Download Slide 1 - Experimental Elementary Particle Physics Group

Office of High Energy Physics View on
Dark Energy Collaborations
February 23, 2012
Kathleen Turner
Office of High Energy Physics (HEP)
Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
HEP program – strengths & model
DOE Office of Science:
• Provide science leadership and support to enable significant advances in science areas.
• Lab environment with a variety of resources needed
– Job is to build and operate facilities to do research; develop new projects – all phases
HEP - Model to enable the work:
• Emphasis on program planning – and then supporting all aspects of approved
experiments to get science result in the end
• Take advantage of lab infrastructure, science, engineering, computing etc.
• Encourage collaborations with expertise in all required areas to make significant advances
• Support scientists for participation in all phases of a project
• Partnerships as needed to leverage additional science and expertise
• Include speculative science (e.g. led to dark energy discovery)
DOE model has been very successful:
See http://science.energy.gov/about/honors-and-awards/doe-nobel-laureates/
2
Cosmic Frontier
Science Thrusts 
Dark energy
 Dark matter
 High Energy Cosmic
& Gamma rays
 CMB and Other
3
CosmicCosmic
Frontier
- Program
Guidance
Frontier
- Recent Activities
FACA panels – official advice:
 High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP)
– reports to DOE and NSF; provides the primary advice for the program
 Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC)
– reports to NASA, NSF and DOE on areas of overlap
Oct. 2009 - HEPAP subpanel (PASAG)
– Recommended an optimized program over the next 10 years in 4 funding scenarios
– Dark matter & dark energy remain the highest priorities; but don’t zero out everything else
We follow PASAG ‘s Prioritization Criteria for Contributions to Particle Astrophysics Projects:
Make Contributions to select, high impact experiments:
o That directly address HEP science goals
o That will make a visible or leadership contribution
o For which the HEP community brings something to the table – instrumentation, collaborations,
analysis techniques etc.
4
Cosmic Frontier
- Program
cont.
Cosmic Frontier
- Recent Guidance
Activities
We also get input from the National Academy 
August 2010 - Astro2010
Recommendations to DOE within the context of the US Astronomy/Astrophysics program:
• The optimistic (doubling) funding profile allows investment in: LSST and WFIRST
• At lower funding level LSST is recommended as the priority because DOE role is
critical
• Other identified opportunities:
• 2nd priority ground based - contributions to NSF mid-scale experiments
• 4th priority ground-based – contribute (w/NSF) as a minor partner to European-led CTA
ground-based gamma-ray observatory
5
Cosmic Frontier: Program Traditions & Partnerships
Program Traditions
• DOE-HEP traditions grew up from scientists that design, build, operate, analyze experiments.
• Typically, collaborations are formed and a grass-roots effort moves a project forward.
• Competition among projects overseen by HEPAP.
• Peer reviews and program planning reflects these traditions.
Partnerships:
Partnerships & Coordination between agencies, other offices within agencies, or international can
provide necessary or additional resources & opportunity for increased science
 While all US government agencies follow the same rules, there are differences in the details
of how each agency & science community works -- can add overhead to experiment & needs
to be taken into account:
• Processes for planning/deciding on projects, managing/funding projects, funding research, etc
• HEP emphasis on collaboration leading the science from the start – different than other
communities
• Need to ensure data and science analysis return when working between fields
6
Cosmic Frontier – Selecting Projects
We do experiments!
•Design, build, and operate instrumentation and bring other resources (e.g. computing);
•Use other agencies facilities where needed (i.e. we don’t build telescope facilities)
•For experiments with broad science program, we make contribution at appropriate level
and fund only the relevant science effort.
Principles & Objectives
• Balanced program, with staged implementation
• In selecting experiments, follow PASAG  Prioritization Criteria for Contributions to
Particle Astrophysics Projects
Funding Priorities to optimize our impact:
•Make significant, coherent contributions to experiments needed to make significant
advances in science.
•Teams of scientists with responsibilities on Collaboration for our projects (i.e. not just enduser)
HEP
7
Cosmic Frontier Issues/Considerations
Resources are NOT optimized by
– Funding small incoherent efforts on a wide variety of
experiments.
