More than 110 experts from all over the world gathered in Tsukuba, Japan for the 4th Joint HiLumi LHC/ LARP Annual Meeting between 17 and 21 November 2014, hosted by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). The event celebrated that in June 2014 the CERN Council confirmed the priority status of the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project in the CERN scientific and financial programme by approving the Medium-Term Plan for the years 2015 to 2019, including the total cost of the project up to 2025. This is a key step, not only because it translates the deliberation of last year’s priority of the EU Strategy update for HEP into concrete action, but also because it allows for the long term planning of the various phases: R&D, design, industrialization, construction, installation and commissioning.
The event started off with the plenary sessions where members of the CERN management as well as management of the collaboration (KEK, US LARP, US DoE) gave invited talks. After the welcome by Prof Atsuto Suzuki, KEK Director General, Dr. Yasuhiro Okada, KEK executive Director presented the KEK future programme for particle physics. This was followed by CERN Director of Accelerator and Technology, Dr Frederick Bordry on the LHC and CERN programme. The Future US Programme for Accelerator R&D was presented by Stephen Gourlay, head of the Superconducting Magnet Group of LBNL and member of the HEPAP subpanel advising DOE on future strategy. The first plenary session closed with the High Luminosity LHC status updated by Prof Lucio Rossi, HL-LHC Project Leader. Prof Rossi also officially announced the new HL LHC timeline to the collaborators. The plenary was followed by expert talks on residual dose rate studies, layout and integration, optics and operation modes and QXF progress. Prof Akira Yamamoto presented the important results and recommendations of the recent SC Cable review.
Invited talks were given by the LIU Project Leader, Dr Malika Meddahi on the LHC Injector Upgrade project, as well as the outcomes of the ECFA HL-LHC Experiments workshop was presented as an indication of close collaboration with the Experiments. One of the highlights of the plenaries was the status update on the Preliminary Design Report, as the main deliverable of the project, which will be published soon as a CERN Yellow Report. 3 days focused on the work package parallel sessions, reviewing the progress in design and R&D not only for the EU funded but also non-EU funded work packages. The event was closed by the summaries of the EU funded work packages, showing “excellent technical progress thanks to the hard and smart work of many, including senior and junior” – concluded Prof Rossi in his wrap up talk.
For more on the key technical highlights from the activities look for the December Issue of Accelerating News to be published on 4 December.
The upcoming meetings will be the LARP / HiLumi LHC meeting between 11-13 May 2015 at Fermilab and the final FP7 HiLumi LHC / LARP Collaboration Meeting between 26-30 October 2015 at CERN. As a contribution to the UNESCO International Year of Light, special events celebrating this occasion will be organized by HL LHC throughout the year. Stay tuned for the latest updates in the CERN Bulletin and CERN website.