Just like a fridge, you only need the lights on in the LHC tunnel when you’re in there; but the emergency lights are part of an essential safety system if you ever need to evacuate. 

Fortunately, tunnel evacuations are very rare, but if you work there, you need to know that you can rely on the emergency lighting to guide you to safety.

When the LHC machine is operating, it’s a harsh environment – people are most definitely not allowed access – and the lighting systems need to withstand the effects of radiation to ensure that they will still work when the LHC is switched off and people are allowed back in the tunnel to carry out routine maintenance.

Changes to lighting regulations mean that the current low pressure sodium lighting system which was installed for LEP, the LHC’s predecessor, is becoming obsolete; replacement parts are difficult to find because manufacturers are no longer producing them.  CERN needed to find a solution, not just for the 27 km LHC tunnel, but for the whole of the accelerator complex.

“We need a mass market solution that’s cheap and available from multiple sources,” explains project engineer, James Devine.

Initially, 10 different products based on LED lamps were tested in a radiation environment; most lasted less than five minutes.  The sole survivor was dissected to see how it was made.

“We looked at the way the power converter was made – most LED products use switch mode power supplies which are very sensitive to radiation – but this one used a bridge rectifier,” says James. “That’s basic technology from the early days of electrical engineering.”

Since then, James has been working with two companies (one British, one French) to incorporate this design for a radiation hard power supply into their products. Both companies are specialist suppliers of tunnel lighting, and both manufacture emergency lighting systems.  However, neither had produced a product especially for radiation environments.

The new lighting system has been installed at LHC point 7 – radiation-wise, the hottest access point of the accelerator.  After two years it is still working well and has been so successful that as the LEP-era lighting fails, it is being replaced with the new system. 

James’ design for the power supply has recently been granted funding from CERN’s Knowledge Transfer Fund to enable further development to increase the energy efficiency and extend the lifetime. 

The design is now available under the CERN Open Hardware Licence a licence devised at CERN aiming specifically at facilitating the dissemination of hardware designs. “This means that any manufacturer can use and modify OHL designs freely”, explains Myriam Ayass, legal advisor in the CERN Knowledge Transfer Group and author of the CERN Open Hardware Licence, “and if his modifications are distributed, this must be under the same OHL conditions, thereby fostering competition and innovation in the market place.”

This article was originally published in UK news from CERN and the Knowledge Transfer groups annual report, which gives an overview of all knowledge transfer projects in 2015.

 
 

Only software which is up-to-date should be free from any known vulnerabilities and thus provide you with a basic level of computer security. Neglecting regular updates is putting your computer at risk – and consequently your account, your password, your data, your photos, your videos and your money. Therefore, prompt and automatic patching is paramount. But the Microsofts, Googles and Apples of this world do not always help…

Software vendors handle their update policy in different ways. While Android is a disaster – not because of Google, but due to the slow adaptation of many smartphone vendors (see “Android’s Armageddon”) – Microsoft provides updates for their Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 operating systems through their “Patch Tuesday” rollouts. All you need to do is have the automatic “Windows Update” feature enabled (it is by default!). While automatic updates are also provided to Apple Macs by default, they have a more restrictive (but undocumented) policy for their Mac OS: Apple provides security fixes mainly for the latest version of OS X (also dubbed “El Capitan”). Any older versions of MacOS either receive no security updates at all, or do so for only a few of the known vulnerabilities!

Thus, don’t just “feel” secure, even if Apple are still providing some security updates for OS X 10.9 and 10.10. They are not resolving many other known security issues for those versions. And worse, the fact that Apple still provides some software updates  – but no security updates – for even older versions of the OS does not mean that these OS versions are still supported. They are not. Hence, any versions of OS X other than 10.11.3 are vulnerable today to any kind of cyber-attack (e.g. when browsing malicious webpages, when installing malicious software or reading malicious e-mails, etc.). If your Mac happens to run another version than the latest, “El Capitan”, (you can check under the Apple Menu and choose “About This Mac”), we strongly recommend that you upgrade it as soon as possible. Just visit this page. However, please note that “El Capitan” might be incompatible with certain, mainly older, software packages. You can find known issues here. Still, upgrading is always the best course of action.

For further information, questions or help, check our website or contact us atComputer.Security@cern.ch.

