Update on the Snowmass 2021
During the week of October 4-8, the “Community Planning Meeting” (CPM2020) for the Snowmass 2021 took place. The aim was to developed the plans and the steps to take until the Community Summer Study (CSS) in July 2021. During the CSS a consensus on the key questions and opportunities of particle physics, enabling technologies and community engagement should be built and the content of the Snowmass Executive Summary should be formulated. The Snowmass21 process is leading to the final report, expected in October 2021. More information on the whole process is available here and from the Snowmass21 website.
The CPM2020 was held virtually, with over 3000 participants from the whole world. The overall program, presentations and recordings are available at https://indico.fnal.gov/event/44870/.
A presentation on the European strategies for particle physics (2020), nuclear physics (2017), and astroparticle physics (2017), was delivered by Jorgen D’Hondt and was very well received. The Frontier-level workshops, including those of interest for APPEC (i.e. Theory, Neutrino, Cosmic, Instrumentation, Computational, Underground Facility and Infrastructure), have been organized since April 2020 and will continue through spring 2021. During CPM2020 the Frontiers received more than 1500 Letters of Interest which led to the organization of an impressive amount of parallel sessions during the second and third day on various topics of interest for APPEC, ranging from theoretical Dark Matter interpretations, and analysis/theory techniques for joint cosmological constraints, to future gravitational wave facilities.
The 10 frontiers and 80 topical groups will now develop the key questions and opportunities with the community members and converge on a series of white papers which will be used as inputs for the final report. An overview about the CMP2020 and the next steps for all frontiers is available in the October issue of Snowmass21 newsletter. The next milestone will be the Snowmass Mid-term Assessment during the 2021 APS April meeting.
Berrie Giebels, International Adviser representing APPEC
Update Jan ’21:
New Snowmass Timeline
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Snowmass Report and the Community Summer Study meeting (CSS) will be delayed by one year until 2022. The overall schedule for the Snowmass process will be adjusted accordingly. After extensive consultation with the community and the frontier conveners/advisors, the Snowmass Steering Group recommends the following general guidelines for the implementation of the Snowmass delay:
- High-level activities will be on hold until the end of June, 2021. These activities include Frontier-level and Topical Group-level workshops, All-conveners meetings, Advisory Group meetings and Newsletters.
- Other Topical Group and cross-frontier activities should be either paused or reduced to a significantly lower level, proceeding only as necessary to ensure scientific continuity, meet essential programmatic needs, or maintain collaborative work with other units and communities.
- No critical decisions will be made during the hiatus.
- No individuals should feel obligated to participate in these activities.
- Individual, collaborative and self-organized work can continue at the discretion of the individuals involved. All paused individual or group activities will continue to receive full consideration once the Snowmass process formally resumes.
With respect to the timelines:
- White Paper submission to arXiv: no later than March 15, 2022. Late submissions and updates are likely not to be incorporated in the working group reports, but will be included in the Snowmass on-line archive documents.
- Preliminary reports by the Topical Groups due: no later than May 31, 2022.
- Preliminary reports by the Frontiers due: no later than June 30, 2022.
- Snowmass Community Summer Study (CSS): July, 2022 at UW-Seattle.
- All final reports by TGs and Frontiers due: no later than September 30, 2022.
- Snowmass Book and the on-line archive documents due: October 31, 2022.
Additional remarks on the plans of the individual frontiers can be found in the Snowmass Newsletter of January 2021. The Snowmass Steering Group will continue to monitor the process.