About 450 people participated in this years FCC Week, where the full FCC project is reviewed in many sessions and even more presentations. The majority of them in parallel. The scene was set in the old St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, now called ‘The Westin – St. Francis’.
The St. Francis hotel is located on Powell Street which is a typical San Franciscan street including the wavy patterns on the downhill and the cable car going up and down.
The week started with the usual plenary summarizing the external status and the internal status of the FCC project. The project is proceeding at high speed and the final report for the feasibility study will come together quickly. Fabiola Gianotti’s and Michael Benedikt’s reports tell a good story. There is also new information from the funding agencies. It is clear the project is moving along, but there are major hurdles to be taken.
As usual the FCC Week is an overwhelming event. There are sessions on Civil Engineering, Accelerator Research, Detector Development, and Physics Analyses. A rich environment that gives the project an impressive buzz of reality. The conversations in the lunch and coffee breaks had streaks of confidence and doubt, conversations about the enormous costs, the positions of different countries (like for example Germany or the Chinese Project), alternatives for the future and the stunning physics potential the FCC will provide over the years of operation.
I was asked to give a summary of the event, there were of course several. I traveled to San Francisco with the task in mind but not worrying to much until my arrival on Monday. I reviewed the agenda and indeed I was slated for the ‘physics summary’ which I interpreted as summarizing two sessions on Tuesday which seemed rather tame and I was done by Wednesday night … until I was informed on Thursday morning that Physics includes all of the detector sessions as well. It was an intense Thursday, but the summary turned out fine in the end.
During the review I also learned that the US organization of the FCC is being formalized right now and there will be a more structured organization to make sure money can be injected into the project to further the US based R&D for the project. From the end of the MAPS vertex detectors there was a great presentation of a basic design by Fabrizio Palla and an adhoc meeting was organized by Carl Haber to see what the US community wants to do. It was constructive as we could see the people in the room that are interested and we make some contact and talk about possible projects we would like to pursue. There will be a meeting dedicated to MAPS detectors at CERN on July 1/2, 2024.
All in all it was an electrifying meeting bustling with people believing in the FCC option for the future. We exchanged ideas and point of views. People from Organization, Accelerator, Experiment and Theory alike felt that this could be a great future and the excitement is continuing to build.