Comments on FY08 Budget Implications for NPP and Personal Safety

1. Comments on FY08 Budget Implications for NPP and Personal Safety Steve Vigdor Physics All-Hands Meeting January 24, 2008

2. FY08 ONP Budget News DOE ONP budget +2.3% with respect to FY07, but protection of construction + research budgets  facility operations ~flat-flat at FY07 levels across the program RHIC accelerator + exp’t support operations reduced by $10.5M with respect to President’s FY08 request IMPACT: 30 cryoweeks  19 cryoweeks  short p+p run; 2nd straight year with no new data relevant to gluon polarization + possibility of very long (~9-month) shutdown if CR in early FY09 Plans for future relatively protected: stochastic cooling development proceeds as planned; detector R&D reduced from $1.5M to $1.2M; experiment capital equipment reduced from $3.2M to $3.0M; PHENIX FVTX and NCC upgrades start. Planning for how to incorporate budget reductions and prioritize RHIC running needs was done with experiment input to extent possible, given rapid time scales and holidays.

3. Plan for Rest of RHIC Run 8 • Very good machine performance & reliability  PHENIX, STAR should complete d+Au goals earlier than planned • Switch from d+Au to 200 GeV pp on 1/28/08, run for 6 weeks ( 4 physics weeks, into mid-March) • Emphasize fwd. hadron correla-tions, as pp reference for d+Au gluon saturation tests & transverse spin asymmetries in region where inclusive spin effects sizable. • Allow 2-day test at end for Au+Au below Einjection

4. RHIC Budget Impact Statement Provided to Marge Lynch at CEGPA Overall, we have lost 30 weeks of RHIC operations during FY06-08, and we did this well only because of the FY06 grant from Jim Simons. This is stretching out the RHIC physics program, placing us at a competitive disadvantage with respect to new facilities being commissioned (LHC) or planned (FAIR at GSI in Germany). It is making RHIC operation fall far below optimal efficiency, and is gradually demoralizing the user base and delaying the production of Ph.D. scientists. It is making heavily invested foreign partners (especially the RIKEN Institute in Japan) doubt U.S. reliability as a scientific partner. RHIC has absolutely world-leading capabilities, but continuing budgeting problems limit their exploitation. Working to optimize the impact of RHIC physics even under challenging budgets. Accelerated upgrade plans help to ensure future impact.

5. OHEP Budget Impacts at BNL National disaster feeds through to BNL mostly via ILC stop-work impact on SMD ($800K, mostly on labor) Other HEP core funding protected at initial program guidance levels, except for -0.9% across-the-board rescission. Daya Bay project gets increase of $1.0M, US ATLAS kept ~at initial guidance level, as DOE tries to protect programs that will produce high-impact data over coming ~5 years. While things will be tight in HEP at BNL, overall problem far less severe than at FNAL, SLAC Extra $1.7M requested for expanded RACF infrastructure not available in FY08 – DOE will try for FY09 increment.

6. Collateral Damage Squeezing out a minimally useful pp RHIC run under the omnibus bill requires belt-tightening elsewhere in NPP. Reduced GPP and GPE funds from ONP require some descoping of RACF expansion and of Instrumentation Division capital equipment upgrades.

7. Where Does Personal Safety Come In? Optimizing science impact  minimizing lost time and lost credibility with DOE from staff accidents site-wide BNL work planning is very effective in reducing accidents in professional activities, but ‘lifestyle’ accidents have increased -- nobody really understands why! A little extra common-sense attention paid by each of us to ‘second-nature’ activities can’t hurt, and is likely to help reduce reportable incidents. E.g.: Place safety above multi-tasking! Be alert to crumbling infrastructure!