John Womersley

May we live in interesting times…May we live in interesting times…

John Womersley

Particle Physics Department meeting

April 2006

John Womersley

OutlineOutline

1. Department news

2. Impact of PPARC Council’s statement in March

3. A new Large Facilities Research Council and what it may mean for us

John Womersley

Department NewsDepartment News

Sorry for lack of newsletter in 2006…

• FFTF is officially “live”– Increasingly we will be dealing with Anne-Marie Bromley and her team

on finance issues and Susan Humphreys on HR and administration

• Particle Physics Grants Panel– Department submission was sent in on March 1– Grants Panel + PPARC delegation visited RAL on March 28– Open meeting for Experiments’ presentations here April 20-21

• all are invited– Will know outcome June/July

• CERN Council Strategy Group– Mea culpa

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• First results from MINOS experiment (even made Radio 4!)– Confirmation of neutrino masses and mixings

• New Staff members joining PPD

– Stefania Ricciardi (LHCb)

– Alessandro Tricoli (ATLAS Tracking)

– Damien Prieur (ATLAS L1 trigger)

– Arnaud Gay (CMS)

– and Isobel Haskins is new LTA administrator

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PPARC Council StatementPPARC Council Statement

In focussing its investment as set out above, some hard choices have had to be made. This arises because […] the net additional resource to the Council […] was little above flat cash. […] Council will specifically […] constrain R&D for future neutrino facilities to UK involvement in the detectors; and make no provision for MICE phase Two, but discuss with CCLRC how it might best take forward capital investment in the UK as a precursor to the UK hosting a Neutrino Factory.

PPARC emphasize that• Not a statement about scientific importance of MICE and neutrino factory• Will continue to support university physicists working on these projects

through the Rolling Grants

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MICE phase IIMICE phase II

• Phase II is essential to demonstrate the actual muon beam cooling. • Need to do this by 2009-10 – the time for decisions about the next round of

major particle physics facilities in the world.• If we stop after Phase I

– waste all the money invested so far, including £7.5M from the Large Facilities Capital Fund and about £5M from overseas collaborators in MICE. • Note that in May there is to be an NAO audit of the LFCF

contribution to MICE.– lose £25M of future non-UK contributions to MICE– damage the UK’s reputation for delivering on its promises– scupper any hopes of eventually hosting a Neutrino Factory (and by

extension, call into question our commitment to other large facilities).

• Needed UK contribution is £3.3M over the years 2007/8, 8/9 and 9/10

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• Need to avoid decision blight: non-UK contributions must be safeguarded.

• MICE UK meeting before PPARC town meeting next week

• John Wood has confirmed that – (a) CCLRC commits to support MICE Phase II at this level – (b) I can state this publicly

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International Design Study of a Neutrino Factory• start in the summer of 2006, following on from the current scoping study • global effort, with European collaboration likely through FP7 • currently 0.9 FTE of effort in PPD and 2.6 in ASTeC assigned to NF; must

increase if we aspire to play a major, hopefully leading role in the project – The resources needed for this are at the level of 4-5 people.

• if we get on board now, we can get off later (after SR07, after a linear collider decision). If we don’t get on board now, we can’t lead later.

T2K• PPARC Projects Peer Review Panel is considering the UK proposal.• Contains significant accelerator and beam-dump work in CCLRC. This

work has started with seedcorn funding. Matches our long term interest in high power targets.

• it is possible (likely?) that PPARC will look to CCLRC support here in light of the PPARC council statement.

• Our exposure is about £400k per year in the form of staff (Chris Densham et al.)

• Discussions are in progress with ISIS… I am reasonably optimistic

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Dark Matter• PPARC council was not receptive to the follow-on proposal from the UKDM

group (an SOI to install the Zeplin III detector in Boulby)• This leaves the future of Boulby and of UK dark matter experiments very

uncertain after April 2007• We hear informally that PPARC is not comfortable with abandoning this

area of science and will call for some kind of strategic plan, so the door may be open a crack

• Meanwhile other sources of funding are being pursued (EU support)

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Revolution!Revolution!

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Treasury documentTreasury document

http://www.ost.gov.uk/policy/nextsteps.pdf

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Two key proposals for usTwo key proposals for us

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• Discussion period of 12 weeks (until 16th June)

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Is this a done deal?Is this a done deal?

• The view from “those who ought to know” seems to be– Something like this new research council will happen – the Treasury

document establishes a clear direction• Not starting from a blank sheet of paper• Arguing for the status quo, or for radically different solutions,

won’t be very effective– Nonetheless the consultation is real

• Can influence the way the new arrangements are put in place • if we act together

John Womersley

Large Facilities CouncilLarge Facilities Council

Emerging Particle Physics Community perspective seems to be

• “Doing Large Facilities right” is important and the suggested new council could have advantages

• “Doing Large Facilities right” requires that planning for facilities and their exploitation must be done together– e.g. for LHC we have a single integrated overview of accelerator,

detectors, computing, upgrades and funding for university groups – Need same integrated approach to future facilities such as ILC

• Who speaks for UK on ILC? • Who speaks for UK at CERN council?

• Hence a model where “facilities” go to one RC and “grants” to another is not good– This is not special pleading for PP – it is a recognition that recent PP

practice is simply good practice in terms of delivering science

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One structure that might workOne structure that might work

ExecutiveExecutive

…… ……Committees(like PPRP)

AcademicsPeer review

PPDPPD ASTeCASTeC ……ScienceDelivery

LFC

Universitygroups

Strategic Prioritiesand budgets

“SLA” “SLA”

grants

CERN

ParticlePhysicsParticlePhysics

subscription

ScienceCommittee

ScienceCommittee

AcademicsPeer review

CouncilCouncil

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FAQFAQ

Q: What’s the timescale for a new council?

A: “those who should know” say between April 2007 and April 2008

Q: Will the head office be in Swindon or Chilton (or elsewhere)?

A: Hopefully this is not a driving factor.

The Treasury document talks about establishing the “Harwell Science and Innovation Campus” (a Sainsbury level initiative) and personally I think the new council would be a natural tenant.

Q: what does this mean for FFtF? Was it all a waste of time?

A: (expletive deleted)

John Womersley

Q: Are you (JW) involved in this process?

A: Yes – both as a member of PPARC Science Committee and at the CCLRC end

Q: As CCLRC employees, are we free to express opinions about this?

A: Yes, absolutely, and we should do so!

e.g. those attending the Warwick town meeting next week.

The only request (and this is from John Wood) is that we should be clear we are speaking for ourselves and not for CCLRC

John Womersley

Questions, comments…Questions, comments…