Author: Rüdiger Voss

The CERN Council has started to chart a roadmap for European Particle Physics in the post-LHC era

At an extraordinary meeting in Lisbon in 2006, the CERN Council approved for the first time the “European Strategy for Particle Physics”. This strategy is not only a roadmap for the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, but for the future of particle physics in Europe at large; its formal basis is Article II of the CERN Convention whereby the Organization provides, inter alia, for the organization and sponsoring of international co-operation in nuclear research, including co-operation outside the Laboratories. Since 2006, the strategy has been updated in seven-year intervals, first in 2013 and recently in June 2020. Regardless of its European perspective and scope, the strategy and its updates have always kept an eye on developments and roadmaps in other regions, in the interest of a global sharing of efforts at complementary research frontiers and to minimize an unwanted duplication of major research infrastructures.

The initial 2006 strategy focused on the completion and initial exploitation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and the 2013 update on the upgrade to the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) which is now under construction. Whereas HL-LHC remains the obvious near-term priority, the 2020 update also faced the challenge of developing a strategy for the post-LHC era. The Higgs boson that was discovered with the LHC in 2012 is a cornerstone of the successful Standard Model of particle physics, and there are compelling arguments for a new large electron-positron collider that would operate as a “Higgs factory” to study the unique properties of this fundamental particle with the highest accuracy in clean experimental conditions.

Different avenues can be charted to reach this goal. The shortest is a European participation in the “International Linear Collider” (ILC) which has been proposed for construction in Japan for many years; a candidate site for this machine has been identified where it could be built with a short lead time, and with mature and established technologies. It would reach a centre-of-mass energy of 500 GeV in a 30 km long tunnel, and could possibly be upgraded to 1 TeV by extending the length. However, the future of the ILC seems uncertain since thus far – even after reducing the initial energy to 250 GeV – it has failed to gain unequivocal support from the Japanese government and from the wider Japanese scientific community. Moreover, a straight tunnel does not open a direct path to a new discovery machine at the high-energy frontier of particle physics, where the LHC has firmly positioned Europe as the global leader.

A complementary, and much more ambitious, scenario is under discussion for CERN: the “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) in a new tunnel of 100 km circumference, which could initially accommodate a circular electron-positron collider (FCC-ee), that would be replaced at a later stage by a new hadron-hadron collider (FCC-hh) with a target energy of 100 GeV in the centre-of mass. This would replicate the successful LEP-LHC scenario on a larger scale. Whereas the energy of FCC-ee will be intrinsically limited to 365 GeV by synchrotron radiation, such a machine would be straightforward to build in principle. In contrast, for FCC-hh to attain seven to eight times higher proton and ion energies than the LHC in a 100 km long tunnel calls for novel technologies for superconducting bending magnets, which in turn require a massive development effort. R&D into a new generation of dipole magnets based on niobium-tin (Nb₃Sn) superconductors has started at CERN and has produced encouraging results, but there is still a long way ahead to reach the required field strengths, and to bring this technology to maturity for the mass production of magnets on an industrial scale. Last not least, HL-LHC will need to deliver results that help to sharpen the physics case for a new discovery machine.

Finally, a new facility of the dimensions of the FCC cannot be financed within CERN’s present institutional and budgetary framework. When the LHC was built, 90% of the total cost of the accelerator infrastructure were funded by the Member States through their regular contributions to the CERN budget; only 10% were contributed – mostly in-kind – by non-Member States (the non-Member State contributions to the LHC detectors are significantly higher). This model is not scalable to the much larger dimensions of the FCC, which can only be built through a truly global effort that will require new and innovative governance and funding mechanisms.

Against this background of complex scientific, technological and political imponderables, the European Strategy Group (ESG) which was charged to prepare the update for the CERN Council has been prudent not to voice explicit support for either of the two scenarios. The core recommendation is that Europe, together with its international partners, should investigate the technical and financial feasibility of a future hadron collider at CERN with a centre-of-mass energy of at least 100 TeV and with an electron-positron Higgs and electroweak factory as a possible first stage. In parallel, the strategy update keeps the door open for a European participation in the ILC.

