HEPAP Looks Into the Future

Volume 20 Friday, August 29, 1997 Number 17 f INSIDE HEPAP Looks into 2 HEPAP: Voice of the Community the Future 5 Profiles in HEPAP subpanel meets at Fermilab to chart the future of Particle Physics: high-energy physics in the U.S. Dave McGinnis by Donald Sena and Sharon Butler, Office of Public Affairs 6 Barns of Fermilab Charged with recommending how best to In a letter to HEPAP, Martha Krebs, position the U.S. particle physics community Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s for new facilities beyond CERN’s Large Office of Energy Research, directed the Hadron Collider, a subpanel of the High- subpanel to “recommend a scenario for an Energy Physics Advisory Panel met at Fermilab optimal and balanced U.S. high-energy physics August 14-16 to hear presentations on such program over the next decade,” with “new topics as the research agenda for Fermilab’s facilities to address physics opportunities Run II, the complicated upgrades to the CDF beyond the LHC.” She asked the subpanel and DZero detectors and research on future to consider a future course in light of three accelerators. continued on page 3 Photo by Reidar Hahn Dixon Bogert, deputy project manager for the Main Injector, leads a tour for HEPAP subpanel members and DOE officials. HEPAP: Voice of the Community by Donald Sena and Sharon Butler, Office of Public Affairs The High-Energy Physics Advisory In 1983, for example, a HEPAP According to Fermilab physicist Cathy Panel traces its history to the 1960s, subpanel recommended terminating Newman-Holmes, outgoing member of when the Atomic Energy Commission, Isabelle, a proton-proton collider with HEPAP, there are “various reasons why overseeing the nation’s weapons and superconducting magnets under things go in a different direction ...: energy laboratories, found itself “in need construction at Brookhaven National circumstances change, maybe the of advice.” According to Lillian Laboratory and a “real showpiece of the funding is lower than the panel assumed Hoddeson, Fermilab historian, “for the high-energy physics program,” in even in its most pessimistic scenario.” first time in [the AEC’s] history, the Tollestrup’s words. The subpanel One example: After the demise of funding was insufficient to support all recommended instead giving the highest the SSC, the “future vision” subpanel pending accelerator proposals.” priority to building the Superconducting chaired by Sidney Drell, from Stanford “From this point on,” writes Super Collider. Stanley Wojcicki, a University, recommended a “temporary Hoddeson, “American high-energy Stanford University professor who served and modest bump of $50 million per physicists would be spending more and as HEPAP chair for six years, remembers year in the total funding for three years more time on panels to discuss funding.” the difficulties reaching the decision, and from FY 1996 through FY 1998, HEPAP’s members today, appointed the bitterness with which it was greeted. followed by a return to a constant-level by the Secretary of the U.S. Department Nevertheless, Isabelle ceased to exist, and of-effort budget.” The money was of Energy for three-year terms, are in 1987, President Ronald Reagan intended to “revitalize the ongoing physicists carefully selected from approved construction of the SSC. research program and sustain it through universities and national laboratories More recently, in 1995, DOE the construction years of the two to represent a variety of opinions, charged a HEPAP subpanel with upgrades at Fermilab and SLAC.” But backgrounds, geographic areas and evaluating the potential of neutrino that “bump” did not materialize at the expertise, according to John O’Fallon, oscillation experiments at Fermilab and level the subpanel envisioned. director of the High-Energy Physics Brookhaven and recommending “a cost- Director John Peoples also points to Program in DOE’s Office of Energy effective plan for pursuing this physics.” the 1990 and 1992 subpanels, which Research. The subpanel recommended supporting assumed that Brookhaven’s high-energy HEPAP is DOE’s formal channel for Fermilab’s MINOS experiment and physics program at the Alternating advice, structured and operated in terminating Brookhaven’s E-889. The Gradient Synchrotron would cease and conformance with the Federal Advisory recommendation was reflected in DOE’s recommended giving the “highest Committee Act of 1972. The agenda is budget request to Congress. set by DOE, in consultation with the Still, the path from recommendation Outgoing HEPAP member HEPAP chairperson and leaders in the to implementation is paved with politics, Cathy Newman-Holmes, particle physics community. According to and not all advice finds its way to policy. Fermilab physicist… Fermilab physicist Alvin Tollestrup, HEPAP now is largely a forum for dialogue—albeit a “highly structured dialogue”— between the research laboratories and universities and DOE. By law, HEPAP’s meetings must be open to the public and so, HEPAP delegates the delicate, and tougher, issues to subpanels, where discussions can