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A significant piece of the effort should be focused on experimental work, both "classical" and "novel" with close contact of theoretical interpretation. Identifying a select set of the most promising experiments will be a challenge.

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Clearly it is the presence of SNOLAB itself!

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The limited size of the subatomic physics funding envelope is a significant challenge ... one that the McDonald Institute's efforts to grow the community through faculty hires is likely to worsen until it becomes an acute crisis. If there is anything that the McDonald Institute needs to be planning for, it is how NSERC is going to deal with all of these newly grant-eligible people applying for money all at once.

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Dark matter candidates be ever more tightly constrained with experimental *and* astrophysical data. And, new candidates will be proposed. This is a lively field of huge interest.

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SNOlab for its leadership and the fact that Canada did get it done in the end.

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At present, the only people formally associated with the Institute are the directors and staff and the faculty and postdocs hired into MI-funded faculty and postdoc positions (and the latter aren't yet listed on the MI website.) .   The website does list affiliated universities and research centres.

The Institute could begin to reach out more broadly to researchers across the country by establishing an "affiliate" or "associate" designation, open to all researchers at Cdn universities or centres involved in astro particle physics.  The Institute would want to think about what goes with this designation (e.g., ability to apply for pooled funding,  student support, etc.)

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Finding a balance between funding the most promising experiments and providing support for a wider variety of smaller initiatives. 

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Finding a balance between funding the most promising experiments and providing support for a wider variety of smaller initiatives. 

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Establish a tighter network of collaborative links among the members of the astroparticle community (including between theorists and experimentalists) that will persist beyond the 7-year term of the CFREF grant.

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Hopefully discover dark matter! But if not, we will have learned a lot about what dark matter is *not*. I agree about the importance of combined constraints from direct-detection and astrophysical/indirect-detection sources. Theory input is essential for interpreting the interplay between different types of experiments. (Showing my theory bias here. :)

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I agree: we have SNOLab. :) Very deep and very clean, with enough space for big experiments. The greater depth is why SuperCDMS moved to Canada. It would be nice to add something here about collegiality within the community, and the low impedance for communication and collaboration between experimentalists working on different experiments (but similar technologies) and (ideally) also the Canadian theory community (both particle and nuclear -- I gather that TRIUMF Nuclear Theory people have been doing some important work on WIMP-nucleon scattering formfactors). Also for students, the ability to make an impact in a world-leading experiment and the generally good environment.

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Making it clearer how to get on the mailing list! More seriously, what do people think about holding a couple of targeted workshops each year? My interest would be most aligned with joint theory/experiment workshops related to dark matter.

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Top cons: The proliferation of too many experiments within the small Canadian astroparticle community has been an ongoing issue for the past decade -- the impression has been that the experimentalists are spread too thin to be able to deliver progress in a timely manner.  (This has come up in IPP long-range planning and NSERC discussions.)  In some cases, PIs have too much power over other faculty on the same experiment, leading to conflicts.  Better governance a la the collider experiments may be in order.

Top pros: Canada has an enviable record with the original SNO experiment, and with SNOLab and the CFREF we are a young (at heart), growing, and very creative field. There's the potential to make world-leading advances here. Also our NSERC funding system is so much more nimble and less politicized compared to the U.S. DOE bureaucracy. With the increase in tri-council funding following the Naylor report, we are probably going to be in great shape for the next few years.

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Carleton has a big underground-science experimental group and a big theory/phenomenology group with interests in dark matter (among other things). We are a natural place for theory/experiment interactions. We have a joint theory/experiment astroparticle seminar series (maybe monthly?) funded by CPARC starting in September, and a CPARC theory postdoc arriving in January 2019. We need to get our act together and organize our first thy/expt workshop.

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Hold joint theory-experiment workshops for both thinking about how to optimize the scientific output of existing experiments and think about where to go next. Also work to establish more interactions between Canadian institutions. Could do this but supporting travel between institutions to give seminars and colloquia.

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Perhaps discover dark matter but most likely put constraints on what it might be or isn't. Need to put experimental results from SNOLab experiments in the broader context of astrophysical and cosmology measurements. Importance of theorists to do this.

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right now, SNOLab. But the MI is a huge opportunity to build a national community.

