Snowmass Process
How_to_Snowmass-final-links.pdfHow to Snowmass Document by Chris Quigg. The document was written in 2020 but it is still relevant
Snowmass 2021
The official website to snowmass 2021 is [https://snowmass21.org/]. The snowmass (Snowmass Community Planning Exercise) is usually conducted every 10 years. This is organized by the Division of Particles and Field (DPF) of the American Physics Society (APS). While the main event of the snowmass is the community gathering (organized in University of Washington, Seattle in 2023), the preparations are underway long time before.
The following are the parties involved in the snowmass process:
- The HEP community
The HEP community is basically professors and scientists from universities and DOE lab. It also includes the internal partners from Europe, Japan, India, China etc. People with similar ideas for the next 10 years of the US HEP get together, document their ideas and suggestions (white papers) and send them to one of the 12 frontiers of HEP. During the snowmass process, a report is compiled together based on those suggestions.
During the town-hall meeting held across universities and labs in the US, the reports are subjected to the HEP community for further discussion.
2. Funding Agencies
The funding agencies like NSF and DOE initiate the snowmass process by giving the HEPAP (High Energy Physics Advisory Panel) charge to form the P5 committee [http://hitoshi.berkeley.edu/P5/charge.pdf] with various aspects (budgetary, national interest etc) to consider. The HEPAP then call for nominations for the P5 committee. The HEP members can self nominate or nominate others for the P5. Based on the suggestions of the community and the expertise of the nomination pool, a P5 committee (20 members for snowmass 2021) is formed.
So the funding agencies have the following important tasks:
a. Form the P5 committee
b. Give charge (tasks) to the P5 committee with the constrains (like various budgetary scenarios, thresholds, previous snowmass etc).
c. Review the P5 report and submit to the congress (by the DOE, Office of science). Use the report to guide the HEP priorities of the US for the next 10 years and prepare funding plans accordingly.
3. P5 (Particle Physics Prioritization Panel)
The P5 committee basically is formed for a period of ~2 years. During their time in the committee, the members take part in snowmass process, listen to the discussions and concerns from the HEP community and involve in the report writing process in all frontiers. Based on the snowmass meetings and the subsequent discussions in various town-hall meetings, the P5 committee prepares the report which is then submitted to the DOE and NSF. This report forms the basis of US HEP strategy for the next 10 years.
4. International Partners of the US HEP
International partners like CERN, IHEP and KEK have the observation status. Since HEP experiments are mostly international collaborations, both national and international parts get together to build large experiments. During the snowmass process, the P5 includes experts from around the world. Similarly, partners give their inputs and opinions during the town-hall meetings which are taken into consideration during the report writing.
5. General Public
Town-hall meetings are open to general public. Even though the general public doesn't seem to get involved in the snowmass process (as far as I have noticed so far), they do play very big role because the experiments are based on tax paid by the general public (of both US and partner nations). The report is made public and the HEP experiments should benefit the general public in terms of understanding the fundamental properties of particles and nature. Technologies developed by experiments has to be put into public use wherever possible and the proposed HEP experiments should address the US national address.
