Barry Barish | 13 December 2007Earlier this week on 11 December, the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) announced funding cuts in a number of their physics and astronomy programmes. To my disappointment, the International Linear Collider is one of these programmes. The STFC report states: “We will cease investment in the International Linear Collider. We do not see a practicable path towards the realisation of this facility as currently conceived on a reasonable timescale.”
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Clements | 6 December 2007Turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie – all things you might appreciate on Thanksgiving. ILC scientists in the United States had something extra to be thankful for this year. On 21 November, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, a superconducting cavity manufactured by Advanced Energy Systems in Medford, NY, reached a high gradient of 32.6 megavolts per metre (MV/m) at Jefferson Laboratory. “This is the first US-built ILC nine-cell cavity to reach a gradient close to the ILC specification,” said Rongli Geng, the lead scientist at JLab on the nine-cell high-gradient cavity processing R&D. JLab scientists are hopeful that the cavity, dubbed AES2, will reach an even higher gradient after further processing.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: cavity gradient, JLab, niobium, United States
Rika Takahashi | 29 November 2007Blogs, Social Network Services, Podcasting, Social Bookmarks -- these types of social media have become influential sources of information. Some might say that they have as much influential power as the conventional media. Scientists working on the International Linear Collider are catching on too and realise that podcasting is another way to promote the proposed project to a non-scientific audience.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Japan, podcast
Barbara Warmbein | 15 November 2007The Netherlands might not fill a lot of space on a map, but that does not mean that the Dutch aren’t filling crucial positions in many different high-energy physics projects – including the ILC. The proposed particle accelerator falls on a long list of projects in which the Dutch national institute for subatomic physics (NIKHEF) and renowned universities are involved: ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE at the LHC, Antares, a neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea, the Pierre Auger observatory, ZEUS, H1 and HERMES at HERA, D0, Babar, STAR… u vraagt, zij draaien (you name it, they’ve got it).
Category: Around the World | Tagged: NIKHEF
Elizabeth Clements | 8 November 2007ILC: Gateway to the Quantum Universe? Got it. The September 2007 issue of NewsLineQ? Got it. General ILC brochure? Got it. A handful of one pagers to explain how the ILC works? Got it; got it; got it; got it. The ILC scientific community now has a number of communication tools at its fingertips. Handing out brochures is only half the job though. The rest is up to you, the ILC community. We can help you get started, perhaps at your local science café.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ILC communication, outreach
Barbara Warmbein | 1 November 2007As the new chair of the ILC Steering Committee (ILCSC), Enzo Iarocci will have to do a lot of negotiating. Not only with the other members of the Steering Committee or the ILC community, but most of all with his wife. “In this new position I will have to probably travel even more than I thought,” he says, “and my wife is less than pleased about that...”
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ALCPG, ILCSC
Elizabeth Clements | 18 October 2007International Linear Collider workshops tend to be hectic. Meetings are scheduled back to back and often overlap. The days start early and end late. The coffee breaks are a brief, necessary respite. In a virtual collaboration, the three Conventional Facilities & Siting Group leaders understand that face to face time is precious, making it easy to spot the trio together. A meal together here and a coffee there can add up to a lot, and the CFS group leaders take advantage of every minute. For this next workshop at Fermilab from 22-26 October, however, there will be a new CFS co-leader on the block – John Osborne from CERN.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: CFS, conventional facilities and siting
Barbara Warmbein | 11 October 2007Many scientists working on ILC detector simulation know: Mokka can give you sleepless nights. This has nothing to do with caffeine, however - Mokka is a software that lets you run full simulations of events in future ILC detectors. It uses the Geant4 simulation tool, and ILC detector people around the world use it – and struggle with it sometimes. If you’re one of those people and are looking for answers (or maybe you want to share a particularly interesting line of code?), the website forum may be the right place for you.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ILC forum
Barbara Warmbein | 13 September 2007Alain Hervé already has the experience of building two enormous detectors under his belt, and it looks like he is going to help in a third one. Technical coordinator at CERN of both L3 at LEP and CMS at the LHC, the Breton has now been called as an expert to help in the interaction region design, cavern and detector assembly planning for the ILC and its detectors. He is taking part in preparatory phone conferences for the IRENG workshop and co-convenes Work Group A that looks at how to design, install and open experiments.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: CERN, CMS, LHC, machine detector interface
30 August 2007At Texas A&M University, a team led by Peter McIntyre has developed a new design for superconducting cavities for linear colliders, perhaps even the International Linear Collider. Their polyhedral cavity design, which is only in its beginning stages and requires a significant amount of R&D, could offer such benefits as increasing the accelerating gradient and making the cavities more cost-efficient.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: polyhedral cavity, Texas A&M University, United States