– Funding efforts on our project but not directly related to our
science (i.e. planet searches, galaxy botany, etc.)
– Small efforts for which DOE is not properly recognized do not
help secure funding.
– Doing what others are already doing well and not concentrating
on our strengths.
– Might be our science, but working on another agency’s project
or own small experiment, or using data but not supporting the
Collaboration
HEP
8
LSST Dark Energy Collaboration - considerations
In the end, we want 1 dark energy result that 100 people worked on and agree on and
not 100 different dark energy results done by 1 person each!
Considerations for funding scientists for research activities:
–We need people with expertise in multiple areas (including astronomy) to carry out our
mission, but these people need to directly support our experiments and fit into our working
models.
–Need to be willing to work on the astronomy that affects our mission and move with our
program as it evolves.
–Priority for people directly supporting our experiment through a collaboration. Apply for
funding individually but show they’re part of coordinated effort.
-Fund people with expertise and responsibilities on the experiments/collaborations in all
phases - from design (hardware, science simulations etc) to data analysis.
-Fund people making long term commitment to our experiment/science
HEP
9
LSST Dark Energy Collaboration – Setting up
My comments:
•
•
•
Community needs to set up a collaboration (not directed from HEP!!)
Setup collaboration with appropriate expertise without worrying about who’s funding who  once it
gets going & people take it seriously, proposals might be looked upon more favorably in peer review
Need to setup work packages and get long term and significant commitments
Funding Procedures:
•
•
•
•
•
HEP doesn’t have a pot of $ set aside; people have to apply to general Cosmic Frontier program.
HEP won’t be able to fund the whole collaboration; people should apply for different funding sources
People currently funded by HEP Cosmic Frontier should move their resources over – not adding new
postdocs etc just because they joined a new effort!
People funded by HEP but not Cosmic Frontier will have to propose the new effort since it’s a
different pot of money.
People from universities still need to apply individually (or as a group from their university), i.e. don’t
send in a proposal for the whole collaboration to be funded and run out of one institution. They just
need to explain their roles & responsibilities in the collaboration
HEP
10
LSST Details
HEP is coordinating project planning with NSF
– Holding regular meetings of the Joint Oversight Group (JOG); Working on an MOU
• DOE responsible for the camera; NSF responsible for telescope facility and data management system
June 2011 - Mission Need Statement signed for a “Stage IV” experiment; Critical Decision 0 (CD-0)
approved; costs now accrue towards MIE total project cost (TPC)
FY 2012 – continued funding is provided for LSST R&D during conceptual design phase
Nov. 2011 - successful “Lehman” review of the camera project; in preparation for requesting CD-1 approval
Feb 2012 – CD-1 approval meeting held with Dr. Pat Dehmer. She plans to recommend that Dr. Brinkman
sign the CD-1 approval after briefing him in next few weeks.
Feb 2012 – FY13 President’s Request budget is released and shows LSST as an MIE with a fabrication
start. If approved by Congress, fabrication activities could then start after CD2/3a approved.
11
Cosmic Program Planning
•
•
•
Dark Matter:
– Aug 2012 – community workshop to get input on strategy for dark matter research
– Coordination and complementarity of different methods of dark matter detection: direct detection, indirect
using gamma-ray experiments, LHC
– Right now the groups publish in different journals and go to different conferences
Dark Energy:
– Pro-actively developing a balanced, robust dark energy program in HEP – our own independent plan
– Near term and low cost options
– Move forward using multiple methods
– What facilities are required and how do we obtain access to do our experiments? Current examples:
• Pay for telescope time
• Contribution to operations
• Provide instrumentation/other in exchange for operating/telescope time
– Now planning how to get community input to develop this plan
Computing – need to get overall picture
– What do experiments actually need? DES, LSST, how well integrated with Computational Cosmology
collaboration? Meeting ~ June to get input from all groups.
– Concern about dark energy projects not providing all the steps needed for data analysis
HEP
12