The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)’s Panel of Experts on the ILC has reinstated their working group on elementary particle physics (Chair: Director Takashi Nakano of Osaka University’s Research Center for Nuclear Physics) due to the recent changes to the ILC plan. They met for the second time since reinstatement on February 5th at MEXT.

Twelve members were in attendance. Prof. Shoji Asai of the International Center for Elementary Particle Physics of the University of Tokyo explained that a Japanese research facility for high energy physics had looked into and confirmed the changes to the ILC plan that have reduced the length of its initial stage. “We can still expect to get a good amount of results for close study of the Higgs particle, and it’s an advantage to the ILC that it can be lengthened in the future.”

Regarding CERN’s involvement, he said, “The quality of research will only improve by sharing their knowledge and research done at their circular collider.”

Georg Weiglein, leading scientist at DESY (Hamburg, Germany), stressed the synergy that would take place between the ILC and research done at circular colliders.

Members asked about how important the ILC was to scientists compared to other colliders, and how German physicists thought about China’s push to build a new collider.

Their next meeting will be in March. Chair Nakano said, “I hope to take everyone’s thoughts and consolidate our important talking points for debate at the next meeting.”