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ILC Reference Design Report: Accelerator Executive Summary
The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a 200-500 GeV center-of-mass high-luminosity linear electron-positron collider, based on 1.3 GHz superconducting radiofrequency (SCRF) accelerating cavities. The use of the SCRF technology was recommended by the International Technology Recommendation Panel (ITRP) in August 2004 [1], and shortly thereafter endorsed by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). In an unprecedented milestone in high-energy physics, the many institutes around the world involved in linear collider R&D united in a common effort to produce a global design for the ILC. In November 2004, the 1st International Linear Collider Workshop was held at KEK, Tsukuba, Japan. The workshop was attended by some 200 accelerator physicists from around the world, and paved the way for the 2nd ILC Workshop in August 2005, held at Snowmass, Colorado, USA, where the ILC Global Design Effort (GDE) was officially formed. The GDE membership reflects the global nature of the collaboration, with accelerator experts from all three regions (Americas, Asia and Europe). The first major goal of the GDE was to define the basic parameters and layout of the machine--the Baseline Configuration. This was achieved at the first GDE meeting held at INFN, Frascati, Italy in December 2005 with the creation of the Baseline Configuration Document (BCD). During the next 14 months, the BCD was used as the basis for the detailed design work and value estimate (as described in section 1.6) culminating in the completion of the second major milestone, the publication of the draft ILC Reference Design Report (RDR). The technical design and cost estimate for the ILC is based on two decades of world-wide Linear Collider R&D, beginning with the construction and operation of the SLAC Linear Collider (SLC). The SLC is acknowledged as a proof-of-principle machine for the linear collider concept. The ILC SCRF linac technology was pioneered by the TESLA collaboration*, culminating in a proposal for a 500 GeV center-of-mass linear collider in 2001 [2]. The concurrent (competing) design work on a normal conducting collider (NLC with X-band [3] and GLC with X- or C-Band [4]), has advanced the design concepts for the ILC injectors, Damping Rings (DR) and Beam Delivery System (BDS), as well as addressing overall operations, machine protection and availability issues. The X- and C-band R&D has led to concepts for the RF power source that may eventually produce either cost and/or performance benefits. Finally, the European XFEL [5] to be constructed at DESY, Hamburg, Germany, will make use of the TESLA linac technology, and represents a significant on-going R&D effort which remains of great benefit for the ILC. The current ILC baseline assumes an accelerating gradient of 31.5 MV/m to achieve a centre-of-mass energy of 500 GeV. The high luminosity requires the use of high power and small emittance beams. The choice of 1.3 GHz SCRF is well suited to the requirements, primarily because the very low power loss in the SCRF cavity walls allows the use of long RF pulses, relaxing the requirements on the peak-power generation, and ultimately leading to high wall-plug to beam transfer efficiency. The primary cost drivers are the SCRF Main Linac technology and the Conventional Facilities (including civil engineering). The choice of gradient is a key cost and performance parameter, since it dictates the length of the linacs, while the cavity quality factor (Q{sub 0}) relates to the required cryogenic cooling power. The achievement of 31.5 MV/m as the baseline average operational accelerating gradient--requiring a minimum performance of 35 MV/m during cavity mass-production acceptance testing--represents the primary challenge to the global ILC R&D With the completion of the RDR, the GDE will shortly begin an engineering design study, closely coupled with a prioritized R&D program. The goal is to produce an Engineering Design Report (EDR) demonstrating readiness for construction by 2010, followed by start of construction in 2012. A seven-year construction phase is currently assumed, allowing operations to begin in 2019. This is consistent with a technically driven schedule for this international project
Status Report of the Inter-Laboratory Task Force on Remote Operation
In February 2000, the International Committee for Future Accelerators
initiated a study of a new model for international collaboration on a future
large accelerator project, the Global Accelerator Network. The study is based
on a model of a facility, which is remote from most of the collaborating
institutions. It is designed, built and operated by a collaboration of equal
partner institutions distributed around the world. According to this model, the
expert-staff from each laboratory remains based at their home institution but
continues to participate in the operation of the machine after construction.
This report summarizes the conclusions of the Task Force on Remote Operation,
which investigated the general and technical implications of far-remote
operations.Comment: 32 pages, PDF, report of ICFA sponsored task forc
US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report
This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in
Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference
The nightmare scenario: measuring the stochastic gravitational wave background from stalling massive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays
Massive black-hole binaries, formed when galaxies merge, are among the primary sources of gravitational waves targeted by ongoing Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments and the upcoming space-based LISA interferometer. However, their formation and merger rates are still highly uncertain. Recent upper limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background obtained by PTAs are starting being in marginal tension with theoretical models for the pairing and orbital evolution of these systems. This tension can be resolved by assuming that these binaries are more eccentric or interact more strongly with the environment (gas and stars) than expected, or by accounting for possible selection biases in the construction of the theoretical models. However, another (pessimistic) possibility is that these binaries do not merge at all, but stall at large ( 3c pc) separations. We explore this extreme scenario by using a galaxy-formation semi-analytic model including massive black holes (isolated and in binaries), and show that future generations of PTAs will detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from the massive black-hole binary population within 10 1215 years of observations, even in the "nightmare scenario" in which all binaries stall at the hardening radius. Moreover, we argue that this scenario is too pessimistic, because our model predicts the existence of a sub-population of binaries with small mass ratios (q 7210 123) that should merge within a Hubble time simply as a result of gravitational-wave emission. This sub-population will be observable with large signal-to-noise ratios by future PTAs thanks to next-generation radio telescopes such as SKA or FAST, and possibly by LISA