Earlier this year an ECFA sub-panel visited Spain and found, as Cecilia Jarlskog describes, a young and rapidly expanding community of particle physicists.
Particle physicists were a rare commodity in Spain when the country joined CERN in 1961 as the organization’s 14th member state. The civil war (1936-1939) had virtually created a scientific void; in George Orwell’s words from Homage to Catalonia, “It is not easy to convey the nightmare atmosphere of that time.” Blas Cabrera Felipe, who could have created a modern school of physics, left the country in 1939 and died in exile in Mexico in 1945, age 67. Nor was science a priority in the aftermath of the war. “In fact it is difficult to understand why Spain joined CERN, devoid as she was of a scientific community in the field,” says the distinguished Spanish physicist Pedro Pascual.
Nonetheless, joining CERN gave a cardinal impetus to the development of particle physics in Spain. So when the country left CERN at the end of 1968 it was under vigorous protests from a small community of young and enthusiastic Spanish physicists. Fourteen years later, in 1983, Spain was welcomed back to CERN, now much better prepared for the challenges lying ahead.
Among the duties of the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA) are visits by a sub-panel called RECFA (Restricted ECFA) to the CERN member states. The aim is to gauge the status of particle physics and closely related disciplines and to help improve the prevailing conditions by making recommendations to physicists, funding agencies and politicians.
Past problems
On its first visit to Spain, in 1983, RECFA noted that it would take time and real dedication to build up a community of experimental physicists in the country. Another issue of concern was the urgent need for networking facilities for high-energy physics – both within the country and for connections with other member states – because of, as RECFA phrased it, “the very large distances separating the universities in Spain”.
Now, 20 years later, the distances are no longer perceived as large yet networking is still an issue, albeit on a much more sophisticated level. The unprecedented need for computing and networking has led for example to the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) project, with strong participation from Spain.
This year, in a welcome speech delivered on behalf of the minister of science and technology, the RECFA members were reminded that, ever since Spain rejoined CERN, the country has taken its responsibilities very seriously. In 1983 a special programme (the National Plan for Particle Physics and Large Accelerators) was created, within the framework of the Spanish “National Plan for R&D”. This programme, which funds participation in international experiments and pays some personnel costs, is still running. “The creation of the National Plan for R&D is the single most important event in the history of Spanish science,” says Enrique Fernandez, a former chairman of ECFA. Indeed, RECFA was delighted to learn that the Spanish investment has paid off handsomely – the growth of the community and the quality of the work are impressive.
Experimental particle physics in Spain is a young field, taking off in 1983 when the country rejoined CERN. By then, however, the period of rapid expansion at the universities had come to an end. In Spanish universities, positions are usually created as a response to the required teaching load, so the new experimental groups could not reach the critical mass needed for efficient participation in large collaborations. In addition, finding jobs at universities for engineers and technicians has always been very difficult.
To overcome these obstacles, Spanish physicists have in the past repeatedly expressed their desire to have a national institute, similar to INFN in Italy or IN2P3 in France. This was a major theme of RECFA visits in 1992 and 1997, and it resurfaced at this year’s meeting where it received strong support from the sub-panel. An important point is that Spain has 17 regions, each with its own government. These are responsible for education, which was formerly dealt with by the central authorities. This decentralization favours a multifaceted system, where research centres are funded by several sources, local as well as national. Indeed, there has been increasing support for particle physics from several regional governments. Therefore RECFA recommends that a national institute be created, but with a structure loose enough not to jeopardize local support.
Current structures and activities
In Spain, research in particle physics is carried out at universities as well as at non-university research institutes or centres. Most of the funds for specific projects, such as participation in Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments, are granted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, on a competitive basis through the National Plan for Particle Physics and Large Accelerators.
Experimental particle physics has in fact grown rapidly in Spain compared with many other countries. Currently the field is being pursued not only in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Zaragoza, as was the case some years ago, but also in Santiago de Compostela, Santander, Granada and Seville. The amount of work carried out is vast and this article can give only a brief account.
A major centre for research is CIEMAT, the Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology in Madrid, which is financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology. It is a big organization with around 1150 employees, half with university degrees. CIEMAT has five research departments, one of them being the Department of Fusion and Elementary Particles. In addition, it has departments that can provide technical services and R&D support. This enables the researchers at CIEMAT to play a leading role in detector construction and R&D projects. Current activities include the construction of the barrel muon detector of CMS and participation in nTOF experiments at CERN, as well as an experiment at the PSI to determine the muon-decay coupling constant 20 times more accurately than previously. In astroparticle physics, CIEMAT is a major partner in the AMS experiment, to be performed on the International Space Station.
Several specialized research institutes are primarily funded by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), an agency of the Ministry of Science and Technology. CSIC operates nationwide and provides funds for around 100 research institutes within a broad range of disciplines, similar to the structure of CNRS in France. Its prioritized areas of research include:
• elementary particle physics, including work at CERN;
• LHC computing and Grid technology;
• neutron physics – nTOF at CERN, and experiments at ILL in Grenoble and at the proposed European Spallation Source;
• synchrotron-radiation research at the ESRF, Grenoble, and at LURE, Orsay;
• detector and accelerator technologies.