take place behind closed doors. So influential are these panels in shaping the direction of high-energy physics research in the U.S. that, O’Fallon claims, “if HEPAP didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” Deputy Director Ken Stanfield agrees: “If one were to track the history, one would see major decisions about new facilities and redirection of the program always associated with the HEPAP subpanels.” Photo by Reidar Hahn 2 FermiNews August 29, 1997 HEPAP Future continued from page 1 funding scenarios: a flat budget, a modest decrease and a modest increase. Krebs acknowledged in her letter that priority” to the SSC. DOE has charged “ If one were to accelerator research and design work was “an the current HEPAP subpanel with important investment that must be made in the recommending whether to end the track the history, future of the field. A proper balance is needed high-energy physics program at the AGS, one would see between [that work] and exploitation of and despite HEPAP’s advice, Congress present facilities and those ... under ceased funding the SSC in 1993. major decisions construction, namely, the B-factory at SLAC Peoples attributes the problems to about new [the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center] and the declining influence of high-energy the Main Injector at Fermilab.” physics in Washington and the regional facilities and HEPAP, which meets several times a year politics that inevitably intrudes, redirection of the to advise DOE, periodically convenes subpanels particularly in this era of dwindling to make recommendations on special topics resources. program always (see accompanying box on HEPAP and the And yet, says Tollestrup, HEPAP associated with history of its subpanels). retains a good reputation as a successful After two intense days of technical briefings advisory committee. the HEPAP on Fermilab’s high-energy physics program, Indeed, HEPAP has been a subpanels.” members of the current subpanel retired consensus builder, giving the field behind closed doors in the One East direction and cohesion, says Stanfield. ~ Deputy Director conference room to debate the program’s fate. “For more than 20 years,” Peoples Ken Stanfield Run II notes, “HEPAP has done a good job of Fermilab physicists left no doubt in getting priorities in order within a panelists’ minds that a “balanced” program in budget framework that the high-energy physics would need to include Administration and Congress were able completion of the Main Injector for the to work with—and of sticking to those Tevatron’s second run. priorities.” The success of Run I, said Paul Tipton, In that role, HEPAP has served— …Incoming HEPAP member from the University of Rochester, combined and serves today—as a model for other Peter Limon, head of Fermilab’s with the complicated upgrades to the two research communities. ■ Technical Division. collider detectors, CDF and DZero, portends a compelling physics agenda for Run II. “The top quark [discovered during Run I] has opened up a new laboratory of study for us—and we plan on using it,” said Tipton. In Run II, collaborators could delve into the physics of the putative Higgs boson using measurements of the top quark and the W boson, said Tipton. Collaborators will also study top quark parameters and W polarization in top decays and search for CP violation in B decays and for new phenomena, such as supersymmetric particles. Improvements to Fermilab’s accelerator complex are driving the need for upgrades, and John Marriner, Fermilab physicist, detailed the work to Fermilab’s vital machines. Run II will see the introduction of Fermilab’s Main Injector, which will replace the Main Ring and allow Fermilab to increase the luminosity, and hence the number of particle collisions per second. Accelerator specialists will also improve the Tevatron, bringing the superconducting accelerator up to an energy of 1 TeV—making continued on page 4 Photo by Reidar Hahn FermiNews August 29, 1997 3 HEPAP Future Neutrino talks Fermilab physicist Bob Bernstein led off continued from page 3 three comprehensive talks about the neutrino oscillation program at Fermilab, saying that while evidence existed for neutrino oscillations, accelerators needed to confirm or refute that evidence. Fermilab, he said, has the right people and the right resources to carry out such a study, which could help explain much of the universe’s missing mass. Gina Rameika, Fermilab physicist and the NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) project manager, acknowledged that laboratories abroad were competing in this area but declared that the NuMI beam and facility offered the world’s best neutrino oscillation Photo by Reidar Hahn experiment. Doug Michael, from Caltech, Prototype low-field magnet for the VLHC, ended the three talks by detailing possible with its builders. oscillation scenarios and expected physics measurements. it a “true Tevatron.” Marriner said the initial Accelerator research goal of Run II is to achieve a luminosity of Several Fermilab physicists argued for 5 x 1031.

Load more