Canadians Refine The Art Of International Science

Even as Congress once again wrestles with levels of funding for the superconducting supercollider (SSC), plans for another large North American high-energy physics project are moving quietly but steadily ahead. While SSC supporters scramble to entice reluctant foreign partners to help foot an estimated $6 billion bill for what has always been promoted as a United States-led effort, the other project-a proposed $450 million Canadian accelerator-has been designed from the start with international cooperation in mind. So far, the Canadian approach seems to be working better. Last month the project, known as KAON after the K mesons and other subatomic particles it will produce, was endorsed by a nuclear science panel, which advises the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation. The vote of confidence appears to doom the chances of a U.S. facility proposed by officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory. And in a bit of serendipity, the new science adviser to President Bush, Canadian-born physicist D. Allan Bromley, turns out to have strong ties to many of the Canadian scientists involved with the new accelerator. The Canadians have worked hard for their success. Last month a team of officials returned from around-the-world tour of six capitals to solidify support for the KAON facility. The team's international collaboration strategy is modeled after West Germany's success in attracting international funding for its $750 million HERA accelerator, which will be completed later this year. But its approach could be applied to any science project too large for one country to handle. KAON is meant to be a major upgrade of the existing accelerator at the University of British Columbia known as TRIUME The new accelerator is designed to produce a very large number of moderately high energy particles that would be used to explore the "standard model" of elementary particles and seek answers to other fundamental questions in physics. Although it could not approach the energies of, for example, the SSC, its high throughput would allow much of the same sort of science to be performed at a substantially lower cost. The project has already made progress toward its scheduled completion in 1995. Last year the provincial government of British Columbia pledged nearly $70 million to the effort, and the Canadian government is winding up an $8.7 million study of both the technical details and the likely levels of international support. Given the strong scientific backing of the project, the challenge for the Canadian government has been to come up with a funding scheme that would fly with both its own tax-payers and those of its collaborators, a group that includes the U.S., Japan, and West Germany. Unlike the SSC, which is at heart a U.S. project with some anticipated foreign involvement, KAON depends on scientists and funding from abroad. As a nation, Canada can boast of only about 40 subatomic physicists, and its total spending in the field consists chiefly of the $23 million operating budget of the existing TRIUMF facility. KAON, on the other hand, is expected to have about 800 users and require an operating budget of $75 million. Canada hopes to attract other countries by putting its money where its mouth is. It proposes to pay for two thirds of the construction costs (about $300 million) and all of the operating expenses for KAON. Al-though such largess has made the project easier to sell abroad, it has led to tough questions at home, where a recent economic downturn has threatened all funding for science. When asked why Canadian taxpayers should subsidize U.S. and other foreign physicists, KAON officials point to national pride, commercial spin-offs, and the prospect of further international collaboration. "Canada may be a short distance across a border, but it's a long distance in the minds of most Americans," says KAON consultant Peter Dyne. An international landmark like KAON offers Canada a much-needed sense of global prestige, Dyne explains. The issue of technical spin-offs is equally intangible. Unlike the SSC, which would use high-tech super-conducting magnets, KAON's equipment is based on more pedestrian technology, including conventional magnets. And foreign nations are expected to contribute in the form of home-built technology, rather than cash, thus allowing each country to stimulate its own economy -although not Canada's-with the investment. But project officials say such arrangements do not preclude substantial payoffs for Canada down the road. They note that other national projects have eventually enriched the local economy by improving educational opportunities, upgrading the labor force, and generating marketable products. And they are betting that Canadian taxpayers will agree to forgo more than $150 million in immediate domestic investment to achieve those long-term goals. For U.S. scientists, at least, the Canadian strategy appears to have paid off. KAON represents a considerable bargain compared with U.S.