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The next meeting of the Projects Peer Review Panel (PPRP) will take place in Seminar One Lecture Theatre at Cosener’s House, Abbey Close, Abingdon, Oxfordshire,OX14 3JD on the 15th and 16th July 2014.

The Panel will be reviewing 4 large project proposals.

Members of the science community should email Tahmina Aziz or telephone 01793 442058 if they are likely to attend the open presentation.

The proposals being reviewed are as follows:

15th July 2014

10.00 – 11.30 – Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

The UK neutrino community outlined a proposed strategy for the participation in the next generation neutrino oscillation experiments focussed on three separate proposals for LBNE and Hyper-K and a smaller R&D proposal for the CHIPS concept.

The LBNE experiment is designed to discover CP violation for neutrinos. A powerful beam of neutrinos will be fired 1300 km from Fermilab, near Chicago, towards a huge underground detector in South Dakota. This underground detector will contain 50,000 tons of liquid argon at a temperature of 87 K (-186 degree Celsius).

Hyper-Kamiokande (HK), is a next generation, multi-purpose, underground Water Cherenkov detector that will provide hyper-sensitivity for the observation of CP-violation as well as extending the search for proton decays, allowing a detailed study of atmospheric neutrinos (permitting the measurement of the neutrino mass hierarchy), and studies of neutrinos from astronomical origins. Precision measurements of solar neutrinos, observation of solar flares, neutrino geophysics are also included in the physics portfolio of the experiment. The UK effort is targeting strategic areas that exploit current expertise and ensure prominent roles within the experiment.

The CHIPS (Cherenkov detectors In PitS) concept will provide a way to utilize a naturally occurring body of water together with a neutrino beam, to provide an affordable, precision neutrino detector. It will comprise of a light-tight, water-tight PVC bag, filled with pure water, supported by a simple tubular frame and submerged in a deep lake. The lake water will provide the necessary mechanical support and serve as an overburden to shield the detector from cosmic rays. The Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) mounted on the inside of the frame will detect the Cherenkov light.

11.30 – 14.30 - The Panel goes into closed session.

14.30 – 15.30 - Capitalising on UK Investment in JCMT by taking a minor partner role in operations post Sept-2014

This consortium proposes that the UK continue to take a significant (up to 25%) role in the scientific exploitation of the James Clerk Maxwell telescope (JCMT) from 2015, when STFC has transferred ownership to the University of Hawaii and operations are provided by a new consortium, expected to include institutions from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and Canada.

The Panel goes into closed session for the rest of the day.

16th July 2014

09.30 – 10.45 – UK Programme for the European Extremely Large Telescope

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) project aims to provide European astronomers with the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world. This proposal contributes to the instrumentation programme for obtaining scientific, technical and industrial return on this investment.

The current proposal is for a ten year programme to lead the building of the first light instrument HARMONI and to take part in the build phase of the third instrument, METIS, and for a four year programme to pave the way to contribute to the adaptive optics systems and the next instruments through two further Phase A studies (MOS and HIRES), continuation of the R&D programme, and leadership of the coordinated programme through the Project Office.

10.45 – 13.30 The Panel goes into closed session.

13.30 – 14.30 – DESI: The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.

DESI is an experiment that grew from the merger of the BigBOSS and DESpec Studies. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is a multiplexed fibre-fed spectrograph placed on the Mayall telescope. DESI will obtain spectra and redshifts for at least 18 million emission-line galaxies, 4 million luminous red galaxies and 3 million quasi-stellar objects.

The proponents propose that a core group of UK scientists with relevant technical and scientific expertise to join the DESI collaboration and take a leading role in this experiment, using a similar strategy to that adopted to join the Dark Energy Survey (DES) project. DES will make complementary measurements to DESI, based on imaging data and photometric redshifts.

The Panel goes into closed session for the rest of the day.