CERN Accelerating science

     
 

CERN
Bulletin

   
 

Detectors on the drawing board

Linear collider detector developers inside and outside CERN are tackling the next generation of detector technology. While their focus has centred on high-energy linear collider detectors, their innovative concepts and designs will be applicable to any future detector. >>

Physics and Frankfurt

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Frankfurt book fair, where the Austrian publisher Edition Lammerhuber was launching a new book about the LHC.  It’s a beautiful volume, based on the photographs of Peter Ginter, who has been covering CERN for many years, and an essay by celebrated author Franzobel. >>

LHC Report: Take Five

The LHC is continuing to perform well and an integrated luminosity of over 5fb-1 has now been delivered to ATLAS and CMS. While keeping a close eye on beam induced heating and vacuum quality, the bunch current has been gently raised to over 1.4x1011 protons per bunch. This has given a peak luminosity of 3.6x1033 cm-2s-1. Some long fills have helped production and recent high points include 120pb-1 delivered in one fill and 580pb-1 delivered in one week. >>

Leading lead through the LHC

Three of the LHC experiments - ALICE, ATLAS and CMS - will be studying the upcoming heavy-ion collisions. Given the excellent results from the short heavy-ion run last year, expectations have grown even higher in experiment control centres. Here they discuss their plans: >>

Deceleration project bursts out of the starting-blocks

The starter's pistol was fired for the ELENA project on 28 September, with the kick-off meeting organised in collaboration with the Antiproton Decelerator Users Committee. With more than 90 scientists in attendance from 20 research centres throughout the world expressing their enthusiasm for the project…and some even more than that... the meeting was a great success. >>

OPERA’s measurement: theory’s speaking time

Einstein’s theory of relativity proven wrong, time travel finally possible, all our knowledge suddenly forced to change: superluminal neutrinos have triggered reactions from around the world. While the buzz spread, the theory community was following the usual scientific procedure, which implies understanding, thinking, reading, imagining, monitoring, reviewing and wondering: how could any theory account for OPERA’s result? >>

A common strategy for better health

Uniting physics, biology and medicine is no trivial exercise. The three disciplines might be seen as having different methodologies, issues and scientific approaches. However, there is one field – oncology – in which the three communities are putting their forces together to improve the health and well-being of patients. >>

Accelerating sustainability in large-scale facilities

Scientific research centres and large-scale facilities are intrinsically energy intensive, but how can big science improve its energy management and eventually contribute to the environmental cause with new cleantech? CERN’s commitment to providing tangible answers to these questions was sealed in the first workshop on energy management for large scale scientific infrastructures held in Lund, Sweden, on the 13-14 October. >>

A new batch of CERN apprentices

This year CERN is once again hosting six electronics and physics lab apprentices. Over the coming four years they will learn the fundamentals of their trade under the expert eye of experienced CERN professionals. >>

A table-top LHC

Many years ago, when ATLAS was no more than a huge empty underground cavern and Russian artillery shell casings were being melted down to become part of the CMS calorimetry system, science photographer Peter Ginter started documenting the LHC’s progress. He was there when special convoys of equipment crossed the Jura at night, when cranes were lowering down detector slices and magnet coils were being wound in workshops. Some 18 years of LHC history have been documented by Ginter, and the result has just come out as a massive coffee table book full of double-page spreads of Ginter’s impressive images. >>

Greece welcomes CERN Accelerator School

The CERN Accelerator School (CAS) and the University of the Aegean jointly organised a course on intermediate-level Accelerator Physics in Chios, Greece, from 19 to 30 September, 2011. >>

A f(e)rmidable family

At the beginning of October, Olivia Fermi, granddaughter of Physics Nobel prize-winner Enrico Fermi, stopped off at CERN on the second stage of her "nuclear pilgrimage", using the opportunity to meet CERN physicists…whom she compared to rare, exotic birds. >>

CERN balances linear collider studies

The forces behind the two most mature proposals for a next-generation collider, the International Linear Collider (ILC) and the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) study, have been steadily coming together, with scientists from both communities sharing ideas and information across the technology divide. In a support of cooperation between the two, CERN in Switzerland, where most CLIC research takes place, recently converted the project-specific position of CLIC Study Leader to the concept-based Linear Collider Study Leader. >>

GridPP returns to CERN

In early September, GridPP, the collaboration that manages the UK’s contribution to the worldwide LHC Computing Grid (wLCG), celebrated a decade of work by holding its twenty-seventh collaboration meeting at CERN. >>

Léman/Eléments: Familiar landscapes with unfamiliar details

Artwork by Polina Demidova, created with the technique of collage, is being exhibited in the Main Building until 28 October. Visual elements for the technique are usually images and text taken from glossy magazines, and bits and pieces of the information collected from different sources. These are then transformed into something altogether different. There is something special about these works of art, as some of them feature various electronic components from the ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT). >>

Make a movie in 48 hours

This year, the 48-hour film project (48hfp) returns to Geneva after a one-year hiatus. Organized by Neal Hartman and the CERN film-making club, Open Your Eyes Films, the 48hfp challenges teams of film-makers to write, shoot, soundtrack and edit a 4 to 7 minute film in 48 hours from 4 to 6 November. >>

CERN fire fighters roll out in style

On Thursday, 20 October, CERN fire fighters celebrated the arrival of a new equipment transport truck. >>

Georges Charpak street sign unveiled

While it might not be the only French street named in honour of the late Georges Charpak, who passed away in September 2010 at the age of 87, the street chosen by the mayor of Saint-Genis-Pouilly is certainly the only one located directly opposite the CERN "campus". The road overlooks buildings on the CERN Meyrin site, where Georges Charpak spent most of his career as a physicist, conducting the research that won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992. >>

Security bingo for the paranoid

We have received complaints that the previous SECURITY BINGO was too easy… So, are you extremely cautious of computer security? Show us and win one of three marvellous books on computer security! Just print out this page, mark which of the 25 good practices below you already follow, and send the sheet back to us at Computer.Security@cern.ch or P.O. Box G19710, by October 31st 2011. >>

Ombuds’ corner: Complaint of harassment - go for an informal or formal procedure?

In this series, the Bulletin aims to explain the role of the Ombuds at CERN by presenting practical examples of misunderstandings that could have been resolved by the Ombuds if he had been contacted earlier. Please note that, in all the situations we present, the names are fictitious and used only to improve clarity. >>

News from the Library: A new start for CERN Bookshop

Since 11 October, the CERN Bookshop (Building 52, first floor, inside the Library) is entering a new era. This is thanks to a collaboration with the CERN Central Stores and the Logistics Services of GS, who are directly managing the Booskhop's stock. As a result, you can order the books you want and have them delivered directly to your office by simply creating a 'material request' document in EDH. >>

Official News

New procedure for departure formalities  

Training and Development

Academic training: Advanced lectures on multiprocessor programming  
Safety Training: scheduled sessions in September and October 2011  

Announcements

Physics colloquium: Electron counting in quantum dots in and out of equilibrium  
One Day on Earth  
3rd International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition - Cracow (Poland), 1 – 8 February 2012  
103rd Meeting of the SPSC  
Vaccination against seasonal influenza: a reminder  

Events

John Adams Lecture: LHC – Bold Beginning  

Staff Association

Public meetings: Thank you for your interest  
2011 Elections to Staff Council  
Horn of Africa food crisis  
Cine-Club  
Orienteering Club  
Cern Women's Club  
Running Club  
Ski Club  
Offers  
Offers  
GAC-EPA  
Interfon