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support travel for speakers between the institutions so that we interact with each other and get to know each other better and what we are all working on. Hold regular workshops on the physics of the MI. (I understand PI held one but as far as I can tell they didn't promote it within the Canadian community)

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top pro - the MI is a huge opportunity to become a leader in astroparticle physics.   Must be careful to not squander it.

top con - as a theorist it appears that every new experimental faculty member wants to be the PI of a new experiment with the result that the projects do not have the optimum people resources.  Better to not try do everything but do what you do well.

A big worry is that when the CFREF funding runs out all of a sudden many new faculty will be turning to the subatomic physics envelope which won't be able to support them. It makes no sense to put a massive amount of funds into something and just when its coming together cut it off.

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encourage people to visit and for our people to visit other institutions. Maybe run a joint theory experiment workshop.

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Hosting a workshop that would bring members of the community together could be synergizing. Maybe somewhere like Lake Louise, or Mont Tremblant, with participation of both theorists and experimentalists. I wrote this before reading Steve Godfrey's entry, so I'm seconding his idea.

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In addition to constraining dark matter properties, constraints or discovery of other possible hidden sector particles will improve, including dark photons, sterile neutrinos, and also constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions.

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I agree that creating an affiliate program, similar to that of Perimeter Institute, would be useful. And if MI invites people to come give seminars there, that will strengthen the connections.

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Facilitate a process for a community discussion of priorities for the astroparticle physics projects with a coordinated road map as an output.

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Discover dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay

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Canada has a great community and a with SNOLAB the best facility for current and next generation experiments. What would make Canada even more attractive would be a coherent community roadmap that aligns with the international road map(s).

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Build a community of researchers which provides the next generation of particle astrophysicists a network of contacts, job prospects, and mentors to help them advance their work.

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From the little I know about the experimental aspects of e.g. scintillator design, it appears as if many problems are actually chemistry problems. Choice of materials, of course, but also recycling, monitoring, analysis, etc. Remember that you have friends in our department and don't hesitate to contact me or Peng Wang with chemistry-related questions.
hploock@chem.queensu.ca
wang.peng@queensu.ca

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Agreed that building a community is the key aspect here, and it is difficult if people have no real way of finding out who others are (MI website lists a small subset of CFREF funded people). Fostering lasting cross-institution and cross-experiment links will be hard without emphasizing common goals/mutual benefits and without creating dedicated infrastructure for communication, in addition to periodic in person workshops which others are suggesting. A new online resource is needed (possibly internal to MI affiliated hires and interested members from participating institutions), where everyone would be listed with a brief description of expertise, interests and contact information. In connection to this, a traditional internet forum would be useful; it is quite easy to identify some obvious discussion topics: Low radioactivity techniques, Theory, Light collection/detection, Computing etc. This will enable 'horizontal' communication and information exchange between younger people and also help to connect them to experts, without necessarily relying on information to flow 'vertically' through PIs. Finally, groups must be open to sharing equipment and laboratory resources, and the first step to this is letting others know what is available; a good example of how this could work is: https://www.n8equipment.org.uk/equipment

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Couldn't agree more with the comments above. Reaching out more broadly, ensuring that key announcements are propagated through institutional and/or participating collaboration mailings  would guarantee that those who are interested have a chance to join the proper mailing list. In person workshops are a fantastic idea; of course an indico page with an agenda, posted slides and a remote connection would also be essential. Finally, it would help to approximately know what is the longer term calendar/frequency for calls for proposals, as well as their scope (personel or eqiupment, or if focused on particular aspects of R&D) and, last but not least, the eligibility criteria.

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I interpret the question in 2 ways: what can my institution bring to the McDonald Institute and second the partnership we bring into the institute.
From a science point of view, we want to contribute to the R&D of detectors - including but not limited to single photon detector systems. We want to contribute front-end electronics and integrated circuits design. Basically, we can take part in radiation instrumentation for experiences at the heart of the McDonald Institute.

From a partnership point of view, we are member of the Institut Quantique in Sherbrooke (CFREF first round) and member  of the nEXO collaboration. We have close industrial partners where HQP get trained (and hired after), such as IR&T inc., a spin off of our group selling preclinical PET scanners. We are also very close to Teledyne-Dalsa Semiconductor Inc. in Bromont, where we develop our 3D digital SiPM.

