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2007 Particle Accelerator Conference on Accelerator Science and
Technology (PAC’07) was held 2007 June 25-29 at the Albuquerque
Convention Center [Fig. 1 – see end of article for figures]
in New Mexico. It was attended by over 1,350 delegates from 25 different
countries (63% North America, 24% Europe, 11% Asia and 2% Other).
The web site for the conference is at http://pac07.org. This was
the twenty-second conference in the biennial series that began in
1965. PAC’07 was held under the sponsorship of the Nuclear
and Plasma Sciences Society of the Institute of Electrical ands
Electronics Engineers, and the Division of Physics of Beams of the
American Physical Society. It is because of these technical societies
and the volunteers from these organizations that these successful
series of conferences take place, permitting exchange of information
and effective interactions. Membership in these professional societies
is what keeps these conferences strong and able to provide services
for the entire accelerator community.
Los Alamos National Laboratories was the host for PAC’07 and
provided a tour of their high-power linac-based research facility
LANSCE after the conference on Saturday, June 30, 2007.
The organizers expected about 1200 attendees and about 50 industrial
exhibitors, making for a suitable and useful communication and exchange
opportunity. The turnout exceeded all expectations, at 1350 delegates
and 64 industrial exhibits. These are based on paid registrations,
however the number of people registered was 1589 as can seen from
the following table of registration by region:
Table 1: Registration Numbers
PAC’07 registered 130 students or retirees, 50 one-day members
and of the rest 70% were early registrants (with a 10% lower registration
fee) and 30% late registrants. About 30% of registrants, other than
students, retirees and one-days, benefited from an additional 10%
reduction in registration fee based on being a member of APS-DPB,
IEEE-NPSS and/or EPS-AG.
Similarly, the number of papers contributed was also large. Prepress
publication of the conference record was planned to be on the JACoW
site by Friday, July 13, but was in fact available by July 6, a
whole week ahead of that tight schedule! Concerns have been expressed
relative to paper submissions with obvious errors included on purpose,
so that the author(s) can make changes during the conference after
talking to peers. This was apparently mentioned by a few authors
who perform this unfortunate practice on purpose. The conference
editing team managed to edit more than half of the contributions
prior to the start of the conference, and this is an important aspect
of having the conference record available so soon after the conference.
Some consideration is required in the future to firm up the necessity
of having the paper submission deadline the Wednesday prior to the
conference – if we are going to have the proceedings available
in a timely fashion and completed by a fully volunteer group who
have other jobs to do when the conference ends.
Table 2 shows the number of abstracts submitted by region.
Table 2: Paper abstract submissions to the
SPMS system - 1591.
Papers actually uploaded for publication as part of the conference
record - 1372
Prior to the official start of the conference, a joint PPPS-PAC’07-sponsored
Science Weekend open to the public was a successful event held in
the lower lobby of the Convention Center on Saturday, June 23. Many
young individuals experienced the wonders of magnets, electricity,
plasmas and vacuum. On Sunday afternoon June 24, a special student
poster session was held to allow young researchers to interact with
each other and to provide a forum for reviewing their work by peers
in the community.
As at previous conferences in the series, the attendance of 70 young
scientists from all over the world was made possible by sponsorship
from ANL, APS-DPB, EPS-AG, IEEE-NPSS, LBNL, NSF and TJNAF. In addition,
four $500 cash awards and two honorable mention certificates for
best student papers were awarded, sponsored by IEEE-NPSS and EPS-AG.
Stan Schriber [Fig. 2], LANL and Michigan State University, Chair
of the PAC Organizing Committee (OC) opened the conference. CERN's
Lyndon Evans, Leader of the LHC Project, opened the scientific program
with a presentation entitled LHC: Construction and Commissioning
Status. Chan Joshi, UCLA, gave the closing presentation on Plasma
Accelerators – Progress and the Future. Two hundred and twenty-one
invited and contributed oral presentations of very high quality
were made during the week.
The excellent scientific program was organized by the Scientific
Program Committee (SPC) chaired by Robert Garnett, LANL. It spanned
five days, with scientific plenary sessions Monday morning and Friday
afternoon. Also in plenary session were the Awards Ceremony and
a special session on International Industrial Forums for the ILC.
Three parallel oral sessions were held the rest of the week, with
seven poster sessions scheduled throughout the week. The scientific
program boasted 121 invited papers, 100 contributed oral presentations,
and more than 1400 poster presentations, and close to 1400 contributions
are published in the present proceedings.
An industrial exhibition (intermixed with the poster and coffee
break areas) took place during the first three days of the conference.
Sixty-four companies presented their high technology products and
services to the delegates in an excellent atmosphere conducive to
discussions. Their participation enhanced the scope of the conference.
The Awards Ceremony in honor of Louis Costrell’s many contributions
to PAC over the years (now named the Louis Costrell Awards Session)
was a highlight of the conference. Lee Teng of ANL received the
APS Robert R. Wilson Prize, Jeroen van Tilborg of LBNL and TU-Eindhoven
received the APS Award for outstanding doctoral thesis research
in beam physics. Two IEEE-NPSS awards went jointly to Satoshi Ozaki
and Michael Harrison [Fig. 3] of BNL for leadership in the successful
design and construction of RHIC, and to Victor Malka [Fig. 4], CNRS,
Palaiseau, for groundbreaking work on laser-plasma accelerators.
