(Photo by Diana Rogers)

Two of the cornerstones of our Laboratory mission are:

"Perform and support world-class research in high-energy physics, particle astrophysics and disciplines using synchrotron radiation," and,

"Advance the art of accelerators, and accelerator-related technologies and devices, through the development of new sources of high-energy particles and synchrotron radiation, plus new techniques for their scientific utilization."

By any objective measure, we are very successful in achieving these goals. Part of the obligation that comes with the privilege of using public funds to pursue scientific inquiry is the requirement that the results of the research be made available through open communication and publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Publication of the details of an analysis that lead to a scientific result or the accurate recording of the key elements of a technology advance serves a dual purpose: First to disseminate the data in a formal, accurate manner and second to provide the wherewithal for maintaining standards through the process of peer review. Thus a research institution’s publication record provides an important measure of its success.

The publication record of work performed at SLAC for the past ten years. Note that 2002 numbers are smaller due to lag times in publishing. (Figure provided by the SLAC Library)

The accompanying figure shows the publication record of work performed at SLAC for the past ten years. Shown in light gray are all publications, and shown in dark gray are those submitted to peer-reviewed journals.

Two aspects of this figure are very impressive. Both the sheer annual volume of publications that result from work done at SLAC—typically about 800 publications per year—and the great increase in publications over the past decade speak to the increased productivity and remarkable effort achieved over the last decade.

Not everyone in the Lab gets to explicitly put their names on publications that result from the work done here. Yet without the contributions made by each and every person at the Lab, a body of work this extensive and impressive would not be possible. The tremendous success that is indicated by our publication record is in every way your success.

Looking more deeply into our publications record, one finds that there is an equal number of publications coming from the HEP/Astro research program as come from the SSRL research program. Both produce equal numbers of publications and both have experienced a similar growth trend. Yet the two communities have rather different patterns in the way they disseminate data.

These differences in large measure reflect the differences in the way in which the science is performed. The x-ray science is done at SSRL by small research groups of typically less than 10 scientists each, in experiments that can accumulate their data in less than one or two days. Researchers analyze their data and it is typical that the first ‘airing’ of that data will be when it is submitted for publication to a prominent scientific journal.

SSRL provides for us all a very helpful interface to that publication stream by selecting and highlighting one of those publications each month (see Science Highlights at http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlights_archive/, and for more general information see User & Staff Publications at http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/). Thus we see that the large body of publications coming from SSRL is built up from a very large number of individual experimental setups, most of which involve distinct groups of researchers.

In stark contrast, the HEP experiments at SLAC are far fewer in number but typically involve hundreds of collaborators, and the process for getting data to publication is very different from x-ray science. Data taking can last anywhere from a few months to upwards of ten years. Examples of such experiments are BABAR and E-158. Analysis and internal review of the data prior to public release is clearly a complicated process, which in the case of BABAR involves over 500 physicists from 10 nations. With each year of additional data taking, the process of updating previous results must be confronted.

These large experiments should properly be thought of as facilities, data engines capable of providing scientific results in a very wide range of topics. Thus the body of HEP publications is built up from a copious number of distinct analyses coming from a small number of very large collaborations.

It is also traditional in HEP to make some results available (often labeled preliminary) prior to the ultimate publication in a journal. This is driven by a calendar of well-established annual conferences and workshops that are viewed as an opportunity to showcase experimental data and, to a lesser extent, new theoretical ideas.

Integrity of the process is protected in large measure by having the conference results accompanied by publically-available support documentation, conference papers and formal write-ups of talks. For instance, the most prominent of the many HEP conferences is held each summer and is alternatively called the Lepton-Photon Conference or the International Conference on HEP. The Lepton-Photon Conference was held at Fermilab this year and involved about 800 physicists. BABAR submitted about 30 new results to the conference. Several of the ‘hottest’ results were sent for journal publication prior to the conference, and most of the others will soon be submitted. (BABAR publications can be found at http://www-public.slac.stanford.edu/babar/, while E-158 are at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/e158/.)

The advanced accelerator experiments done at SLAC, and parts of the particle-astrophysics program, resemble a collaboration size and data taking pattern more like the x-ray experiments, although they often share data prior to final publication through the traditional HEP conference mode. GLAST, however, which will fly for 5 to 10 years, in most aspects conforms to the typical HEP facility mode.