Recommendations of the Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics 7th meeting, 17-18 April 1997 I. Preamble 1. The PAC for Particle Physics takes note of the information presented at this meeting about the recommendations of the 81st session of the JINR Scientific Council (January 1997) and the regular session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries (March 1997). The PAC congratulates the JINR Directorate on the occasion of their re- election for another five-year term of office, and wishes them success for the future work. 2. The PAC acknowledges the efforts made by the Directorate to develop the international cooperation. In particular, the PAC notes that the Agreement between JINR and BMBF (Germany) has been prolonged till 31 December 1999, that an Agreement between JINR and INFN (Italy) was concluded in December 1996 for 2 years, and that the JINR-CERN Protocol on LHC was recently signed. 3. The PAC is concerned that the high intellectual and technological potential of JINR in the field of particle physics is not matched by adequate financial resources in the real JINR budget. The PAC therefore urges the JINR Member States to make available their nominal contributions in due time, in order to allow for execution of the programme recommended by this Committee on the basis of its scientific merits. II. Cooperation IHEP-JINR The PAC followed with interest the report on the scientific programme of the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP, Protvino) and its cooperation with JINR, and acknowledges the important potential of this Institute in carrying out scientific research. The PAC appreciates the long-standing cooperation of JINR with IHEP, which has contributed to a wide range of theoretical and experimental work in high energy physics. III. Recommendations on the programme of particle physics research until the year 2000. The PAC takes note of the reports presented by the Directors of LHE, LPP and LNP and approves the main lines of the JINR programme in particle physics research, proposed until the year 2000. The Committee notes, in particular, the importance of the accelerator facility at the Laboratory of High Energies for experiments in the energy range from a few hundred MeV to a few GeV. The polarized deuteron and neutron beams available at LHE are unique. IV. Recommendations for new experiments and projects 1. The PAC recommends approval of participation in the NOMAD experiment in 1997, and in R&D for a new instrumented target. For an extended participation beyond 1997, a separate proposal should be submitted after a possible continuation of the neutrino programme at CERN has been clarified. 2. The PAC recommends the participation in the D0 experiment for approval, appreciating that JINR can make a significant and visible contribution on the basis of a technology in which the Institute has developed a recognized expertise. The PAC requests, however, that the proponents - clarify their plans for participation in the D0 physics analysis, - provide more details on the development, fabrication and performance of the integrated front-end electronics, - review the amount and the sharing of the resources requested, with a view of reducing the JINR expenses for travel and subsistence at Fermilab. The PAC asks the proponents to report back on these three points at the next meeting. 3. The PAC recommends the participation in the CDF experiment for approval. 4. The PAC recommends the project GAMMA-2 for approval in second priority. 5. The FIBR project has not been changed conceptually in comparison to the original proposal, and the PAC is still not in a position to recommend it for approval. The PAC encourages the authors to develop a data storage and retrieval project for a wide range of applications in future experiments, possibly in collaboration with similar projects at other institutes. The present proposal could be integrated into such a project. 6. The PAC recommends participation in the experiment "Determination of strange form factors from inelastic neutrino-proton scattering" at the IHEP (Protvino) for approval in second priority. 7. The PAC recognizes the potential scientific benefit of the MRS experiment to the JINR programmes presented in the Letter of Intent and invites the authors to submit a full proposal. 8. The PAC takes note of the project "Creation of interactive computer systems for administrative activities". V. Recommendations for ongoing activities 1. The PAC approves the report presented on the topic ATLAS and recommends extension of the project until the end of the construction period. The PAC expects progress reports on this project in intervals of not more than two years. 2. The PAC approves the report presented on the topic CMS and recommends extension of the project until the end of the construction period. The PAC expects progress reports on this project in intervals of not more than two years. The PAC notes with satisfaction that the participation of JINR Member States in this project within the RDMS (Russia and Dubna Member States) effort has allowed them to gain leading positions in the CMS activities and to contribute significantly to many detector subsystems. 3. The PAC recommends that the JINR Member States be more strongly involved through JINR in large-scale international projects. As shows the experience of RDMS in the CMS collaboration, in this way the Institute's Member States can use their resources more efficiently and play important roles in these projects. 4. The PAC appreciates the successful activity of LCTA to improve the JINR network, information and computing infrastructure (NICI). The Users' Consulting Committee, established according to the PAC's recommendation, regularly considered the issues related to the NICI development. The PAC is pleased to note that the JINR NICI currently represents a powerful installation in terms of size, topology, equipment variety, network protocols, operating systems and software support. This makes NICI an important basic facility of JINR. The PAC approves LCTA's participation in the national programmes of development of networking and information technologies. The PAC is disappointed by the insufficient and undercritical financial resources allocated to the CONET-96/98 project from the JINR budget. It recommends that the JINR Directorate provide the required financing of these activities as a high-priority task to maintain the proper functioning of the Institute's NICI. 5. The PAC takes note of the significant amount of work, which has already been done to prepare the experiment MARUSYA at the Nuclotron extraction channel, and recommends that the JINR Directorate provide the required assistance to this activity within the corresponding theme of research. 6. The PAC appreciates the progress of the project EXCHARM at the U-70 accelerator (Protvino) to study characteristics of charmed particles and to search for exotic resonances and supports plans to develop and upgrade the EXCHARM magnetic spectrometer. VI. Scientific reports The PAC followed with interest the report presented by A.B.Arbuzov and thanks the speaker. VII. Miscellaneous 1. The PAC has received a letter by F.Lehar on the subject of a possible ranking of proposals by the Committee. A discussion of this letter is deferred to a future meeting . 2. The next meeting of the PAC is planned for 27-28 November 1997 with the following items to be included in the agenda: - reports and recommendations on experiments to be completed in 1997; - discussion of new projects proposed by the Laboratories for 1998; - priorities for experiments and projects for the years 1998-2000; - candidacy of the PAC Chairman. Prof. P.Spillantini Chairman of the PAC
© Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Dubna, 1997