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Author archive: ilc-newsline

SiD freezes its global parameters

16 October 2008 The third SiD Workshop this year, hosted from 17 to 19 September by the University of Colorado at Boulder, marked an important milestone on SiD's way to the Letter of Intent (LOI): the collaboration froze its detector’s global parameters. The meeting was opened by Barry Barish, who reminded everyone that the "science remains the key to ultimate success" of the ILC programme and that detector development was critical. Given the difficult times for ILC funding both for accelerators and detectors, the meeting included updates on the current funding situation worldwide and on the status in France, Japan, the UK and the US. SiD additionally invited two guest speakers, Howard Nicholson from the US Department of Energy Office of High Energy Physics and Marvin Goldberg from the National Science Foundation, to give the audience an update of the US situation and the view from Washington. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

Higgs makes for exotic couples

9 October 2008 Much of the history of particle physics has been devoted almost exclusively to finding out what our bodies are made of. We first learned about protons and electrons and neutrons because they constitute the matter that makes up our bodies, and we learned of photons (light) because it interacts with our bodies when we see. Up and down quarks are the constituents of protons and neutrons, and they are held together by gluons, carriers of the strong force. Neutrons turn into protons through the weak force. Thus, everything we study has a close connection to our physical bodies. Even exotic particles, such as charm quarks or tau leptons are merely nearly exact copies of particles that make up our bodies: only their masses are different. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

From SLAC Today: Bob Siemann Has Passed Away

25 September 2008 Bob Siemann, a central leader in SLAC accelerator research for seventeen years, passed away last week. His legacy to SLAC includes a strong academic research program in advanced accelerator research, and many grateful recipients of his rigorous and enthusiastic mentorship. Category: In Memoriam | Tagged:

From CERN: First beam in the LHC – accelerating science

11 September 2008 Geneva, 10 September 2008. The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN1 was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world's most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

From DESY inForm: Together We’re Strong

4 September 2008 Faster, higher, farther! The motto of this year's Olympic Games is also valid for the development of research opportunities. But unlike the Olympic athletes who struggle to beat world records by fractions of hundredths, the development of accelerator experiments is progressing in such extreme steps that researchers have to clear completely new hurdles – their measuring instruments are too inaccurate. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

Science Fiction meets Science Non-Fiction

28 August 2008 On 18 and 19 August, a total of 38 leading Japanese creators, including science-fiction and fantasy writers, animation movie directors, comic artists, illustrators, and photographers, visited J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Complex) in Tokai-village and KEK Tsukuba campus. This visit was coordinated by Junpei Fujimoto, a KEK scientist who is active in ILC outreach activities. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

LCFOA goes to Washington

7 August 2008 The Linear Collider Forum of America (LCFOA) held an ILC industrialisation meeting and briefing for Congressional staffers on Capitol Hill on 29 July. The briefing was attended by 46 persons from universities, industry, and laboratories and Congressional staff. About half of the attendees were Congressional staffers. The objective of the briefing was to emphasise the importance of a strong industrialisation component within the Americas Regional Team's Technical Design effort, describe other potential benefits of the ILC technologies for industry and the country, and to recommend the economic and educational benefits of siting the ILC at a U.S. site during the Technical Design phase timeframe to the U.S. audience. Category: Around the World | Tagged: , , ,

From CERN bulletin: Start-up fever

24 July 2008 Unusually for the holiday season, the car parks are full, finding a table at lunch is a formidable challenge, and people can (more than ever) be found in their offices late into the night. All the evidence points to one thing… the most ambitious particle collider in the world is just a few weeks away from its first proton beam! Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

From KEK Director’s Corner: Obituary: Yoji Totsuka, Former Director General of KEK

17 July 2008 Yoji Totsuka, the former director general of KEK and an outstanding contributor to great advances in neutrino physics, died of cancer at the age of 66 on Thursday, July 10. Category: Feature | Tagged:

From interactions.org: Five million Euros to prepare Europe for the International Linear Collider

3 July 2008 The partners of the 'ILC-HiGrade' proposal for the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme have just started a contract for five million Euros funding over the next four years with the European Commission. 'ILC-HiGrade' stands for 'International Linear Collider and High Gradient Superconducting RF-Cavities.' One of the main objectives of the proposal is a small serial production of accelerating cavities, superconducting components made of pure niobium for the planned International Linear Collider (ILC), that reach the high technical standards needed for the planned particle physics project. Other objectives of the ILC-HiGrade proposal are the development of a possible organisation and governance for the ILC and measures to prepare for the actual construction of the machine, including a detailed study on possible sites in Europe. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,