------------------------------------------------------------- Summary of the LHCb Collaboration Board Meeting (CERN, May 25th 2000) ------------------------------------------------------------- Minutes taken by F. Harris Present: E.Aslanides (CPPM Marseille), A.Bay (Lausanne), C.Bosio (Rome "La Sapienza"), N.Brook (Bristol), G.Carboni (Rome "Tor Vergata"), B.d'Almagne (LAL Orsay), R.Dzhelyadin (IHEP Surpukhov), R.Forty (CERN), V.Gibson (Cambridge), A.Golutvin (ITEP, Moscow), E.Guschin (INR Moscow), N.Harnew * (Oxford), F.Harris (Oxford), H-J.Hilke * (CERN), C.Jiang (Beijing), B.Koene (NIKHEF), B.Marechal (Rio de Janeiro), C.Matteuzzi (Milano), R.Miguel (Barcelona), F.Muheim (Edinburgh), T.Nakada * (CERN), C.Parkes (Liverpool), G.Passaleva (Firenze), P.Perret (Clemont-Ferrand), G.Polok (Cracow), V.Pugatch (INR Kiev), Y.Ranyuk (IPT Kharkov), B.Saitta (Cagliari), M.Sannino (Genoa), M.Savrie (Ferrara), M.Schmelling (MPI Heidelberg), M.Schulz (KIP, Heidelberg), M.Semprini-Cesari (Bologna), P.Soler (RAL), O.Steinkamp (Zurich), M.Szczekowski (Warsaw), I.Videau * (LAL Orsay), A.Vorobyov (Gatchina), D.Websdale (Imperial College, London). * non-voting members [36 institutes represented] The meeting was chaired by N.Harnew. Agenda ------ 1) Approval of the agenda 2) Minutes of last meeting i) Approval of minutes ii) Matters arising 3) Collaboration issues i) New collaborators : - Tsinghua University, Beijing. - INFN Frascati ii) LHCb Associateship. - Approval of proposal - Espoo-Vantaa, Finland - Geneva Engineering School iii) US participation in the LHCb experiment iv) Merger of Polish groups in the CB 4) Feedback from referees, LHCC and matters arising 5) Financial, manpower matters and MoU i) Operations fund ii) Common fund iii) Preparation of draft LHCb MoU 6) Proposal on software agreements and computing MoU 7) Report from the Management on Technical Issues : i) Muon technology choice 8) Matters arising from the Plenary Meeting 9) Publication issues i) Approval of publication policy document 10) CB Chairperson election 11) Task Force Coordinators i) Tracking Task Force ii) Physics Task Force 12) LHCb conference talks 13) Any other business 1) Approval of the agenda ------------------------- The agenda was approved. 2) Minutes of the last meeting ------------------------------ i) Approval of minutes ---------------------- The minutes of the February 24th meeting were approved. ii) Matters arising ------------------- The matters arising which were not covered in other items of the agenda : DAQ + Background support ------------------------ T.Nakada reported that manpower situation on testbeam DAQ and for background studies has improved considerably since the last meeting. The CERN group will provide systems support for the testbeam, and the group has also prepared steps to provide the necessary support on the background problems arising from the beam pipe and muon halo. 3) Collaboration issues ----------------------- i) New collaborators -------------------- Tsinghua University, Beijing ---------------------------- N.Harnew reported that a letter of application had been received from Qing Wang, Jiang-Ping Cheng and Yu-Ping Kuang on behalf of the Tsinghua University group, Beijing, China, to join LHCb. The group's interests include straw tube construction for the LHCb outer trackers, readout electronics design, slow controls, physics analysis and software development. The CB unanimously accepted Tsinghua University into the collaboration. INFN Frascati ------------- N.Harnew reported that a letter of application had been received from Prof. Pierluigi Campana on behalf of the INFN Frascati group, Italy, to join LHCb. The group is interested to work on the muon detector CPC/WPC option in the areas of chamber construction and electronics. The CB unanimously accepted INFN Frascati into the collaboration. ii) LHCb Associateship ---------------------- H-J.Hilke proposed that LHCb introduce a status of "Technical Associate". A group would be given Technical Associate status if it were recognized as not participating in the long-term physics programme, but wished to bring in short-term financial and/or human resources. A Technical Associate must be attached to an Institute of the LHCb Collaboration (the "Host Institute"), which would take long-term responsibility for the operation and maintenance of any hardware or software which the Technical Associate would produce. If only human resources were offered, the Technical Associate would be attached for the duration of support to the Host Institute. The Technical Associate would not have a CB member, but would be represented in the CB through the Host Institute. Formally, the Host Institute would propose their Technical Associates to the CB. The concept of Technical Associate status was agreed in principle by the CB. An appropriate change to the Constitution would be drafted as an annexe, and distributed before the September meeting. Then, at the September meeting, the annexe would be formally approved. It was agreed to delay consideration of the more general status of "Associate Membership" (as discussed in previous CB meetings) until the Management were ready to formulate a proposal. iii) US participation in the LHCb experiment -------------------------------------------- T.Nakada