20 August 2009Do you remember where you were and what you did exactly five years ago today? People who were working on the ILC then will almost certainly be able to tell you their story of 20 August 2004 – after all it was the day that set the course for the future of the project. During the ICHEP conference in Beijing, the International Committee for Future Accelerators ICFA announced its conclusion that the ILC should be built with 'cold' superconducting rather than 'warm' X-band radiofrequency technology, following the carefully made selection by the International Technology Recommendation Panel or ITRP. Symmetry magazine – itself still in its infancy then – published two gripping stories on the decision making process (The road to Beijing) and on the cold technology (Sold on cold) that make a fascinating anniversary read. Less fascinating but also interesting: the press release ICFA sent out on the day.
Category: Feature | Tagged: cold technology
13 August 2009Helium is the lifeblood of large particle accelerators. As the world’s supply dwindles, the particle physics community must take steps to preserve this precious commodity or learn to live without it.
Category: Feature | Tagged: cryogenics, Helium
Rika Takahashi | 6 August 2009On 7 July, while the Emperor and Empress of Japan were visiting Canada, Nigel Lockyer, the director of TRIUMF, gave a lecture at the Canada – Japan Particle Accelerator Science Symposium at the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Canada. Today, Canada and Japan are partners in numerous international groups and organisations such as the G8, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Organisation for Co-operation and Development (OECD). This symposium showcased one of many Canada-Japan collaborations: the active partnership in accelerator science.
Category: Feature | Tagged: Canada, Canada-Japan collaboration, Japan, TRIUMF
30 July 2009As we are celebrating the 200th issue of NewsLine, we would like to take the opportunity to conduct a survey about your experience with the newsletter.
Category: Feature | Tagged: survey
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 16 July 2009Ingrid Gregor and her team will have a very busy summer. As a particle physicist, she coordinates a successful device for test beam infrastructures, the EUDET telescope, which is fully booked at CERN during the next four months. In her rare spare time, she also experiences the joys of blogging as she just joined the team of the ILC Quantum Diarists.
Category: Feature | Tagged: DESY, EUDET, EUDET telescope
9 July 2009The International Linear Collider had more than a dozen circuit pixel-detector technologies to choose from for their vertex detectors. Now, they can choose from many more design options thanks to a ground-breaking partnership among national laboratories, universities and industry.
Category: Feature | Tagged: 3-D silicon technology, detector R&D, vertex detector
2 July 2009Just a 15-minute walk from Matsumoto Castle in Nagano prefecture, which is considered a national treasure of Japan, you’ll find Shinshu University, where the International Conference on Photon Detectors, or PD09, was held from 24 to 26 June. The conference was attended by 55 photon-sensor experts in the field of high-energy physics, nuclear physics, cosmic-ray physics and medical science, along with three companies–Hamamatsu, SEIKO EG&G and General Electric–to discuss the recent development of photon-sensors and various applications. In 2007, both the ILC and the T2K neutrino experiment project groups initiated this bi-yearly conference in Kobe to collaborate on the use of the multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC) and other newly developed photon-sensors.
Category: Feature | Tagged: MPPC, photon sensor
25 June 2009Scientists just finished successfully testing the first particle flow algorithm hadronic calorimeter for the International Linear Collider, with unprecedented granularity and novel readout technology. This sub-detector, the analog hadronic calorimeter, was built by the CALICE (Calorimeter for the Linear Collider Experiment) collaboration and is one of several options for the hadronic calorimeter of a future ILC detector.
Category: Feature | Tagged: CALICE, hadronic calorimeter, particle flow algorithm
Barbara Warmbein | 11 June 2009The team developing the ILC's positron source have every reason to be positive. Recent tests have shown both that the four-meter helical undulator prototype – a device that will produce an intense beam of polarised gamma rays – works in its cryomodule, and that the target that will produce the positrons themselves can reach its design rotation speed of 2000 revolutions per minute.
Category: Feature | Tagged: accelerator R&D, positron source, undulator
Barbara Warmbein | 4 June 2009A few weeks after the first big Accelerator Advisory Panel (AAP) review at the TILC09 meeting in Tsukuba, Japan, the panel has published its review results (see also the two most recent Director’s Corners on this topic). After two months of preparation, an intense week of presentations and another few weeks of writing up the results, the 13 members – ten ILC researchers and three from outside the linear collider world – presented a set of recommendations that intend to lead the ILC's most important areas of research and development to successful completion by the end of the Technical Design Phase (TDP) in late 2012.
Category: Feature | Tagged: AAP, AAP review, Accelerator Advisory Panel
