# The Implications of the FY06 Budget: the BTeV Cancellation

Ten years ago, several of us embarked on a scientific journey to build
the best B physics experiment in the world. Over time, the effort grew
to175 physicists from 28 universities and 3 national laboratories
(Fermilab, IHEP/Protvino in Russia and Frascati Lab in Italy) in seven
countries who contributed their ideas, time, and talents to the effort.
On Monday February 7, 2005, we received the news that the BTeV project
was cancelled, marking the premature and untimely end of that journey.
This statement, which is the consensus of the collaboration and the
project, is our comment on the impact of cancellation In writing this,
one of the most difficult challenges for us is to avoid recriminations
and to try to make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the
budget process and the way in which projects are treated within it. We
hope we have succeeded in that goal but we will make some statements
that might make people uncomfortable. We hope we can stimulate a real
discussion of the issues we raise.

The most significant effects on High Energy Physics of the FY06 Budget
are the multiple impacts from the loss of BTeV. First, there is the loss
of science that will follow from the termination of BTeV. We discuss the
"scientific argument" that was cited for our cancellation and expose its
flaws with the hope that we can prevent it from being used against other
projects. Second, we believe that the process for advancing scientific
projects in the DOE is broken We address this on three levels: a high
level view based on the recent history of projects in the DOE Office of
High Energy Physics, OHEP; a more BTeV-specific view based on the abrupt
way in which we were terminated; and a view of the advisory and peer
review process. It is imperative for US science that this process is
fixed! Third, we discuss the effect of the cancellation of BTeV on
Fermilab, US HEP, and our international partners. We want DOE to work to
reassure Fermilab that it has a future and to show more sensitivity to
the issues of international collaboration. Finally, we discuss the
significance of the cancellation as part of a process in which HEP is
being "outsourced" and discuss the implications of this for the physical
sciences in the US.

## Loss of Science

BTeV would have studied CP violation and rare decays of particles
containing Bottom and Charm quarks. The goal was to look for new sources
of CP violation that would explain why the amount of matter in our
universe is so much larger than predicted by the Standard Model. The
study of these new sources would have complemented the direct
observation of them at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and
helped determine the properties of new physics seen there. BTeV planned
to use several relatively new technologies, applied in innovative ways,
including a system of 23 million silicon pixels that are part of a
massively parallel Level 1 trigger, followed by a massively parallel
Level 2/3 trigger and a lead tungstate crystal calorimeter that allowed
precision studies of final states containing photons, π^o^'s and η's.
BTeV would have had the ability to record a wider range of different
types of B decays, especially those of the B~s~ meson, than any other
experiment and would have studied decays that contained photons, which
are some of the key ones for finding new physics. While some of BTeV's
physics reach overlapped that of LHCb at the LHC, a significant part of
it was unique, going beyond what could be done there. The existence of
LHCb and this area of overlap were well known at the time of the
inclusion of BTeV in the Office of Science Twenty Year Facility Plan.
Our contention that BTeV would be the best B experiment ever built and
would do physics beyond what any other experiment, including LHCb, could
do was one of the most reviewed and best-supported claims in the history
of US high energy physics. Furthermore, the new technologies had already
been subjected to substantial development and testing and there was no
question that they would have worked as evidenced by BTeV having passed
many technical and cost reviews.

Dr. Orbach, Head of the DOE Office of Science, is quoted as saying BTeV
was covering the same territory as LHCb. This is not accurate since BTeV
had unique capabilities on many key states. With BTeV's cancellation,
there is a large scientific territory that will not be covered. But,
this also misses an important point. Results in physics and all science
require confirmation. Competition and confirmation are central concepts
of experimental research. Even where the two experiments do cover the
same territory, the presence of each of them is still crucial to the
successful accomplishment of a scientific program. Attacking the same
problem with different techniques, and different sources of systematic
uncertainty, helps eliminate errors. Friendly competition sharpens
everyone's game and people also share ideas and approaches. We want to
remind people of this because as long as there are active and
imaginative scientists in Europe and Asia, they and we will always be
trying to answer the most important scientific questions. If the
appearance of a proposal anywhere else in the world makes US efforts in
that area automatically redundant, because the territory will be
"covered" in the minds of our scientific policy makers, and that results
in further cancellations, how will be able to do any program in the US?
The next neutrino project will face exactly this issue because of the
J-PARC program. If we don't change this attitude, since we in the US
have the most demanding approval process of any nation, and since we
demand huge schedule floats while ceding to our competitors "just in
time schedules" with no float, we will always start a little later than
the competition and look like we are going to finish behind them and our
projects will always be vulnerable to cancellation.