Regardless of this restraint, the 2020 strategy update is a significant milestone on the long and arduous way to unravelling fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model, and to consolidating Europe’s leadership at the high energy frontier of particle physics.

For full details about the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the update process and the 2020 recommendations, see https://europeanstrategyupdate.web.cern.ch.

The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) of the EU has always been one of the toughest battles the EU has to go through every seven years. This is due to the fact that with it are tackled the most important aspects of the EU development, education, innovation, research and society that will shape the future of Europe, dictating its strength/position on the global scale.

With less than one month left until the end of 2020, the EU is embarking in its last 2020 train towards the approval of the MFF for the period of 2021-2027. The MFF should have already been approved months ago if it would not have been for the Covid-19 crisis, that posed unthinkable weight on how the EU and the world will re-prioritize their agendas. In February 2020, one month before Covid-19 virus was declared a pandemic, the EU Heads of State held their first meeting specially dedicated to the MFF since the publication of the European Commission's proposal in May 2018. Despite intense preparations, and discussions lasting over two days, they failed to overcome their differences to find an agreement. Now, almost one year apart from that date, even if the discussions on the MFF have registered significant developments, no final agreement has been yet reached. The scientific community, among others, has serious concerns about the impact on R&D projects this process of stagnation will bring along.

Earlier last month, there were high hopes that the next research framework programme Horizon Europe, with a final budget of €84.9 Bn, could start on time, given the fact that the German presidency of the EU Council reached a historical agreement with the European Parliament on the MFF totalling €1.8 T of which €750 Bn for the Covid-19 recovery package, Next Generation EU[1]. Despite the wide approval of the deal by the rest of the EU-27 member states, Poland and Hungary blocked the approval of the MFF and the recovery package in protest against the new rule-of-law conditionality. The new rule of law mechanism allows the suspension of EU funds in case of misusing European money or breaching EU principles[2]. On that note, both countries voiced that this new rule is a threat on their “national sovereignty”.

The EU highest officials will have an end of the year summit in Brussels on December 10^th and 11^th in a final attempt to secure the starting of the Horizon Europe as well as the other financial instruments[3].

Even after the EU Council agreement, the whole process will still require yet a final vote from the European Parliament and then ratified by the member states at national level. If the MFF is delayed beyond 2020, the EU will have to function with a temporary budget as determined by Article 312(4) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU until the MFF is finally accepted[4]. This means that EU funding as a whole would work on the so-called provisional twelfths, which allows the EU executive only spend one-twelfth of the EU Budget for 2020. In particular, for the R&D, this poses legal problems since Horizon 2020 has a legal end. As a consequence, no new projects would be launched on the basis of the twelfths from January onwards, and only H2020 projects already running would still be funded as the money for these is provisioned as 'commitments'3. One plausible solution could be that the European Commission, tams to find a way for new projects to be allowed to receive twelfths in the same manner as other EU funding.

[1] Science Business, Horizon Europe gets extra €4B, as intense budget talks end, November 10^th 2020

[2] Euroactiv, Hungary and Poland veto stimulus against pandemic, November 16^th 2020

[3] Science Business, Five days to save 2021 research budget, December 2^nd 2020

[4] Carnegie Europe, Judy Asks: Can the EU Solve the Budget and Rule-of-Law Crisis?, November 26^th 2020

Author: German Physical Society

Exactly thirty years ago, the Physical Society of the GDR (PG-DDR) and the German Physical Society (DPG) ceremoniously sealed their merger to form today's DPG in the Magnus-Haus Berlin.