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. 

Access the entire collection of Computer Security articles here.

Momentum is gathering behind the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project. In laboratories on either side of the Atlantic, a host of tests are being carried out on the various magnet models.

In mid-March, a short prototype of the quadrupole magnet underwent its first testing phase at the Fermilab laboratory in the United States. This magnet is a pre-prototype of the quadrupole magnets that will be installed near to the ATLAS and CMS detectors to squeeze the beams before collisions. Six quadrupole magnets will be installed on each side of each experiment, giving a total of 24 magnets, and will replace the LHC's triplet magnets. Made of superconducting niobium-tin, the magnets will be more powerful than their predecessors, which will result in an increase in the LHC's luminosity, or in other words the probability of collisions. The HL-LHC will produce a luminosity level ten times greater than at the LHC today.

The magnet tested at Fermilab consists of two coils manufactured at CERN and two others manufactured by the LARP (LHC Accelerator Research Program) consortium, which comprises four US laboratories. “The construction of this prototype is the product of a real international effort,” emphasises Lucio Rossi, the HL-LHC project leader.

The prototype is 1.5 metres long, whereas the final magnets will be 4.2 or 7 metres long. During the tests, a peak in the magnetic field of 12.5 tesla was measured on the coils, compared to 8 tesla for the LHC’s current quadrupole magnets, an impressive achievement. The tests will continue, while in parallel a second short prototype is being built and will be tested later in the year.

“We will also start manufacturing actual-size prototypes, i.e. 7 metres for the CERN design and 4.2 metres for the LARP design," explains Ezio Todesco, who is in charge of the insertion region magnets for the HL-LHC project. These prototypes will be ready for testing in 2017.

In particle accelerators, beams circulate inside vacuum chambers connected by flanges - complex engineering components which ensure the integrity of the vacuum system. Currently, there are two types of flanges used in the LHC: standard “ConFlat” flanges, which are bolted together; and the quick conical connection flanges used on radioactive components (for example collimators), which need large and heavy chain clamps. Clamping or unclamping a flange is time-consuming and can result in a larger radiation dose to personnel in a radioactive environments. “A light compact flange that is easier to install and remove, possibly remotely, and that minimises the time of any intervention was what we were really looking for,” explains Paolo Chiggiato, Head of the Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (VSC) group. And the answer was SMAs.

“The shape memory effect is the ability of an SMA to ‘remember’ its original shape upon heating,” says Cédric Garion, a member of the VSC group. “This is possible under certain thermo-mechanical conditions, where particular microscopic crystallographic configurations occur (see box). At CERN, we are particularly interested in NiTi (Nickel-Titanium)-based alloys, which present very promising shape recovery capabilities.” Currently under development by CERN in collaboration with the Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering (DIMEG) of the University of Calabria (Italy), a NiTi-based connection device could provide a smart solution for easy installation and disconnection. SMA rings can have two sizes: a smaller, contracted version when heated, and a larger one when cooled down. “After certain thermo-mechanical treatments, when heated up, the SMA rings currently being studied (about 45 mm internal diameter and 8 mm thickness) contract, with a diameter variation of several millimeters!” explains Fabrizio Niccoli, of the University of Calabria, who is currently doing his PhD on this topic. “They could easily be installed at room temperature around the extremities of the chamber when they are slightly larger, and then heated up to get the contracted shape, clamping the vacuum chambers and assuring vacuum leak tightness. Tests at CERN have shown that a reproducible tightness below 10-10 mbar.l.s-1 is achieved. The SMA ring is removed by cooling it below room temperature, re-inducing its enlarged configuration so that it becomes loose enough to allow the technicians to open the pipes easily.”

This technology is being developed for the future HL-LHC, which will be operational in 2026. The luminosity of the HL-LHC will be a factor of 10 higher than that of the current LHC. The increased luminosity means that radioactivity will be higher at some points of the accelerator. The time spent in some parts of the tunnels will then need to be minimised as much as possible.

