Report on ECFA Activities

Transcription

1 CERN/SPC/1016 Original: English 13 September 2013 ORGANISATION EUROPEENNE POUR LA RECHERCHE NUCLEAIRE CERN EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH Action to be taken Voting Procedure For comment SCIENTIFIC POLICY COMMITTEE 284th Meeting September For information EUROPEAN STRATEGY SESSION OF COUNCIL 17 th Session 20 September Report on ECFA Activities

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3 CERN/SPC/ Report on ECFA Activities September 2012 August Dates of Plenary and Restricted ECFA Meetings Since the last report on 21 September 2012, CERN- Council- S/097, two Plenary ECFA (PECFA) meetings have been held: in November 22/23, 2012 at CERN and in July 20, 2013 in a joint session with the EPS High Energy Particle Physics Board (EPS- HEPP) during the EPS conference in Stockholm. The agendas and links to the presentations are available from the following web addresses: 92 nd PECFA 93 rd PECFA Since the last report in September 2012 Restricted ECFA (RECFA) made official visits to the following countries: Italy (October 5/6, 2012), Serbia (October 19, 2012), France (March 15/16, 2013) and Denmark (May 3/4, 2013). The agendas for these visits and links to the material presented in the open sessions are available from the following web addresses: Italy Serbia France Denmark Additional RECFA meetings took place prior to the Plenary ECFA meetings November 22, 2012 and July 20, Plenary ECFA Meetings The 92 nd Plenary ECFA Meeting in November 2012 was largely devoted to issues relevant for the ongoing discussion on the Update of the European strategy for particle physics. Following the standing items of ECFA meetings, presentations on the International Linear Collider, the Compact Linear Collider, HL- LHC physics by ATLAS and CMS, and neutrino physics experiments were given. The talks covered issues of particular interest for the European Strategy Update and served as an input to a discussion session which followed. The discussion session was recorded and the minutes were made available to the Strategy Group. Other items on the agenda were the mid- term report of Russia and a report by the chair of the international Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG). Plenary ECFA endorsed the summary of the LHeC Review Panel (ECFA/12/279) and the nomination of L. Rivkin (PSI, CH) and F. LeDiberder (IN2P3, F) as European community representatives for accelerator physics and physics and detectors for the Linear Collider Board (LCB). Plenary ECFA endorsed also the new secretary of ECFA Calin Alexa (representative of Rumania in RECFA) for a period of 3 years and thanked the outgoing secretary Ken Long (representative of UK in RECFA) for his valuable contributions. The 93 rd Plenary ECFA meeting was organized as a joint session with the EPS- HEPP Board during the EPS conference in Stockholm. This meeting took place

4 2 CERN/SPC/1016 after the approval of the Update of the European Strategy for particle physics by the CERN Council in Brussels May 30. The theme of the joint session was Particle Physics after the European Strategy Update. Presentations were given by prominent scientists on the scientific issues identified in the Strategy Update as carrying the highest priority. Each presentation was followed by a discussion session. The meeting was well attended by members of ECFA, EPS- HEPP Board, and participants of the EPS conference. 3 - Country Visits and Mid- term Reports In October 2012 RECFA visited Italy. The meeting was held in Frascati. Italy is a very strong contributor to particle and astroparticle physics in Europe with large infrastructure and important laboratories in the country, i.e. in Catania, Frascati, Gran Sasso, Legnaro, and the Tier 1 center in Bologna. Italy made large contributions to all four LHC experiments during design and construction, operation and exploitation. Also the activities of the Italian physicists in theory, computing and outreach were found to be excellent. The committee acknowledges the achievements of the DAPHNE accelerator and the KLOE experiment operating at the luminosity frontier. Concerns were expressed and discussed on the freeze on research appointments, the difficulties of early career progression and the bureaucratic procedures for personnel hiring. Following the recent accession of Serbia as an associate CERN member state RECFA made a first visit to Serbia in October The committee met a very enthusiastic physics community and many Serbian colleagues who contributed to experiments at CERN for a long time already. The meeting in Belgrade was mainly devoted to the discussion how Serbia could make best use of the CERN membership, scientifically and economically. The committee recognized the very positive example of experience and technology transfer by the Grid project in Serbia and suggested to build on this experience by initiating a new project on detector R&D. A CERN detector school was proposed as a jump start. Meanwhile, it was agreed to organize this school in September 2014 in Novi Sad. The RECFA visit to France took place in March France is a very strong contributor to our field in Europe and worldwide. The institutions IN2P3 and IRFU and numerous strong laboratories are very well organized, share responsibility while exploiting their individual strengths. France had a major impact in design and construction of all four large LHC experiments and makes important contributions to several low energy experiments, the International Linear Collider, the Compact Linear Collider, and theory. The committee did acknowledge the particular strength of France in detector and accelerator R&D, which is a consequence of the strong engineering support at the IN2P3 and the IRFU laboratories. Issues of concern are the sustained funding of large experiments, the maintenance and operation of Tier2 computing centers and the heavy teaching load of young maîtres de conférences. Denmark was visited by RECFA in May The committee recognizes the