## Broken Process for getting projects funded

### The Process is broken: A high Level view

This cancellation demonstrates that the project approval process in HEP
is broken. The first way to see this is to look at the situation at a
very high level. The last major project (\>\$50M) to be approved to
operate at a domestic accelerator lab in HEP was NUMI/MINOS, which was
approved in 1999. Since then, only the small Run 2b upgrade, the
remainder after 2/3 of that project was cancelled, has gone forward.
During this period, several projects were initiated in the US. KAMI, a
neutral kaon experiment, was rejected by the Fermilab PAC. The Run 2b
upgrade, CKM, a charged kaon experiment, and BTeV were approved by
Fermilab. The Fermilab Director, and P5 rejected the silicon upgrades
for Run 2b after their initial approval. P5 also recommended against
doing CKM. P5 endorsed BTeV. BTeV was also included in the DOE
Facilities 20 Year plan that Ray Orbach put together. In early 2004,
BTeV was included in the President's FY05 budget. In February of 2004,
BTeV received CD0 from Ray Orbach and later in the fall received a
"conditional CD1 (pending resolution of a technical problem with an OECM
review of a document)." In December of 2004, BTeV had a CD2/CD3a review
that it passed with very high marks and was recommended for baselining
and start of limited construction. The BTeV project used the DOE
management structure, understood and complied with the 413.3 order,
worked within the Integrated Project Team structure, and has been able
to meet the requirements to be a DOE project with success. With the
termination of BTeV and the completion of NUMI/MINOS, HEP effectively
has no major accelerator-based construction projects at a domestic
facility operated by OHEP. This has not happened in recent memory. **A
process that demands so much of the proponents, in excess of 500
FTE-years in BTeV's case, and cannot advance one project in 5 or 6 years
is broken!**

### The process is broken: a view from the ground

The DOE has a very demanding process for approving projects that
requires enormous scientific, technical, and managerial effort by the
proponents. We invested this effort with the belief that our partners in
the DOE would work with us throughout the budget process. We believed
that, after some initial skepticism, OHEP had developed respect for our
science and confidence in our technical and management capabilities. We
repeat that in mid-December, we had a CD2/3a Lehman review that we
passed with flying colors. It recommended baselining the project and
beginning limited construction and we believed we were in good shape.

The first news we had that the project was cancelled was the
announcement by Secretary Bodman on Feb 7. Our shock and disappointment
was compounded by the fact that OHEP had never requested information
from us about the possibility of dealing with funding profiles other
than the one provided to us by Fermilab and that we fit into for the
baseline review. Based on what we heard from Fermilab, the shortfall
with respect to their expectations for FY06 was about \$8M. If they had
asked us whether BTeV could have absorbed this whole reduction, the
project would have bravely and energetically executed a new round of
value engineering and de-scoping to match the new situation, as we had
done in the past when OHEP questioned our schedule. We had also obtained
\$9.5M of forward funding from our university groups and significant
funding from the INFN in Italy. We do not know if the Office of Science
was aware of the possibility of restructuring the project, which was
certainly known to OHEP staff and Fermilab management. We are confident
that we could have maintained the schedule with little slippage had we
been given the opportunity. We feel we should have been asked to respond
to a range of budget scenarios, which could have been done without us
knowing the details of the budget. This could have been addressed at the
Lehman review. By being cancelled in this fashion, we were given no
opportunity to try to deal with the realities of the FY06 budget and
out-year projections. Most projects that received cuts in the DOE were
given the opportunity to work within the system to make adjustments to
the cost and schedule, not killed outright.

We believe that we could have lived within austere budgets in FY06 and
FY07 and found a way to stay close to a schedule that has about 1 year
of float. We also point out that we are competing with an experiment
whose startup is also likely to be delayed. However, we could not have
sustained shortfalls indefinitely. It occurs to us that DOE may already
know that it is highly likely that there will be bad budgets for HEP for
many years. If so, we appeal to them to make this known to any new
projects that might start through the approval process. People should
start down the path of project development and approval with some
reasonable understanding of the probability of success. The cancellation
of BTeV just as construction was to start resulted in a massive waste of
effort and money in a time when both are in short supply. We estimate
that the total sum of money invested in BTeV, not including salaries of
University based personnel, was in excess of 25 M\$.

