US Muon Workshop 2021: A road map for a future Muon Facility

TL;DR

The workshop outlined a strategic plan for developing a next-generation muon facility in the US, emphasizing scientific needs, technological advancements, and a proposed design at ORNL's SNS to enable groundbreaking research in various scientific fields.

Contribution

It presents a detailed roadmap and conceptual design for a future high-flux muon facility in the US, integrating expert insights and technological innovations.

Findings

Strong scientific demand for a new muon facility in the US

Development of a novel facility design at ORNL's SNS

Potential for revolutionary advances in muon research techniques

Abstract

The workshop titled "US Muon Workshop 2021: A road map for a future Muon Facility" was held virtually on February 1-2, 2021. The workshop aimed to bring together world experts in muon spectroscopy ($\mu$SR) and other techniques along with interested stakeholders to evaluate the scientific need to construct a new $\mu$SR facility in the United States (US). The more than 200 participants highlighted several key scientific areas for $\mu$SR research, including quantum materials, hydrogen chemistry, and battery materials, and how each area could benefit from a new, high flux pulsed muon source. Experts also discussed aspects of the $\mu$SR technique, such as low-energy $mu$SR, novel software developments, and beam and detector technologies that could enable revolutionary advances in $\mu$SR at a next-generation facility. The workshop concluded with discussion of a concept being developed for a new $\mu$SR facility at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). That novel design concept was first envisioned by many of the same $\mu$SR experts at a workshop held previously at ORNL in 2016. The participants expressed that the current design had the potential to be a world-leading $\mu$SR facility, and strongly encouraged the principal investigators to continue their work in order to refine the concept and determine instrument parameters that would enable new scientific opportunities.