The FY 2002 Budget for High Energy Physics

The field of High Energy Physics is entering an era of discovery worldwide, and the most exciting opportunities are available at the two U.S. laboratories, Fermilab and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). For the U.S. program to take advantage of those opportunities while preparing to remain among the world’s leaders in the future requires a funding level for High Energy Physics significantly above the present level. Increased support is required not only for the accelerator laboratories but also for the large number of university physicists who carry out research at those laboratories. In fact, the funding level for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science as a whole has fallen below the level needed to realize the scientific potential of the research programs it supports.

The U.S. has been at the forefront of High Energy Physics since the field formed in the 1950s. A 1998 study by the National Research Council noted that 18 physicists won the Nobel Prize for research in this field from 1973 to 1998, 14 of whom did their breakthrough research in the U.S. The field today receives the same funding level in constant dollars as in 1973, however, while the cost to do competitive research has steadily increased, as it has in other fields. European support for HEP has steadily increased over that period until it is much greater than in the U.S. As a result, CERN will have the only accelerator capable of studying the new energy frontier at the end of this decade, the LHC. To remain a full partner in this international field, the U.S. needs to be preparing to build a new facility in this country that will also address the questions that will be the most important ten years from now. The alternative is that the U.S. program take on a secondary role in the future, doing its research only at accelerators in Europe and Japan.

In October, 2000 the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) wrote a white paper that assessed the status and future of the field. This document states that "taking advantage of these facilities requires greater funding for operations than the significantly reduced level of the last several years." Looking to the future, it concludes that "current funding levels for R&D toward new accelerators are endangering the near and far term future of the field, and should be increased substantially."

The U.S. is falling steadily behind in supporting not only High Energy Physics, but the whole of the physical sciences. Harold Varmus wrote in an op-ed piece: “But Congress is not addressing with sufficient vigor the compelling needs of the other science agencies, especially the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. This disparity in treatment undermines the balance of the sciences that is essential to progress in all spheres, including medicine.” To turn around the declining Office of Science budgets of the last decade we need annual increases on the order of 15%. Budgetary increases of this magnitude have strengthened the NIH over the past decade and more recently the NSF.

The comprehensive 1993 study by the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Technology, and the Federal Government, National Goals for a New Era states: “The first goal is that the United States should be among the world leaders in all major areas of science. Achieving this goal would allow this nation quickly to apply and extend advances in science wherever they occur.” For many fields supported by the Office of Science, including many of the physical sciences, we risk failing to achieve this goal.

High energy physicists working at Fermilab’s Tevatron collider and SLAC’s B-Factory have opportunities for important discoveries in the next few years. These advances should point the way to a new picture of matter, space, and time. The science questions are compelling and we have the facilities needed to answer them. What is needed to take advantage of the opportunities and keep the U.S. at the forefront in the field is a budget increase for High Energy Physics of 15% in FY 2002, to a level of $810 million.