From: Ed Blucher (blucher@hep.uchicago.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 17 2006 - 18:48:16 CDT
Dear Members of P5,
The Braidwood Collaboration was scheduled to present the proposal for our
experiment to measure theta_13 at the P5 meeting on April 18. This talk
was withdrawn because on April 13, the Braidwood Collaboration received
the attached message from Robin Staffin at the Department of Energy
stating that a decision had been made not to support the R&D
for the Braidwood experiment. This preemptive decision was made without a
technical and cost review of the experiments. In fact, the input from the
NuSAG report put the Braidwood experiment at the same level or slightly in
front of the Daya Bay experiment in several ways. As outlined in the
message from Staffin, the DOE has made this decision with the hope that
"with strong project planning and development, [Daya Bay] could be made
technically feasible and affordable." Thus, the decision to terminate
Braidwood was not based on a relative merit assessment of the two
experiments. The NuSAG and P5 committees were put in place to allow the
scientific community to have input into the approval and prioritization of
experiments like Braidwood.
Input from the scientific community is critical for the health of the
high energy physics program. We ask that P5, in its role as the main
advisory committee on the content of the U.S. high energy physics program,
ensure that the competing reactor experiments are properly peer reviewed
with respect to scientific merit and cost.
Sincerely,
The Braidwood Collabroation
Cc: HEPAP Chairs, NuSAG Chairs
-----------------------------------
Message from Robin Staffin:
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:39:01 -0400
From: "Staffin, Robin" <Robin.Staffin@science.doe.gov>
To: "'blucher@hep.uchicago.edu'" <blucher@hep.uchicago.edu>, "'shaevitz@nevis.columbia.edu'" <shaevitz@nevis.columbia.edu>
Subject: Interest in Accelerator and Detector R&D
Dear Ed and Mike,
Thank you for your submission in response to our call for expressions
of interest in the areas of accelerator and detector R&D for future
neutrino physics experiments. We have made final decisions on which
areas we are interested in supporting in FY2006.
We regret to inform you that your R&D request for the Reactor
Neutrino Detector at Braidwood has been declined. We received three
strong proposals targeting R&D for neutrino experiment using reactors
around the world. Although these proposals were well developed and
the proponents well qualified, given limited resources we are only
able to support one of them, the Reactor Neutrino Detector at Daya
Bay, which has compelling scientific potential based on assessment by
NuSAG, and with strong project planning and development, could be
made technically feasible and affordable.
We continue to be very interested in pursuing a world class reactor
neutrino experiment as a single collaborative effort from the US.
We strongly encourage you and your collaborators who are interested
in seeing this physics come to fruition to join the effort.
Robin Staffin
Associate Director
Office of High Energy Physics
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