Group photo of the 5th E.T. symposium (picture: Fumiko Kawazoe, AEI Hanover)
The 5th Einstein Telescope (ET) symposium has been held on 22 and 22 October, 2013 in Hanover, hosted by the Albert Einstein Institute. The ET project aims at the realization of a 3rd generation Gravitational Wave (GW) observatory, a new European Research Infrastructure that will open the era of routine precision GW astronomy and astrophysics. The Hanover event was the second general meeting of the ET project, after the completion of the conceptual design study phase, supported by the European Commission in FP7-Capacities from 2008 to 2011. The vitality of the ET project showed in a large attendance: 78 participants from Europe and Japan.
The Japanese colleagues participated within the framework of ELiTES, an FP7-IRSES project, which supports the exchange of scientists between Europe and Japan, focused on the development of technologies for the future detectors KAGRA and ET. The 5th ET symposium had two main aspects:
Presentation of the progress in the key technologies needed to complete the technical design of the infrastructure: underground facilities, Newtonian noise suppression, cryogenics and new cryo-cooling techniques, thermal noise and high reflectivity dielectric coatings for future optics
Discussion of the strategy for the future of the ET project
Audience of the 5th E.T. symposium (picture: Fumiko Kawazoe, AEI Hanover)
The ET project keeps progressing thanks to the support of some European initiatives: the ELiTES and the ET R&D frameworks contribute to the R&D developments and to the realization of the technical design of the ET research infrastructures. ET R&D is an ASPERA-2 project, supported by a set of European countries, focused on the development of technologies for ET. A new cohesion and development tool has been presented at the meeting: GraWIToN. This is a 4 years FP7-ITN (Initial Training Network) that will begin in February 2014, addressed to the training of young PhD researchers in the field of GW research, of course including ET. Furthermore the potentialities of H2020 for the development of the ET project have been discussed thoroughly.
In conclusion, the 5th ET symposium has been a rewarding opportunity where the progress of the Einstein Telescope project was witnessed and where the next years for this challenging European adventure were prepared.
The European Astroparticle Physics (APP) community has been greatly successful in getting funded in the context of FP7, the previous EU Framework Programme. This EU funding has greatly contributed in the quality of scientific results obtained in the last decades. It is therefore of the utmost importance for the future of the field, that this good funding track record is continued. In this spirit, APPEC is taking a proactive role in supporting the community in their efforts to take advantage of the opportunities in Horizon2020.
Specifically, APPEC is producing a document entitled “APPEC’s guide to Horizon2020” (to be distributed in the event mentioned below), whose aim is to inform as much as possible in advance the community on the details of the funding landscape of Horizon2020. Based on the information contained in this document, the following remarks can be made:
The APP community stands to profit the most from Pillar 1 – Excellent Science.
Focus should be put in applying for Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) and European Research Council (ERC) fellowships. These account for 25% of Horizon2020 funding (17.55bn euros).
Research Infrastructures grants should also be a great focus of the community (3,23% of the Horizon2020 budget, i.e. 2,27 B euros).
The APP community should NOT ignore opportunities that can be presented in the other two pillars, since Pillar 1 is less than a third of Horizon2020.
In APPEC’s guide to Horizon2020, a number of calls have been selected that could be of interest to the community, with the aim of demonstrating that opportunities do exist in the other two pillars.
Applying for calls in the other two Pillars will require enhanced efforts in networking with industry (in the case of Pillar 2) and with scientists from other disciplines (in the case of Pillar 3). In the context of ASPERA a number of workshops were organised in order to help the community in its networking efforts (e.g. three ASPERA Technology Fora for networking with industry and three multidisciplinary workshops for networking with other disciplines). APPEC will continue the legacy of these extremely successful workshops.
The following topics of great interest to the APP community could be mapped to the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET, Pillar 1) and Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies (LEIT, Pillar 2) calls: e.g.
Sensor networks in hostile environments
Low radioactivity tracing
Photonics: Photodetectors (large area, small pixels) // Extreme photonics (lasers/mirrors)
Cryogenic detectors (MKIDs, TES)
Materials of extreme radiopurity
Space
A large part of the Horizon2020 will be dedicated to ICT. In the context of ASPERA the computing APP community worked on clarifying the computing needs of the field. These efforts need to be intensified and support may come from these ICT calls. In addition, there are many calls that collaboration with CERN and eventually astrophysics (e.g. ASTRONET) will lead to joint proposals beneficial for all.
The APP field is very strong on global cooperation, which is a transversal theme of Horizon2020. Taking therefore advantage of this key aspect of the field to apply in calls related to global cooperation is thus extremely important.