### The process is broken: The HEP review process

The last HEPAP Subpanel convened P5 to "prioritize" medium-cost projects
with the hope that by doing this, the ones that survived would be
funded. The thought was that P5 approval would provide assurance that
all issues were examined. While BTeV had the unenviable privilege of two
appearances before P5, and the second one, while reconfirming us, raised
concerns about the schedule, we still have expired with the positive
recommendation of every advisory committee and inclusion in the Office
of Science 20 Year Facilities Plan. All projects that went into P5 got
killed (at least in part) or cancelled, whether P5 was the agent or not.
What then does the advisory process mean?

This is important because at this meeting HEPAP will discuss renewing P5
and setting up νSAG. If these panels deliberate and reach a positive
conclusion, we want to believe that that projects that are approved will
be funded, not that they be given the opportunity to do lots more work
before they are killed.

## Impact on Fermilab 

At Fermilab, most, but not all, people see this decision as a disaster.
BTeV was Fermilab's next program and was intended to be one of the two
central elements of the particle physics program at U.S. accelerators at
the end of this decade and into the early part of the next decade. The
FY2005 budget was not very good and the staff is already worried. The
FY06 budget language has brought a sense of fear to the scientific and
technical staff. The decision to cancel BTeV eliminated Fermilab's only
new project, a project that all four scientific and technical Divisions
were working on. Without a new project, many of Fermilab's best people,
who thrive in an environment with technical challenges, will probably
leave. Fermilab employees are left to question what the future holds for
them. Without BTeV, the Tevatron will be turned off in 2009. Many jobs
are connected to the Tevatron operations. Much of the Particle Physics
Division was planning to work on the BTeV detector. There are rumors
among lab employees that large layoffs are imminent. Operations after
2010 are also threatened by the language of the budget. Our field and
future scientific discoveries are being "outsourced."

We keep hearing how important Fermilab is to the future of US HEP but
the budget never seems to reflect this importance. According to the
budget, SLAC is leaving the business of operating accelerators for HEP
after 2008 when the B Factory will shut down. It is imperative to
strengthen Fermilab and provide it with a future program that is
reasonably certain to be supported and makes scientific sense. We do not
think this can wait for very long.

## Impact on foreign collaborators and implications for the US as host of international projects

## 

The effect on our International Collaborators has of course also been
devastating. The main issue here is that the US reputation in such
endeavors, already not good, has suffered. Our four Italian groups had
obtained INFN funding, about \~7.5M\$ (equivalent). The future plans of
our Italian colleagues have been destroyed, along with ours, and their
careers negatively affected. We doubt that they will work in the U. S.
again even though they have been working at Fermilab for the last 20
years. Our Russian and Chinese collaborators have also experienced
similar effects. The Russian group has also been working at Fermilab for
several decades and had obtained funding from Russia to support their
participation in BTeV. They have expressed to us their disgust with our
process and predict it will have serious negative effect in promoting
any international collaborative effort in the U. S. Letters from the
Principle Investigators of these groups have been sent to HEPAP giving
their reaction. We have to find a way to show more respect for our
international collaborators and to have more transparency in our process
so that they can understand it and understand both the potential
benefits and risks of participating. One foreign collaborator said in a
letter to HEPAP "I have been a member of BTeV essentially since its
inception and I\'d just like to add my voice to the disillusioned
international collaborators on the now cancelled project. A big part of
the problem I had selling BTeV was a hesitance by my compatriots to get
involved in the US because of funding uncertainties. I realize that
there has to be accountability to US (and other) taxpayers and that any
large, expensive project needs to be reviewed and placed in the context
of the physics priorities of the nation. However, the system as it was
applied to BTeV makes it basically impossible for any international
collaborator to commit to a project. I have been involved in projects at
DESY and CERN and in Japan and in these cases I could go to the funding
agencies and say how much I wanted for doing science at a facility or
project without having to convince them that it wasn\'t going to just
disappear. Somehow the U.S. has to create a system or modify the present
system so that a commitment can be made to a project that is shielded by
the annual political wrangling that goes on in Washington. Otherwise, I
don\'t see how I, as a foreign collaborator, can consider to participate
in US led projects in the future. And I can honestly say that I am very
sad to have to write those words as I have enjoyed working on projects
in the US and I think there are a number of exciting projects in the
works.

