US physics begins to crumble under budget strain

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

It will not just be physics djf

________________________________________
From: Bob Hinden [bob.hinden () nokia com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 1:43 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: Bob Hinden
Subject: Fwd: US physics begins to crumble under budget strain

For IP, if appropriate.

Bob

Begin forwarded message:


US physics begins to crumble under budget strain

 *   16:45 08 January 2008
 *   NewScientist.com news service
 *   Stuart Clark

The reality of the US budget cuts to particle physics has hit home. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 
California, US, has just announced a trio of painful consequences: the end of work on the International Linear 
Collider, the imminent closure of its BaBar antimatter experiment, and the layoff of 125 workers.

SLAC and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois are the main US institutions involved in the 
International Linear Collider (ILC), a future $6.7 billion particle accelerator designed to recreate the conditions of 
the early universe.

But all US work on the ILC has now ground to a halt after the US Congress voted in December to cut $90 million from the 
country's high-energy physics programme for fiscal year 2008. The decision came just days after the UK pulled out of 
the project.

"The future of the ILC is unclear at this time, both nationally and internationally," Persis Drell, SLAC's director, 
told employees on Monday.

Grim prospects

"We are still trying to work out what we can do with the funding that we have available, but it is certainly not 
positive for particle physics," says Grahame Blair, principal investigator of the ILC project in the UK.

In the short-term, the situation is grim. SLAC's BaBar experiment, which has provided the first experimental proof as 
to why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, is now slated to end in March – six months earlier than 
originally planned.

Fermilab is also struggling with the disastrous cuts and may lose 200 jobs. It has also been forced to suspend work on 
the NOvA experiment, which was designed to study the way neutrino particles spontaneously transform into different 
varieties.

The US will also cut its 2008 funding for ITER, set to become the world's largest nuclear fusion facility. China has 
responded that it will boost its contribution to 10% of the €10 billion project.

"Particle physics is suffering mixed fortunes at the moment," says Blair. On the one hand, there are the devastating 
budget cuts. But on the other, there is also the excitement of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, which 
is nearing completion.

"No one knows for sure what we will get from the LHC, but everyone is hoping for a rich harvest of results that will 
show people how much we need these other facilities to continue the work," Blair told New Scientist.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13159-us-physics-begins-to-crumble-under-budget-strain.html
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