There’s a lot of science going on at SLAC, and 2003 promises to be a year of progress on many fronts, despite the budget challenges we face. We sat down with Persis Drell, Research Director at the Lab, to discuss some of what’s in store for the year ahead.

For BABAR, Drell expects to see a different – but equally important – kind of progress compared with last year’s sin2b (sine 2 beta) measurement. "I don’t expect the same kind of gold ring to emerge from this program in 2003," she said. "What’s much more important to me, from a scientific point of view, is the incredible series of detailed, precise measurements that will emerge from a very rich year of BABAR physics."

NLCTA staff pictured with the test accelerator: (left to right) Doug McCormick, Frederic LePimpec, Josef Frisch and Tonee Smith (photo courtesy of SLAC Archives)

The Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology will continue to make progress, as Roger Blandford and Steve Kahn are brought on in the Director and Deputy Director roles (see Director’s Corner, page 2). With these new appointments, the scientific directions for the Institute will start to take shape.

"The new Director will define the Institute’s focus, and the Institute will determine the future of particle astrophysics and cosmology at Stanford University and SLAC," said Drell. "One day we will be able to look back on 2003 and say that this is where and when the seeds of a spectacular success were planted and began to flourish."

High on everyone’s list of exciting developments is the Linear Collider (LC). Drell expects to see significant progress in 2003, as the collective energies of scientists worldwide become more focused on this initiative. "I hope that this year we will see more universities engaging in essential LC research and development, and becoming part of the collective international political and scientific will to build this facility."

While Drell does not anticipate that a decision will be made this year on where the LC might be located, she believes we will see technical progress on SLAC’s designs for a linear collider.

A big part of what SLAC is, according to Drell, and what it offers to the world, is always going to be the young scientists. "The brightness of our world-class research can sometimes overshadow the fact that SLAC is an educational institution, that our people are our greatest resource, and that the scientists we help train are among our highest accomplishments."

"The graduate students and post-docs in all areas who get trained here and then go out to advance science around the world are very high on the list of contributions of which we are most proud."

Among programs currently underway, Drell notes that initiatives such as GLAST, the advanced accelerator work, and the smaller ‘desktop’ experiments such as the neutrino mass R&D work will continue to make progress.

GLAST, a gamma ray telescope that will be launched into orbit in 2006, is making excellent technical progress. This year will be a very important construction year for them.

"There are some fine advanced accelerator R&D experiments probing the new technologies that may power the next generation of accelerators," said Drell. "Two experiments in this exquisite series—laser acceleration and plasma-wakefield acceleration—are exploring strategies for achieving extraordinary particle acceleration gradients."

Among the ‘desktop’ experiments, Drell notes that SLAC scientists working on the Enriched Xenon Observatory experiment believe that if their research is successful they will have a new method for measuring the Majorana mass of the neutrino down to 10 milli-electron volts. "R&D will make headway in 2003 despite budgetary constraints that have forced me to slow the effort and, therefore, the progress."

Certainly this year’s budget issues will have an impact on the work done at the Lab, and this has led to some tough decisions. "In these days of tight fiscal restraints I have had to make difficult choices about the research program under my stewardship," she said. "I have had to slow some detector R&D projects. In addition, the three approved experiments (E159, E160, E161) that were to rely on a new photon beam line have been stopped altogether. They are lovely physics, but they are not our highest priority physics."