A communication resource from the world's particle physics laboratories.
The proposed layout of the future circular collider (Image: CERN)
“The FCC’s ultimate goal is to provide a 100-km superconducting proton accelerator ring, with an energy of up to 100 TeV, meaning an order of magnitude more powerful than the LHC”, said CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology, Frédérick Bordry. “The FCC timeline foresees starting with an electron-positron machine, just as LEP preceded the LHC. This would enable a rich programme to benefit the particle physics community throughout the twenty-first century.”
The National Science Foundation’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile houses the Dark Energy Camera. Photo: Fermilab
"Although the data-taking for DES is coming to an end, DECam will continue its exploration of the universe from the Blanco telescope and is expected remain a front-line engine of discovery for many years,” Heathcote said.
RHIC's STAR detector tracks the thousands of particles produced by each ion collision. It weighs 1,200 tons and is as large as a house.
Berndt Mueller, Brookhaven’s Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics, noted, “This 19th year of operations demonstrates once again how the RHIC team — both accelerator physicists and experimentalists — is continuing to explore innovative technologies and ways to stretch the physics capabilities of the most versatile particle accelerator in the world.”
Cosmic particle accelerators like blazars (artist's impression) are typical objects for multimessenger astronomy. Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab
“Astroparticle physics has developed extremely rapidly in recent years, both at an international level and at DESY. With the establishment of the new research division, we are driving this development further forward,” explains Helmut Dosch, the chairman of DESY’s Board of Directors. “Over the coming years, DESY’s site in Zeuthen is going to be expanded to become an international centre for astroparticle physics. These steps will be a boost for astroparticle physics throughout Germany.”
Wim Leemans, plasma accelerator pioneer from Berkeley Lab in California, will join DESY (photo: Paul Mueller, Berkeley Lab).
“Wim Leemans is one of the most prominent leaders in accelerator research and in the development of advanced laser plasma accelerators. We are proud and happy to have an international top scientist of this caliber on board at DESY,” says professor Helmut Dosch, the chairman of the DESY Board of Directors. “This is an enormous boost for DESY, the Helmholtz Association and German science as a whole.”
A researcher at Brown University installs photomultiplier tubes for a component of the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter search experiment. (Credit: Nick Dentamaro/Brown University)
“The delivery of these arrays is the pinnacle of an enormous assembly effort that we’ve had to execute here in our clean room,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor of physics at Brown University who oversaw the construction of the arrays. “For the last two years, we’ve been making sure that every piece that’s going into the devices is working as expected. Only by doing that can we be confident that everything will perform the way we want when the detector is switched on.”
SLAC researchers have found a new mechanism that could explain how plasma jets emerging from the center of active galaxies, like the one shown in this illustration, accelerate particles to extreme energies. Computer simulations (circled area) showed that tangled magnetic field lines create strong electric fields in the direction of the jets, leading to dense electric currents of high-energy particles streaming away from the galaxy. (Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
“The mechanism that creates these extreme particle energies isn’t known yet,” said SLAC staff scientist Frederico Fiúza, the principal investigator of a new study published in Physical Review Letters. “But based on our simulations, we’re able to propose a new mechanism that can potentially explain how these cosmic particle accelerators work.”
If collisions between small projectiles—protons (p), deuterons (d), and helium-3 nuclei (3He)—and gold nuclei (Au) create tiny hot spots of quark-gluon plasma, the pattern of particles picked up by the detector should retain some "memory" of each projectile's initial shape. Measurements from the PHENIX experiment match these predictions with very strong correlations between the initial geometry and the final flow patterns. Credit: Javier Orjuela Koop, University of Colorado, Boulder
“This work is the culmination of a series of experiments designed to engineer the shape of the quark-gluon plasma droplets,” said PHENIX collaborator Jamie Nagle of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who helped devise the experimental plan as well as the theoretical simulations the team would use to test their results.
Jim Siegrist, associate director of the DOE Office of High-Energy Physics, and Maurizio Greganti, deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy to Italy, sign an agreement to collaborate on Fermilab’s PIP-II project.
“The Agreement signed today by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and DOE is the latest example of the scope and breadth of the scientific and technological cooperation between our two countries and of the importance of international cooperation,” said Armando Varricchio, ambassador of Italy to the United States.
The Superconducting Magnets and Circuits Consolidation project which took place during the first Long Shutdown (LS1) (Image: Maximilien Brice/CERN)
“The second run of the LHC has been impressive, as we could deliver well beyond our objectives and expectations, producing five times more data than during the first run, at the unprecedented energy of 13 TeV,” says Frédérick Bordry, CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology. “With this second long shutdown starting now, we will prepare the machine for even more collisions at the design energy of 14 TeV.”
“I send my sincere congratulations for your major achievement on the CEPC CDR. This is a significant milestone along the road to such an important facility for fundamental physics,” said Prof. Geoffrey Taylor of University of Melbourne, chairman of the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) and the Asian Committee for Future Accelerators (ACFA). “I have no doubt the international community looks forward to partnering in the development and operation of the CEPC and in the quest to better understand the basic constituents of matter.”
“After more than ten years from the beginning of its scientific activity focused on the internal structure of the Sun, which gave an understanding of the power mechanism of our star with unprecedented detail, the Borexino experiment at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories publishes on October 25th on Nature the compendium of its results on solar neutrinos.”
