Deciding on the future of particle physics is a complicated process, due to the size of the projects that are being proposed. Nigel Lockyer, director of Fermilab has written an editorial that was recently published in Nature. He outlines some of the questions that our field is facing. As director of the larges particle physics laboratory in the US he should be familiar with large projects.
Unfortunately, this editorial contains a rather indifferent enumeration of projects that have been proposed at one point in time and ought to be classified rather differently in terms of time scale and scientific merit.
An important consideration that Nigel forgets to mention completely is that each large project comes with its own window of opportunity that depends on a number of factors other than physics. This puts the argument of waiting for results of the upgraded LHC to make a decision on the ILC in a completely different light. There is no ideal point in time to take a decision on the ILC if the LHC finds nothing. Particle physicists will gradually move on to other projects, politicians' focus will shift away from particle physics after years of waiting for news.
This is not a situation we need to get ourselves into. Physicists have worked hard over the past decade and more to put all the pieces in place to take a decision on the ILC in the next couple years. It's quite hard to come up with a scenario in which an LHC discovery in the next five years would invalidate the case for the ILC.
Particle physicists will continue to come up with projects that can be considered at the next step. We will not be short on ideas for future experiments. They will require a foundation that can be laid by the ILC now.
No comments:
Post a Comment