Accelerator conferences

North American accelerator physicists are now on board to rotate their field’s annual conference among three world regions. Last year their European and Asian counterparts decided to extend the standing North American-European alternation of the particle accelerator conference (PAC) to a three-year cycle that would include Asia (see Physics Today August 2006, page 24 ). At the time, North American accelerator physicists opposed the switch, but this past June they voted unanimously for it.

The most important factor in breaking the impasse “was the addition of a North American PAC to mesh with the international series,” says NA PAC committee chair Stanley Schriber of Michigan State University. The smaller NA PAC will be staggered 18 months from when the multiregional conference is held in North America every three years. The additional conferences will meet the needs of students, engineers, and technicians; spread the meeting locales around different parts of North America; and facilitate information exchange within a reasonable time frame, says Schriber.