From g-gollin@mail.physics.uiuc.edu Thu Feb 13 18:49:53 2003 Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:13:48 -0600 From: "Gollin, George" To: "'lcd-l@slac.stanford.edu'" , "'lcrd@fnal.gov'" Cc: "George Gollin (E-mail)" Subject: report from the UT Arlington meeting [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Dear LC colleagues, Here is a far-from-complete description of events at the Arlington Linear Collider Workshop. Since much of the content relating to physics and technology can be found on the workshop web site (http://alcworkshop.uta.edu/ ), I'll concentrate on other matters. (A sense of the work presented at the workshop is best found through perusal of the workshop web site.) The next ALCPG meeting will be held at Cornell, July 13-16. Please attend! (Also recall that our continental meetings concerning physics, technology, and accelerator issues will begin in February.) *** Intro *** The Arlington Linear Collider Workshop took place January 9-11 at UT Arlington. The meeting was very productive and flawlessly organized. There were plenary and parallel session talks concerning technical and organizational matters as well as a town meeting discussion. Peter Rosen from the Department of Energy was present at the town meeting and then discussed Linear Collider issues from the perspective of DOE in a presentation the following afternoon. UCLC and LCRD organizers at the workshop met with the US Linear Collider Steering Committee (chaired by Jonathan Dorfan) Friday evening. *** Getting started in spite of budget uncertainties *** There were about eighty detector and accelerator R&D topics discussed in parallel session talks. Somewhat more than half described R&D efforts which are now underway at universities, in spite of delays in LCRD/UCLC funding. This is a good thing! During the UCLC/LCRD organizers' discussion with the US LC Steering Committee, Dave Burke expressed the hope that a number of university groups could be expected to have results to present at the ALCPG meeting in Cornell in July, in spite of the continuing uncertainty in the arrival date for R&D funding. Some university groups may find that their R&D efforts involve instrumentation and other resources which can be borrowed from Fermilab. Slawek Tkaczyk (tka@fnal.gov) and Gene Fisk (hefisk@fnal.gov) will be managing this: please contact them to discuss how they can help you get started. *** Federal budget and the cap on LC expenditures *** The sixth continuing resolution (which runs through Jan. 31) is presently providing operating funds for the government since we still do not have a federal budget. The cap on LC spending is still in place. It sounds like the cap is a matter for OMB and DOE to sort out, though advice from congress could play a positive role in removing the cap. The version of the budget put forward by the House asks that OMB and DOE discuss removal of the cap. The senate version does not mention the cap. My (George's) understanding is that DOE feels it cannot release accelerator R&D money until the cap is lifted, and cannot release detector R&D funding until the federal budget is ready. During the town meeting, Peter Rosen was asked why DOE appears unwilling to fund university R&D efforts directed towards TESLA. He said that it was related to the existence of the funding cap on LC work. When asked if the elimination of the cap would change the DOE's position with respect to TESLA R&D, he said that they would be willing to consider supporting TESLA R&D. (Please take note of the word "consider" in the previous sentence.) Ritchie Patterson showed some slides, provided by Jim Whitmore, on the status of NSF funding for the UCLC proposal. The proposal is currently in the review process. Depending on the final outcome of the legislation for the FY2003 budget, the NSF hopes to be able to provide some support for LC R&D in FY2003. Jim Siegrist described an initiative that he and Bill Carrithers will lead to bring the case for federal support of the physical sciences to the public and congress. Rather than arguing on behalf of the narrower interests of high energy physics, this effort will advocate increased investment in the broad spectrum of physical sciences pursued by domestic researchers. This is very important, and not something that we, as a field, have done well in the past. *** UCLC/LCRD organizers' discussions with the US LC Steering Committee *** We discussed some general points concerning funding, the review process for future years' proposals, and the nature of the LC funding cap. We also learned more about the nature of efforts to advocate federal support for the LC which are curfrently being considered. The general direction being discussed involves participation in vigorous campaigning for a large increase in funding for the physical sciences. Representative Judy Biggert (Republican, IL; ANL is in her district) has proposed legislation which would increase federal support for the Department of Energy's Office of Science by 60% over the course of 4 years. The subject of better communication between the US LC Steering Committee and the HEP community was also discussed. The Steering Committee intends to make use of its recently assembled web pages to disseminate information about planning and strategies, to a greater extent than has been possible in the past. *** We are so photogenic that we should all be movie stars *** Take a look at photographs from the workshop, to be found at http://www.hep.uiuc.edu/LC/uta_pictures/ regards, George (for the UCLC and LCRD coordinators)