R-ECFA Meeting 11-12th May

ECFA stands for European Committee for Future Accelerators. The committee visits institutes in its member countries to assess the current status of accelerator physics and make suggestions on how things can be improved. I was invited to give a talk at a recent Restricted-ECFA meeting that was held at Imperial. They wanted to get an idea about what PhDs in particle physics are really like, so gave a talk about what I had done during my PhD, why I did one in the first place and what my future plans are. It was a lot of fun to stand up and give a talk that was all based on opinion (so I couldn’t technically get anything wrong!). I told them that I thought the atmosphere at CERN was great and that everyone who works there is really enthusiastic. I also said I thought the funding for PhD students was set a quite a reasonable level, sorry to anyone who thinks I should have used the opportunity to campaign for more cash. I had a few complaints, mainly about PPARC admin department (all PhD students have a story or two to back this up) and GSEPS (transferable skills courses) which are generally a waste of time. In the main I think I am lucky to be working in such an interesting and diverse field, especially at such an important time, so that’s what I told them.

Many people gave talks concerning the state of physics in schools, funding for research and general overviews of experiments and institutes. The committee returned a very positive verdict about the status of physics in the UK and made some constructive suggestions. They commented on the small proportion of women in the field but accepted that redressing this balance is a complicated, long term process.

Rector supports blog

Last Friday Imperial's rector Sir Richard Sykes visited CERN - in particular the two experiments with IC involvement CMS and LHCb.

The visit was supervised by CERN's VIP service, a guarantee that nothing can go wrong: 9:00 pick up at the hotel, 9:25 arrive at LHCb, visit. 9:45 go to CMS, photographer is waiting... and so on until the signature of the guest book at 14:15 (involving another photographer). A quite impressive organization that has not much in common with the usual "private" visits of LHCb or CMS.

So early in the morning Jim and the rector met us (Tatsuya, our spokesman, Will and myself) at point 8 for a visit of the LHCb detector. Tatsuya showed every interesting detail and let us enter any usually forbidden door. A quite interesting tour, even for LHCb members!

Of course we had a long stop in front of RICH1 where I tried to explain how it works (remember Cherenkov radiation?) and why we need such a device and CMS don't. I also took the opportunity to ask him if I could make a picture for the blog. That's when he said it was a great idea. One needs to be modern...

After a brief visit of the LHC tunnel we left Tatsuya and Will and continued to point 5 for a CMS visit. Since I hadn't seen CMS for quite some time (especially not since there's something in the cavern) I joined the CMS tour - which was really impressive. Not only because of CMS, but mostly because Jim knows every detail of it and seems to remember an anecdote about every piece of equipment. He also seems to remember each price tag...

The morning was quite challenging - the rector - a biologist - had many interesting questions and seemed very interested about the goals of the research and the technical challenges. I am also not used to being followed by a professional photographer all the time!

We then went to CERN for a lunch with Lyn Evans - head of the LHC project - and Geoff (who would later show the CMS tracker). Of course I tried to get a few insider information about when the LHC will start, but the official statement remains: there will be an announcement by the end of the month. (But feel free to drop by my office I you want to hear some unofficial statements).

Must See TV Tonight

Apologies to our vast international readership who do not have the privilege of paying the BBC licence fee, but tonight there will be a programme on BBC2 at 9pm, called, ahem, Horizon: The Six-Billion Dollar Experiment.

Yes, it is about the LHC.

Since there is absolutely nothing else on the telly tonight, I am sure the whole nation will be captivated by this programme.

Among the questions to be answered tonight:

• Will the BBC get the physics right?
  
• Might the LHC create a black hole which will gobble up the planet (a question that I was asked at passport control last month!)
  
• Will anyone tell them that "the God Particle" is a really really useless name for the Higgs? (with all due respect)
  
• Will any of our colleagues at Imperial HEP appear?
  
• How will Peter Crouch do against John Terry and Michael Essien?