YPP - Town Meeting

• Video stream of the meeting

• Florencia Canelli's introduction

• John Krane's brief summary of the HEPAP report (a powerpoint version is also available)

• Ben Kilminster's presentation of the discussion questions

Town Meeting Minutes: recorded by Bonnie Fleming

The meeting began with a brief introduction to the YPP, the immediate and future goals of the YPP and the purpose for this meeting, to discuss the Bagger/Barish HEPAP subpanel report on Long Range Planning for U.S. High Energy Physics. Link to Florencia's slides.

A brief overview of the content of the report was then given by John Krane. Link to John's slides.

The remaining time was alloted for discussion about details of the report led by Ben Kilminster. Questions designed to encourage discussion were listed on slides shown below. Comments from the audience, listed as bullets, are paraphrased below in the order in which issues were discussed.

Diversity

• The report makes too vague a statement about theory support now and in the future. This is part of their charge but they have effectively ignored it.
• The report is about how to dole out money, so since theorists do not need as much funding as experimentalists, this is not such an important issue.
• With regard to failure scenarios, the report does not strongly endorse the physics of or the goals of programs that are being ramped down making these programs too vulnerable for budget cuts.
• The subpanel should be prepared to answer questions about failure scenarios. Bagger and Barish were not prepared to do this during their meeting to FNAL. Failure scenarios are also not in the report and should be in some way.

HEP Funding

Discussion began with a brief explanation of how an FNAL experiment is presently funded, the problems with this situation, and the solution set forth by the subpanel to form a funding organization called P5.

• The field needs more information on what P5 is etc before we can decide whether or not to endorse it.
• P5 may be a bad thing to do if it lumps all the money in one pot or if it puts non HEP people in control of HEP money. P5 is a cop out. The subpanel should have out forth a specific plan evaluated on its specific merits.
• The fact is that the field is becoming global. It is important to make funding decisions that will affect a wide range of people using a panel that is drawn from a wide range of people. It is not fair to expect the subpanel to have given more specifics on this. They introduced a way to address decisions in the future which is appropriate. Remember, P5 would address only projects in the 50-500M USD range.
• HEPAP should lay out specifics of P5.
• Conceiving P5 is a good first step and is good for globalization. Maybe it is not up to the subpanel to decide on the specifics on P5 but rather just to suggest the idea. It is up to us to take this to the next stage.
• Its already true that funding committees and funding agencies are made up of other kinds of scientists. This is important. It is a good mechanism for us to get guidance from other scientists in physics and in other fields.
• Bagger and Barish specifically did not want to set down rules on P5. A closed room discussion on these specifics did not seem appropriate. The subpanel sees this as their most important contribution to the report, how to maintain a road-map and how to respond to changes in the field in an established way over time.
• There are two issues relating to P5 that should be addressed in the report. Will there be any resources available for P5 and will P5 in reality have any chance with the funding agencies?

Linear Collider

• Is it clear that there will be any Linear Collider?
• As in the P5 discussion: Is it reasonable to make a decision with this amount of information?
• There is a contradiction in some of the comments made here. On the one hand, we're asking for more information to be provided in order to sign on to the plan and on the other hand, we're concerned that they are dictating to much. With regard to failure scenarios, listing failure modes is a bad approach when dealing with Congress.
• Regarding the proposed Linear Collider Search Committee (LCSC), The committee should be formed, then the US should ask to bid for it. This is the proper ordering of the process. This should be made clear.
• How should the funding for a Linear Collider be organized? The TESLA model for organizing a global machine is more egalitarian with regard to where the funding comes from and how the lab is run as a result.
• If a Linear Collider goes forward. Young physicists will need to be prepared to go into accelerator physics where there is already a shortage of scientists. The question of whether or not the career path is inviting enough is very important since we will really need to encourage people in this field. Some career path incentives may be joint accelerator/HEP projects, for instance, graduate students who do their service work on the machines but do analysis work on data from experiments. More permanent positions need to be available to accommodate new accelerator physicists. More programs like the FNAL Ph.D. program and more students in these programs will help grow the field. More support for university based accelerator physicists will help grow the field. Universities could provide a great resource for the field, but a mechanism must be in place to integrate these accelerator physicists with those at the labs.
• In the distant past, HEP physicists also did the work of accelerator physicists. In the recent pasts, these fields have specialized. Now we need to recombine if we are going to build a linear collider and need a lot more accelerator physics expertise.
• Graduate students can be found in accelerator physics if the resources can be found.
• The report does not recommend funding for BTeV nor does it recommend that BTeV be sent to P5 for funding. The deal of BTeV signals the death of the TeVatron. What does this mean for FNAL particularly in the event that the Linear Collider is not built at FNAL? The report should address this more clearly.
• The base budget is decreased in order to accommodate funding for a linear collider. In the event that a linear collider does not get funded, what happens to the base budget -- where will we be left then?
• It is dangerous for us to be too limited in light of what happened at the SSC. We shouldn't be too scared in asking for money for a large machine, we should just go for it.
• If a linear collider program is not funded, we should have other projects to fill in the gap. This should be addressed in the report.
• Instead of talking about sacrificing projects, why not consider delaying projects.
• We must be very careful in asking for a large budget increase considering the events of 9/11, the economic recession, and the LHC's budgetary problems. The subpanel should reconvene to discuss these issues as a group and decide if and how the report be modified to take these events into account.
• What would it take to not have this meeting in twenty years? Outreach to the community.
• I am very nervous that we are asking for a very extravagant thing. If this is all we're asking for, it could be very bad. Its as if our dad just lost his job and we're still asking for a pony for Christmas. Perhaps we should ask for both a big thing (LC) and small things in the case that LC funding does not go though.
• Funding problems are happening everywhere. This decision must be made in an international way.
• The events of 9/11 could either improve or destroy our funding situation. It is difficult/impossible to predict which. We should ask for everything but prioritize requests.
• This report does not adequately discuss HEP's goals/needs in the next five years, an important time for this group and a time when we will have the energy frontier facility here at FNAL. A mention in the report of the priority for high luminosity at the TeVatron is important.
• This is a healthy process -- discussing the subpanel's report. Now is the time for any dissent, before we have spend significant amounts of money. Encourage our peers to be a part of the process.

Jon Bagger and Barry Barish have requested that any comments/suggestions on the HEPAP subpanel report be sent to them as soon as possible. In this effort, Bonnie Fleming and Morgan Wascko would like to solicit any comments on the subpanel report from the global YPP including individual reactions and comments from town meetings at Fermilab, DESY and other chapters. If possible, they will compose a letter to the subpanel expressing reactions and suggestions from the YPP. This letter would then get sent around to the global YPP for review. If any member rejects the letter, then it would not be sent from the entire YPP, but rather from whatever subset of the YPP that would like to sign it. Please send any comments you have on this idea, on the subpanel report, or any interest in helping Bonnie and Morgan write this letter, to bfleming@fnal.gov .

This letter will be composed this upcoming weekend in order to send it around for comments and then to the subpanel by Friday, December 14th so please send comments ASAP! Thanks!