Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1.89 million for 14 collaborative research projects in high energy physics that extend a robust history of collaboration with Japanese investigators.
For over forty years, collaboration between U.S. and Japanese scientists has enabled progress in some of the most challenging areas in high energy physics. Working together, researchers have explored the universe at the smallest and largest scales, from the most elementary constituents of matter and energy to the nature of space and time.
The long history of U.S.-Japan cooperation includes many significant milestones, such as the contributions by Japanese collaborators on the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider to the discovery of the top quark in 1995. High energy physics continues to play a major role in nurturing top scientific talent and building and sustaining the nation's scientific workforce.
"Our office welcomes the continuation of the fruitful collaboration with our scientific colleagues in Japan," said Harriet Kung, DOE Deputy Director for Science Programs for the Office of Science and Acting Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics (HEP). "We are confident that this endeavor will continue to produce world-leading discovery science that also will benefit society at large."
Projects funded in this announcement will support current experiments and technology development of mutual interest to U.S.-Japan collaborations. Research topics include advancing the understanding of neutrinos, quantum sensing, superconducting magnets and cavities, and machine learning, as well as the development of particle accelerator and semiconductor detector technologies that will benefit future research in these areas.
The projects submitted to DOE were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE National Laboratory Announcement for the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics. The Japanese Principal Investigator for each proposed U.S.-Japan collaboration applied to a coordinated call by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Japan for support in the joint activity. Final selections were determined with strategic coordination between the DOE and the KEK, with each providing funding to the successful U.S. and Japanese awards, respectively.
Total funding is $1.89 million for projects lasting up to three years in duration. The list of projects can be found on the HEP homepage under the heading "What's New."