The US Particle Accelerator School awards went to Sergei Nagaitsev,
FNAL, and to Yaroslav Derbenev, JLAB. Furthermore, Mark Hogan, SLAC;
Norbert Holtkamp, ITER (formerly ORNL); Alexander Lumpkin, ANL;
Lia Merminga, TJNAF; Sergei Nagaitsev, FNAL and Petr Ostroumov,
ANL were announced as newly elected APS-DPB Fellows. Wim Leemans
[Fig. 5], LBNL and Warren Mori, UCLA were announced as newly elected
IEEE-NPSS Fellows relevant to the field of accelerators.
The special Physics Teachers’ Day held Wednesday, June 27
was a great success because of the time and effort contributed by
Hillary Smith, Mike Thout, Dave Swellenbach, Jacob Flanz, Alan Hurd,
Bruce Carlsten and S. Y. Lee.
The conference banquet preceded by a reception entertained by a
traveling mariachi band (Mariachi Nuevo Sonido) was a big success
with 1020 attendees. The highlight of the banquet was the Ice Mountain
Dance Group, especially the very young members of this local dance
troupe. The companion program was well attended and explored many
interesting regions of the Land of Enchantment. Although there were
last-minute “glitches” to the Los Alamos area tour (due
to changes to the tour made by LANL officials), most participants
enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the aspects of Los Alamos
and the Bandelier National Monument. An interesting statistic is
the fair amount of liquid that was consumed at the conference including
11250 cups of coffee, 50 gallons of Margaritas, 25 gallons of sangria,
712 bottles of beer and 986 bottles of wine.
The main medium for the proceedings of this conference is publication
on the JACoW site (www.jacow.org). There will be no hard copy volumes.
The processing of the electronic files of contributions prior to,
during and after the conference, was achieved by a dynamic team
composed of 17 “seasoned experts” and volunteers from
the Joint Accelerator Conferences Website (JACoW) collaboration.
Thanks to the dedicated, professional job accomplished by this team,
a prepress version of these proceedings was published less than
5 working days after the conference. This final version is published
at the JACoW site one month after the conference.
Three significant actions took place during the conference that
will have impacts for future PAC conferences in North America. At
the PAC OC Tuesday evening meeting it was approved unanimously to
join the Europeans and Asians in a three-year-cycle, international
conference series while maintaining a North American PAC series
interspersed with these international conferences such that a PAC
type conference (international or North American) will occur in
North America on an approximate 18 month separation schedule. The
second action by the PAC OC was the adoption of a set of bylaws,
for the first time since the launch of the conference series. The
bylaws formalize various aspects of the organization of the conference,
including the membership of the OC. The third action was a unanimous
approval by the PAC Coordinating Committee (composed of past, present
and future PAC, EPAC and APAC chairs) to start the international
series of conferences in 2010 in Kyoto, Japan, with 2011 in Valencia,
Spain and 2012 in North America (location TBD). Our next North American
PAC style conferences will be held in Vancouver, Canada in 2009
and in New York, New York in 2011.
Special thanks on behalf of the attendees, sponsoring agencies and
the host go to all who helped in numerous ways before, during and
after the conference. Their dedicated and enthusiastic efforts made
the conference a success and made the whole process function smoothly.
A number of “glitches” were handled in a professional
and appropriate manner, without detracting from the main aspect
of the conference. The success of PAC’07 can be attributed
to the efforts of the OC, the SPC, and the LOC chaired by Tsuoyoshi
Tajima: Shirley Atencio, Alberto Canabal, Michael Carter, John Eddleman,
Sherry Hardage, Robb Kramer, Roberta Lopez, Vangie Martinez, Valerie
Miller, Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, William Roybal, Andrea Sanchez,
Rich Sheffield, Hillary Smith, Tamson Smith, Lorraine Stanford and
Peggy Vigil, and to all of the volunteers from future and past PACs
and from our sister conferences EPAC and APAC, who joined the team
during the conference proper. All contributed untiringly to making
this conference a success.
Sincere thanks to two special individuals who worked many extra
hours and gave up much of their usual lifestyle to ensure that this
conference would be an outstanding success. Behind the scenes encouraging
everyone on the team was Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, and up front
was Lorraine Stanford [Fig. 2]. Without their support, guidance,
encouragement and constant advice, I would not have been able to
perform my role as chair of the conference.
Pictures taken during PAC’07 by an endemic ‘most professional
group’ can be found at the website www.flickr.com/photos/jacow.
Stan Schriber, Chair of PAC'07 can be reached at schriber@cnsp.com;
Ilan Ben-Zvi, Chair of the Particle Accelerator Science and Technology
Committee, can be reached at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Collider
Accelearator Department, MS911B, Upton, NY 11973; Phone: +1 631
344 5143; Fax: +1 631 344-5954; E-mail:benzvi@bnl.gov.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
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