The pro-democracy movement within in the GDR, which also assisted in the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November 1989, also had an impact on the physical society of the GDR. During the Leipzig Spring Conference in February 1990, it democratically elected a completely new Board of Directors. A small delegation of the DPG, consisting of President Otto Folberth, General Manager Wolfgang Heinicke and Board Member Ingo Peschel, had already been invited to this meeting. They in turn issued an invitation to the new Board to attend the DPG Spring Conference in Munich in March 1990. The executive boards of both societies quickly agreed that, parallel to political reunification, they also wanted to work towards a unification of the two physical societies. Negotiations on the merger were conducted and after a members' survey, which showed an overwhelming approval, the contract was then signed by Theo Mayer-Kuckuk and Gerd Röpke in the Magnus-Haus Berlin on 20th November 1990. The two Physical Societies were the only scientific ones in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany to unite in this way. The original document is now in the DPG archives, however it can also be viewed on the DPG website.

The reunification is only one milestone in the online chronicle of the DPG, which presents the 175-year history of our society.

30 years of Reunification, Theo Mayer-Kuckuk and Gerd Röpke at the signing ceremony © DPG Archive

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) and Robert Labedzke, DPG

The European Physical Society highly values and promotes outstanding scientific achievements in the field of Physics. At the same time, the EPS wants to contribute to making such special achievements accessible to the general public. Therefore the EPS has established several Prizes, Distinctions and Awards to underline its respect and admiration for the work of the prizewinners.

Calls for nominations are now open for the following awards:

• The EPS Early Career Prizes (one for theoretical and one for experimental work);
• The EPS Gero Thomas Commemorative Medal;
• EPS Fellows;
• EPS Honorary Members.

Terms and conditions, nomination rules or prize charter for each of these awards can be found on the EPS website, see DISTINCTIONS.

The deadline for the above awards is 15 January, 2021.

In addition to these EPS awards, there is a large number of prizes awarded by the EPS Divisions and Groups. These have their own deadlines and nomination rules, to be found at the EPS website as indicated above.

The Equal Opportunity Committee of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), whose members are Anna Di Ciaccio, Maria Rosaria Masullo, Sara Pirrone (Chair), Massimiliano Rinaldi, Paolo Rossi, Silvia Soria, carried out two activities on the occasion of the annual National Congress of the Society that, due to the pandemic, has been held this year via online streaming from 14 to 18 September.

The two activities were titled “The Women Scientist of the Sections” and “The modified time during the COVID19 period”.

In “The Women Scientist of the Sections” activity, related to the problem of the gender equality in physics, each traditional scientific section of the Congress (see also at https://www.primapagina.sif.it/issue/82) has been represented by a woman scientist, specifically selected in the field of physics of that section.

For this year we have chosen Lisa Meitner (Vienna 1878–Cambridge 1968) to represent the section “Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics”, Rita Brunetti (Milano 1890–Pavia 1942) for“Solid State Physics”, Vera Rubin (Philadelphia 1928–Princeton 2016) for “Astrophysics”, Giuseppina Aliverti (Somma Lombardo 1894–Napoli 1982) for “Geophysics and Physics of the Environment”, Daria Bocciarelli (Parma 1910–Roma 2006) for “Biophysics and Medical Physics”, Hedy Lamarr (Vienna 1914–Altomonte Springs Florida 2000) for “Applied Physics, Accelerators and Physics applied to Cultural Heritage” and Laura Bassi (Bologna 1711–Bologna 1778) for “Physics Education and History of Physics”.

This activity can be considered in the framework of the so-called “mentoring action”, that helps to create a “leading figure”, which is so important especially for young people when the future choices have to be made. We proposed some examples of women who have excelled in a field of physics, and that can be a model to emulate for the new generations. We selected in particular women scientist of the past that had great difficulties to come out on top, just for a gender question, that is for the sole reason that they were women. Beautiful revisited pictures and biographic cards were prepared, which you can see at  https://www.sif.it/attivita/cpo/scienziate-2020-cpo

In the activity “The modified time during the COVID19 period”, related to the study of gender difference in particular social situations, we have realized short interviews to male and female, junior and senior, staff and temporary researchers in physics. The subject concerned how the lockdown period during the pandemic modified the time and the way to live in connection with one’s own scientific activity. The aim was to highlight gender differences or inequalities, and if any, to search for the reasons, the motivations, the stereotypes and the social conditioning for this. You can see the videos of the interviews at https://www.sif.it/attivita/cpo/interviste-2020-cpo