The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed new electron-positron collider. Together with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, it would allow physicists to explore energy regions beyond the reach of today's accelerators. At these energies, researchers anticipate significant discoveries that will lead to a radically new understanding of what the universe is made of and how it works. The nature of the ILC's electron-positron collisions would give it the capability to answer compelling questions that discoveries at the LHC will raise, from the identity of dark matter to the existence of extra dimensions. In the ILC's design, two facing linear accelerators, each 20 kilometers long, hurl beams of electrons and positrons toward each other at nearly the speed of light. In the current design, each beam contains ten billion electrons or positrons compressed to a minuscule three-nanometer thickness. As the particles speed down the collider, superconducting accelerating cavities give them more and more energy. They meet in an intense crossfire of collisions. The energy of the ILC's beam can be adjusted to home in on processes of interest.
The ILC Global Design Effort (GDE) will establish the final configuration of the ILC, focusing the efforts of hundreds of accelerator scientists and particle physicists in North America, Europe and Asia. The ILC will be designed, funded, managed and operated as a fully international scientific project. An international effort will define the administrative and financial model for the project. The PI of this proposal has been asked to join the GDE as Chair of the global Research and Development Board (RDB), with the tasks of overseeing of the Global R&D effort, In this role e will report to the GDE Director, and work closely with the three Regional Directors, who will provide coordination among the numerous institutions in their region. This proposal requests support for the RDB Chair.
Through many workshops and evaluations, the ILC has emerged as the highest priority of the U.S. Particle Physics Community.
OVERSIGHT OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINEAR COLLIDER (ILC) PROJECT BY THE ACCELERATOR ADVISORY PANEL (AAP) The nations around the world involved in advanced research have joined together to design and propose the International Linear Collider. Its purpose is to study the collisions of high- energy particles to solve mysteries in the science of matter, energy, space and time. This will be a giant electrical machine to smash electrons together to create concentrations of energy, where new kinds of matter will be created. An international collaboration is required to assemble the teams of experts and resources needed. Advanced new techniques have been developed with the informal collaboration of teams in many different countries over the last twenty-five years that allow the ILC to be built. The management of this complex effort by a global collaboration is a challenge. Many nations must be assured that the project will be a technical success, can be completed on time and keep within its planned cost. A panel of experts, the AAP, has been assembled to examine the design and testing of the technical elements of the project, and the evaluation of its cost and schedule. The NSF has supported me for five years as the leader of this oversight panel. It reports to the Director of the ILC, Barry Barish, Professor at Cal Tech. The AAP should provide independent technical advice, including issues that are possibly inconvenient in the global collaboration. Possibly examples are: duplication of effort, balancing risk and cost, conflict between the degree of central control essential for project success and the constraints characteristic of a global project. The solution of these problems is the responsibility of bodies at higher levels of ILC management, but it is important to identify how they affect the progress at the technical level of the AAP mandate. Over the last years it has become common in the U.S.A. to put strong project- management-control measures in place. They require laborious effort, but they seem to be a success. They are novel to many members of the international scientific and technological community, including many of our colleagues in the ILC. Our strategy was to begin our oversight at a level of intrusion that was comfortable for the Panel, and strengthen it over time. In 2010 we had reached the end of the Phase One of the ILC research and development plan, with a Proposal by the ILC Project Executive Committee for a number of revisions to the original design, mainly for cost reduction. The AAP reviewed the proposal in detail and was able to agree unanimously on a report, largely in the spirit of a strong project review mentioned above. The Director has declared that the report was useful and it led to additional study of the proposed revisions by the ILC team. This process should lead to a final ILC proposal in about two years. Our experience shows that an international project can accept a strong level of review and profit by it.