reported on discussions with the University of Virginia and Northwestern University. Brad Cox (Virginia) and Kam Seth (Northwestern) have confirmed that the DOE will provide no funding towards LHCb, and that the US will not sign the MoU. The Management regretfully recommended that the LHCb membership of the US groups be terminated, and this was unanimously agreed by the CB. The Collaboration Board expressed their sadness at this most regrettable outcome, and hoped that the situation might change some time in the future. T.Nakada reported on the situation of Rice University clarified by Prof. Bonner, the director of the institute. As a result, Rice University will be removed from the list of LHCb institutes. iv) Merger of Polish groups in the CB ------------------------------------- Cracow and Warsaw expressed their wish that they merge as a single Polish group in the Collaboration Board. This was noted by the CB. From the 29th September 2000 CB meeting, the Polish participants will merge under the name of Cracow/Warsaw. 4) Feedback from referees, LHCC and matters arising --------------------------------------------------- T.Nakada had made a summary during the Plenary meeting. o The Magnet TDR was approved by the CERN Research Board on the 13th April and the financial commitment for the magnet has also been approved by the RRB. o There was a major review of LHCb by the LHCC on March 7th at which the magnet, trigger milestones, muon technology choice, and the calorimeter final design were reviewed. LHCb progress was well received and there were no major areas of concern. o The LHCC meeting on October 4/5 will consider the calorimeter and RICH TDRs. 5) Financial, manpower matters and MoU -------------------------------------- i) Operations fund ------------------ Contributions to the Operations Fund for the year 2000 is being dealt with on a voluntary basis. About 100 KSFr is required for test beams. Contributions of ~10 KSFr will be welcomed from the larger countries. ii) Common Fund --------------- Presently 3.5 MSFr is available in the Common Fund, in readiness for expenditure on the magnet. iii) Preparation of draft LHCb MoU ---------------------------------- H-J.Hilke presented the status of the draft MoU. By 2001 LHCb need to start spending on magnet production, the calorimeters, RICH etc. Since the Resource Review Board (RRB) meets only twice a year, LHCb must have the draft MoU ready for presentation to the October 2000 RRB meeting. In readiness for this, H-J.Hilke is preparing a first draft. The MoU will be a bilateral agreement between each country and CERN. The first part of the MoU is a general preamble. This is similar for all four LHC experiments although some LHCb specific changes have been made, notably for the Common Fund. The second part of the MoU consists of 11 annexes, covering specification of subsystems structure, technical participation, construction schedule, funding matrix, lists of deliverables, and definitions for the common projects (eg. magnet, infrastructure, data handling). A key annexe is the Funding Matrix. The total projected cost of LHCb, including 10% contingency, is now about 75 MSF (down from 86 MSF due to savings mainly on the magnet and in data handling). The new cost ceiling will be set close to this value. The anticipated funding available from participating countries matches relatively well to the total requirement. Some flexibility is required in moving money between components in the funding matrix. The CB supported the suggestion to put savings from the magnet into the calorimeters. In this spirit, it was agreed in principle to fund part of the calorimeters from the Common Fund. H-J.Hilke will send out the draft MOU to the institutes within about two weeks. Country representatives should then check with their funding agencies regarding flexibility of moving money in the funding matrix. The final version of the MoU which is submitted to the October RRB will need to be agreed at the Milan CB meeting. It is therefore of paramount importance that CB members consult with the Coordinators and H-J.Hilke on the funding matrix, and converge on an agreed version. 6) Proposal on software agreements and computing MoU ---------------------------------------------------- I.Videau informed the CB of the format and aims of the Hoffman review on LHC computing. This is composed of three panels, one of which (chaired by Calvetti), deals with management and resources. As such the Panel is defining the path towards the computing MoUs. It is expected that the MoUs would include both software and hardware, and cover the areas of work breakdown structures, associated responsibilities, and costs. The Resource Panel is thinking to recommend that a large LHC computing prototype system be set up in 2003, and that the experiments should draft an interim MoU, common for all LHC experiments, specifying the work needed for its development. In this case the interim MoU could be presented to funding agencies by the end of 2000, with funding requests for 2001-3. Then based on the results with the large prototype a final MoU could be written in 2003 for the "final" systems. I.Videau posed several questions to the CB : o Do the CB agree with the plan of action proposed by the panel ? o What