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We haven't been in the field long enough to at least talk about the "cons".

That said I will formulate it as a question : is there room for instrumentation and detector R&D? In my point of view, I believe Canada can be an important player and hence I would see this as a pro or a con if it is in or not.

Pros of MI:
-support of engineering staff
-opportunity to get to know better the Canadian subatomic community (Sherbrooke is relatively new in the Canadian community),  and hopefully create ties where we will help construct the sensors/detectors and instrumentation.

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Are we allowed to submit a CREATE proposal to NSERC? this would be a major asset targeted and tailored for HQP training. From theorist, to experimentation and instrumentation, we could setup a very nice program.

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Get people together. Everyone benefiting of funding from MI should present an update. Make sure there is plenty of time for social interaction.  alternate the annual meeting between west coast, Snolab, east coast.

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Have working 3D digital SiPM in a versatile tile to be used as a basic "lego" building block.
Have the 3D digital SiPM installed in a large scale LAr or LXe experiment.
Develop VUV sensors

All  this with the goal to improve the overall sensitivity of experiments to prove double beta decays  neutrinoless and the demonstration of dark matter.

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Excuse me but I find it sad that the only answer is SNOLab. (again, we are quite new in the Canadian community). One thing that should distinguish us and be attractive to do research or study here is the quality of scientists. Nice infrastructure doesn't mean much without its experts.

clearly an effort is required to find more answers in addition to SNOlab. now to get people to come to research or study here, maybe some effort are required to broadcast and let the world know.

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have a look at the link below, it might provide some ideas. another CFREF
https://www.usherbrooke.ca/iq/en/

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It might not be "the most" important thing to do, but Sherbrooke would like to have instrumentation and detector R&D in its strategic plan.

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I think the McDonald Institute has already done a lot for Canadian Astroparticle Research. The biggest challenge is to keep the momentum going beyond the first few years. So beyond continuing to spend the money in an effective way (and I think we are on track with that), the most important thing I can think of is preparing for the time after the funding runs out and making sure that in particular NSERC is able, ready and willing to support this big increase in the field going forward. Of course it is on us as the community to produce high quality science to justify such support.

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"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future" (best reference I could find is an unnamed  Danish politician in 1937/38 as discussed in https://quoteinvestigator.com)

I think we can be fairly sure that we will have
1. improved substantially our knowledge about possible dark matter candidates (if nothing else by excluding a large range of proposed models). This will be informed by direct detection experiments, astrophysical observations and ideally also by indirect detection experiments. If we are extraordinarily lucky we may have some hints from LHC towards a new theoretical framework that would help us understand and put into context what we find (or not ...)
2. tested with considerably improved sensitivity the presence of neutrinoless double beta decay in a variety of isotopes
3. a good knowledge of all important neutrino parameters with the possible exception of the absolute mass scale
4. If we agree to include CMB in the definition of the field: chances are that we will see actual primordial B-modes as indicators for gravitational waves in the early universe.
5. If we include gravitational waves: we will have a large set of sources and hopefully develop a better understanding of the abundance and production mechanism of those sources and their potential connection or contribution to dark matter.
6. While all of the above is driven by experiments and observations, it would be in vain if we didn't have the theoretical effort to understand and describe what we find or draw conclusions about potential theoretical frameworks from the absence of positive findings.

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SNOLAB and the McDonald Institute. For better or worse, these two entities lead to a strong focus on astroparticle physics that is directly related to SNOLAB, shifting the balance away from other areas of the field.

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Pros: I think (in contrast to what has been indicated above) that it is great that we have Canadian representation in a wide variety of experiments. If a comparison with high-energy physics is to be made, our spread among different experiments is more comparable with a spread in the high-energy community among different physics channels and I have never heard the argument that because Canadians are studying the top, the Higgs, dark matter and other things they are spread too thin.
Our experiments are orders of magnitude smaller than ATLAS, yet in most cases too big to be done by a single country, so rather than attempting to pick a couple of experiments and get every Canadian behind it I think it is much more effective to make sure that also the Canadian-led experiments have substantial international involvement. At least overall I think we have a very good balance and a healthy portfolio of efforts and I would not like to see the efforts and ambitions of individuals restricted by political pressure from a majority (though of course I would very much hope that everybody is open to reason and asks themselves if their effort is placed in an effective way).

