Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has recently established a project office to further develop, and ultimately build, the Second Target Station (STS) project at the Spallation Neutron Source. This is an exciting time for neutron scattering in the U.S. as STS will provide transformative new capabilities that both complement and greatly extend our current resources for neutron scattering. ORNL and the SNS HFIR User Group (SHUG) will host a Science at the Second Target Station Workshop December 9-10, 2019, at ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This workshop will facilitate discussion of the opportunities enabled by STS across current and prospective future scientific fields.
Scientists of all disciplines, from beginners to experts, interested in the STS project and in the new capabilities it will enable are invited to ORNL in December. This workshop is a critical step in the STS project. It will lead to identification of the essential performance parameters for a prospective suite of instruments and to the formation of teams that will continue to refine the science case and participate in defining the requirements for individual instruments to be built at STS.
Plenary addresses will be given by:
Dr. John Hill, Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Photon Sciences and Director of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Dr. Tom Russell, Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Dr. Tony Hey, Chief Data Scientist at Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom
Breakout Sessions
The workshop is organized around four breakout sessions for each of seven main science topical areas (workshop participants are requested to identify a primary and secondary science topical area). The focus of these breakouts is to facilitate discussion of the opportunities enabled by STS across current and prospective future scientific fields and to identify the capabilities and performance parameters that need to be enabled by STS neutron instruments.
Breakout session chairs (listed here) will use quad charts developed in the sessions to summarize the science opportunities discussed within their groups (examples illustrating selected science opportunities enabled at the STS can be found here). The quad charts consist of a cover slide illustrating the science opportunity by providing a high level overview and a second slide with brief text addressing four key themes: Opportunity – a clear statement of the overarching research goal; STS tools required – a list of the capabilities that STS needs to provide in order to address the opportunity (instrument capabilities/performance parameters, sample environment, software, and others); Importance of STS – a description of why the specific capabilities of STS is needed (a description of STS core capabilities can be found here); and broader scientific impact – a statement of the potential to benefit society and advance discovery and understanding. Workshop participants are invited to prepare draft quad charts that can be included in breakout discussions.
A workshop report will be produced that includes an overview and expanded description of the science opportunities developed for each of the seven science topical areas. The instrument capabilities and performance parameters identified in the workshop will be used to guide development of new instrument concepts that along with the existing 8 concepts will be candidates for instruments to be built as part of the STS project or in future instrument construction projects.
Town Hall discussion on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Science at Experimental Facilities
Instruments at STS will generate larger and more complex neutron data sets more quickly than can be done today making automation of instrument operation, real-time optimization of experiment strategy, and smarter data reduction and analysis a necessity. AI technologies present promising approaches to addressing these needs. A town hall discussion will follow the plenary talk on AI on the afternoon of the first day of the workshop. A panel will discuss their current experience using AI/ML approaches with particular emphasis on advances with neutron scattering data and instrumentation. The panel will invite questions from the audience with an aim to identify challenges that could be addressed by AI and ML.
Poster Session
All participants are invited to submit posters for the poster session. Posters may be on any aspect of the Second Target Station, including science opportunities, potential instrumentation, sample environment, or enabling technologies. Anyone that would like to participate in the poster session should submit their name, email, job title, institution and title of their poster to schrofca@ornl.gov by December 2. Prizes will be awarded to top judged posters submitted by students, post-docs and early career scientists.
Registration ends November 25, 2019 for on-site participants and December 7th for online participants.