The SiD detector concept community met last week at the STFC's Cosener's House in Abingdon, UK. This was the first meeting after SiD submitted its Expression of Interest (EoI) and also the first SiD Workshop outside of the Americas. Hosted jointly by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Oxford University, the workshop attracted around 65 participants, mainly from the US and Europe. The focus of the meeting was on the status of the Particle Flow Algorithms (PFA) and on optimising the SiD Detector. Norman McCubbin, the head of Particle Physics division at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, opened the workshop and welcomed the SiD community to Cosener's House. John Jaros (SLAC) then outlined the goals of the workshop in his opening talk.

SiD meeting participants discussing in front of Cosener's House. (Photo: Steve Worm)

Monday afternoon was entirely dedicated to the vertexing and tracking groups who showed a vast amount of progress in hardware R&D and software reconstruction. Tuesday morning sessions started with summaries of the current calorimeter R&D efforts for the ECAL and HCAL while the rest of the day was spent on PFA and optimisation. The meeting concluded with a vivid discussion on optimisation and cost triggered by Marty Breidenbach's (SLAC) talk.

The workshop organisers also invited three guest speakers: Brian Foster (Oxford) gave an overview of the status of the GDE and updated everyone on the current funding situation. Dieter Schlatter (CERN) reported on the current CLIC detector efforts and the potential overlap with SiD. Mark Thomson (Cambridge) gave a nice overview talk on PandoraPFA that triggered a lot of discussion.

A highlight of the workshop was the formal dinner at Jesus College in Oxford. The dinner was served in the 16th-century dining hall which provided a memorable setting. After dinner, Professor Ken Peach of the John Adams Institute addressed the workshop attendants. In his speech, in response the current funding crisis, he reminded everyone of William Blake's quote that “the fool who persists in his folly will become wise.”

In the workshop summary, Harry Weerts said: “This has been the best SiD workshop so far with impressive results. Thanks to the hosts for their great hospitality.”

-- Marcel Stanitzki, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory