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Feature

Jefferson Lab and IHEP renew accelerator cavity collaboration

Under the umbrella of the PRC-US Cooperation on High Energy Physics, Jefferson Lab and IHEP exchange notes on cavity R&D

by Leah Hesla

Jefferson Lab in the US and the Institute for High Energy Physics in China sign a formal agreement that will further accelerator cavity research.

Research Director's Report

Articulating the physics case for the ILC

This month's Research Director's Report was written by Michael Peskin, convener of the Physics Common Task Group and of the group preparing the physics chapter of the Detailed Baseline Design report.

by Michael Peskin

The ILC Detailed Baseline Design report will contain a chapter that describes the physics opportunities that the ILC will offer. The LHC is bringing us new information about particles in the ILC energy range. But what exactly is the Large Hadron Collider telling us, and what are the implications for the ILC programme? Michael Peskin encourages members of the ILC community to debate this question and contribute to the report.

Director's Corner

FALC meets at CERN

by Barry Barish

The Funding Agencies for Large Colliders (FALC), an informal group of agency representatives met at CERN on 6 October. FALC is constituted to improve the possibilities for international cooperation in high-energy physics by understanding the planning processes in the funding agencies, exchanging information on plans and statuses of projects in different countries or regions and preparing for cooperation on future particle physics facilities. Highlights of this FALC meeting included discussion of plans for the ILC and more generally for lepton colliders following completion of the ILC Technical Design Report, as well as discussions of plans for the European Strategy Update just getting underway.

Image of the week

Injector cyromodule for the Quantum Beam experiment

Image: Nobu Toge

At the Superconducting Test Facility (STF) at KEK, Japan, the construction of the injector cryomodule equipped with two ILC-type nine-cell cavities has begun for the Quantum Beam experiment. The cavity string has been brought out of the clean room, ready for tuner installation. The gas return pipe is being readied to be placed in the cold-mass assembly framework.

In the News

  • from Physics World
    16 November 2011
    Work on the Middle East’s first synchrotron light source received a major boost yesterday after scientists began commissioning parts of its accelerator system.
  • from Nature
    14 November 2011
    If the solution holds, it is likely to guide future attempts to explain physics beyond the current standard model. It will certainly have implications for any previously unknown particles that may be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s particle physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland.
  • from Discovery News
    9 November 2011
    Over the last few decades, particle physicists have developed all kinds of useful simulation tools to help them predict the behavior of subatomic particles interacting with matter, with valuable applications in medical and space science to boot.
  • from The Economist
    9 November 2011
    PHYSICISTS are keen on symmetry. The universe does not always humour them. Take the Big Bang: if nature were ideally balanced, equal amounts of matter and antimatter would have emerged from it.
  • from The Observer
    6 November 2011
    According to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), there was a 10% increase in the number of students accepted to read physics by the university admissons services between 2008-09, when The Big Bang Theory was first broadcast in the UK, and 2010-11.