Perspective: U.S. - CERN Negotiations on Large Hadron Collider

The recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy and the European Laboratory for Particle Physics on the status of negotiations surrounding the Large Hadron Collider is an important milestone in the construction of this proposed facility (see FYI #61.) It is useful to examine this announcement from the perspective of the May 1994 report, “High Energy Physics Advisory Panel’s Subpanel on Vision for the Future of High-Energy Physics.” This is more commonly called the Drell report, after the Subpanel’s Chairman, Sidney D. Drell.

This panel was convened in the wake of the canceled Superconducting Super Collider, and was charged with developing “a strategy that will continue to address the most important scientific questions, ensure the U.S. a position among the world’s leaders in this field, and look to more effective international collaborations to realize our scientific goals.”

Although this report reached many conclusions, two of its major recommendations provide perspective about the DOE/CERN announcement, and past, current, and future budgets for high energy physics research at the Department of Energy.

The Drell report called for a constant-level-of-effort of approximately $621.9 million for the High Energy Physics program for the Fiscal Years 1995 - 2002. This is to be supplemented by an additional $50 million in FY 1996, 1997, and 1998 (total supplement of $150 million.)

The actual DOE appropriation for the High Energy Physics program in FY 1995 was $646.9 million. The report’s recommendation was $621.9 million.

In FY 1996, the first year of the “Drell bump,” the recommendation was $671.9 million. The appropriation was $667.0 million. Adjusting this appropriation for inflation (since the Drell report called for a constant-level-of-effort) finds that the appropriation would have to be $692.1 million to meet the subpanel’s target (see 1995 FYI #155.)

The total of the FY 1995 and the adjusted FY 1996 Drell report recommendations is $1,314.0 million. The total of the actual appropriations is $1,313.9 million.

The Department of Energy requested $679.1 million for the High Energy Physics program for FY 1997. In addition, there is an unspecified amount that the Physics Subactivity of the National Science Foundation proposes to spend on LHC research. The Drell report recommended $671.9 million, adjusted for inflation.

The Department of Energy and CERN are engaged in LHC negotiations, which under the right set of circumstances, could entail a U.S. commitment of around $530 million over 8-10 years (see FYI #61.) According to the background paper, “DOE intends to ensure that, to the maximum degree practicable, U.S. taxpayers’ dollars are spent in the U.S. for U.S.-provided goods and services.” Commenting on a possible funding scenario, which does not indicate if adjusted dollars were used, the Drell Report states:

“Given this three-year supplement, the subpanel recommends that the U.S. government declare its intention to join in the collaboration constructing the LHC at CERN and initiate negotiations toward that goal. With such a commitment to the future, it will be important for the U.S. to sustain the research and development effort on magnets and detectors already begun for the SSC and to redirect it toward the LHC. We foresee expenditures starting in FY1995, at the level of $(5 to 10)M, and $10 to 15)M in FY1996, with larger expenditures thereafter. Continuing build-up to a steady level of $60M per year, starting in FY1999, would result in a total of about $400M over nine years [a footnote here states: “There is nothing magic about the figure of $400M. It is introduced only to indicate the scale of possible total involvement under this budget assumption.], by the end of FY2003. We expect that a large fraction of this $400M would be spent in the United States, on, for instance, building special magnets and equipment for the interaction regions and large detectors. This would constitute a serious, effective, and important U.S. investment of great value to both the U.S. and the LHC program itself.”