2007 Director's Corner archive

Current Director's Corner archive


 

20 December 2007 - Omnibus is ominous Our plan this week was to make this issue of ILC NewsLine a thematic one, highlighting progress on Superconducting Radiofrequency R&D, the central technology for the International Linear Collider. It would have made a very nice final edition for this calendar year, but unfortunately new events that imperil the future course of the ILC must be addressed instead. -- By Barry Barish
13 December 2007 - A more integrated approach toward an energy frontier lepton collider All of particle physics is poised for the impending first explorations of the trillion-electronvolt (TeV) energy scale at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Within the next couple of years, the LHC will lead the way in opening up this new frontier for particle physics. The early results should help us determine what is required of a complementary lepton collider, in order to best address the new physics. -- By Barry Barish
6 December 2007 - China prepares for a new generation of tau-charm physics The BEBC accelerator and BES detector facility are the centerpieces of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing. These ambitious state-of-the-art facilities act as the follow-on to the pioneering studies at SPEAR of tau and charm physics. -- By Barry Barish
29 November 2007 - New year - new office "If you talk about next year, devils will laugh at you." This is a Japanese saying that corresponds to the English saying, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." I do not want to be laughed at by the devil, but I would like to write about Building 2 at KEK. -- By Kaoru Yokoya
21 November 2007 - The importance of carefully planned infrastructure Last week, I gave a colloquium about the ILC at CERN. This is a very interesting time to be at CERN. There is a buzz in the air and an impressive amount of intense activity, as final preparations are underway for the LHC start-up, scheduled for next summer. -- By Barry Barish
15 November 2007 - Chinese participation in ILC Beijing is a place to mark important ILC milestones. In 2004, the International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA) announced the decision to base the ILC acceleration technology on superconducting radiofrequency technology. In February 2007, we released the draft Global Design Effort Reference Design Report (RDR) for the ILC. This past week, in what I anticipate will mark an equally important milestone for the ILC, many of us attended the CCAST ILC Accelerator Workshop and first Asia ILC R&D Seminar under the JSPS Core-University Program. -- By Barry Barish
8 November 2007 - Cosmic Dark Matter and the ILC A couple of weeks ago, Michael Peskin (SLAC) opened the ALCPG07 meeting at Fermilab with a visionary talk titled, "The Physics Landscape: Now and Tomorrow." -- By Barry Barish
1 November 2007 - Critical decisions Last week was an eventful week. The ALCPG07 and GDE meetings at Fermilab, attended by over 300 scientists and engineers, marked the completion of the ILC Reference Design Report and the beginning of the engineering design activities. The joint plenary session on the first day of the meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy. -- By Barry Barish
25 October 2007 - Project Managers - World Tour ...I am currently waiting to get on a plane to fly to the Fermilab Global Design Effort meeting, where we will finally say goodbye to the Reference Design phase, and formally begin the new Engineering Design (ED) phase for the ILC. -- By Nick Walker
18 October 2007 - Frosting on the cake Today we mark the conclusion of the Reference Design Report phase of the International Linear Collider Global Design Effort with the release of our document, The International Linear Collider: Gateway to the Quantum Universe. -- By Barry Barish
11 October 2007 - Unified versus plug compatible designs We are now making the transition from completing the International Linear Collider reference design to beginning the engineering design phase by holding a set of kick-off meetings to cover the major areas of the machine. -- By Barry Barish
4 October 2007 - New detector leadership for the ILC We are dedicating this special issue of ILC NewsLine to the appointment of the new ILC Research Director, Sakue Yamada of KEK Laboratory and the University of Tokyo. -- By Barry Barish
27 September 2007 - ILC Americas Regional Team progress report One of the principle goals of the Americas R&D programme reflects on the dominant role of superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) technology in the ILC design (and cost). -- By Mike Harrison
20 September 2007 - Project X at Fermilab These days it seems that the questions I am asked most frequently are not about what gradient we will achieve for the ILC, not who will be the ILC Research Director, the next SLAC Director or the CERN Director General. Instead, I receive both genuine and rhetorical questions about Fermilab's proposed Project X. -- By Barry Barish
