This award provides support for students to attend the Second Summer School in Fundamental Neutron Physics to be held at the NIST Center for Neutron Research June 22 - 26, 2009. The use of slow neutron beams and ultracold neutrons for investigating fundamental processes in nature has grown steadily during the past two decades. Major neutron research facilities: the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Maryland and the Spallation Neutron Source in Tennessee have significant research programs and important recent results in this field, often called "fundamental neutron physics". This work has important implications for nuclear physics, astrophysics and cosmology, and for testing the Standard Model of particle physics. This subject is not often covered in graduate school curricula, so there is a need for a national summer school to educate graduate students and other young scientists who are already in or interested in joining this growing field.
Fundamental neutron physics is interdisciplinary -- it lies at the intersection of nuclear, particle, and condensed matter physics. The proposed summer school will help educate the next generation of neutron scientists in the United States.
