CLIC expands to include the Southern Hemisphere

Australia has recently joined the CLIC collaboration: the enlargement will bring new expertise and resources to the project, and is especially welcome in the wake of CERN budget redistributions following the recent adoption of the Medium Term Plan.

 

The countries involved in CLIC collaboration
With the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on 26 August 2010, the ACAS network (Australian Collaboration for Accelerator Science) became the 40th member of in the multilateral CLIC collaboration making Australia the 22nd country to join the collaboration. “The new MoU was signed by the ACAS network, which includes the Australian Synchrotron and the University of Melbourne”, explains Jean-Pierre Delahaye, CLIC Study Leader. “Thanks to their expertise, the Australian institutes will contribute greatly to the CLIC damping rings and the two-beam test modules."

Institutes from any country wishing to join the CLIC collaboration are invited to assume responsibility of part (work-packages) of the study and to provide the corresponding resources. CLIC membership is not restricted to CERN Member States. Sixteen institutes presently members of the CLIC collaboration are from 8 non-Member States including China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and USA. “This is an interesting aspect when it comes to the enlargement of CERN: new countries are starting to get involved in CLIC in the framework of a global collaboration hosted by CERN. The progress of the CLIC study and the development of its novel scheme and technologies beyond the present state-of-the-art are made possible by the combined expertise and resources provided by all the partners in a global collaboration framework” explains Delahaye.

The CLIC study is presently focused on the preparation of a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) describing the concept and feasibility of a Multi-TeV Linear Collider based on the CLIC technology. Unfortunately, critical measurements with beam in the CTF3 facility had to be postponed to next year due to a three-month delay in tests, caused by a fire in the CTF3 klystron gallery in March 2010. “The chemical products used to extinguish the fire expanded in the gallery and caused electronic equipment to corrode. A draft of the CLIC Conceptual Design Report will be presented to the SPC in June 2011 for comment, with a view to the submission of a final document by the end of 2011”, explains Delahaye.

A proposal for the next phase of the CLIC study aiming at the preparation of a Technical Design Report (TDR) is under preparation. The work program is presently being reviewed to take into account the redistribution of the CERN budget, which allocates a future increase of the CERN resources for CLIC from 20 to 30 million Swiss francs, instead of the 60 million originally expected. The CLIC Collaboration is looking for additional resources in order to develop the CLIC technology as rapidly as possible.

The preparation of the Conceptual Design Report and the programme of the Technical Design Phase will be discussed at the International Workshop on Linear Colliders (IWLC), which will cover accelerators and detectors of both CLIC and the ILC for the first time. The workshop is hosted by CERN and will take place from 19 to 22 October, with plenary sessions at CERN and parallel sessions of working groups at the Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG).

“For the sake of CLIC development in a global collaboration framework, the CLIC collaboration is continuing to look for new partners", confirms Delahaye. “Collaborating with CLIC is an excellent opportunity for institutes around the world to strengthen ties with CERN and its scientific projects and to contribute to the most advanced techniques in the accelerator field within the framework of a global collaboration”.

 

 

 

by Roberto Cantoni