Under a cloud of volcanic ash, the first annual meeting of the European Co-ordination for Accelerator Research & Development (EuCARD) project took place at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). From 13–16 April, this melting pot of ideas saw neutrino physicists mix with collimator designers, RF experts and magnet specialists to discuss progress with the EuCARD project as well as cutting-edge topics in accelerator sciences. EuCARD is a four-year project co-funded by the EU’s Framework Programme 7 (FP7), which involves 37 partners from 45 European accelerator laboratories, universities, research centres and industries.
The attendees, more than 100 in number, heard how the EuCARD networks (neutrino facilities, accelerator performance and RF technologies) had successfully oriented themselves towards efficient topical meetings, including the successful mini-workshop on LHC crab cavities that took place in October 2009. Two of these networks are currently considering increasing their scope to include plasma-wave acceleration and medical accelerators.
The collaborative R&D studies, whether on magnets, collimation, linear-collider technologies or advanced concepts, have demonstrated effective collaborations with promising progress. Out of many examples, the highlights presented at the meeting included an implementation strategy for crab-crossing at the LHC described by Rama Calaga of Brookhaven and progress in the design of a new compact crab cavity presented by Graeme Burt of Lancaster University. Many success stories provided food for thought, including impressive results on crab-waist luminosity at Frascati reported by Catia Milardi of INFN and prototyping of cryogenic collimators at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research, as Peter Spiller of GSI described. Whetting everyone’s appetite for a new type of acceleration was the talk by Allen Caldwell, of the Max Planck Institute for Physics, on proton-driven plasma-wave acceleration, following on from a recent EuCARD workshop. Future facilities for neutrinos were also part of the event with animated discussions about superbeams, beta beams and neutrino factories.
The EU strongly promotes access to European facilities, and within EuCARD opportunities are now open to external researchers. Four teams have already received EU support for access to the MICE facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, while the HiRadMat facility is at a design stage at CERN.
Enlarging the vision beyond EuCARD, guest speakers from related projects included Roland Garoby from CERN on the preparatory phase for an LHC upgrade (SLHC-PP); Eckhard Elsen from DESY on high-gradient superconducting RF cavities for an International Linear Collider (ILC-HiGrade); and Brigitte Cros of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) on the EuroLEAP project on laser-driven plasma-wave acceleration. Eric Prebys of Fermilab and the US LHC Accelerator Research Program showcased the strong R&D collaborations between the US and Europe, as well as exceptional advances in magnet design. Tord Ekelöf of Uppsala University and Roy Aleksan of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the European Steering Group on Accelerator R&D (ESGARD) put EuCARD’s contribution towards the global accelerator R&D effort into perspective. A natural outcome was a discussion, under the auspices of ESGARD, of ways and means to tighten European and global collaborations.
Holding the meeting at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory allowed attendees to visit the ISIS neutron source and the Diamond Light Source facility. In addition, staff from STFC presented aspects of the UK programme, notably Susan Smith with a summary of the ALICE and EMMA facilities at Daresbury and Mike Poole with an overview of STFC’s programme of accelerator R&D.
In his concluding remarks, CERN’s Jean-Pierre Koutchouk, the EuCARD project co-ordinator, acknowledged the quality and interest of the presentations, and the promising first results of this 4-year project. He thanked the 37 European partners for their dedication and dynamism and the STFC for the outstanding organization of the meeting at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
