EuCARD >> News >> Newsletters >> Issue 7 >> Article 4
 


Accelerated learning for linear colliders
 

General Douglas MacArthur said: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” But before they fade away, new soldiers must be trained to take over.

This is especially important for mega-sized projects such as the International Linear Collider (ILC) and the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), considered to be the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators after the LHC. These projects have a long time scale from conception and design to construction and operation.

Fifth in the series

The International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders was established for the purpose of educating and training future generations of accelerator scientists to work on future colliders. The first in this successful series of schools was held in 2006 in Japan, the second in 2007 in Italy, the third in 2008 in the US, and the fourth in 2009 in China.

 



The school was organised by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), the International Linear Collider (ILC) GDE and the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) Collaboration. Logos courtesy of ICFA, ILC and CLIC, thumbnail on main page courtesy of Hermann Schmickler, CERN.
 
 

The 2010 school was the fifth one and took place from 25 October to 5 November 2010 at Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. CERN was the host of this year’s school and provided generous support. This was the first school sponsored jointly by the ILC GDE and the CLIC Collaboration and had a well balanced curriculum addressing both the ILC and CLIC.
   


Sixty two students from around the world attended the 2010 International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders at Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland, 25 Oct - 5 Nov 2010. Image courtesy of Hermann Schmickler, CERN.
 

Selected on merit

The response to these schools has been overwhelmingly positive. Each year the number of applicants is far greater than the number of students the school can accommodate. A rigorous selection process based on each applicant’s CV and recommendation letter is carried out by the Curriculum Committee, responsible for student admission.

The school received 276 applications from 44 countries. A total of 70 students from 18 countries were admitted: 31 from Europe, 20 from North and South America, 19 from Asia and Oceania. The selection was “need blind” and based only on merit. Every student was fully supported, either by the school or through an agreement between the school and their home institution.

 



Xinlu Xu from Tsinghua University, China received the highest marks in the final exam for course A and received an award certificate from CERN Director General Professor Rolf Heuer. Image courtesy of Jean Delayen, ODU/Jlab.


Zhongyuan Yao from Peking University, China received the highest marks in the course B final exam and received an award certificate from CERN DG Rolf Heuer. Image courtesy of Jean Delayen, ODU/Jlab.

The largest number of students was at graduate level (67%). There were also postdoctoral fellows (20%), junior researchers (10%) and undergraduates (3%). Several students did not come due to personal reasons or visa problems so in total sixty two students attended the school.

High intensity

The school offered a 12-day programme, covering both fundamentals and forefront research. All lectures were taught by leaders in the field and all materials are now available on the web.

During the first two days all the students were required to take a physics introduction course and overviews of the ILC, CLIC and the muon collider. During subsequent days there was a choice of two elective courses:

• Course A, accelerator physics, including sources, linacs, damping rings and beam delivery systems.

• Course B, RF technology, including room temperature RF, superconducting RF, high power and low level RF.

There were six hours of lectures every day and two-and-half hours of homework and tutorials every evening.

Because the programme was intensive, the school organized two excursions as breaks. One was a mountain walk; another was a visit to a nearby salt mine and the town of Montreux.

The final examination took place on the last school day and lasted four-and-half hours. The examination problems were challenging but the students did well. Based on the scores, nine students were honored at the banquet. Each received an award certificate from CERN Director General Prof. Rolf Heuer, and a book from Prof. Alex Chao.

 

Links to labs

After the school, most students went to CERN for a site visit. They visited the Globe, the exhibition hall, the CERN Control Center (CCC) and the CLIC building (showroom, klystron gallery and CLEX). For many of them, this was the first time they saw real operating accelerators.

The school had a close connection with EuCARD. Three lecturers are EuCARD members: Erk Jensen gave a lecture on room temperature RF; Stefan Simrock and Mariusz Grecki taught the high power and low level RF course; Stefan and Mariusz also graded the exam sheets.

The school is endorsed by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), a leading body of the world accelerator community, and receives financial aid from a number of funding agencies and institutions around the world including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Fermilab, SLAC, CERN, DESY, INFN, IN2P3, CEA, Oxford University, KEK, IHEP, KNU and TIFR.

The 2010 school web site is: http://www.linearcollider.org/school/2010. The next school will be held in 2011 in North America. Dates and venue are still to be decided.

- Weiren Chou, Fermilab; Kate Kahle, CERN, EuCARD-DCO (WP2)

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