Joint ECFA – NuPECC – APPEC Activities (JENAA)
The nuclear, particle and astroparticle physics communities, represented by the three committees/ consortia NuPECC, ECFA and APPEC want to join their forces not only to solve the questions on the smallest and the largest structures in nature but also to improve on diversity, working conditions and societal impact. The Deliberation document on the 2020 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics indicate the importance of mutual cooperation between the communities working on the science fields of relevance for APPEC and NuPECC with ECFA and includes the following recommendation, which is fully supported by APPEC:
“There are many synergies between particle physics and other fields of research. Clear examples are nuclear and astroparticle physics, which address common fundamental questions and use common tools.”
The document further specifies this cooperation and concludes with a concrete proposal that encourages us to continue on our common path:
“Links between accelerator-based particle physics and closely related fields such as astroparticle physics and nuclear physics should be strengthened through the exchange of expertise and technology in areas of common interest and mutual benefit. To further explore and enhance the synergies, a periodic joint seminar organised by APPEC, ECFA and NuPECC was recently established. For example, on the diverse topic of dark matter addressed with complementary experimental approaches, communication and results-sharing across communities is essential. ”
Joint ECFA-NuPECC-APPEC Seminars
The first Joint ECFA – NuPECC – APPEC Seminar (JENAS) was held at Orsay in 2019. There it was decided to have such meetings on a bi-yearly basis.
The chairs of APPEC, ECFA and NuPECC issued a call for venues for the second JENAS event, a 3 day meeting which will happen in the first half of 2022. The Joint Seminar is to inform our communities about each other’s scientific, technological and organizational challenges and opportunities. Two excellent proposals were received before the deadline at the end of September to host the event in Madrid and JINR. The choice of the organizing board of JENAS (ECFA: Manfred Krammer, Carlos Lacasta, Jorgen D’Hondt; NuPECC: Angela Bracco, Eberhard Widmann, Marek Lewitowitcz; APPEC: Teresa Montaruli, Stan Bentvelsen, and Marco Pallavicini) was difficult, given that the two proponents have very strong expertise in successfully hosting international events with the highest standards. It was decided that the venue will be Madrid, given the consideration that JINR is also proposed for a meeting in 2022 by ECFA.
Expression of Interest
A call for Expression of Interest (EoIs) was submitted by the Chairs (Teresa Montaruli, APPEC; Jorgen D’Hondt, ECFA; Marek Lewitowicz, NuPECC) of the three commitees/Consortia, with a request to identify the potential communities across the border of at least 2 of them and elaborate on the synergy topic and possible objectives.
Five EoIs were submitted and others will follow most probably. They are:
- Dark Matter – iDMEu, by M. Cirelli, C. Doglioni, G. Lanfranchi , F. Reindl et al. (https://indico.cern.ch/event/869195/overview), see also APPEC Interview
- Gravitational Waves for fundamental physics, by Tetyana Galatyuk, Paolo Pani et al. (https://agenda.infn.it/event/22947/overview), see also APPEC Interview
- Machine-Learning Optimized Design of Experiments – MODE, by Tommaso Dorigo et al. (https://userswww.pd.infn.it/~dorigo/MODE.html)
- Nuclear Physics at the LHC), by Laura Fabbietti, Alexander P. Kalweit et al. (https://indico.ph.tum.de/event/4492/)
- Storage Rings for the Search of Charged-Particle Electric Dipole Moments (EDM), by C. Carli, P. Lenisa, J. Pretz for the JEDI and CPEDM collaborations (https://indico.ph.tum.de/event/4482/overview)
A task force was formed to advise in the process of consolidating the scientific objectives and the organization, with the ultimate scope of making these initiatives sustainable over a long term these communities.
