The P5 report was approved by the HEPAP meeting on May 22. As a new HEPAP member, I participated in discussions on the report, even though I had to call in from Japan. The news was already covered in the Director’s Corner by Harry Weerts and Mike Harrison. But I’d like to write about my […]
Of cavity performance, tiny beams and official roles: progress in a maturing project
From 12 to 16 May, the Americas Workshop on Linear Colliders (AWLC) 2014 was held at Fermilab in the US. AWLC is one of the series of regional linear collider workshops held around the world. The purpose of this workshop was the continued development of the physics case, and advancing detector and accelerator designs for […]
The roadmap for high-energy physics in the US from P5
Around October 2012 the US high-energy physics (HEP) community and funding agencies started a strategic exercise to create a roadmap for the future of high-energy physics in the USA. The first step was the initiation of the Snowmass process to review the complete science status of the field. This culminated in the Snowmass 2013 meeting […]
From shutdown to cooldown: the LHC is preparing to get back online
Former LHC project leader looks back at his developing project and ahead towards the future
The LHC has been shut down for consolidation since the beginning of 2013. This break is called Long Shutdown 1 or LS1. One of the biggest jobs has been the opening and inspection of all the 1695 magnet-magnet interconnects. They had to be carefully checked and sometimes repaired to make sure that they can take […]
The ILC design evolves
The ILC baseline design as described in the Technical Design Report and its associated cost estimate was finalised in 2012. Since that time the design has been relatively static while the global high-energy physics community absorbed and responded to this information. During the past 12 months, significant progress in Japan has resulted in the choice […]
The path to an international ILC Lab
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is a misquotation from George Santayana (1863 – 1952). Very suitably for the Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC), he was a writer with an international perspective who always considered himself both Spanish and American. These words came into my mind when I received an […]
Physics and detector organisation – Progressing on delicate balances
In the charge drafted by the ILCSC nearly two years ago, the responsibility of the associate director for physics and detectors of the Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC) was stated as follows: “He/she will coordinate the world-wide effort to develop advanced detectors that are appropriate for either accelerator technology…Initially, the Associate Director will focus on Building […]
The CLIC workshop 2014
The yearly CLIC collaboration meeting took place at CERN on 3-7 February 2014. A record participation of more than 300 scientists/students from the more than 70 collaborating institutes set the scene for a very busy and lively week. After completing the Conceptual Design Report (CDR) in 2012, and the European Strategy update in 2013, the […]
Future Colliders: A strategic perspective
Over the past decades, colliders have defined the energy frontier in particle physics. Both electron-positron, proton-(anti)proton as well as electron-proton colliders have played complementary roles in fully mapping out the constituents and forces in the Standard Model (SM). We are now at a point where all predicted SM constituents have been found at colliders. Currently […]
Now open: the Planning Office for the International Linear Collider to realise the ILC
I am pleased to be in charge to provide the Director’s Corner in timely manner and coinciding with a public announcement from KEK. KEK has set up a Planning Office for the International Linear Collider, headed by Atsuto Suzuki, Director General of KEK. It may serves a precursor for an international planning organisation for the […]