Barry Barish | 8 January 2009The nature of modern scientific research has been changing due to the increased reliance on large-scale scientific facilities for forefront research. The programmes at our DOE National Laboratories have become focused more and more around large facilities and the programme of Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) has emerged as a very important part of the NSF research portfolio. The NSF programme began with physics and astronomy initiatives, but has expanded into other disciplines.
Category: Feature | Tagged: international collaboration, ITER, National Science and Technology Summit, NSF, research facilities
18 December 2008April is the best time to visit Japan – nice and warm weather, cherry blossoms and lively atmosphere of starting a new fiscal year – and of course, TILC09! A worldwide meeting of physicists on the ILC accelerator, experiments and theory to further the ILC's Technical Design Phase.
Category: Feature | Tagged: TILC09
Rika Takahashi | 11 December 2008The inner surfaces of the niobium cavities for the International Linear Collider have to be polished to literally sparkle, since the smallest defects, such as bumps, pits, welding flaws or human-induced scratches on them are considered to be dominantly responsible for the deterioration of the cavity performance and can even lead to quenches and field emission. Many techniques and technologies have been studied and developed already to address this challenge. At the end of November, the first prototype of a new gadget developed with different approach was delivered to KEK.
Category: Feature | Tagged: cavity, inner surface grinder
Barbara Warmbein | 11 December 2008When you have a set of new hardware and a clear mission ahead of you, the first step to complete the mission is to commission the hardware. After reconfiguring their storage ring and light source CESR, Cornell University and the international ILC team working on damping ring studies switched on the machine in early October and performed the first electron cloud studies in the low emittance configuration in November. “It was an intense week and we have some very interesting new data,” says Mark Palmer, CesrTA project manager.
Category: Feature | Tagged: CesrTA, Cornell University, damping ring, electron cloud
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 4 December 2008The International Detector Advisory Group (IDAG) met for the second time during the LCWS08 meeting which took place in Chicago two weeks ago. In a few days, they succeeded to converge on the strategy they will use to evaluate the ILC detectors concepts. At the end of March 2009, they will receive the Letters of Intent (LOIs) for the detector concepts and start reviewing them.
Category: Feature | Tagged: detector concepts, IDAG, LCWS08, letter of intent
4 December 2008This week SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory moves one step closer to producing an innovative new piece of the International Linear Collider. The first-generation model of a new design for equipment that helps power the accelerator is moving from the SLAC Power Conversion Department to End Station B, where it will undergo long-term testing.
Category: Feature | Tagged: marx modulator, SLAC
Rika Takahashi | 26 November 2008It has been hectic days for Makoto Kobayashi, Professor emeritus at KEK, since 7 October, the announcement of 2008 Nobel Prize in physics. Now that one month has passed, Kobayashi finally gets to settle down a little (or he has gotten used to keeping up with a demanding schedule), he shared his time to talk about the future of accelerator science with ILC NewsLine.
Category: Feature | Tagged: Japan, Nobel prize
13 November 2008Plans are taking shape to form a new group to coordinate and stimulate R&D on monolithic and vertically integrated pixel detectors for scientific applications in high-energy physics and beyond. In a joint message, the directorates of CERN, KEK and Fermilab have offered their support. They suggested the formation of a regionally balanced coordination board to take this forward. From discussions in recent reviews and workshops, we think there is an opportunity for the many efforts underway worldwide to benefit a larger community. We already have strong collaborations for the development of vertical integration and monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS). The new world-wide effort would build upon the existing collaborations and open the technology developments to other scientific areas. We will discuss how best to achieve this at upcoming meetings. Our suggestions will then be comunicated to the directorates of CERN, KEK and Fermilab.
Category: Feature | Tagged: CERN, detector R&D, Fermilab, KEK, MAPS, monolithic active pixel sensors
6 November 2008"Particle physics is at a crossroads," said Chairperson Albrecht Wagner of the International Committee for Future Accelerators, in the opening moments of the ninth ICFA Seminar last Tuesday in Kavli Auditorium. "The Standard Model stands triumphant," Wagner said, "yet incomplete."
Category: Feature | Tagged: ICFA, SLAC
Marc Ross | 30 October 2008The ILC-CLIC (International Linear Collider - Compact Linear Collider Study) collaboration was started earlier this year at CERN. It consists of five working groups which are led by conveners from both projects. Collaboration mandates and activities were defined with an eye toward this autumn’s workshops: the CLIC08 workshop, held at CERN from 14 to 17 October and the ILC-LCWS08, to be held in the middle of next month in Chicago. CLIC08 was the first time the group met face to face since the collaboration and its working groups were established. The collaboration is intended to serve two basic purposes: firstly to allow a more efficient use of resources, especially engineers, and secondly to promote communication between the two project teams. Of course, face-to-face meetings tend to be more effective than tele-conferencing, so many excellent opportunities for direct, informal, discussion arose between the two teams and we made good progress toward our second purpose. Since the framework of the meeting was the CLIC08 workshop, the agenda naturally focused on CLIC challenges and plans with specific collaboration highlights having a key, but minor overall role.
Category: Feature | Tagged: CERN, CLIC, CLIC08, ILC-CLIC collaboration