The respective EoI task force is composed by:
- Francesca Calore and Uwe Oberlack for APPEC, Isabell Melzer-Pellmann and Claude Vallee for ECFA, Boris Sharkov for NuPECC
- Tomek Bulik and Jo van den Brandt for APPEC, Peter Levai and Nick van Remortel for ECFA, Boris Sharkov and György Wolf for NuPECC
- Jurgen Brunner and Elena Cuoco for APPEC, Marek Tasevsky and Mikko Voutilainen for ECFA, Franck Sabatié for NuPECC
- Fiorenza Donato and Xin Wu for APPEC; Navin Alahari and György Wolf for NuPECC
- Mike Seidel for ECFA, Hans Stroeher and Eberhard Widmann for NuPECC
A number of kick-off meetings, a global one and individual ones were organized by the Chairs. Excellent science have been illustrated in detail in each of them and synergy clearly highlighted.
For each EoI a topical follow-up meeting was organised by the coordinators together with the relevant members of the Task Force. The aim of these meetings was to develop a concrete roadmap for the future process.
Recently, two Test Science Projects (TSP), related to the science proposed by the two EoIs, were financed by the EOSC03 program for the project ESCAPE. One concerns relevant synergies, also highlighted by iDMEu on the dark matter searches with direct and indirect detection and colliders. The TSP has the aims of (1) understanding the nature of DM by collecting data, analysis and results from astronomy, particle and nuclear physics sources on a broad platform that will be ultimately hosted on the EOSC Portal; (2) exploiting synergies and complementarities across different communities, creating a unique link between DM as fundamental science question and the Open Science services needed to answer it. The other TSP is the Extreme Universe & Gravitational waves, with the aim to perform frontier multi-messenger science to understand extreme matter and particle processes in strongly curved space-time; to combine astronomy e-infrastructures and focus on data organization for different wavelengths/messengers and different types of extreme astrophysical transients (SNe, GRBs, FRBs, TDE,s), so that they can be easily gathered, analyzed and modeled. (See Giovanni Lamanna Talk at the ESFRI RIs – EOSC Workshop, Oct. 6-7)
Finally, a call for concrete proposals for financial support of EoIs activities to be submitted to the Committees was launched on October 14, 2020 with a deadline on November 23, 2020.
List of items that could be considered is:
1) Support the organization of gatherings across communities on the EoI topic, e.g. workshops, town meetings, platforms for continuous discussions.
2) Support the dissemination of the EoI topic, e.g. professional website, publications, outreach projects including city science projects.
3) Support to foster the cross-disciplinary research environments in a sustainable fashion.
Funding will be limited and may not always fulfil the wishes. Matching the requested funds with in-kind funds from the proponents themselves will be appreciated.
Diversity Charter
We recognise the importance of diversity as a motor to boost productivity and innovation, fight prejudice and discrimination and contribute to the improvement of social and economic standards.
The three organisations joined together to propose a Diversity Charter to be signed by research organisations, collaborations and conferences within the fields of Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astroparticle Physics, who value diversity and commit to promote equal opportunities at all levels. A survey is a concrete proposed action. A request to adhere to the charter and provide data has been issued to some experiments. Any other experiment can apply to APPEC for joining the proposed Charter.
Recognition of individuals in big collaborations
The working group on recognition of individuals in big collaborations also made progress in the last month.
The key objectives of this working group are to create awareness, initiate discussions inside collaborations, exchange and discuss best practices among all three communities, and reflect on alternative or additional procedures,
The working group was installed in July 2019 in Ghent, It continues previous work by ECFA, which among other activities performed a community-wide survey in 2018. A second survey in 2020-2021 to monitor the progress on the topic will potentially be performed.
Initial meetings with the collaborations were held separately for the three communities in July. The APPEC representatives, Emmanuel Gangler and Karl-Heinz Kampert reported two lively and constructive meetings with the astroparticle experiments. A next round of meetings to collect feedback from the collaborations is planned for this autumn.
Teresa Montaruli, chair of the APPEC General Assembly
Up-to-date information on all efforts are available through the newly established JENAA website: http://www.nupecc.org/jenaa/