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German delegation visited KEK to attend the SuperKEKB Groundbreaking Ceremony and sign the MOU

25 Nov, 2011

On November 18, German delegation visited KEK to attend the Groundbreaking Ceremony for the SuperKEKB project, and sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Belle II International Collaboration, KEK, and the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG). This MOU governs the relationship between the German members of the Belle II collaboration as a whole, and the KEK laboratory.

Before the signing ceremony of the MOU, Andreas Kirchner, Counsellor, German Embassy in Tokyo, Allen Caldwell, Director of Max Planck Institute for Physics, Manfred Fleischer, Deputy Director of DESY, and German delegation members had a time with Atsuto Suzuki, Director General of KEK.

This year, Japan and Germany celebrate the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations. A rich program of events that highlight the past, present and future of ties is scheduled to take place in both countries. German delegation mentioned they were impressed with the chance to sign the MOU in this memorial year.

There is a strong and long history of research collaboration between Japan and Germany. Many Japanese young researchers have/had joined the experiments, got scientific knowledge and technology, and have been educated for physicists in Germany. In1973, professor Koshiba (Nobel Prize laureate) participated in an experiment called DASP at an electron-positron collider DORIS in DESY. Through the research collaboration between Japan and Germany, we have maintained a productive partnership, and have been working together on projects like the ZEUS experiment at DESY's Hadron-Electron Ring Accelerator (HERA), the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), Belle experiment, Belle II experiment, and other experiments and projects.

Now, Germany is the largest Belle II collaborator with 79 researchers from 9 institutes and has made a lot of efforts to carry out the Belle II experiment. German and Japanese researchers work closely, and this collaboration has been one of the keys to worldwide scientific advancement in High Energy Physics. We will hear about many exciting activities and ideas for future. KEK welcomes a continued strong partnership with Germany as we move forward into a new era of discovery.