-led "kaon factory" proposals, scientists say. For a one-time investment of $75 million, U.S. physicists would have access to a state-of-the-art facility worth 10 times that amount, just 28 miles from the U.S. border. The advantages of such a proposal have convinced at least one influential group. The Nuclear Science Advisory Committee of DOE and NSF released a report earlier this month encouraging U.S. participation in the project. The study, headed by MIT physicist Herman Feshbach, concludes that a $75 million U.S. contribution would be a "cost-effective investment." The endorsement, although not unexpected, effectively ends any U.S. competition for the KAON factory. Advocates of the leading domestic proposal-an Advanced Hadron Facility at the Los Alamos National Lab-quickly conceded defeat and moved to back KAON (see accompanying story). "The ball is in the Canadian court," says Los Alamos accelerator director Gerald Garvey. "I think we ought to proceed with [KAON] on the terms stated. It's an attractive scientific undertaking." Others have speculated that a U.S. investment in KAON could pave the way for substantial Canadian involvement in the SSC (The Scientist, October 17, 1988, page 2). But Canadian officials have strenuously avoided making the connection. "In our discussions with the [DOE], we were careful not to link KAON with the SSC. We didn't want it discussed," says Dyne. One DOE official describes the problem as one of image. "It could look like we're laundering SSC money through Canada," he says. Nevertheless, notes TRIUMF director Erich Vogt, more science in Canada means more Canadian scientists and, as a result, a larger role in U.S. physics. "We can be afar bigger partner in the SSC with KAON than without it," he says. This spring brought another, unexpected, boost for U.S. involvement in the project when Bromley, a strong advocate of international cooperation in science, was nominated as science and technology adviser to the president. The Yale physicist, who has supported the project in the past, worked with several members of the KAON team at the Chalk River atomic physics lab in Ontario in the 1950s. Although Bromley's staff says he will not comment on science issues until he is confirmed by Congress, a prospect that could be weeks away, Dyne says that Bromley's strong ties to KAON supporters "helps." "He is very knowledgeable about KAON, and I'm given to understand he's favorably disposed [to U.S. participation]," says Dyne. The Canadians can afford to wait for his support until Bromley settles into his new job. In fact, they may have to. Inn light of the still-uncertain level of Canadian commitment to the project, the NSAC has postponed a final decision on KAON until October, when it compiles its recommendations for physics in the 1990s. "Since there isn't an urgency, there's time to consider it in context of long-range physics priorities," says David Hendrie, DOE's director of high-energy and nuclear physics. In the meantime, says Dyne, the KAON team and other Canadian scientists will continue their "missionary efforts" to secure international support from the scientific community. "We want to know that, when the question is posed, scientists will stand up to be counted," says Dyne. But he knows that scientific support is not always enough. "One can only go so fan in consensus building, and then it becomes apolitical decision," he notes. "That's the brutal truth of international science." How One US Lab Got Left Behind For every successful new project in science dozens of other proposals are left by the wayside What separates the winners from the losers is often not the strength of their scientific promise but the vagaries of politics external developments and a shift in priorities The fate of Los Alamos National Lab's proposed Advanced Hadron Facility (AHF} -now apparently passed over in favor of the Canadian KAON lab- illustrates many of the pitfalls of modern super-science." Gerald Garvey Who in 1985 became director of the lab 's main accelerator, the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF) came to New Mexico with one clear goal Find a future for the 25 year-old accelerator lab His solution was the AHF a $500 million kaon factory that could take LAMPF into the next century. For the past four years Garvey has been the proposal's most visible proponent campaigning tirelessly for the project. But during those years many of the assumptions on which the AHF was based have changed. The $6 billion super conducting supercollider, proposed in 1983 by high-energy physicists, was embraced by the Reagan administration as a way to maintain United States leadership in the field. Canada drew up plans for its own kaon factory, at a fraction of the cost of the AHF, and promised that scientists from other nations would be given generous access to it And a host of more pressing physics projects left the AHF low en the Department of Energy's list of priorities. In the face of these developments, the AHF no longer made sense. "It takes something like a superproject to secure LAMPF s future Garvey explains But there really is not enough reliable planning to allow you to address [that future]. You find yourself planning 10 years in advance, until the plan becomes bigger than the physics behind the plan." "You've got to see where scientists are going [to be], far into the future," he continues. "[But] the time frame becomes really long corn pared to the clarity of your vision." Beyond suffering from a hazy visions, even the best laid plans can be laid low by the winds of politics He notes that congressional indecision on how fast to move ahead with the SSC project has placed in limbo a very large chunk of science funding Until its future is resolved, the massive particle accelerator threatens to delay a host of other proposals And if it is funded Garvey admits Congress is unlikely to feel charitable about another expensive physics project for some time. That would leave LAMPF as just another aging lab without a clear future. Garvey says that plans for the facility have been "forced into a much longer time scale." Among possible options, he lists several smaller upgrades including an increased emphasis on neutron production and storage and there's still a chance he'll be able to resurrect the AHF, should KAON fall afoul of politics or economics. -G.C.A.

Canadians Refine The Art Of International Science

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