When you have important guests over, the first thing you do is clean the bathrooms.
At TRIUMF, news of the imminent arrival of more than 50 scientific leaders from the world's top particle-physics laboratories generated a similar flurry of last-minute activity including bathroom retrofits, procurement of extra chairs and tables, and arrangements for phone and video conferences. From last-minute improvements to the main-auditorium meeting space to preparing folders and nametags, TRIUMF turned out its best host/hostess personality to make the international summit participants feel welcome and taken care of.
On Thursday, February 21, 2013, the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) met at TRIUMF. It was an especially noteworthy meeting as it was also the ILCSC's final gathering; it had completed its mission and a new Linear Collider Board (LCB) was convened to carry on the good work of discussing, reviewing, and coordinating the world's many efforts to conceive, design, and prepare for construction of a massive Linear Collider to study the Higgs boson discovered at CERN this past summer.
Topping off the day was an international press conference held in the revamped TRIUMF auditorium that was webcast to more than a 100 different media outlets. With translation into Japanese and questions from internet watchers around the world, the ILCSC announced the completion of its mandate and the formation of the LCB and the concomitant Linear Collider Collaboration to move the linear collider from the design phase through to the development phase.
The newly founded Linear Collider Collaboration will coordinate and advance the global development work for the linear collider, a global project to complement the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and ultimately understand the deepest secrets of the universe. The Linear Collider Collaboration is headed by Lyn Evans, former Project Manager of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Hitoshi Murayama, Director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, will serve as a deputy director.
On Friday, the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) took over the meeting space. Meeting under the auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics since 1976, ICFA coordinates global activities in particle physics. With participants from China, Korea, Japan, India, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Russia, Switzerland, the U.S., the UK, and so on, the ICFA meeting was a collection of international superstars in particle and accelerator physics. Status reports, strategy updates, and intense coffee-break conversations marked the progress of the meeting.
The meeting ended in the late afternoon and everyone at TRIUMF breathed a sigh of relief. The technology worked, the food was good, the coffee lasted, and every delegate had had a chance to connect and network with his or her colleagues on Canadian soil. Many thanks to the TRIUMF staff who worked tirelessly to host this "G-20 Summit" for particle physics!
Some Canadian media covered the events:
- Global News (online)
- CTV news or CTV news (television)
- News 1130 AM and again (radio)
PHOTO CAPTIONS (top to bottom)
- Logo for the Linear Collider Collaboration
- Full house for the ILCSC/LCC international press conference, moderated by TRIUMF's director Nigel S. Lockyer
- Four of the panelists for the ILCSC/LCC international press conference; from left to right: Jon Bagger (Johns Hopkins Univ, ILCSC chair); Hitoshi Murayama (IPMU Japan, LCC deputy); Lyn Evans (CERN, LCC chair); Sachio Komamiya (KEK, LCB chair).
-- by T.I. Meyer, TRIUMF's head of Strategic Planning and Communication