• Question: Harrison - do you collaborate with the other particle physicists here in the UK or is it a wholly international collaboration?

    Asked by tulloche to Harrison on 14 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Harrison Prosper

      Harrison Prosper answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      Yes, I collaborate with UK scientists who are members of the CMS Collaboration, which is based at CERN. The CMS Collaboration has scientists from more than 50 countries, of which the UK is an important member, and roughly 1000 undergraduates, 1000 postgraduate students, 2000 PhD physicists, plus about 1400 technicians and engineers.

Comments

  • Photo: Susan

    Susan commented on :

    It would be extremely unusual for a UK experimental particle physics group to be the only UK group – let alone the only UK person – on an international collaboration: a critical mass of UK collaborators is usually needed. For example, the experiment I work on is based in Japan, but the UK collaborators include people from Imperial College, Kings College, Lancaster, Oxford, Royal Holloway and Warwick as well as Sheffield.

    • Photo: tulloche

      tulloche commented on :

      Why is there a critical mass of UK collaborators required? Is it because it was funded/planned in the UK? Or is it the same for other countries too for their groups?

      • Photo: Andy

        Andy commented on :

        Being a single individual without local colleagues is a very inefficient way to get research done: you don’t have discussions over coffee, no local meetings, and it will not be cost-effective to have a hardware lab (and the expert technician support you’ll need) for you alone so there would be classes of work you cannot do for the collaboration. So you certainly need others in your institute to reach critical mass. Some of the same arguments extend to inter-group relations and distribution of facilities and expertise within the UK, so it would be unusual for STFC to consider it cost-effective to join an international experiment unless there’s more than one UK group willing to participate and deliver some notable contributions. So a mix of cost- and efficiency-scaling, and bang-for-the-buck incentives at funding agency level.