A change in crystallography Links: the austenitic structure. Right: the martensitic structure. (Image: Fabrizio Niccoli) Under certain thermo-mechanical conditions, SMAs take on particular microscopic crystallographic configurations known as the martensitic and austenitic phases. The presence of either phase depends mainly on the temperature and/or the stresses applied. The austenitic phase is stable at high temperatures and low applied stresses and is characterised by a body-centered cubic cell, while the martensitic phase is stable at low temperatures and high applied stresses and has a distorted monoclinic cell.  The peculiar properties of SMAs are arousing great interest in both the biomedical and industrial sectors. SMAs are proving particularly useful for aerospace applications, which are often subject to high reliability and geometric space constraints. SMAs are being used for actuators, structural connectors, vibration dampers, seals and manipulators.

In particle accelerators, beams circulate inside vacuum chambers connected by flanges - complex engineering components which ensure the integrity of the vacuum system. Currently, there are two types of flanges used in the LHC: standard “ConFlat” flanges, which are bolted together; and the quick conical connection flanges used on radioactive components (for example collimators), which need large and heavy chain clamps. Clamping or unclamping a flange is time-consuming and can result in a larger radiation dose to personnel in a radioactive environments. “A light compact flange that is easier to install and remove, possibly remotely, and that minimises the time of any intervention was what we were really looking for,” explains Paolo Chiggiato, Head of the Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (VSC) group. And the answer was SMAs.

“The shape memory effect is the ability of an SMA to ‘remember’ its original shape upon heating,” says Cédric Garion, a member of the VSC group. “This is possible under certain thermo-mechanical conditions, where particular microscopic crystallographic configurations occur (see box). At CERN, we are particularly interested in NiTi (Nickel-Titanium)-based alloys, which present very promising shape recovery capabilities.” Currently under development by CERN in collaboration with the Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering (DIMEG) of the University of Calabria (Italy), a NiTi-based connection device could provide a smart solution for easy installation and disconnection. SMA rings can have two sizes: a smaller, contracted version when heated, and a larger one when cooled down. “After certain thermo-mechanical treatments, when heated up, the SMA rings currently being studied (about 45 mm internal diameter and 8 mm thickness) contract, with a diameter variation of several millimeters!” explains Fabrizio Niccoli, of the University of Calabria, who is currently doing his PhD on this topic. “They could easily be installed at room temperature around the extremities of the chamber when they are slightly larger, and then heated up to get the contracted shape, clamping the vacuum chambers and assuring vacuum leak tightness. Tests at CERN have shown that a reproducible tightness below 10-10 mbar.l.s-1 is achieved. The SMA ring is removed by cooling it below room temperature, re-inducing its enlarged configuration so that it becomes loose enough to allow the technicians to open the pipes easily.”

This technology is being developed for the future HL-LHC, which will be operational in 2026. The luminosity of the HL-LHC will be a factor of 10 higher than that of the current LHC. The increased luminosity means that radioactivity will be higher at some points of the accelerator. The time spent in some parts of the tunnels will then need to be minimised as much as possible.

A change in crystallography Links: the austenitic structure. Right: the martensitic structure. (Image: Fabrizio Niccoli) Under certain thermo-mechanical conditions, SMAs take on particular microscopic crystallographic configurations known as the martensitic and austenitic phases. The presence of either phase depends mainly on the temperature and/or the stresses applied. The austenitic phase is stable at high temperatures and low applied stresses and is characterised by a body-centered cubic cell, while the martensitic phase is stable at low temperatures and high applied stresses and has a distorted monoclinic cell.  The peculiar properties of SMAs are arousing great interest in both the biomedical and industrial sectors. SMAs are proving particularly useful for aerospace applications, which are often subject to high reliability and geometric space constraints. SMAs are being used for actuators, structural connectors, vibration dampers, seals and manipulators.

Last year marked a great start to Run 2. The objective for the year was to establish proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV with 25 ns bunch spacing, and in that we were successful, delivering four inverse femtobarns (4 fb^-1) of data to the experiments. This was a great result but, to put it into context, the goal for the whole of Run 2 is to deliver 100 fb^-1 by the end of 2018, so we still have a long way to go. 2015 was a learning year, and by the time we switched off for the end-of-year break, we had learned a great deal about how to operate this superb machine at the new higher energy, with shorter bunch spacing allowing us to get many more bunches of particles into the beam and thereby deliver more data to the experiments.