A diagram showing the components of the acrylic tanks veto system for the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment. The green and blue objects represent the clear acrylic tanks. They will be fitted snugly together and held by a metal base. (Credit: LZ Collaboration)
“Recent dark matter searches have found that neutrons can be a pernicious background, with the ability to mimic a dark matter signal,” said Carter Hall, LZ spokesperson and physics professor at the University of Maryland. Neutrons are particles with no charge that reside in atomic nuclei. “The acrylic tanks and their liquid scintillator payload will provide a powerful neutron rejection signal so that LZ is not fooled.”
“I can’t imagine a better pick than Hirosi,” said Murayama. “In order to make sure the continued success of Kavli IPMU, my successor needs to be a first-class scientist, internationally renowned and respected, and has experience with management and leadership. There is no question that Hirosi qualifies on all counts. He’s also been vital to Kavli IPMU since it was just a proposal, and has been instrumental in bringing physics and mathematics together, leading our string theory group, advised hiring decisions, and organizing conferences at the Kavli IPMU.”
“The Standard Model, our theory that best describes the known forces and particles, is unbelievably successful and was crowned by the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. But there is much evidence that it is not complete,” said the President of the CERN Council, Sijbrand de Jong. “There must be something beyond the Higgs and beyond the Standard Model, and it is a good time to reflect on where we are and where we should go next.”
Dark Matter Day returns for a second year giving people all over the world the opportunity to celebrate Halloween in a different way. A series of Dark Matter Day events held in person and online throughout the day on Oct. 31 means that everyone has the opportunity to get involved. Whether you want to host an event, make Dark Matter Day part of an existing event you are involved in, or simply want to gather your friends to watch our live events, there is something for you.
Caption: Unlike any other element, the nuclei of Mercury isotopes can have two different shapes and after more than 40 years, ISOLDE has solved the mystery of how and why this happens (©Kristof Dockx)
“It is only now, with new developments of ISOLDE’s Resonance Ionisation Laser Ion Source (RILIS), and by joining forces with other ISOLDE teams, that we have been able to examine the nuclear structure of these isotopes.”
From deep under the North Sea, to the outskirts of Rome and the Canadian shores of the Pacific, the winning images from the 2018 Global Physics Photowalk competition announced today capture the beauty, precision and international nature of humankind’s search to understand the Universe.
She has been a delegate of the CERN Council since 2016 and has participated in numerous international committees.
“CERN as an organisation is essential to make progress in particle physics, as we need continuous, long-term efforts,”said Ursula Bassler. “During the upcoming update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, it will be important to design the vision for the future infrastructures in our field and to start laying out a path for their realisation with the CERN Member States and the global particle physics community. I’m looking forward to working as Council President, together with the CERN directorate, the European Strategy Group and all delegations, on this challenging endeavour.”
ProtoDUNE has recorded it's first particle tracks, marking a new chapter in the experiment as it seeks to deepen our understanding of neutrinos.
Voting for the 2018 Global Physics Photowalk competition took place over the last two weeks. We’re choosing the top three Big Physics pictures of the year, watch this space for the official announcement of the winners!
Theoretical physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Brookhaven National Laboratory and their collaborators released the most precise prediction of how subatomic particles called muons—heavy cousins of electrons—"wobble" off their path in a powerful magnetic field.
The Dark Energy Survey has made over 38,000 single exposure images and nearly 62,000 coadd images, along with related data, public. This data reveals nearly 310 million galaxies and 80 million stars to the public eye. Approximately 400 million astronomical objects are meticulously cataloged in the data for everyone to view.
Dive into the Data
Vital components of the DUNE detectors have been constructed in the UK and have now been shipped to CERN for initial testing, marking a significant milestone for the experiment’s progress.
The new CERN-MEDICIS facility is producing radioisotopes for medical research. These radioisotopes are destined primarily for hospitals and research centres in Switzerland and across Europe. MEDICIS will enable researchers to devise and test unconventional radioisotopes with a view to developing new approaches to fight cancer.
In its final years of operation, a particle collider in Northern California was refocused to search for signs of new particles that might help fill in some big blanks in our understanding of the universe.
A fresh analysis of this data, co-led by physicists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), limits some of the hiding places for one type of theorized particle – the dark photon, also known as the heavy photon – that was proposed to help explain the mystery of dark matter.
The latest result, published in the journal Physical Review Letters by the roughly 240-member BaBar Collaboration, adds to results from a collection of previous experiments seeking, but not yet finding, the theorized dark photons.
New result rivals precision of cosmic microwave background measurements, supports view that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the cosmos.
Imagine planting a single seed and, with great precision, being able to predict the exact height of the tree that grows from it. Now imagine traveling to the future and snapping photographic proof that you were right . . .
With the turning of a shovelful of earth a mile underground, a new era in international particle physics research officially began Friday, July 21.
In a unique groundbreaking ceremony held at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, a group of dignitaries, scientists and engineers from around the world marked the start of construction of a massive international experiment that could change our understanding of the universe. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will house the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will be built and operated by a group of roughly 1,000 scientists and engineers from 30 countries.
-- Symmetry Magazine, Kathryn Jepsen
This year, October 31 was more than just Halloween. It was also the first global celebration of Dark Matter Day. In 25 countries, 11 US states and online, people interacted with scientists, watched demonstrations, viewed films, took in art exhibits and toured laboratories to learn about the ongoing search for dark matter.
Symmetry has collected a series of photos from participants around the world. Check out how people celebrated Dark Matter Day and download a commemorative dark matter poster (to be printed using visible matter).
This report distills the findings of a series of international peer reviews of the communications and outreach functions of large-scale multidisciplinary science laboratories around the world.