Reaching for the horizon: The 2015 long range plan for nuclear science

Explorers, inventors, and scientists are constantly striving to reach to the horizon and beyond. Wilbur and Orville Wright made flight in a powered, heavier-thanair machine a reality in the winds of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Today, nuclear science is at a stepping-off point in reaching for the horizon. The exploration of nuclear science has been guided by a series of long range plans prepared by the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) at the request of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. In a letter dated 23 April 2014, NSAC was again charged to conduct a new study of the opportunities and priorities for United States nuclear physics research and to recommend a long range plan that will provide a framework for the coordinated advancement of the Nation’s nuclear science program over the next decade. While the charge was given to NSAC, the entire community of nuclear scientists in the U.S. actively contributed to developing the plan in a series of town meetings and white papers under the leadership of the American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics. Ideas and goals, new and old, were examined, and community priorities were established. A long range plan working group composed of 58 members from across the field and with international participation gathered in Kitty Hawk in April 2015 to converge on the long range plan. The last long range plan in 2007 was created at a time when there was a commitment to double the funding for physical science research over the next decade. It followed the 2000–2007 time period where no new major construction had occurred, and the focus was on operating the then-new facilities we had built. The 2007 plan’s recommendations focused on major new initiatives, and these could be accommodated with this doubling budget assumption. In the past seven years, this increasing budget scenario has not been realized, and, in 2013, NSAC responded to a charge to advise how to implement the 2007 plan under flat budget scenarios. The charge for the 2015 Long Range Plan asked what resources and funding levels would be required to maintain a world-leadership position in nuclear physics research and what the impacts and priorities should be if the funding available provides for a constant level of effort. The 2015 plan will involve hard choices if we are to go forward with constrained budget scenarios. Our vision was to create a plan that would address the important scientific questions while requiring only modest growth in the nuclear science budgets of DOE and NSF. Realizing this vision is possible with careful staging of new initiatives while fully exploiting the opportunities of our past investments and taking into account complementary international initiatives. Inspired by the symbolism of the Wright brothers’ great leap forward in the winds of Kitty Hawk, the new plan, Reaching for the Horizon, offers the promise of great leaps forward in our understanding of nuclear science and new opportunities for nuclear science to serve society. Following its guidance, the United States will continue as a world leader in nuclear science.