Cons: The one big 'Con' that I see is generic, not unique to Astroparticle Physics or to Canada: it is difficult to maintain experimental infrastructure since, by the nature of the funding mechanisms, a lot of the burden is on people with short-term contracts. The McDonald Institute certainly makes an effort to improve the situation, but the tenure of the institute itself is short and it is unclear where things will go after that. The MRSs are another attempt to deal with this but their mandate can make it difficult to use the resources in the most efficient way.

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I think that the McDonald Institute (MI) should diversify and contribute to investigations that are not so tightly coupled to SNOLAB. Icecube is a good start but there are other opportunities that are within the astroparticle physics field.

One important area is that of observations that can only be done from space or from stratospheric balloons. ANITA (http://cfcp.uchicago.edu/research/projects/anita.html)and JEM-EUSO (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900215012826) are two good examples, as is the famous AMS-02 (http://www.ams02.org/ experiment.

It would be good if the MI could spend some of its political capital to influence developments at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Maybe some kind of joint program could be established. The CSA is well funded by the Canadian taxpayers but does very little basic science. Meanwhile, agencies like NASA, ESA and JAXA fund and enable a variety of balloon- and space-borne experiments. Indeed, after a long period where nothing of scientific interest was done on the International Space Agency (ISS), there are now modules like AMS-02, CALET, and ISS-CREAM installed and making interesting measurements of such things as the cosmic-ray positron flux. These are complemented by free-flying payloads launched by other agencies, e.g. DAMPE (China) and PAMELA (Italy). Canada should aspire to be among the nations that do this kind of science.

It would be hard to find anyone who has not heard of the remarkable progress being made by commercial launch companies like Space-X. They are lowering the cost of putting detectors into space so now is the right time to start building a cohort of space-savvy experimenters and the MI can help facilitate this.

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Meetings and discussions in which the various ideas for next-generation experiments can be presented and discussed:

Many of the next experiments will require larger collaborations and regular discussions towards future projects are important.

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I hope for direct detection of dark matter and a design for a workable 0vbb experiment for the normal hierarchy.

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We have been fortunate that we have received excellent funding support from CFI/NSERC/ the provinces... and have built a large community and a great lab. SNOLAB + MI. The Carleton cryo-facility is going to be very useful.

And please, let us not forget TRIUMF. TRIUMF scientists and engineers do so much: detector R&D, mechanical design, electronics, and DAQ.

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We should have an annual meeting, scheduled and planned a full year in advance (obviously not the first one).

Judicious use of web tools (ie this one is good) for feedback is nice.

The MI website should have a "for scientists" page with information and how-tos to get emails etc.

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If we want to lead the next generation of experiments we may need fewer big projects.

But at the same time we need to keep the smaller bench-top ideas coming. Perhaps we need a "funnel" that is very broad at the top but narrows quickly.

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Stricking the correct balance between focus on underground science (astroparticle) and being able to connect with other fields.

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First off, SNOLAB should make sure it is following its four strategic goals: do and foster world-leading science, inspire, and work with standard practices.

SNOLAB scientists should be taking on leading roles in experiments.

We should be sending people around to talk to each other more: seminars at MI institutions and larger MI meetings.

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The ability to know the significance of the on-going work should extend in the public psyche beyond the delta function spike of the Nobel Prize.  The general public (coast-to-coast) should know that great things are happening in Physics within Canada. That can be pushed to high school students (and advisers) as well as to incoming university students. A strong public awareness and consensus will help ensure continued public funding over the long term and that the best of the next generation of scientists are captured in the field of physics.

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I would say the quality of the people, the (generally) decent level of funding, and the presence of SNOLAB.

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Though there are some excellent graduate students, the pool is shallow.

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There seems to have been some expectation from NSERC/SAP that MI would fund some things in its place.

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Identify a very clear set of objectives and back that up with targeted funding

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Maintain a body of experts that can refute alternative explanations of the dark matter, or at least offer expert opinions on new developments.

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We have dark matter and dark energy. What, if anything, is there relationship. Since they are both “dark”, we are actually quite ignorant in this regard.