5 CERN/SPC/ impressive contribution of the relative small experimental Danish groups to ATLAS, ALICE, NA63, to experiments at ISOLDE, and to the anti- hydrogen programme at CERN. The committee noted also positively the emerging activities in astroparticle physics. The long tradition of theory in Denmark is very well preserved, in particular did the committee acknowledge the achievements of the CP3 center in Odense. The Discovery center in Copenhagen has managed to create very fruitful synergies. Very impressive are the outreach activities of the particle physics community in Denmark. The grid activities in Denmark are well integrated in NorduGrid a combined effort with neighbouring countries. However, the funding for Grid computing at the Danish institutes is a matter of concern. The on- going restructuring of the Danish funding system created some uncertainty, which triggered RECFA to write a specific letter to the minister in support of scientific projects at international research infrastructures. The mid- term report of Russia was presented in the 92 nd Plenary ECFA meeting November Due to the special nature of the joint ECFA EPS- HEPP session in Stockholm, no mid- term report was scheduled in this meeting. 4 - Supported Workshops One of ECFAs role is to initiate and support scientific workshops. In 2013 the following workshops have been and will be organised. In May the European Linear Collider Workshop (ECFA LC2013) was held at DESY, Hamburg. The workshop was very well attended by more than 330 participants. The agenda and talks are available at The ECFA Workshop on High Luminosity LHC Experiments: Physics and technology challenges will be held in Aix- les- Bains, France. The preparations for this workshop are going on in several working groups. More information is available on the following website: ECFA and International Relations ECFA is represented in several international and national committees through its chairperson. In these committees the ECFA chairperson represents the interests of the European particle physics community and serves as a link person between ECFA and the particular committee. Within the reporting period the following developments in these international committees should be taken note of. ICFA ICFA stands for the International Committee for Future Accelerator. The

6 4 CERN/SPC/1016 committee had two meetings in 2013 in February 21/22 and in June 26. The main topic in these meetings was the implementation of the new Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC). This new organisation replaces the Global Design Effort the mandate of which ended with the completion of the Technical Design Report (TDR). The TDR was completed and delivered to the chair of ICFA in an official ceremony June 12, The new Linear Collider organisation will remain under the umbrella of ICFA and will include also the project of the Compact Linear Collider. The directorate consists of a director (L. Evans), a deputy (H. Murayama) and three associated directors for the three subprojects: ILC (M. Harrison), CLIC (S. Stapnes), and Physics and Detectors (H. Yamamoto). The panel overlooking these activities is the Linear Collider Board (LCB) with representatives from all three regions. Two members of the LCB representing the European communities on accelerator R&D and physics and detectors, L. Rivkin and F. LeDiberder, were nominated by ECFA. The LCB replaces the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC). ICFA decided to set up a new panel for neutrinos to promote international cooperation in the development of the accelerator- based neutrino- oscillation program and to promote international collaboration in the development of a neutrino factory as a future intense source of neutrinos for particle physics experiments. The ICFA meeting in June was the last meeting chaired by Pierre Oddone. Perpetuating the rotation scheme among the regions the designated Fermilab director Nigel Lockyer will also serve as the new ICFA chair. 6 - Planning of ECFA in 2014 In 2014 ECFA foresees two plenary ECFA meetings and three country visits by RECFA. The countries to be visited in 2014 are Israel (April 10/11), Germany (May 9/10) and United Kingdom (November 7/8).