15, 2010 at Tokai, Japan. A visit to J-PARC for symposium participants will be also planned.

The next ANPhA board meeting will be held on January 17 (Sunday), 2010 in conjunction with the First ANPhA Symposium.



Front row from left to right: Quanqiao ZHANG; Wenqing SHEN; Hideyuki SAKAI; Shoji NAGAMIYA; JIaer CHEN; Seung-Woo HONG; Guangda ZHAO.

Second row from left to right: Yuxin LIU; Wooyoung KIM; Tohru MOTOBAYASHI; Weiping LIU; Dao Tien KHOA; Yanlin YE; Wenlong ZHAN; Takaharu OTSUKA; Boqiang MA; Hushan XU; Yugang MA; Furong XU