The largest institute for particle physics funded by CSIC is the Instituto de Física Corpuscula (IFIC) in Valencia. Here, CSIC-funded researchers and those of the University of Valencia share premises for reasons of synergy. Experimental and theoretical research is performed primarily in areas of high-energy, nuclear and astroparticle physics. There are several activities in high-energy physics, among them construction of the ATLAS detector and the Grid project at CERN. Nuclear-physics activities include nTOF, and work at ISOLDE (CERN), GSI (Darmstadt), LNL (Padova) and in Jyväskylä, Finland; nuclear medicine is another line of research. IFIC is participating in the neutrino project ANTARES and in the gamma-ray mission INTEGRAL. IFIC is also an excellent centre for theoretical physics. The Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA), at the University of Cantabria in Santander, is also co-financed by CSIC and the university. The institute participates in CMS and Grid projects as well as in the CDF experiment at Fermilab.
A centre of somewhat different character is the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) in Barcelona, which is a consortium between the local government and the Autonomic University of Barcelona (UAB). In addition to its own staff, the institute has associate members who are affiliated with the UAB or the University of Barcelona (UB). IFAE has the status of an institute of UAB and as such its members are allowed to teach doctoral courses at the university. This facilitates contact with young students, avoiding the danger of isolation that affects some free-standing research institutes.
Current projects at IFAE include detector construction for the ATLAS experiment and work on the Grid project, as well as participation in the CDF experiment. The astrophysics experiment MAGIC, for the detection of cosmic gamma rays, constitutes another major activity (see “MAGIC opens up the gamma-ray sky”). The institute is also moving into the domain of neutrino physics by analysing data from the K2K experiment in Japan, and it intends to participate in the proposed second-generation experiment, J-PARC-Nu. R&D, especially pertaining to the development of a novel X-ray detector for use in medical imaging, is another major activity. Many projects in theoretical particle physics are carried out at IFAE as well as at UAB and UB. In addition the UB has a small group that is involved in the BaBar experiment at SLAC and is participating in the LHCb experiment at CERN and the Grid project.
The university environment
Madrid is a centre for substantial activity in particle physics at two universities. Researchers from the Autonomic University of Madrid (UAM) have for a long time been involved with the ZEUS experiment at DESY. A UAM group is also participating in the construction of the ATLAS detector and another has started working on CMS. Researchers from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) are contributing to the MAGIC experiment. Both universities have strong theory groups. Recently, a joint CSIC-UAM Institute has been created, which will no doubt strengthen theoretical particle physics in Spain and lead to further excellence.
Researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela are engaged in the Auger Project (see “Auger ready for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays”) as well as in the construction of the LHCb detector. They have also been heavily involved in the DIRAC experiment at CERN. The University of Granada, meanwhile, is a newcomer in the area of experimental particle physics, having begun only in 2002. The Granada group is participating in the preparation of the ICARUS experiment, to be done at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. Theoretical particle physics, by contrast, has a longer history in Granada.
For 15 years Spain has also had an underground lab, Canfranc, situated in a tunnel between France and Spain. During this time the laboratory has undergone several upgrades; current research projects include double beta-decay experiments and searches for dark matter.
Finally, it is interesting to note that the nTOF experiments at CERN attract a rather large community of scientists from Spain, not only from large centres for particle physics but also from polytechnic universities and the University of Seville. Grid computing is another “unifying project”, with the Spanish groups participating in LHC experiments working together to set up the necessary infrastructure. A scientific information centre, the Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), coordinates these efforts.
The impact of the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider on the Spanish particle-physics community has been remarkable. Work at LEP has led to 64 PhD theses and about 1000 publications. In addition about 20 PhDs are awarded each year in theoretical particle physics. As mentioned above, both the increase in the size of the community and the financial support have been very substantial compared with the pre-LEP era. There are now around 270 experimenters and 150 particle theorists in Spain.
RECFA found that Spanish experimental particle physicists are at the forefront of international research and make an impressive contribution. They are indispensable partners in the collaborations to which they belong. RECFA was also very impressed by the vitality and intellectual leadership of the theoretical particle-physics community in Spain, which the committee found to be among the strongest in Europe.
Despite the Spanish success story, however, serious structural problems loom on the horizon. Finding permanent positions at the universities for gifted young physicists is currently deemed to be almost impossible, not only for demographic reasons but also because of a downward trend in the number of first-year physics students (in the past two years, however, this number has been more stable). Solving this problem would require finding new methods of funding.
Another issue of great concern is the lack of engineers and technicians at universities because, in general, there are no permanent positions available in these categories. These people, vital to research, have access only to temporary positions, supported by project funds, or to posts created within regional institutes.
The above problems must be solved urgently. The present major commitment of Spanish universities and institutes to the LHC project is expected to result in a repeat of the success story of LEP. Spain is an attractive country for high-level scientists, postdocs and visitors. There are great opportunities – but much more could be done if only the necessary funds and posts were available.
