'SM18' at CERN: This is where the proposed test facility could be installed when LHC tests are finished.

Discussions at the EUROTeV workshop

For the ILC, superconducting radiofrequency cavities will have to be produced at unprecedented scale. More than 15000 cavities with a reliably high gradient will be needed – and a facility where they can be tested and prepared. At a meeting at the French Linear Accelerator Lab LAL in Orsay last week, the European SCRF elite got their heads together and came up with a proposal: to build such a facility at CERN.

"It would be an ideal-case scenario," explains Eckhard Elsen from DESY, EUROTeV coordinator. Even though a test facility exists at DESY for the XFEL, it would have to be extended massively to accommodate the planned facility if it were to serve the needs of the ILC and possibly other users. At CERN SC infrastructures will become available with the start-up of the LHC. And although the test halls would have to be remodelled, the cost would be lower than building such a facility from scratch somewhere else. The proposal was presented to the European Steering Group on Accelerator R&D (ESGARD) on Friday, and the scientists have started drafting a proposal for the upcoming FP7, the European Commission's funding programme for research for the years 2007 - 2013.

The 90 participants of the workshop 'Electron Accelerator R&D for the Energy Frontier' from 15 to 17 May at LAL did not only write proposals though – they actually took part in three workshops at the same time: EUROTeV and CARE/ELAN mid-term meetings and the kick-off meeting for the new EuroLEAP project, a planned laser-plasma accelerator. All three projects are Brussels-funded. Francois Richard from LAL, coordinator of CARE/ELAN and organiser of the event, was pleased with the outcome. "I am happy that we managed to get all the specialists around one table to discuss and actually write a strategy for FP7." The first call for new infrastructures will be issued at the end of the year, so the proposed superconducting RF test facility at CERN is a major candidate.

Gilbert Guignard

"Of course we still have to pass a few hurdles: as with all EC projects the participating laboratories will have to check how much they will be able to contribute before it comes to formal proposal writing. The activity will proceed in concert with the GDE who wants significant SC RF work in all three regions," says Eckhard Elsen. "And then the proposal has to be accepted for funding at the European Commission. But it is such a great idea that we are quite confident. We know so much about superconductivity in Europe that we have to make sure to keep this leading role." The existing contracts from Brussels are truly gathering all the experts together and networking in Europe has never been so strong and efficient.

EUROTeV discussed additional options to extend their research beyond the ongoing programme, which ends in 2007. Experts on beam dynamics, damping rings, polarisation, diagnostics and vibration stabilisation presented progress in their fields and identified interesting topics for future research. There are so many of these that it is clear that the R&D done under EUROTeV will have to continue, and the experts are gearing up to write proposals for FP7 next year.

EUROTeV scientific coordinator Gilbert Guignard from CERN enjoyed the meeting because it gathered all developments in two-and-a-half days. "We need these meetings to know where we are, and this one was very useful," he says. "I think we could have spent even more time in discussion of the workplan details."

-- Barbara Warmbein