WASHINGTON DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that it has signed an agreement with the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to help advance scientific discovery in the field of accelerator and particle detector research. The agreement builds on a long-history of successful scientific collaborations between the U.S. and India and will leverage scientific, technical, and engineering expertise to facilitate basic science research and development (R&D) between the two Departments. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman and Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, the Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, signed the agreement on the sidelines of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue in New Delhi last week.

"This agreement is the latest step in the deepening cooperation between the U.S. and India on a range of clean energy and scientific fronts," said Deputy Secretary Poneman. "Working together, we will be able to further our collective understanding of accelerators and high-energy particles, pursue new technologies and scientific discoveries, and advance our shared clean energy goals."

The new agreement provides DOE and DAE with a legal framework to expand upon ongoing collaborations and launch new joint projects in high energy physics and nuclear physics for discovery science and technological innovation. The agreement specifically aims to expand research collaborations in superconducting radiofrequency accelerator technology, heavy ion physics, and particle detector development at DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Past accelerator R&D collaborations between the U.S. and India have already resulted in important scientific advances, including the successful search and discovery of the top quark, a fundamental constituent of matter, at Fermi National Laboratory in Illinois. Additionally, joint R&D efforts contributed to the identification of a new form of matter, a quark-gluon plasma, at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The quark-gluon plasma is thought to have existed a mere instant after the birth of the universe and have a temperature of around 4 trillion degrees Celsius - the hottest temperature ever reached in a laboratory.

In the U.S., DOE's Office of Science will be responsible for overseeing implementation of the agreement. For more information on high energy and nuclear physics research supported by DOE, visit the Office of Science website.