Even the best detector will be useless without clever reconstruction algorithms and software. On 2-4 May 2007, the ILC Software Workshop was held at LAL, Orsay (France). The whole chain of data processing was reviewed there: software framework and tools, algorithms and physics results. At the end of the workshop, DESY physicist Ties Behnke summarised […]
What can the ILC do to get students back to science?
A conversation with economics professor and author Kazuo Nishimura
“Less than 50 percent.” This is the shocking data that Kazuo Nishimura, the head of the Economic Research Institute at Kyoto University, one of the well-respected educational institutes in Japan, reported in his book University students who cannot calculate fraction numbers. Nishimura believes that the ILC could be one of the remedies to fix the […]
Fermilab hosts TESLA Technology Collaboration meeting
Last week, more than 100 scientists from around the world met at Fermilab to discuss recipes for baking, rinsing and polishing. Not the kind used for baking a cake, instead attendees at the TESLA Technology Collaboration meeting shared information about developing the optimal recipe for pushing superconducting radiofrequency, or SCRF, technology forward. During a tour […]
Hot topics in intensely cold Russia
The baseline design for the International Linear Collider (ILC) positron source is based on multi-MeV photons that produce pairs in a metallic target. The photons are created by the main electron beam passing through a helical undulator. The conventional method, positron generation via pair production using an electron beam, which is used as the positron […]
SiD plans for the road ahead
At last week’s Silicon Detector (SiD) concept meeting, participants used several words starting with the letter F — Flow, as in particle flow; Funding, as in the need for more resources and manpower to fund detector R&D project; and Freezing, as in the weather at Fermilab. Approximately 70 members of SiD met at Fermilab to […]
Building prep work almost complete for Fermilab’s ILC Test Area
With a brand new floor and freshly cleaned out space, Fermilab’s New Muon Laboratory is about to become the new home to a sixty-metre-long accelerator that will serve as a test area for ILC R&D. Until recently, the New Muon Laboratory housed the 2000-ton Chicago cyclotron magnet for more than 24 years. The newly renovated […]
China on the walkway towards the ILC
The Temple of Heaven, a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design in Beijing symbolises the relationship between earth and heaven – the human society and the universe – which stands at the heart of Chinese cosmology. It was the central image on the poster for the 9th ACFA ILC Physics & Detector Workshop and ILC […]
Hot out of the oven, Saclay team improves cavity baking process
Before accelerating electrons and positrons, cavities need to undergo a number of treatments, such as chemical and electropolishing, the last one being baking. The standard baking procedure heats the cavity at 120°C for two days with an ultra high vacuum (UHV) requirement. These very restrictive conditions are unfortunately not appropriate for the treatment of 16,000 […]
Fermilab users conduct ILC detector beam test
Peeling paint? Leaky roof? No problem. Say the words “test beam facility” to a physicist, and the opportunity to collect real physics data will wash away any aesthetic issues. Literally. This is at least how a team of Fermilab users from University of Texas at Arlington, Lousiana Tech University and Changwon National University in South […]
Test Beam Encounters: ECal meets HCal
Team in the beam: Asian ECal makes measurements in the test beam at DESY Layers of the electromagnetic calorimeter in the test beam When scientists take their detector prototypes to a test beam they enter a parallel world. Many basic needs are put on hold – the need for sunlight, regular meals or eight hours […]