Barry Barish | 7 June 2012The international KILC12 workshop was held in April in Korea to discuss topics varying from ILC physics to the nuts and bolts of the accelerator and detector designs for the International Linear Collider. This meeting came at a crucial time when the design decisions for the Technical Design Report was being finalised and the writing of the report being begun in earnest.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: DBD, Higgs, Japan, KILC12, physics, TDR
Gerry Dugan | 31 May 2012The cost estimate for the ILC that will accompany the Technical Design Report is intended to be a credible, comprehensive, and well-documented presentation of the costs in a format which is useful for all regional partners. It will be a “Value” estimate, stated in “ILC Units” which are convertible to any regional currency, and in person-hours of institutional labour at the ILC laboratory, or at collaborating laboratories and institutions.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: cost estimate, ILC Units, TDR
Barry Barish | 24 May 2012The Funding Agencies for Large Colliders met in the Shonan Village Center in Kanagawa, Japan on 17 April. FALC is an informal group of agency representatives who discuss large international projects in particle physics, both projects that are under way and those in the planning stages. FALC has given special attention to the ILC since it is a totally global initiative and has no home laboratory to oversee its development. The meeting in Japan discussed the future of ILC R&D beyond the Global Design Effort mandate to produce a Technical Design Report next year.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: FALC, Higgs, ICFA, ILCSC, LHC, POST-TDR, Super B, TDR
Barry Barish | 17 May 2012Today I pay tribute to a very special Vietnamese physicist, Jean Trân Thanh Vân, who has been awarded the 2011 Tate Medal. No field of physics is more international than particle physics and Trân epitomises that spirit. He has dedicated much of his professional life to creating ways to bring physicists together from around the globe, and especially his initiatives to bring Vietnam into the global world of physics.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: AIP, APS, award, Moriond, Orsay, Vietnam
Barry Barish | 10 May 2012The ILC physics programme is based on building two complementary detectors that will share beam time. The value of having two detectors with different designs, technologies, collaborations and emphasis has proven to be a very effective way to exploit the science. For the ILC, we propose using a push-pull concept to cost-effectively share the beam between two detectors.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: CFS, ILC baseline, interaction region, push-pull
Barry Barish | 19 April 2012Most of us belong to a professional society that serves many of our professional needs throughout our career as practicing scientists. I have belonged to the American Physical Society since I was a graduate student in Berkeley, and last year I had the privilege of serving as APS President for 2011. It has become customary for each outgoing President to summarise his or her presidential year for APS, and I repeat my summary in order to give a picture of the activities of such a professional society.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: APS, education, outreach, physical society, science policy
Barry Barish | 12 April 2012HEPAP is the official advisory body to DOE for high-energy physics. At their recent meeting from 12 to 13 March, they dealt with US high-energy physics budgets, including future year projections, and how to reconcile them with the US high-energy physics programme. In the process, they covered a wide variety of topics ranging from the future of the US accelerator R&D programme to next-generation dark matter searches.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: DOE, DOE Office of Science, HEPAP, United States
Barry Barish | 5 April 2012The joint ACFA Physics/Detector Workshop and Global Design Effort meeting on linear colliders (KILC12) will be held in Daegu, Korea from 23 to 27 April 2012. This meeting comes at the crucial time when we are making the transition from determining the technical details for the Technical Design Report to actually writing the report. At Daegu, the GDE will not only present a set of progress reports on ILC R&D but will also schedule special working meetings on costing and first draft sections of the TDR.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: ACFA, KILC12, TDR