Tier-1 regional centres should we have for LHCb ? o Are LHCb in agreement with the principle of a common project across the four LHC experiments ? There followed lively discussion. The CB felt that it was not well enough informed to have an opinion on these issues at this time. It was agreed that there should be a written proposal summarising the key elements of the Hoffman Resource panel proposal, and especially summarising the key financial and technical elements (eg. who would pay for the large prototype; would it be distributed; how would it be configured in software and hardware). It was suggested that the existing LHCb Computing Countries Working Groups could help the Computing Coordinator formulate such a concise summary, and hence a concrete proposal for the CB, hopefully within a month. This should be distributed to CB members, and would then form the basis by which the CB could make an informed policy decision at the Milan meeting. 7) Report from the Management on Technical Issues ------------------------------------------------- T.Nakada introduced a single recommendation made by the Technical Board and which has been accepted and endorsed by the Management : i) Muon technology choice ------------------------- The muon technology choice of a mixed RPC and WPC/CPC muon system was ratified by the CB. 8) Matters arising from the Plenary Meeting ------------------------------------------- There were no matters arising that were not dealt with elsewhere in the agenda. 9) Publication issues --------------------- i) Approval of publication policy document ------------------------------------------- The LHCb Publication Policy document was approved with some minor modifications. The final version can be found in : http://lhcb.cern.ch/generalmanagement/html/pub_policy.htm 10) CB Chairperson election --------------------------- N.Harnew reminded the CB that he comes to the end of his term of office as CB Chairperson in September. He proposed a Search Committee consisting of J.Lefrancois, H.Dijkstra, A.Gloutvin, and C.Matteuzzi. The CB approved the constitution of the Search Committee. The Committee will encourage nominations, define the timetable, and appoint a Chairperson who will conduct the election. It was agreed to conduct an election by secret ballot during the Milan CB meeting. 11) Task Force Coordinators --------------------------- i) Tracking Task Force ---------------------- Following the Management proposal, M.Merk was unanimously endorsed by the CB as the Tracking Task Force Coordinator. ii) Physics Task Force ---------------------- Following the Management proposal, O.Schneider was unanimously endorsed by the CB as the Physics Task Force Coordinator. 12) LHCb conference talks ------------------------- T.Nakada distributed the list of conference talks and speakers. The status has been updated on the web and can be found on : http://lhcb.cern.ch/generalmanagement/speakersbureau/html/speakers.html . The CB were reminded of the CP violation conference at Ferrara September 18-22nd 2000. 13) Any other business ---------------------- i) Office Space --------------- H-J.Hilke acknowledged that the lack of space is very serious, but there is no easy solution. Any group requiring office space must write a detailed case to him. All LHCb group members were requested never to permanently vacate CERN office space without first consulting H-J.Hilke. ____________________________________________________________________________ Summary of Important Dates -------------------------- All meetings are at CERN unless otherwise indicated. Dates of future LHCb weeks and Collaboration Board meetings ------------------------------------------------------------ LHCb weeks 2000 Plenary meeting Collaboration Board Sep 25-29 (Milano) 28/29 Sep 28 Sep Nov 27 - Dec 1 30 Nov/1 Dec 30 Nov Technical Board Meetings ------------------------ 28 July, 28 Aug, 25th Sept (Milano), 27th Nov. Dates of conveners/referees meetings ------------------------------------ 2000 : 2-3 Oct (coordinators and referees) LHCC Meetings ------------- 2000 : 5-6 Jul, 4-5 Oct, 29-30 Nov. RRB meeting ----------- 2000 : 23-24 Oct. ____________________________________________________________________________ The CB attendees for the previous (24/2/00) meeting were as follows: B.Adeva (Santiago de Compostela), E.Aslanides (CPPM Marseille), C.Bosio (Rome "La Sapienza"), N.Brook (Bristol), T.Bowcock (Liverpool), G.Carboni (Rome "Tor Vergata"), C.Coca (Bucharest), B.d'Almagne (LAL Orsay), F.Eisele (Heidelberg), R.Forty (CERN), A.Golutvin (ITEP, Moscow), N.Harnew * (Oxford), F.Harris (Oxford), H-J.Hilke * (CERN), C.Jiang (Beijing), B.Koene (NIKHEF), L.Kravchuk (INR Moscow), A.Lai (Cagliari), B.Marechal (Rio de Janeiro), C.Matteuzzi (Milano), R.Miguel (Barcelona), J.Morris (RAL), F.Muheim (Edinburgh), T.Nakada * (CERN), V.Obraztsov (IHEP Surpukhov), G.Passaleva (Firenze), P.Perret (Clemont-Ferrand), G.Polok (Cracow), M.Semprini-Cesari (Bologna), M.Sannino (Genoa), M.Savrie (Ferrara), M.Schmelling (MPI Heidelberg), O.Schneider (Lausanne), M.Schulz (IHEP Heidelberg), U.Straumann (Zurich), M.Szczekowski (Warsaw), I.Videau * (LAL Orsay), A.Vorobyov (Gatchina), D.Websdale (Imperial College, London), S.Wotton (Cambridge). * non-voting members [36 institutes represented]