Dutch and US students win 2019 CERN Beamline for Schools competition
Two teams of high-school students, one from the Praedinius Gymnasium in Groningen, Netherlands, and one from the West High School in Salt Lake City, USA, have won the 2019 Beamline for Schools competition.
The waltz of the LHC magnets has begun
Major endeavours have got underway in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) over the past few weeks, with the extraction of magnets from the accelerator tunnel. The LHC has a total of 1232 dipoles, magnets which bend the particles’ trajectories, and 474 quadrupoles, which squeeze the bunches. All these magnets are superconducting, i.e. they operate at a temperature of -271°C, are 15 metres long and weigh up to 28 tonnes. So moving them around is no trivial matter.
CERN unveils its Science Gateway project
CERN is launching a new scientific education and outreach centre. The building will be designed by world-renowned architects, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and funded through external donations, with the leading contribution coming from FCA Foundation
Dr. Ursula Bassler elected as next President of the CERN Council
The CERN Council announced the election of Dr Ursula Bassler as its 23rd President, for a period of one year renewable twice, with a mandate starting on 1 January 2019. She will take over from Professor Sijbrand de Jong, who concludes his three-year term at the end of December.
Europe defines astroparticle strategy
Multi-messenger astronomy, neutrino physics and dark matter are among several topics in astroparticle physics set to take priority in Europe in the coming years, according to a report by the Astroparticle Physics European Consortium (APPEC).
The LHCb experiment is charmed to announce observation of a new particle
Geneva, 6 July 2017. Today at the EPS Conference on High Energy Physics in Venice, the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has reported the observation of Ξcc++ (Xicc++) a new particle containing two charm quarks and one up quark. The existence of this particle from the baryon family was expected by current theories, but physicists have been looking for such baryons with two heavy quarks for many years. The mass of the newly identified particle is about 3621 MeV, which is almost four times heavier than the most familiar baryon, the proton, a property that arises from its doubly charmed quark content. It is the first time that such a particle has been unambiguously detected.
CERN and the American Physical Society sign an open access agreement for SCOAP3
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the American Physical Society (APS) signed an agreement today for SCOAP3 – the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics. Under this agreement, high-energy physics articles published in three leading journals of the APS will be open access as from January 2018.
CERN – Statement about UK referendum on the EU
Dear Colleagues,
Many people have expressed their concerns about the consequences of the 23 June vote in the UK for CERN, and for the UK’s relationship with CERN. CERN is an intergovernmental organisation subject to its own treaty. We are not part of the European Union, and several of our Member States, including Switzerland, in which we are headquartered, are not EU Members. Britain’s membership of CERN is not affected by the UK electorate’s vote to leave the European Union. We look forward to continuing the very constructive relationship we have shared with the UK, one of our founding members, long into the future.
Particles are back in the LHC
On Friday, the LHC opened its doors to allow particles to travel around the ring for the first time since the year-end technical stop (YETS) began in December 2015. At 10:30 a.m., a first bunch was circulating and by midday the beam was circulating in both directions. Progress over the weekend has been good and low intensity beam has already been taken to 6.5 TeV and through the squeeze.
Can Future Energy needs be met sustainably?
Global energy use is increasing rapidly, driven by rising living standards in developing countries. Although the percentage of primary energy provided by burning fossil fuels is falling slowly from its current value of some 80%, their contribution is rising in absolute terms and is expected to increase by around 25% by 2035. This is bad news given the need to decarbonise (to reduce air pollution as well as to moderate climate change): is it inevitable?
CERN Council selects Fabiola Gianotti as next Director-General
At its 173rd Closed Session on 4 November in Geneva, CERN Council selected the Italian physicist, Dr Fabiola Gianotti, as the Organization’s next Director-General. The appointment will be formalised at the December session of Council, and Dr Gianotti’s mandate will begin on 1 January 2016 and run for a period of five years. Council rapidly converged in favour of Dr Gianotti.
“We were extremely impressed with all three candidates put forward by the search committee,” said President of Council Agnieszka Zalewska. “It was Dr Gianotti’s vision for CERN’s future as a world leading accelerator laboratory, …
