23 March 2006You may see thousands of stars or countless numbers of galaxies in the night sky. The universe is so vast that it would seem like just an infinite number of galaxies are out there. But in fact, what a human observes in the universe as visible light or any other form of radiation is just a fraction of what actually exists.
Category: Feature | Tagged: dark matter
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 16 March 2006Design and Cost Board Peter Garbincius, chair of the GDE Design and Cost Board, presented their ongoing work. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provides templates to each GDE working group and helps them define their cost estimates. "The main issues of this group is to make sure that the final system will be consistent and acceptable for everyone. ", said Garbincius. "In principle, the WBS we made should be applicable to every sub-system." The board will make sure each group identifies the major costs. Once the cost drivers are identified, the board will assess if they can be reduced. "Another issue is to encourage the group to provide the Change Control Board with a certain level of details on major items, to reduce uncertainty in the global machine cost", said Garbincius. To help them, the Design and Cost Board will provide a "recipe" for cost estimation.
Category: Feature | Tagged: change control board, design cost board, India
9 March 2006If built, the International Linear Collider will hurl tiny electrons and positrons down 26 miles of accelerator, colliding the particles at the center in a microscopic explosion. But what good is it all if you can't see it happen?
Category: Feature | Tagged: detector R&D, ILD Detector
Elizabeth Clements | 2 March 2006Approximately one year from now, the Global Design Effort expects to request proposals on a world-wide basis for siting the International Linear Collider. Although a long road remains to selecting a site for the ILC, facilitator Doug Sarno will tell you it is never too early to start public participation. In anticipation of submitting a proposal to host the ILC, Fermilab started discussions with local citizens, and two years ago, they established a Community Task Force on Public Participation. Ranging from a young high school student to a local mayor, the 22-member group developed a set of mutual expectations for how Fermilab will interact with the community on issues that effect them both. As the site selection for the ILC moves forward, the role of the Community Task Force will become increasingly important and perhaps even serve as a model on public participation for other regions involved in the global project.
Category: Feature | Tagged: citizen task force
Elizabeth Clements | 23 February 2006With the projected timescale for the International Linear Collider, the majority of scientists and engineers who are currently working on the proposed project will be well into retirement by the time the first collisions occur. Uriel Nauenberg, a particle physicist at the University of Colorado, is doing his part to ensure that the field of particle physics will have a future generation to carry on the projects and experiments that are under development now.
Category: Feature | Tagged: University of Colorado
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 23 February 2006Obtaining high luminosity beams will be crucial for the future International Linear Collider. An important indication on the beam quality is given by the emittance which depends on its size and opening angle. The lower the emittance, the easier it is to focus the beam and the more particle collisions can occur and be analysed. In the GDE the "Accelerator physics" group, a special team dedicated to the technical systems organised at CERN, on 08-11 February 2006, a "Low Emittance Transport Workshop". About 30 accelerator scientists, coming from all regions, attended it.
Category: Feature | Tagged: beam emittance
Elizabeth Clements | 16 February 2006On Monday, 6 February, a team of cryogenic engineers and accelerator physicists at Fermilab successfully cooled the first TESLA 9-cell 1.3 GHz cavity to 4.5 K (Kelvin) in the ILC Test Area in the Meson Detector Building (ILCTA-MDB). Travelling to Hamburg, Germany, Fermilab personnel assisted DESY in preparing the "ILC-like" cavity, called Capture Cavity II (CCII), and shipped it to its current home in Batavia, Illinois in August 2005.
Category: Feature | Tagged: cavity, cavity production, DESY, Fermilab
9 February 2006The rise and fall times of the pulses in the injection kickers influence the minimum circumference of the damping rings in the International Linear Collider. The Baseline Configuration Document features 6 km rings which will require pulsers to feed 50 ohm stripline kickers. The 5 kV (kilovolt) pulses must have 6 ns (nanosecond) rise and fall times, and a total duration of approximately 14 ns. Operating in a burst mode, every 5 seconds the kicker will have a 3 MHz (megahertz) burst that lasts 1 ms (millisecond). The combination of the electric component from the 5 kV voltage pulse and the magnetic component from the accompanying 100 A (amp) current pulse will deflect the electron and positron beams. The temporal specification of the kicker pulse presents a challenge to the existing generation of pulser technology.
Category: Feature | Tagged: TRIUMF
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 9 February 2006Last week, the future of particle physics in Europe was debated in Orsay (near Paris, France) from 30 January to 1 February. An Open Symposium, organised by the CERN Council Strategy Group, gathered more than 400 scientists from all over Europe, as well as representatives from North America and Asia.
Category: Feature | Tagged: CERN Council Strategy Group, Europe, Orsay
Elizabeth Clements | 2 February 2006After more than two months of intensive work, the Curriculum Committee has selected a group of 21 lecturers from around the world to teach at the International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders. Scheduled for 19-27 May 2006, the school will take place at Sokendai, Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Hayama, Japan.
Category: Feature | Tagged: linear collider school