13 September 2007 - Towards organising the ILC engineering design effort In order to have the strength and organisation we need to carry out an ILC engineering design over the next three years, the GDE Executive Committee has been carefully considering how to reorganise our efforts following completion of the Reference Design Report. -- By Barry Barish
6 September 2007 - The Reference Design Report is now official We released a draft version of the ILC Reference Design Report last February. Since that time, the accelerator section has undergone reviews by the ILCSC Machine Advisory Committee and by a special international panel for our cost estimates and future plans. --By Barry Barish
30 August 2007 - The ILC Engineering Design Phase In August 2007, the Global Design Effort for the International Linear Collider published a Reference Design Report that contains a description of the design of the linear collider and a 'value' cost estimate. -- By Marc Ross
23 August 2007 - Congratulations Tor For more than two decades now, SLAC has been pursuing R&D toward a TeV-scale linear collider. -- By Barry Barish
16 August 2007 - Physics of the top quark This week I am participating in the XXIII International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High Energy (LP07) in Daegu, Korea from 13 to 18 August 2007. -- By Barry Barish
9 August 2007 - Siting the ILC - Reference design for the conventional facilities Where will the ILC be built? This is one of the first questions people ask me whenever I give a presentation on our ambitions to build a new accelerator for particle physics. -- By Barry Barish
2 August 2007 - 100th issue of ILC Newsline The Global Design Effort was created by the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) under an MoU, which was initially signed by eleven countries. --By Barry Barish
26 July 2007 - FALC meeting in Rome One of our most important and challenging goals for the ILC will be to develop government agreements that will underlie a true international governance for the ILC. -- By Barry Barish
19 July 2007 - Project Managers join the GDE Executive Committee The new GDE Project Managers met face to face with the GDE Executive Committee (EC) for the first time in Rome on 9 and 10 July. -- By Barry Barish
12 July 2007 - Akira Yamamoto - A man of calm and expressions ...Newly appointed as one of three ILC project managers, Akira Yamamoto is a scientist working at KEK specialising in superconducting magnet development. -- By Mitsuaki Nozaki
5 July 2007 - ILC Project Tools: Implementing the ILC EDMS ...We are now undertaking an engineering design, and the EDMS will be a central global collaboration tool for carrying out this next phase. --By Barry Barish
28 June 2007 - Developing a roadmap for ILC detectors During the ILC reference design phase, leading up to the Reference Design Report (RDR), the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) appointed a Machine Advisory Committee (MAC) to provide technical reviews of our work. --By Barry Barish
21 June 2007 - Report of the International Cost Review of the ILC ...Last month, many of us in the GDE went to Paris (to Orsay to be precise) for our long anticipated International Cost Review of our ILC Reference Design and plans for the future. -- By Barry Barish
14 June 2007 - A technically driven timeline for the ILC Last week, I made a presentation at Fermilab's 40th Annual Users Meeting where I focused on the GDE's technically driven timeline for the ILC. -- By Barry Barish
7 June 2007 - LCWS 2007 and ILC 2007 Hamburg put on its best face to greet the more than 600 registered guests who arrived at DESY last week for the big annual ILC get-together. -- By Brian Foster
31 May 2007 - MAC review of global ILC RD programme During the ILC reference design phase, leading up to the Reference Design Report (RDR), the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) appointed a Machine Advisory Committee (MAC) to provide technical reviews of our work. -- By Barry Barish
24 May 2007 - Troika proposed to manage ILC engineering design ... There are just too many separate tasks involved for a single manager to oversee the effort and therefore we are proposing to literally borrow the famous Russian symbolism of a "Troika," and create a Project Office consisting of three project managers: Marc Ross (Fermilab), Nick Walker (DESY) and Akira Yamamoto (KEK). This team will have both shared and separate responsibilities, and Marc Ross will serve as the initial chair of the group. -- By Barry Barish
17 May 2007 - How to make big international science projects happen At the annual American Physical Society meeting in Jacksonville, Florida on 14 April 2007, I participated in a special session entitled "How to make big international projects happen." --By Barry Barish
10 May 2007 - DOE and NSF Review of the ILC-Americas Programme The second review of the US RD programme for the International Linear Collider (ILC) by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) was held at Fermilab from 30 April to 2 May 2007. This meeting served as DOE and NSF's primary peer review of the US portion of ILC RD activities. -- By Gerry Dugan
3 May 2007 - Thanks Gerry - Welcome Mike It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Dr. Michael Harrison of Brookhaven National Laboratory as the new GDE Regional Director for the Americas, succeeding Professor Gerry Dugan of Cornell University as of 1 May 2006. -- By Barry Barish
