Subcommittee Discusses Particle Physics Research Priorities
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing to examine the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel’s (P5) recent report. P5 is a subpanel of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) that serves the DOE Office of Science’s High Energy Physics (HEP) Program and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Particle Physics Division. A new P5 Panel was created to “revisit the guidance to the DOE and NSF [in the previous P5 Report, produced in 2008]” and “develop an updated strategic plan for U.S. high energy physics that can be executed over a 10 year time scale, in the context of a 20 year global vision for the field.”
The P5 report recommends the research and facilities that should and can be pursued in the U.S., as well as possible areas of international collaboration that would allow the U.S. to continue to be a key player at the forefront of particle physics research. While admitting that the “Ideas for excellent new projects far exceed what can be executed with currently available resources,” the panel was able to identify five main areas of research that should be pursued. These “intertwined science Drivers for the field” include: 1) using the Higgs boson as a new tool for discovery; 2) pursuing physics associated with the neutrino mass; 3) identifying the physics of dark matter; 4) understanding cosmic acceleration, including today’s mysterious “dark energy” and the period of inflation at the beginning of the universe; and 5) exploring the unknown, including new particles, interactions, and physical principles.
Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said in his opening statement, “The timing of this report couldn’t be any better, as we are at an extremely exciting time in the history of the field. With the major advances that have been made over just the past couple of years, such as the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson as well as the potential detection of gravitational waves first predicted by Einstein almost a hundred years ago, we are equipped with new knowledge and advancing technologies that will allow humans to further engage our innate curiosity about everything from the fundamental building blocks of our world to the origin and evolution of the universe.”
He continued, “However, as amazing as these developments may be and as much as we would like to continue to push the frontiers of science, we are also forced to keep in mind our current fiscally constrained environment. This is the reason the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation charged the P5 Panel with doing the hard work of prioritizing particle physics projects under several difficult budget scenarios - the lowest one being particularly restrictive and, in my view, unacceptable given the critical missed opportunities that would be required to meet it.”
Members and witnesses discussed a number of issues including the possibility of a “brain drain” in the field of physics if the U.S. does not make investments in particle physics; the cost and benefit of prioritizing construction over research; dark energy and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI); international collaboration on research projects and what that means for the U.S.; and how the P5 report could be used as a model for other scientific fields.
Testifying before the Subcommittee were the following:
Dr. Steve Ritz - P5 Chair and Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz
Dr. Persis Drell - Director Emerita, SLAC National Laboratory
Dr. Nigel Lockyer - Director, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Dr. Natalie Roe - Director, Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Related Content
Next Article Previous Article