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Snowmass 2005: Toward an International Linear Collider

Nearly 700 physicists from around the world met in Snowmass, Colorado, to advance plans to create an International Linear Collider, a next generation machine that would answer the most fundamental questions about the universe.

Snowmass 2005
Toward an International Linear Collider

Nearly 700 physicists from around the world met in Snowmass, Colorado, to advance plans to create an International Linear Collider, a next generation machine that would answer the most fundamental questions about the universe.
by David Harris
with additional reporting by Heather Rock Woods, Judy Jackson, Elizabeth Clements, and Perrine Royole-Degieux
 

Pier Oddone, Robin Staffin, Fred Gilman
The main stairwell of the conference center was an ad hoc meeting spot for many participants. Pier Oddone (left), director of Fermilab, discusses ILC plans with Robin Staffin (center), director of the Department of Energy's Office of High Energy Physics, and Fred Gilman, chair of DOE's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel.

In the past century, physicists have explored smaller and smaller scales cataloguing the fundamental components of the universe. They have revealed the basic structure of all the matter that humans have ever observed. But in the past decade, physicists have been surprised to discover that what they see can only account for about 5 percent of the universe.

"What could come after this great century of discovery? The consensus I get from community is that best yet to come," says Robin Staffin, director Office High Energy Physics in US Department's Science.

Barry Barish, director of the Global Design Effort (GDE), responsible for formulating plans for an International Linear Collider, says, "Many of the most profound questions in particle physics can be addressed by the next generation of particle accelerators. The International Linear Collider, which would collide electrons and positrons, and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will provide the collision energy where we expect to begin a new era of discovery."

The ILC would conduct grand experiments, but preparing to build such a machine is an experiment in itself, requiring new forms of international collaboration, communication, and planning. In August, nearly 700 physicists and engineers from around the world converged for two weeks on the mountain village of Snowmass, Colorado, in the hope of creating a basis for the design of the proposed collider. They seek answers to the most compelling questions of particle physics: What is the nature of mass? Are there extra dimensions? Does supersymmetry exist? What is the mysterious dark matter that makes up the majority of the universe's matter? And do the universe's forces all unify at a high energy scale?

Fumihiko Takasaki, regional GDE director for Asia, said, "The ILC would solve some of the big puzzles [of nature] that we haven't yet solved."
 


Global design effort members

Chris Adolphsen, SLAC
Jean-Luc Baldy, CERN
Philip Bambade, LAL, Orsay
Barry Barish, GDE/Caltech
Wilhelm Bialowons, DESY
Grahame Blair, Royal Holloway, University of London
Jim Brau, University of Oregon
Karsten Buesser, GDE/DESY
Elizabeth Clements, GDE/Fermilab
Michael Danilov, ITEP
Jean-Pierre Delahaye, CERN
Gerald Dugan, Cornell University
Atsushi Enomoto, KEK
Brian Foster, Oxford University
Warren Funk, Jefferson Laboratory
Jie Gao, IHEP
Terry Garvey, LAL-IN2P3
Hitoshi Hayano, KEK
Tom Himel, SLAC
Bob Kephart, Fermilab
Eun San Kim, Pohang Accelerator Laboratory
Hyoung Suk Kim, Kyungpook National University
Shane Koscielniak, TRIUMF
Vic Kuchler, Fermilab
Lutz Lilje, DESY
Tom Markiewicz, SLAC
David Miller, University College London
Shekhar Mishra, Fermilab
Youhei Morita, GDE/KEK
Olivier Napoly, CEA/Saclay
Hasan Padamsee, Cornell University
Carlo Pagani, DESY
Nan Phinney, SLAC
Dieter Proch, DESY
Pantaleo Raimondi, INFN
Tor Raubenheimer, SLAC
Francois Richard, LAL-IN2P3
Perrine Royole-Degieux, GDE/LAL
Kenji Saito, KEK
Daniel Schulte, CERN
Tetsuo Shidara, KEK
Sasha Skrinsky, Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics
Fumihiko Takasaki, KEK
Laurent Jean Tavian, CERN
Nobu Toge, KEK
Nick Walker, DESY
Andy Wolski, LBL
Hitoshi Yamamoto, Tohoku University
Kaoru Yokoya, KEK