Attendance: Shaul H., Jim B., Tim P., Nick B., Charles L.

Notes by: Karl

• Wrap Up Version as of 2:30 pm today
  • Schedule
    • astro-ph
    • NASA submission
  • Last week's cleanup
  • New Parameter Figure
• Next Steps
  • PCAT
  • Decadal Science White Papers / what about a CMB white paper?
  • Project White papers (further down the line)
• Future Talks + Posters: authorship = first author + PICO Team + reference to website

Wrap Up Version as of 2:30 pm today

• Schedule
  • SH: Last official telecon.
  • astro-ph: Submitted Tuesday, but got put on hold briefly. Will be posted and get a number tonight.
  • NASA submission: Scheduled for Monday.
• Last week's cleanup. SH: nothing substantive, mostly just small corrections and polishing.
  • SH: One change made. Parameter space figure added, see page 17.
• New Parameter Figure
  • SH: new version has CV limit (on red line) for an experiment with 9x more sensitivity and double resolution. Idea was what it depth for an 'ultimate' space mission that would be few billion $ in next few decades. Shows that even that doesn't give much more improvement over PICO.
  • TP: CV limit depends on number of parameters? SH: yes, this applies to red curve, first line in legend.
  • TP: minor format dlnns vs dlnns. to distinguish natural log from l*n.
  • JB: sounds good, internet issues so haven't seen figure. JB will respond with thoughts after telecon

Next Steps

• PCAT
  • SH: another committee to go thru all probe reports and make sure cost estimates are correct/robust/etc and won't be shut down by decadal.
  • SH: discussion with them in ~ 1 month. then they produce report in summer and pass on to Paul Hertz. Then Paul sends probe reports to Decadal and certifies (or doesn't) the costs.
  • SH: regardless of PCAT the submitted report (as of next week) is final.
• Decadal Science White Papers / what about a CMB white paper?
  • SH: due in ~10 days. PICO will have an astro-ph number SH will share that tonight.
  • SH: been looking at white papers to see our representation.
    • SH: on cluster paper (Adam Lantz?) PICO missing. PICO should be added. Will write to Adam with astro-ph number
    • NB: that paper is on my list. Will champion PICO. Agree that Fig. 1 in that paper is not good. Will communicate with Adam.
  • SH: Will communicate generally to white paper authors when appropriate.
  • SH: No CMB science white paper currently being written? Not in recent list. In past wrote to Gill, Lloyd about this. Should be easy to write. Just combine exec summary of PICO, S4, LiteBIRD or similar. Eventually Gill put together a start and is now accepting volunteers and contributions. Looking for ~2 people to push this.
    • SH: Do people agree that there should be a single comprehensive CMB white paper.
      • NB: Don't see how it fits into the stated target of fitting into a specific science topic.
        • SH: good point. other papers (cluster, DM, DE, neutrinos, …) cut across many disciplines. CMB + other surveys. But would be good to have a paper saying this is what you get by surveying the CMB. Counter argument is 'CMB is a tool' so this isn't science focused. Don't see this as a problem. Really need the advocacy of a focused CMB paper.
      • CL: I have no insight in decadal. But it seems that from S4 and PICO the panel will have a very strong science case, doesn't seem like shuffling formats is so important. Maybe the 5 page summary of a white paper is less likely to be lost.
      • CL: The science case is made well in both S4 and PICO reports.
      • SH: Agree that it is persuasive in project reports. But concerned that we're so focused on CMB and 'know' that it is important. Others might ask why spend any more on CMB.
      • CL: Agree with this issue. It may be useful to have a white paper saying 'fantastic science is left in CMB. Keep spending money/effort on it'. Also, just thinking probabilities, a white paper is unlikely to do any damage but support would be helpful. This should be signed by full community (PICO+S4+…).
    • SH: anyone able to help Gil?
      • JB: what is scope?
      • SH: Probably all of PICO except galactic. + high ell cmb like SO and S4.
      • SH: there is already a B-modes paper. this would be clusters, SZ, tSZ, kSZ, clusters, tau, . . .
      • JB: I can help somehow, loop me in
    • NB: good idea to address the idea CL brought up “CMB is dead”. Arguing against that is good. So just that may be a justification for this white paper.
    • CL: I would volunteer Raphael. SH will suggest

Future Talks + Posters:

• Proposed authorship = first author + PICO Team + reference to website.
• This means “PICO Team” is a replacement for “author1, author2, author3 . . .” avoids listing ~80 authors.
  • SH: now, after thought I vote 1st author + all authors. As space allows.
  • CL: no strong opinion on these options.
  • CL: I do like starting with “PICO Team” followed by author listing.
• Decision: PICO team, first author, all authors(as space allows, possibly not on posters)