The Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL) is TRIUMF’s flagship multidisciplinary research facility. This world-class facility will broaden Canada’s research capabilities in particle physics, nuclear physics, nuclear medicine, and materials science. ARIEL will increase TRIUMF’s annual scientific productivity to 2-3 times its current level.
ARIEL is critical for understanding the properties of rare isotopes, a task that requires the unique techniques and tools this facility provides. Rare isotopes are not typically found in nature; they are created in stars as they burn or explode and are short-lived, often only existing for fractions of a second. On earth, scientists can produce rare isotopes using particle accelerators in a handful of laboratories around the world, including TRIUMF. They are powerful tools for scientific discovery with a broad range of applications from state-of-the-art medical imaging to advanced industrial manufacturing.
ARIEL’s enhanced facilities will deliver unprecedented intensities of rare isotope beams, allowing for multiple, simultaneous experiments with a diversified portfolio of isotopes. This will strengthen and grow the established research programs at TRIUMF, as well as offer new avenues of investigation. For example, ARIEL will allow TRIUMF to explore future uses of electron linear accelerators (e-linacs), showcasing a Made-In-Canada, high-power superconducting e-linac that will be used to produce rare isotopes for cutting-edge research, such as in the study of the nature of stars.
The ARIEL initiative is led by the University of Victoria and Principal Investigator Dr. Dean Karlen, with 20 additional collaborating university partners from across Canada. ARIEL is supported by contributions from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.
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