Snowmass Process

The Snowmass Process is a particle physics community planning exercise sponsored by the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society.[1] During this process, scientists develop a collective vision for the next seven to 10 years for particle physics research in the US.[2]

Original planning meetings were held beginning in 1982 in Snowmass, Colorado,[3][4] but that has not been the location since 2005.[5][6] More recent locations of the Snowmass Process include the University of Minnesota (2013)[7] and the University of Washington (2021), which was delayed until July 2022, due to COVID.[8]

The modern Snowmass Process consists of a series of small meetings, which culminate in a community-wide meeting. The Snowmass Process solicits reports on progress and plans within "frontiers." Snowmass 2021 identified ten frontiers: "energy; neutrino physics; rare processes and precision measurements; cosmic; theory; accelerator; instrumentation; computation; underground facilities; and community engagement".[8]

Members of the particle physics community submit Letters of interest[9] and provide input to contributed whitepapers.[8] The frontiers use these whitepapers to provide web-based reports based on the material that they receive. The final output of the Snowmass Process is a Snowmass Summary for the Public, a Snowmass Summary Report, and the Snowmass Book.[10]

The Snowmass Process outcomes of 2013 were used to inform the decisions of the 2014 Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel.[11] A newsworthy outcome of the 2021 Snowmass Process was the announcement that the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment would be pursued in two distinct phases.[12][13]