Europe to Set Particle Physics Strategy

The CERN council is taking the lead in creating a European strategy for particle physics after completion of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This month the council will assign the task to a working group that will draft a strategy for the council’s approval next summer.

The working group will consist of the heads of Europe’s main particle physics labs, scientists representing each of CERN’s 20 member countries, and five scientists each from the European Committee for Future Accelerators and CERN’s science policy committee. The ECFA and SPC scientists will do the legwork, with the full working group convening next spring to finalize a strategy proposal for the CERN council.

Among the topics sure to be on the table are the International Linear Collider (ILC), a luminosity upgrade for the LHC, and projects at the national particle physics labs. The working group will also consider neutrino physics; dark matter, proton decay, and other non-accelerator-based experiments; accelerator and detector R&D; and technology transfer.

“If you want to start a new major activity beyond 2010, then now is the time to start getting your ideas together,” says SPC chair Ken Peach. Setting a strategy, he adds, “is timely. It’s appropriate. It’s needed. I would describe it as quite a bold initiative by the president of the CERN council.” Sweden’s Torsten Åkesson, chair of ECFA and, with Peach, cochair of the working group, agrees: “It is good for particle physics in Europe if there is a clear strategy, visible at the highest level—in the same way that it’s important to do similar things in the US.”

But having the CERN council, whose traditional role is to govern the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, take on the broader role of coordinating the creation of a European strategy for particle physics “is riddled with potential conflicts of interest,” says Brian Foster, an Oxford University physicist and Europe’s ILC director. “The council needs to keep in mind that its role here is different—it’s not the strategy of CERN.” It’s a pragmatic arrangement, he adds. “All the governments are represented on the CERN council. You either use this or create a new body with many of the same people.”

Council president Enzo Iarocci points to wording in CERN’s founding convention to support the initiative he launched. He says measures are in place to avoid potential pitfalls such as CERN’s dominating or small countries’ having no say. “It is very important to fight those concerns,” he says. “In the end, the final strategy document must be unanimously approved.” The working group’s temporary and single-purpose nature helps allay concerns, he adds. Moreover, when the council meets to discuss the broad strategy, it won’t be in Geneva. Says Peach, “I think those people who worry about CERN dominance should look at the symbolism. Directors from other labs as well as CERN are [on the working group], and ECFA is in there to represent the wider community. There are balances.”

“I am confident the initiative will succeed and, most important, I believe it will be very useful for the particle physics community at the worldwide level,” Iarocci says.