From: Ed Blucher (blucher@hep.uchicago.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 17 2006 - 13:52:05 CDT
Mike and I discussed the letter draft he just distributed (attached
here), and feel it is a better version to send to P5. Could you please
make any remaining comments on this version? We'll incorporate comments
we receive in the next couple of hours, and send the letter to P5 this
evening. Thanks a lot.
Ed and Mike
attached mail follows:
Hi,
This is an alternative letter mainly written by Janet and
Mike S. to send to P5.
Mike and Ed
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 This talk was withdrawn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 proper 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. What has
occurred shows that this input is not being used or needed
by DOE management in developing our high energy physics program.
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
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