DG's Corner
A Message from the Director General
January 8, 2013
KEK Director General Atsuto SUZUKI
KEK staff and users, colleagues and friends,
I wish you a happy new year. At the beginning of a new year, let me make an annual address.
The top priority for this year is to firm up the foundation for the next step. I would say that we have completed some 80% of our 5-year strategic plan for research announced in 2008, thanks to your great efforts.
The next 5-year strategic plan has been discussed by the research community since 2010 and we are currently summarizing up the plan at KEK. We will write up the next 5-year plan by March this year, which will then be reviewed by the International Reviewing Committee before it will become the final plan open to the public.
I will talk about this next 5-year strategic plan as it stands now and share with you to think together, while adding my own comments on each.
On neutrino experiments, we are to focus primarily on the higher precision measurements of the neutrino mixing in the T2K experiment and the R&D toward a next-generation long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment.
Similar future projects are proposed in Japan as well as in Europe and in the U.S.A. ICFA (International Committee for Future Accelerator) will be the place to discuss how to reduce unnecessary redundancies in technological, human, and budgetary resources. I hope Japan will take a leading role in this through your dedication.
I also ask you to produce design reports for domestic experiments on accelerator, detector and physics that can withstand any outside criticisms.
On hadron experiments, we are to pursue further expansion of the facility while continuously making physics outputs from those ongoing experiments.
I consider it is most importance to increase the intensity of the Slow Extraction Beam to get good results. We should keep in mind of restructuring, recombining and discarding nuclear and elementary particle research facilities of Japan while pursuing for future projects.
On neutron experiments, we are to achieve the designed capabilities of the pulsed neutron facility and to do further researches and developments for achieving a dramatic advancement in material and life science.
On muon experiments, we are to make further advancement in Meterials and Life Science and in its wide range applications / basic physics through the high intensity Muon Spin Rotation Method (mSR).
I expect excellent results from neutron and muon experiments, since we have achieved the world highest beam intensities. I hope we shall establish orchestrated future research plan taking advantages of our having multiple different type particle beams in the following 5-year period.
On SuperKEKB/Belle-ll, we are to complete the accelerator and the detector to pursue new physics by attaining the designed luminosity. As the restarting of LHC experiments and starting of the SuperKEKB/Belle-ll would be about the same time, I expect great stimulation through a competition for new results by these two places.
On LHC/ATLAS, we are to stay in the experiment and to promote the upgrading of the accelerator and the detector as part of the international effort. LHC has plans extending to around 2030 including the upgrading.
I think we need to establish a new agreement, differing from the present agreement between CERN and KEK to enable the collaboration for such a long time into the future. We have already started to work on it.
On ILC, we are to establish an international organization to push ILC project forward, including detailed designing and starting of construction through international collaboration. The ILC project became more active by the announcement of the discovery of Higgs-like particles at LHC last July and by the completion of Technical Design Report on Accelerator and Detector produced by an international team in last December. The world situation on elementary particle research and our track record for the developing of ILC accelerator technologies made the possibility higher to realize the ILC site to be in Japan.
There are so many tasks to be completed for the ILC, such as producing the proposal for ILC, determine the ILC site, produce detail design for the construction and the ILC laboratory, determine the process of approving the project internationally, and so forth.
Japan should lead the effort to complete these tasks, working with the Linear Collider Board (LCB) and Linear Collider Directorate (LCD) established under the ICFA. I shall establish Japanese-side task forces in January this year. The following two years will be the crucial period for the ILC site choice to be in Japan.
On the synchrotron radiation, we are to upgrade PF and PF-AR to further promote researches using synchrotron radiation. We are to aim for the 3 GeV ERL construction through verification with c-ERL. We are to strongly participate in the development of this field of research.
I firmly believe that the ERL, the highly likely candidate for the next generation accelerator, can be realized by KEK. In this, we must verify the validity of c-ERL technology and prove the possibility of opening a new research field. These should be the minimum requirement to get the approval for the ERL construction by the relevant community.
We should also make a drastic change in our photon factory facility to sustain and promote the research until the ERL get constructed. It is essential for us to have a good strategic plan if we should have a fruitful future in the field of the synchrotron radiation including the ERL.
On accelerator and detector technologies, we are expected to seek for the ways to contribute to the society, fully utilizing our technology and experience, cooperating with other related fields including industrial and medical field. We should also seek for a way to drastically advance the technologies.
I mentioned the ever-growing tendency of project size, project budget and project duration in my address one year ago which implies new kind of difficulties we are to face more than ever. It is obvious that we could not overcome these difficulties by just producing excellent results. We do need strong supports from the society for which we must show that we can contribute through utilizing our technologies and experience on accelerators and detectors.
We have been receiving requests not only from Japanese communities but also from international communities. I am searching for a good way to do this along with proper organization structure to respond to it and improved strategic plans to work with industries.
Now I shall close my talk by talking about "the year of snake”. Well, I could not come up with a good story, as snakes are not the most popular animals. But the Japanese character “巳” representing a snake also means “fruitful”. To be fruitful, we must plant lot of seeds, yes, the seeds for the next strategic plans to be fruitful. This means that we should firm up our foundation for achieving the goals.
January 7th, 2013
KEK Director General Atsuto SUZUKI