In this proactive role, APPEC is also organising a workshop to inform the community in more detail on the Horizon2020 opportunities. The event will take place on 4 and 5 of November in DESY-Zeuthen, Berlin and its structure is outlined in the Horizon2020 programme. In the first day, short talks will be given by representatives of the funding agencies in Brussels, who will then be available to answer any questions that the participants might have. The next day the participants will be divided into interest-themed groups for parallel sessions. Finally, in the afternoon of the 5th of November, the rapporteurs of these groups will present their plans and needs to the APPEC funding agencies.
It is strongly recommended that numerous members of the community will attend this workshop, whose aim is to give the participants a clear idea on the funding landscape for Astroparticle Physicists in the next two years, but also for the funding agencies to understand what will be the plans of the different parts of the community so that they can support them in these efforts.
After the successful 6 years of the EU-funded ASPERA European nework for astroparticle physics, the new APPEC consortium that was founded one year ago is fully operational.
Horizon 2020, large infrastructures, coordination at the global level and with CERN and ESO… Stavros Katsanevas, Chairman of the General Assembly tells us about what to expect in the upcoming months related to APPEC’s strategy and challenges.
ASPERA is behind us now. What has been, according to you, its impact?
We first defined the disciplinary contours of Astroparticle Physics and this is the scope one should give to the first roadmap of 2008, better known as the roadmap of the “Magnificent 7”. This definition has now worldwide acceptance as can be seen by the global roadmap developed in the context of OECD. ASPERA then launched a series of common R&D calls totalling around 9M Euros on the themes of the roadmap. These calls beyond their scientific impact allowed us to test the differences of funding systems in Europe and work out an interface. Furthermore we accompanied the roadmap with a series of actions: elaborated the contacts with industry and the links to other sciences, eg geosciences and environment, and started to chart a computing model for the upcoming large infrastructures. An update of the roadmap with time-ordered priorities was elaborated in 2011 and finally we delivered the installation of a sustainable structure for the coordination of the field in Europe: the new APPEC.
What will the new APPEC do?
We will continue to accompany the large projects of the field and also work on the implementation of the Astroparticle Physics European Strategy, interfacing with the respective strategies on particle physics (CERN Council) and astrophysics (ESO and ASTRONET). The common calls will continue to be an important part of our action, in particular in the context of the new schemes proposed in Horizon 2020. Furthermore, we plan to collaborate with CERN on new emerging computing models and with the virtual observatories on data access. We will also try to support the coordination of the theorists of the domain. Last but not least, we believe that the APPEC and ASPERA, through their past actions, were recognised as key contributors to the global coordination of the field. This global coordination is needed more than anything else these days, eg in the domain of neutrino physics, and APPEC intends to play a key role in the process.
Talking of the Magnificent 7, what is the status of the domain currently?
The discovery of the Higgs and the results from Planck and the neutrino program brought into focus the Astroparticle Physics questions, namely are there laws at new energy scales linking the physics of the LHC with this of inflation explored by Planck? And how do the particles that come from these scales shape the formation of cosmic structure? We expect a gravitational wave detection event within the next 5 years. During the same period, the dark matter and neutrino mass programme will reach unprecedented sensitivities. Among the challenging new infrastructures, Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) has become a world-wide priority, the first phase of the neutrino telescope KM3Net is financed; while the Auger Observatory is studying a modest upgrade to study the highest energy cosmic ray composition. The long baseline neutrino community is proposing a very innovative R&D programme based on liquid argon detectors. In the 10 years scale, a very ambitious dark energy international programme on ground (LSST) and space (EUCLID) will be deployed. These programmes, obeying different time-scales and using a diversity of funding sources, do not demand major increases of the current budget of the agencies, with the probable exception of CTA. APPEC plans, till next summer, to compare the timelines of the large projects of the roadmap to the available European agency resources.
There is more and more talk on Horizon 2020? What is the APPEC strategy in the domain?
This is a central goal of APPEC. We do not forget the structuring effects of previous framework programmes for the domain; from the Integrated Activities ILIAS program to the various Design Studies and ASPERA. We are glad that two of the priority infrastructures: underground laboratories and gravitational wave antennas have been preselected in the Integrated Infrastructures work program. Furthermore the light structure of APPEC is adapted to the ERANET+ schemes of Horizon 2020, where European wide common calls can be topped up by funds of the EU up to 50%. Many more Horizon 2020 instruments are interesting for APPEC. This is why we plan an information event for the agencies and the community 4-5 of November 2013 in Berlin.