26 April 2007 - KEK and Fermilab - Strengthening collaborations Two of our principle collaborating institutions in the ILC are KEK Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan and Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. This week the KEK Director General, Atsuto Suzuki, came to Fermilab to discuss increased collaboration. -- By Barry Barish
19 April 2007 - The role of industries during the ILC engineering design phase To strengthen our efforts for the ILC engineering design phase, we intend to increase our focus on industrialisation. -- By Barry Barish
12 April 2007 - Organising the GDE for the ILC engineering design phase The next big milestone for the GDE is to develop an engineering design and document it in an Engineering Design Report (EDR). -- By Barry Barish
5 April 2007 - GDE to sponsor Second International School for Linear Colliders I am pleased to announce that the second accelerator school dedicated to linear colliders will be held from 1-10 October 2007 at Ettore Majorana Center, Erice (Sicily), Italy under the sponsorship of the ILC GDE, ILCSC and ICFA Beam Dynamics Panel. -- By Barry Barish
29 March 2007 - ILC Project Tools - ILCDoc-Document Search and Store We are in the process of building an integrated set of ILC project tools for communication, data archiving, engineering, costing, scheduling and project management. -- By Barry Barish
22 March 2007 - ILC Baseline Alternative - The Re-entrant Cavity ILC R&D on superconducting RF technology is of special importance because it represents our central technology, and it is an area where we are forging the way for future accelerators that will employ this forward-looking technology. -- By Barry Barish
15 March 2007 - Salute to Jonathan Earlier this week, Jonathan Dorfan announced that he is stepping down this fall as SLAC Director after eight very successful years. -- By Barry Barish
8 March 2007 - Whats in a Schedule Just before I presented at HEPAP, Dr. Raymond Orbach, Under Secretary for Science at the DOE, gave a presentation where he hypothesised a timescale for completion of the ILC of "the mid-2020s, if not later." Today I discuss the meaning and significance of that statement, as well as give my own views of what will determine the schedule of the ILC. -- By Barry Barish
1 March 2007 - ILC Baseline Alternative - The Marx Modulator The release of the ILC Reference Design was a very important milestone. Yet, we have emphasised that it is really a snapshot of the ILC design. -- By Barry Barish & Ray Larsen
22 February 2007 - The Road to the ILC - Convincing our Colleagues Now that we have released our draft Reference Design Report for the ILC, our short-term focus is on completing and finalising the RDR. This will involve completing some unfinished work, undergoing international reviews and then revising and finalising the reference design and costing. -- By Barry Barish
15 February 2007 - The International Linear Collider - Gateway to the Quantum Universe In addition to the technical reports released last week in Beijing that describe the reference design for the ILC, we also published in draft form a very attractive and informative companion document... -- By Barry Barish
8 February 2007 - Report from Beijing - The ILC Reference Design Report The GDEs first major goal was to define the basic parameters and layout for the ILC and document them in a Baseline Configuration Document (BCD). We achieved this at the first GDE meeting held at INFN, Frascati, Italy, in December 2005. -- By Barry Barish
1 February 2007 - The Evolving ILC Design - Push-Pull Detector Arrangement The full realization of the scientific potential of the ILC argues for the construction and operation of two complementary detectors by two international collaborations. (This statement comes from a chapter of the soon to be released ILC Detector Concept Report (DCR)) -- By Barry Barish
25 January 2007 - The Machine Advisory Committee Reviews the ILC Reference Design Our steady march toward completion and release of the ILC Reference Design Report (RDR) continued into the New Year with a Machine Advisory Committee review on 10-12 January. -- By Barry Barish
18 January 2007 - EuroTeV and MAC meeting at Daresbury The holiday period has been a busy time for the GDE. Shortly before Christmas many of us gathered at SLAC to have a first look at the RDR and its costings with some distinguished external reviewers. -- By Brian Foster
11 January 2007 - Japan HEP Community Promotes a Future Strategy for Particle Physics Mitsuaki Nozaki, GDE Asian Regional Director, discussed the community-wide consensus on priorities for the future programme in high energy physics in Japan in the Directors Corner of 22 November. -- By Barry Barish
4 January 2007 - Cost Estimating the ILC Reference Design One of the most important goals of the ILC Reference Design is to understand enough about costs to provide a reliable indication of the projects scale and as importantly, to provide information and tools that will help guide the engineering design phase. -- By Barry Barish

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