P5 Face to Face meetings
As many of you may know (and some of you may not) the next phase in the long term planning for the future of High Energy Physics (HEP) over the next 10 – 20 years in kicking into gear.
The centre piece of this phase is a panel of scientists who have been appointed to develop a strategy based on the various important pieces of physics, planned experiments, and various budget scenarios HEP faces. This panel is (terribly) named the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel, or more commonly referred to as P5. (www.interactions.org/p5)
This panel is meeting immediately following the summer study known as Snowmass to seize on the opportunities for interesting physics that were brought forward during this 8 month long study.
I was personally involved in one aspect of the Snowmass study by trying to get young (untenured) scientists to participate in the Snowmass study and to help ensure that their positions and opinions were heard. The group that I helped lead was known as Snowmass Young (http://snowmassyoung.hep.net) and through an online survey as well as attending countless meetings we attempted to capture these opinions in a paper which you can now find on the arxiv! (Snowmass 2013 Young Physicists Science and Career Survey Report)
However, our work hasn’t stopped there. With the P5 holding open town halls last month as well as December Snowmass Young has been trying to ensure that all voices are heard during this important process. The great news is we have been met with open and encouraging arms. The chair of the P5 process, Prof Steve Ritz, has met with Snowmass Young to hear from us and encourage all young scientists to come to the P5 town hall meetings and have their voices heard. Prof Ritz has written a letter to the young community which can be found in full here and I quote below:
The purpose of this note is to reaffirm that engagement by everyone in our community, including Snowmass Young Physicists, is needed.
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Each of the upcoming meetings (our first face-to-face meeting on 2-4 November at Fermilab, then 2-4 December at SLAC, and 15-18 December at Brookhaven) has a Town Hall, and all sessions except the executive sessions are completely open. I encourage you to attend and participate. The Town Halls are deliberately unstructured: most of the time will be devoted to open-mike statements and discussions. If there is something you want to say, just come up to one of the microphone stations in the aisles.
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Don’t be subtle! Let us hear from you about your concerns, advice, and input.
With these words in mind Snowmass Young is working to make sure that as many opinions are heard at the upcoming P5 meetings. The Fermilab meeting has already passed with only limited attendance from young people, so we want to work hard to change that for the upcoming meetings.
SLAC P5 Meeting December 2-4
SLAC Meeting
All scientists (especially young scientists) have received encouragement to attend the upcoming P5 meeting at SLAC from Kelen Tuttle (Editor in Chief at Symmetry Magazine) in the below letter where more details can be found
SLAC will host the next Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) meeting on Dec. 2-4, and you’re invited!The meeting, which will focus on the Cosmic Frontier, is open to all and will take place in SLAC’s Kavli Auditorium with overflow in Redwood C&D. In addition, the meeting will be live-streamed online (details on how to access the feed will be posted to the meeting website soon: https://indico.bnl.gov/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=688). Although there won’t be a way for online viewers to comment or ask questions in real time, the P5 committee welcomes feedback via its online form: http://www.usparticlephysics.org/p5/formP5 held the first town hall at Fermilab in early November, and will follow the SLAC meeting with another at Brookhaven National Laboratory Dec. 15-18.In addition to the three town hall meetings, P5 is receiving input from the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the full community via the Snowmass process. The end goal is a new strategic plan for US high-energy physics investments over the next 10 to 20 years. The plan will offer a coherent path forward, building a strong position from which the US high-energy physics community, working with the international community, can answer grand scientific questions and improve our understanding of nature.More information can be found at: http://www.usparticlephysics.org/p5
Brookhaven P5 meeting December 15 – 18
Brookhaven Meeting
For the upcoming Brookhaven meeting Elizabeth Worcester (a Snowmass Young convener and brilliant research scientist) is organizing a dedicated session during the meeting as a way to help entice more people to attend. You can find her letter below with more details
Dear colleagues,As you may know, a P5 Workshop on the Future of High Energy Physics is being held at Brookhaven National Lab, December 15-18, 2013 (http://www.bnl.gov/p5workshop2013/). The P5 committee has strongly encouraged early-career physicists to attend the workshops, participate in the Town Halls, and provide input to the P5 process. To further facilitate input from early-career physicists, a Young Physicists Forum is being held at the BNL meeting, during the lunch hour on Monday, December 16. The chair of P5, Steve Ritz, has agreed to speak briefly at the forum and answer questions from the young community. We encourage pre-tenure scientists who wish to learn about the P5 process and/or share their perspectives to attend the workshop and this forum.Please help us spread the word by encouraging any young scientists who may not be on this list to attend. For planning purposes, please contact Elizabeth Worcester ([email protected]) if you plan to attend the Young Physicists Forum.Best,Elizabeth, for the Snowmass Young conveners