## "Outsourcing HEP": a bad strategy for our nation

Our final point concerns science education and the ability to attract
young people to the physical sciences. This is intended to provide
arguments for our DOE colleagues to use in defending HEP in the budget
process to avoid future cancellations. High Energy Physics addresses
questions that are very remote from everyday life. One might ask why we
cannot let Europe and Japan do the costly projects and make the
scientific discoveries. Another way to ask the question is, "Why can't
the US (or any nation) be a leader in scientific applications, without
sustaining the expense of investigating science's great mysteries by
doing costly basic research?" While we can cite the intellectual value
of the research and the obligation of a great nation to study the great
questions of physics, we want to raise two more practical and more
urgent issues.

First, basic sciences push to look at the most extreme conditions in the
universe and try to achieve improvements of large factors like a 100
every few years. To do this, they are always aggressively pushing
technology and demanding more of industry. By working with industry,
often "Under the Radar,"[^1] we can help propel new ideas and products.
This quote is just one small, but significant example, taken from a book
about Red Hat Linux:

"... Fermilab, the federally funded atom-smashing think tank overseen by
the US Department of Energy, was a mecca of the world's top nuclear
physicists. It had quietly added a new flavor of system software to its
roster of those driving the lab's network of computers. ... Such sites
were known in the computer industry as "early adopters," technically
savvy users that were often the first to install leading edge products
before the market had fully accepted them."

This is one example of how HEP really helped a fledgling company, which
has now become an operating system power, get started by our need to
seize cutting-edge technology and put it to work.

If we outsource HEP and other basic research, it is likely that our best
people will instead work with the best companies in Europe and Asia to
help them get a head start on technological innovations, rather than
work with US companies.

Second, much of our prosperity since the end of World War II has come
from progress in the physical sciences. Innovations in many fields,
especially medicine, are made possible by using techniques developed in
physics. We have wonderful new opportunities for commercial development
of nano-technology, quantum coherence and other recent discoveries. Yet,
it is very difficult to attract young people to study and pursue careers
in the physical sciences because these are difficult disciplines and not
as financially rewarding as other endeavors. This is becoming an even
more serious problem in the post 9/11 world, since it is more difficult
for foreign students, who have recently constituted a significant
fraction of our enrollment in science programs, to gain access to the
US. High Energy Physics has been a **"first attractor"**[^2] of young
people to science, especially physics. It offers some of the "big ideas"
and "big devices" that fascinate and excite young students. Once their
attention is engaged, they study and explore and they often discover
other areas of science or technology that they find more appealing.
Science as a whole benefits, not just High Energy Physics. Many people
on the Fermilab staff came to the US to be part of the program at the
world's energy frontier machine, and stayed in the US. Europe and Japan
recognize the drawing power of HEP and basic research. We cannot as a
nation afford to lose our "first attractors" or to outsource them to
Europe and Asia. To do so would put the physical sciences in the US at
risk, and reduce our self-reliance in key areas of economic
competitiveness, military strength, and security. We need to protect the
"first attractors" we have, and develop new ones. The decline of our HEP
program and the weakening of Fermilab and SLAC are not sound national
strategies for science.

## Concluding Remarks

The BTeV collaboration and project hope that the issues we have raised
here today will help prevent others from suffering the abrupt
cancellation of their initiatives. We have asked DOE to adopt a new view
of international competition; we have asked for process improvement in
the way projects are advanced; we know that Fermilab, the central HEP
laboratory in the US has been damaged, and asked that it be repaired; we
have decried our lack of dependability as an international partner and
urged that it be fixed so that we can have the opportunity to host
world-wide facilities in the future; and finally we have argued against
the outsourcing of HEP to Europe and Asia.

Some members of BTeV believe that the termination of BTeV, the end of
operations of the B Factory in 2008 and the Tevatron in 2009, and
possibly the shut down of the Main Injector program soon after will mark
the end of the US as a provider of facilities to carry out this kind of
basic research. Some of us are more optimistic and will continue to
pursue a better understanding of why we were cancelled and to work
towards fixing the problems that we see with the hope of creating a
brighter future for US HEP.

Recently, one of our younger colleagues sent an EMAIL to the BTeV
collaboration with a quote from a former president, Theodore Roosevelt.
We leave it with you as our valedictory.

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs
and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best,
knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if
he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or
defeat."

[^1]: From "Under the Radar," How Red Hat Changed the Software Business
    -- and Took Microsoft by Surprise. Robert Young, CEO of Red Hat and
    Wendy Goldman Rohm. Fermilab's adoption of Red Hat Linux in 1998
    appears in the "timeline" of the company's major events. This
    information was provided by Dr. G. P. Yeh of Fermilab.

[^2]: This is similar to the concept of "Portals" often used at meetings
    on how to recruit new students to science.