ILC NewsLine
ILC NewsLine special issue: ILC cavities — a globally successful year
As this year draws to a close, the global ILC project can look back on a year of progress. One of the most visible and important ILC R&D short-term milestones was achieved globally: the production of cavities with a gradient greater than or equal to 35 megavolts per metre and the required quality factor at a 50 percent production yield. That means: half of all cavities produced around the world could be used to run the ILC. Next stop: a 90 percent yield, to be reached in 2012. Labs around the world at Cornell, DESY, Fermilab, JLab, and KEK now consistently feed their test data into a common ILC cavity database. Since January, the "S1 global" programme connects cryomodules containing a total of eight dressed cavities from around the globe.

In this issue, Barry Barish describes and explains a year-long process for evolving the ILC Baseline: setting the average cavity gradient and quality factory requirements. You will also read hot news from KEK's superconducting radiofrequency test facility and chilly news from Fermilab, where the first US ILC-type eight-cavity cryomodule was successfully cooled down to 2 kelvins.

Finally, to retrace one year of milestones in R&D for ILC superconducting radiofrequency cavities, we have made a selection of relevant articles published in ILC NewsLine in 2010.
Around the World
From Fermilab Today: Fermilab begins operation of first SRF cryomodule

More than 100 Fermilab employees contributed to the Cryomodule 1's assembly and operation. They include scientists, engineers, technicians, safety personnel and administrators. Photo: Reidar Hahn
Editor's note: Watch our video of the week, showing the installation of the first SRF cryomodule at Fermilab.

At particle physics laboratories around the world, people have closely followed a much anticipated cooldown at Fermilab.

Years of effort by more than 100 staff members at Fermilab have led to the cooldown of Cryomodule 1 at the laboratory's SRF Accelerator Test Facility.  At 11 a.m. on Nov. 22, liquid helium flowed through CM1, cooling it to 2 Kelvin (-271° C). 
Read more...

-- Leah Hesla

Calendar
Upcoming meetings, conferences, workshops

Second Baseline Assessment Workshop (BAW-2)
SLAC
18-21 January 2011

Upcoming schools

US Particle Accelerator School (USPAS)
Old Dominion University, Hampton, Virginia, USA
17-28 January 2011

Excellence in Detectors and Instrumentation Technologies (EDIT 2011)
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
31 January - 10 February 2011


GDE Meetings calendar

View complete ILC calendar

Around the World
From KEK: Japanese 9-cell SCRF cavity meets ILC specifications

Scientists working on cavity vertical test at STF. Image: Akira Yamamoto
Designing and fabricating an optimal accelerating cavity is not so simple. There are two important parameters scientists are looking for: the gradient of 35 megavolts per meter (MV/m) and the quality factor (Q0) of > 0.8×1010. A Japanese cavity now fulfilled those requirements for the first time at a test which took place at the Superconducting radiofrequency Test Facility (STF) at KEK, adding momentum towards future mass production.

Accelerating gradient and an unloaded quality factor (Q0) are two important parameters for realizing the ILC. The accelerating gradient is a measure of how much an accelerator can increase the energy of a particle over a given stretch, typically indicated by the unit MV/m. The higher the gradient, the shorter the accelerator, and hence, the cheaper the system can be built. The quality factor, Q0, is a qualifier of how well the cavity can sustain the stored RF power. A higher Q0 means a lower rate of power loss relative to the stored energy.
Read more...

-- Rika Takahashi

Video of the Week
Cryogenic Module installed at Fermilab

Watch a video of the installation of the first ILC-type superconducting cryomodule at Fermilab. Read also this week's related story to learn more about the cool down of the first eight-cavity SRF cryomodule of its type in the United States on 23 November 2010. Video: Fermilab.
In the News
From Astronomy
6 December 2010
Road trip: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, part 2
When you hear the name Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab for short, cosmology likely isn't the first thing to cross your mind. ...
Read more...

From CERN
6 December 2010
CERN experiment makes progress towards antihydrogen beams
The ASACUSA experiment at CERN2 has taken an important step forward in developing an innovative technique for studying antimatter. Using a novel particle trap, called a CUSP trap, the experiment has succeeded in producing significant numbers of antihydrogen atoms in flight.
Read more...

From Le Figaro.fr
3 December 2010
Des télescopes sous l'eau pour écouter le chant des baleines
Les détecteurs de neutrinos cosmiques ont trouvé une nouvelle application. Les cétacés utilisent en effet les mêmes fréquences que ces particules pour communiquer.
Read more... (in French)
Director's Corner
Evolving the ILC baseline: main linac operating gradient

Encouraging recent gradient yield results presented at Baseline Assessment Workshop BAW-1 by Rong-Li Geng achieving our second-pass Technical Design Report goal of 90% yield at 35 MV/m, although with very limited statistics
Last week I described the motivation and the process for evolving the baseline for the technical design effort that we will be carrying out over the next two years, culminating in a Technical Design Report (TDR) at the end of 2012. The baseline for the TDR is being evolved by making a series of specific changes, of which four of the proposed changes have been determined to have impacts that require a "top-level change control" action. I defined that process last week.
Read more...

-- Barry Barish

Director's Corner Archive

Announcements
ECFA extends the "Study of physics and detectors for a linear collider"
On 26 November, the European Committee for Future Accelerators decided to extend the period of the "ECFA Study of Physics and Detectors for a Linear Collider" till the end of 2013 and appointed Juan Fuster as the new chair of this study group. These ECFA decisions confirm its support to the European activities on linear colliders, especially in the important coming period for the project. The mandate of former chair François Richard has come to an end, along with his other international duties, in particular being a Worldwide Study co-chair and a regional representative to the ILC Research Director Sakue Yamada. Juan Fuster is a very active supporter of the ILC activity in Spain and has been, among other things, the organiser of the ECFA workshop in Valencia in 2006.

- View slides of the latest ECFA meeting at CERN

- Latest "ECFA Study of Physics and Detectors for a Linear Collider" workshop at CERN


arXiv preprints
1012.1035
Measuring a Light Neutralino Mass at the ILC: Testing the MSSM Neutralino Cold Dark Matter Model

1012.0824
Electroweak non-resonant corrections to top pair production close to threshold

1012.0189
Indirect search for color octet electron at next generation linear colliders

1012.0167
The Higgs sector of the minimal B–L model at future Linear Colliders

1011.6314
Design and Construction of a Cherenkov Detector for Compton Polarimetry at the ILC

1011.5969
Performance of Glass Resistive Plate Chambers for a high granularity semi-digital calorimeter