A few peaks are ahead of us - and we are about to reach first one.
Now we are making the final spurt to complete Detailed Baseline Design report (DBD). Of its two volumes, the physics volume describing the physics possibilities of the ILC was drafted by an author group convened by Michael Peskin in July and is now open for reading in the community.
The draft of the other volume on detector and simulation, which includes the two chapters of the ILD and SiD detector concepts, will be finished this week and is to be handed to the International Detector Advisory Group (IDAG) for review. During the LCWS12 meeting in Arlington in October, IDAG will discuss it with the management and will interview each detector group on its chapter. These two volumes, together with referenced material, summarise the entire accomplishments of the R&D studies of the ILC detector and physics community during the Letter of Intent period. Our wish is that the report can convince expert readers that the ILC experiments are capable to scrutinise the new field, which was highlighted by the Higgs-like particle found at the LHC this summer.
We plan to collect the signatories for the report when the DBD is completed. At the time of LOI submissions in 2009, each concept group collected signotaries separately, to invite coworkers. This time the call for signatories will be done for the entire volume, considering that the report will be a part of a number of reference documents when the ILC is proposed. Beyond the contributors, we would like to invite everybody who intends to participate in the research programmes at the ILC in the future or who supports the realisation of the ILC to sign the reports.
Following the review by IDAG, the DBD will be polished and submitted to PAC, which will make an external review in December of both the DBD and GDE’s Technical Design Report for the ILCSC. After additional brush-ups, the DBD will be submitted to the ILCSC early next year. When they meet in February next year jointly with the new Linear Collider Board (LCB), both the TDR and DBD will be handed to the new LCB, which will proceed to the next stage. We hope the reports make a good launch pad.
Our mandate will be fulfilled with the completion of DBD, yet there is one concern that remains. The organisation for the detector and physics activity after 2012 has not been shaped yet. Only the direction was agreed on – that both the ILC and CLIC activities will be combined – but the details still need to be worked out. Both concept groups will certainly wish to go forward with more advanced studies, including engineering issues. It is highly desirable to keep the momentum and to strengthen the motivation. How to orient the intention is linked with the planning of the new scheme. The first step is to set a clear objective for the next period. Once the community agrees on that, the new structure can be designed accordingly.
Looking back to when we started, we were given a well defined mandate. It was straightforward to organise the activity as we knew where to go. And after we organised ourselves, the community fulfilled the planned milestones one by one. Through this period, the ILC detector management has been proficiently assisted by the good will of the participating members of the LOI groups. Submitting the LOIs, the groups pledged to complete detector designs and to push the necessary R&D. And they kept their promise. It is just a logical consequence in a sense, but we should acknowledge that it is a great achievement. We did not provide any budget for R&D and there were difficult periods for the groups. We must keep in mind that this was able to happen because we had a clear goal when we started and the community worked together towards that goal.
When you are climbing up a mountain, it is an exciting moment when the aimed peak can be seen nearby. You realise also that the remaining slope will become harder. We may be in a similar position now. Luckily we now see there is another beautiful mountain behind our first peak. We hope we can have a better view of it and possibly a route to go there when we reach our goal.
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