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Category archive: Director’s Corner

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What did we accomplish last year?

| 20 January 2011 The ILC is still very much a dream and the path to a real project remains highly uncertain, even though the scientific case is as strong as ever and we continue to meet all our highest priority goals. Hopefully, the world political and economic climate will improve before too long and there will once again be receptiveness to major investments in large-scale basic science projects. It is hard to imagine that we have seen the last of such projects; therefore our strategy is to be as prepared as possible to make a strong proposal for a linear collider when the time is right. Keeping that ultimate goal in mind, how are we doing and what did we accomplish in 2010? In fact, in my opinion, last year was a banner year for the Global Design Effort! Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , , ,

Investing in particle physics

| 13 January 2011 Happy New Year! This is my first column of 2011 and I am very pleased to begin the year by reporting on the significant new investment in particle physics by the Italian government. The Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research has announced the funding of the proposed €400-million Super B project of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). The present plan is to site the machine at or near the Frascati Laboratory and to reuse magnets and other apparatuses from the PEP-II accelerator and the BABAR detector at SLAC in the US, both keeping costs down and enabling a rapid construction schedule, perhaps as short as five years. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , , , , ,

Evolving the ILC baseline: single main linac tunnel

| 16 December 2010 Today, I describe the second of the proposed change actions, which has been stated as follows: "We propose to change the main linac tunnel configuration to one with only a single, accelerator-enclosure tunnel, thereby eliminating the support equipment tunnel proposed in the Reference Design. We propose to develop and include in the baseline two novel High-Level RF power source and distribution schemes ("KCS" and "DRFS") that are better suited to a single-tunnel solution than the scheme proposed in the RDR. A fall-back to the RDR HLRF Technology can be adopted should the R&D on KCS or DRFS not be considered successful." Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , , , , ,

Evolving the ILC baseline: main linac operating gradient

| 9 December 2010 Today, I will describe the first of those proposed change actions completed in recent weeks. [...] The proposal that I have approved sets the average operating gradient of 31.5 MV/m for operation of the main linac cryomodules, with a spread of up to 20 percent. We believe these parameters are realistic and achievable, but represent challenging goals. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , , , , ,

Evolving the ILC baseline

| 2 December 2010 I have officially approved two major changes in the ILC baseline configuration for the next phase of our R&D and design work. [...] Today, I discuss the procedure we have followed to evaluate and decide on these changes. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , ,

The ILC-CLIC collaboration and technological challenges

| 24 November 2010 Our current mutual understanding of ILC-CLIC status, is significantly better than that of 2001, owing to the on-going collaboration. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: ,

Linear Collider Accelerator School

| 18 November 2010 Our fifth Linear Collider Accelerator School, and the first one sponsored jointly by ILC and CLIC, was held there from 25 October to 5 November 2010. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , ,

Electron-Cloud physics

| 11 November 2010 [...] For the ILC, electron cloud effects can defocus the positron beam in the damping rings, thereby degrading the ability to create a low-emittance beam, a key in creating the required very small final beam spot. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , ,

Cavity gradient milestone achieved

| 4 November 2010 One of our most visible and important ILC R&D short-term milestones has been to demonstrate production of ILC superconducting radio frequency cavities with gradient of greater than or equal to 35 megavolts per metre (MV/m) and Q0 = 8x10^9 and 50 percent production yield. [...] Today I announce the successful achievement of that important 2010 milestone. Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , ,

The first joint ILC and CLIC workshop, IWLC10 in Geneva

| 28 October 2010 This year, the International Workshop on Linear Colliders (IWLC2010), organised by the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA), was noteworthy in that it was the first joint workshop for both ILC and CLIC... Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: , ,