STFC has cancelled the ATLAS Forward Proton project in which our group was heavily invested. This project was initiated and led by UK physicists, including major experimental and theoretical contributions from our group. Rolling Grant staff will be redeployed to other ATLAS projects or to SuperNEMO. This demonstrates how important it is to be a strong group with a broad base of projects.

As part of the ongoing reorganisation, Un-Ki Yang and Mike Seymour have taken over the responsibility for the Manchester Grid group (Alessandra Forti, Andrew McNab, Owen McShane and Stuart Wild) while Stefan will take over as PI of the grant from Roger who had successfully led this effort for many years. Photo: The Manchester Tier2 Centre.

The current end date for running the Tevatron is September 2011. It has been proposed earlier this year to extend the running of the Tevatron until 2014, giving the two collider experiments, Dzero and CDF, the opportunity to double their currently available data set. The main goal is to find evidence for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the favoured mass range between 115 GeV and about 190 GeV. At ICHEP the combined data of both experiments already allowed to exclude about 25% of this mass range.

The Spokesperson of both experiments presented the case for extended running at a special meeting of Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee (PAC) on August 27.

A decision is expected soon. Our group has a strong involvement in Dzero and also participates in CDF with Un-Ki Yang.

On September 15 and 16, we will interview the candidates for the position of a ‘Senior Experimental Officer’. The candidates will give presentations which are open to all interested members of the Group.

If you have any news for the monthly newsletter, please send them to soldner@fnal.gov.

The 11th International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics will be held in Manchester from September 13-17 in the Stopford Building. Have a look at the agenda. George Lafferty is the main organiser of the conference.

Brian Cox and John Womersley on the effect of spending cuts on the UK’s CERN involvement (Guardian, 26 August)

UK scientists on collision course over £1bn research cuts