December 8, 2007 R.P. Johnson 1

Presentation to the HEPAPPresentation to the HEPAPSubpanel on the University Grants ProgamSubpanel on the University Grants Progam

Robert P. JohnsonUniversity of California at Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics

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GLAST MissionGLAST MissionGLAST Gamma-Ray Observatory:• LAT ~20 MeV and up• GBM 20 keV to 20 MeV• Spacecraft bus

LAT

GBM

spacecraft partner:

(General Dynamics)

LAT

GBM

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GLAST LAT CollaborationGLAST LAT CollaborationUnited States• California State University at Sonoma• University of California at Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz Institute of Particle Physics • Goddard Space Flight Center – Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics• Naval Research Laboratory• Ohio State University• Stanford University (SLAC and HEPL/Physics)• University of Washington• Washington University, St. LouisFrance• IN2P3, CEA/SaclayItaly• INFN, ASIJapan• Hiroshima University• ISAS, RIKENSweden• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)• Stockholm University

Only 2 DOE supported university groups, and no NSF support.

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UCSC/SCIPP Particle-AstroUCSC/SCIPP Particle-Astro

• Don Coyne’s NSF group, now headed by David Williams:– Cygnus air shower array at Los Alamos

– Milagro air-shower water-Čerenkov detector near Los Alamos

– STACEE Čerenkov telescope

– Veritas Čerenkov telescope array: so far not successful in securing significant NSF funding for participation in this project.

• SCIPP Astrophysics Initiative: University commitment to fund 4 new faculty positions in this area.– David Smith: balloon and space-based x-ray detectors

– Anthony Aguirre: theory, especially cosmology

– New faculty search in progress

• The remaining two new positions may be filled this winter.

• R. Johnson’s GLAST group:– Faculty: Atwood and Johnson, plus participation in hardware and

software by Sadrozinski and Schalk.

– Two postdocs and 3 graduate students.

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GLAST TrackerGLAST Tracker• UCSC effort started by Johnson in 1994.

– Prototypes for beamtests in 1997 and 1999, built primarily at UCSC

– Flight Tracker design and fabrication led by Johnson as subsystem manager; Background rejection and simulation led by Atwood.

– Readout electronics design and fabrication led by UCSC

• UCSC hardware work was supported by DOE funds redirected by SLAC.

• 1 postdoc, 1 student, and 2 faculty summer salaries are now supported on the DOE grant.

• Atwood, 2nd postdoc, and other students are supported by NASA funds obtained through Stanford.

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Transition from Accelerator-Based WorkTransition from Accelerator-Based Work

• Johnson previously worked on the BaBar SVT electronics (which was the starting point of the LAT Tracker electronics design).

• His GLAST involvement represented a unique and new path within the DOE supported SCIPP group.– Initial work was done primarily with NASA development funds.– A GLAST postdoc was requested from DOE for many years and

finally received about halfway through the instrument fabrication.– Johnson had to rely on fabrication funding from SLAC to

maintain the group through most of the program• This was not completely appropriate for postdocs, who

ideally should be spending some time on science.• The Tracker fabrication was completed more than a year

ago, ending the flow of fabrication funds.

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UCSC GLAST Group FundingUCSC GLAST Group Funding

• Our NASA funding currently is for the Phase-C/D part of the mission (pre-launch).

• Phase-E funding (post-launch) is only approved at a level that will support about 80% of Atwood and one student.

• Michelson has had a Phase-E proposal into NASA for a long time, in part to increase the UCSC support, to provide a postdoc and two students.– This has become greatly complicated by large Phase-E increases

requested by SLAC in the same proposal.

– NASA rejected the proposal in the first go-around because they could not understand the SLAC costs.

• We have also tried to request a 2nd postdoc from DOE instead, but that is going nowhere because of the continuing resolution.

• Consequently, our group has no assurance of adequate manpower to exploit GLAST post-launch (this October), after working intensively on the hardware and software for more than a decade.

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OSU GLAST GroupOSU GLAST Group

• Two faculty: R. Hughes and B. Winer.• Relative latecomers to the LAT collaboration, but they have made

important contributions, particularly to the trigger.– They indicated that the DOE was initially skeptical of their plan

but has since recognized the importance of their contributions.• There were some funding difficulties in transitioning from

accelerator-based projects to GLAST:– They were denied all requests for a transition “bump” in funding,

to allow a quick ramp-up in LAT work (i.e. hiring a GLAST postdoc and/or student) while maintaining existing commitments, including 2 postdocs who had been hired to work on accelerator experiments.

– Currently the group is still about 50/50 accelerator/astro.

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NSF and GLASTNSF and GLAST

• An unsuccessful attempt was made in the early years of GLAST by several NSF groups to secure NSF support for the program (prior to the final NASA award of the LAT to our collaboration).

• The GLAST University of Washington group (Toby Burnett, et al.) has been instrumental from the beginning in the LAT-program software development.– They participated in the unsuccessful proposal mentioned

above.– NSF has thus far not been interested in funding them (or

anybody else) on GLAST.– Their efforts are largely supported by NASA funds directed to

them through Stanford University.

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More General ConcernsMore General Concerns

• Flat or declining funding of the University Program over the past decade has made it difficult for new groups (such as the OSU group) to start up and for individuals in existing groups to go in new directions.

• Similarly, there has been a decline in infrastructure in most institutions. – The existing infrastructure at UCSC, especially from previous

programs in SSD-based systems, was critical in the success of GLAST. We used it heavily in the 1990’s to demonstrate the LAT concept and ultimately to win the NASA award.

– That infrastructure definitely has declined since then, both in terms of technical staff and up-to-date equipment.

– Sadrozinski’s suggestion: award infrastructure support to be shared among R&D consortia. A very good example was the SSC research organization.

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ConclusionConclusion

• Two DOE-supported university groups have been successful in making major, project-enabling contributions to the fabrication of the LAT instrument.

• Support to the university groups for scientific exploitation of GLAST remains uncertain.

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GLAST Science OpportunitiesGLAST Science Opportunities

• Active Galactic Nuclei

• Extra-galactic Background Light (EBL)

• Isotropic Diffuse Background Radiation

• Endpoints of Stellar Evolution– Neutron Stars/Pulsars

– Black Holes

• Cosmic Ray Production:– Identify sites and mechanisms

• Gamma-Ray Bursts

• Solar Physics

• DISCOVERY!– Identifying known sources

– New classes of -ray sources?

– Dark Matter (WIMPs)?

– New cosmological relics?

– Dispersion in vacuum?