Draft proposal for Recommendations to CMS CB from “Theorists in CMS”
The CMS CB initiated a committee/working group “Theorists in CMS” in
summer 2013 with the charge:
“Theorists in an experimental collaboration provide opportunities for unique
collaborative research. The committee will catalog some of the opportunities
that have already been realized and identify areas where opportunities exist
but have not been exploited so far.
The differing cultures of the theoretical physics community and the
experimental physics community create a need for guidelines and rules
governing publications produced by theorists on CMS using CMS data.
Review the existing rules and guidelines as a starting point for drafting a
revised set which could be presented to the CB for approval. There is overlap
in this endeavor with the Hindawi group working on the policies for invited
review papers.
The chair of the Hindawi group is Kerstin Borras. Inter-group dialog is
encouraged.
The committee should consider any other matter that pertains to being a
theorist on CMS for which a guideline or a resource might be needed,
describe it and how it might be developed and/or what actions are needed,
as appropriate. Also the committee should evaluate if it is valuable to create a
standing CB Theory Committee.
Input from theorists not in CMS will be solicited and relayed to you (*). We
ask that you take this into account in your deliberations. The work of the
committee should lead to a few page report to be submitted to the CBC and
SP and a short presentation during a CB meeting preferably during the CMS
week in December 2013.”
A survey to investigate the role, the difficulties, the frustrations and wishes for
a collaboration with physicists with background in theoretical particle physics
and phenomenology (for short called theorists below) has been issued in Oct
2013, evaluated and has led to a presentation at the Dec 2013 CB meeting. In
total 58 theorists and 196 CMS members responded (Responses of survey). In
2013 CMS had 8 full signing theorists and 6 affiliates.
The results of the survey and direct discussions with theorists being full
signing CMS members as well as affiliates lead to the following observations
and recommendations to the CB:
The current system allows for theorists to be:

full members of the collaboration where they are members of an
institute which is a member of CMS

a member of an institute’s group, but not an M&O A paying author
and therefore not a signatory of all CMS publications (CMS affiliate,
according to Annex 1.5 of CMS constitution)

associated with a particular piece of work on an ad hoc basis. In this
case the individual is not necessarily a member of an institute, which is
a member of CMS. This association is agreed on an informal level on
the basis of “good scientific practice”, while allowing the theorist to see
also internal results and to interact with the analysis team. A full
member of CMS has to propose such an informal association to the
PAG conveners and Physics Coordination for approval.
Individuals usually find that one of these modes of operation suits them well.
Some find that a formal association with CMS leads to significant levels of
bureaucracy and they find this a deterrent to becoming a full member. It was
expressed that an informal collaboration with theorists outside CMS should be
encouraged. We find all of these modes of interaction valuable and
recommend that they all remain possible options.
The scientific exchange with theorists within and outside CMS is beneficial for
the quality of CMS results and publications and is regarded as an enrichment
of the scientific discussion and scientific culture in CMS.
In general both experimentalists and theorists expressed a desire to interact in
a variety of ways such as targeted workshops, individual presentations and
collaborative working, as well as for short-term fellowships to participate on
dedicated topics.
In many cases, theorists in CMS act as consultants on theory questions as well
as contact persons to outside theorists. In order to increase the visibility and
the influence, a more formal role like an official contact person of those
activities would be appreciated.
It has been noted that in the spectrum of activities of individuals there is
often not a clear distinction between “theorists” and “experimentalists” and
that all members of CMS should first and foremost be regarded as physicists.
In the following we assume that the recommendations for “good scientific
practice”
and especially ”frankness and fairness with
regard to
the
contributions of partners, competitors, and predecessors” 1 are followed, and
1
European Science Foundation Policy Briefing “Good scientific practice in research and
that specific rules only apply to very specific cases, which we detail in the
appendix.
Recommendations, following from discussion and the evaluation of the
survey:

We recommend encouraging intense, continuous exchange with
theorists
within
CMS
as
well
as
with
outside
theorists.
Such
communication and exchange leads to a better understanding of the
experimental measurements by the theory and phenomenology
community (beyond what is and can be written in publications) as well
as it ensures the use of the state-of-art theory, models and calculations
in comparison with our experimental results.

We encourage collaboration with theorists with low bureaucratic and
formal threshold. Such collaboration can be achieved by inviting
theorists to become a full member of CMS, a CMS affiliate or by
informal contact. The access to internal results and internal meetings
follows the “good scientific practice”, and only in special cases special
restrictions and agreements are required.

We propose the installation of theory/phenomenological contact
person per PAG in order to:
o provide a point of contact for theorists external to CMS. This
may encompass such activities as answering question on
publications and directing questions to appropriate people
working on specific analyses.
o provide experimentalists with information on where to obtain
scholarship” http://www.esf.org/fileadmin/Public_documents/Publications/ESPB10.pdf
advice on theoretical questions. This may be from within the
collaboration or from experts external to the collaboration.
In addition the contact persons should encourage theorists with
relevant expertise to give presentations to the appropriate PAGs.
The contact persons from the different PAGs should interact
amongst
themselves
to
ensure
consistency
throughout
the
collaboration.

We propose and encourage common sessions and workshops (can be
PAG meetings, preferably organized cross PAGs) to initiate, stimulate
and intensify discussion with theorists and phenomenologists at a
informal level while respecting “good scientific practice”.

We propose to continue and maintain short-term (1 month -> 2 years)
affiliations and to collaborate with the Physics Centers at CERN, DESY
and Fermilab for short-term fellowships with financial support (at least
to cover travel expenses).
Appendix

CMS publications are everything that is public, i.e. PAS preliminary
results, public Twiki pages or journal publications.
In all cases we should guarantee that CMS members have the same
chances as outside theorists, i.e. they should be allowed to use and
publish in the same way (under their own name) any result which is
made public (even if unpublished in a journal or only available on a
public Twiki or public PhD server), if it is of interest for their scientific
publication.
We recommend that private publications are sent to Physics
Coordination and to the chairs of the corresponding PAG prior to
sending it to the arXiv or journal.

Any member of CMS should seek to include their ideas or
observations in a CMS publication whenever appropriate.
If either CMS does not wish to include this information or the
member is unaware of the CMS result before it is published, then
the member of CMS may use the published information in their own
non-CMS publication at any time.

If a member of CMS explicitly wishes not to include ideas or
information in a CMS publication where it would have been
appropriate, they must not seek to publish, making use of CMS
published results, for a period of at least two weeks subsequent to
the CMS publication.