ILC NewsLine - 5 October 2006

The TTC brings experts from around the world together to solve the challenges of superconducting technology for the ILC.

From 25-28 September, 101 accelerator physicists from around the world attended the TESLA Technology Collaboration Meeting at KEK in Japan. "After the technology choice [for the linear collider cavity] was made, the TESLA collaboration as a collaboration advancing the linear collider was no longer needed, but the technology pool was considered to be very important," said Albrecht Wagner, director of DESY. "Therefore the TESLA Technology Collaboration was created to pool all the know-how of superconducting accelerator technologies, cavity development, and cavity preparation up to the full accelerator." The last TTC meeting was held at INFN-Frascati in December 2005.

"What really brings people together is the subtleties of technology," Wagner said. "Electro-polishing techniques for cavities, for example, is especially now becoming a focus of these meetings. In my mind, this collaboration's major importance is to optimise progress in the field of superconducting accelerators, of course not only for the linear collider, but also for energy recovery linacs, for X-ray free electron lasers, and for high intensity proton linacs and so on. It really makes all the labs who are interested in the development of this technology work together."

"This collaboration makes all of the labs who are interested in the development of this technology work together," said DESY Director Albrecht Wagner during his plenary talk.

101 accelerator physicists from around the world attended this third meeting of the TTC at KEK.

Members of the TTC have a lot of experience with international collaboration -- an important aspect for accomplishing the goals of the organisation, not to mention the entire ILC. Marc Ross, new head of the Technical Division at Fermilab, attended the TTC meeting and has been working with members of the Accelerator Test Facility collaboration, another example of an international project, for 14 years. "Led by Junji Urakawa, we achieved the world record emittance for an electron beam around 2001, but it took several years. The funding situation was difficult, and we had to work as a tight team to study the problems and fix them. International collaboration was very important," Ross said.

He has experience facilitating the ATF collaboration between linear collider researchers and students in Japan and the Americas. "We worked on technical aspects and also on logistical aspects," Ross said. "Sometimes it is difficult for foreigners to come and work in Japan. They need help to get started. Once they get started there is no problem, but it is very important for the first time or second time."

Ross regards the TTC as a resource for the challenging accelerator technology that has been selected for the ILC, especially for superconducting microwave technology. "We want to create as high an accelerating field as possible, and we developed a plan, called S0/S1, to test niobium cavities in different parts of the world," Ross said. "Involving the TTC in this R&D is extremely important because this collaboration consists of the world's experts. Some of them might not have enough resources, but they have a lot of experience. We can learn from them. They can evaluate our programme, and they can participate in our work. We need to work as tightly as possible." One of Ross' roles is to serve as a liaison between KEK and the activities in the Americas in order to develop a coherent plan. This past meeting is the first TTC gathering since the formation of these new GDE teams.