This year is the first full production year of Run 2 and our goal is to deliver 25 fb^-1 during the proton-proton run, before switching to heavy ions as usual towards the end of the year. As always, safety will be our first concern, so we’ve scheduled around four weeks of beam commissioning before we declare stable beams. Then we’ll start with low intensity, before increasing steadily in intensity towards the target of 2748 bunches per beam in early summer.

It would be easy to think that LHC running is becoming routine, and in many ways it is. Nevertheless, the year-end technical stop is a vital part of the running cycle and much has been accomplished over this short winter break. I’d therefore like to thank everyone, from both the machine and experiment teams, for the great work accomplished and the fantastic team spirit that has reigned throughout.

Although the name might sound completely unfamiliar, superferric magnets were first proposed in the 1980s as a possible solution for high-energy colliders. However, many technical problems needed to be overcome before the use of superferric magnets could become a reality. In its final configuration, the HL-LHC will have 36 superferric corrector magnets, of which 4 will be quadrupoles, 8 sextupoles and 24 higher order magnets.

In superferric (or “iron-dominated”) magnets, iron is used in the poles that shape the field, in addition to in the yoke as in a standard superconducting magnet, while the coils are made of superconducting material that is kept at cryogenic temperatures to reduce power losses to a minimum. Superferric magnets have been shown to be highly reliable and this is no trivial requirement for machines like the HL-LHC in which, during normal operations, high-intensity beams will have to complete hundreds of millions of turns in stable conditions before being safely dumped by the operators. 

A superferric corrector magnet was developed by CIEMAT for the SLHC-PP study, and that design was used as a starting point for the HL-LHC correctors. Subsequently, in the framework of a CERN-INFN Collaboration Agreement for the HL-LHC project signed in 2013, the LASA laboratory of the Milan section of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) has taken over as a partner in the project. “At LASA, we dealt with the design, assembly and testing of the magnet,” explains Giovanni Volpini from INFN Milano. “This was possible thanks to the expertise the laboratory has acquired working on many of the most important superconducting magnets for high-energy physics. However, this is the first time in many years that a full-size superconducting magnet has been developed entirely in-house. We are very happy with the results of the recent tests: the magnet has shown high stability, as it could reach and surpass the ultimate field value required by the design specifications before quenching. The ultimate field we measured was almost 10% above the nominal operating field. Magnet stability will be a key feature to guarantee the overall reliability of the whole beam corrector system once all the hardware components have been installed in the tunnel.” “The partnership between INFN and CERN has been key in achieving this result and it will be as fundamental as the other collaborations in the HL-LHC project in meeting the project’s goals,” confirms Paolo Fessia from the Technology Department, who is in charge of the project on the CERN side.

Now that the first piece of hardware has proven that superferric technology works as expected, HL-LHC and INFN experts will go on to finalise the design of the other corrector magnets. In parallel, other groups in various institutes around the world are developing, building and testing other HL-LHC components, including the highly challenging high-field magnets. The new ring is starting to take shape.

 
 

Your sense of self is multi-faceted and highly complex but the entity of “you” is well defined.  You can prove your identity simply, typically by showing your ID card or by having someone vouch for you. You are a being layered with attributes.  Other people may request some of these attributes: your first name at Starbucks or your shoe size at the bowling alley. But only your most trusted contacts are granted access to your entire set of attributes… or maybe you never expose your identity entirely!

Online, your identity is a very different beast. It is fragmented. Each piece of your identity is typically verified by its own username and password. Occasionally pieces are forgotten or lost to the depths of the Internet. The hundreds of accounts that identify “you” present a security problem. Can you keep track of these accounts and is it even realistic to use unique, non-trivial passwords for each of them? Often the answer is no and multiple pieces of your identity can be chipped away by malicious actors (see this link for a detailed discussion).

What if you could have just one cyber identity? You may have noticed that the option to create new accounts online based on an existing Facebook or Google account is becoming commonplace. Attributes from each of the services with which you authenticate yourself are being added to your social digital presence. The Internet is creating an increasingly complete picture of “you”. Online, your identity is a very different beast. It is fragmented. Each piece of your identity is typically verified by its own username and password. Occasionally pieces are forgotten or lost to the depths of the Internet. The hundreds of accounts that identify “you” present a security problem. Can you keep track of these accounts and is it even realistic to use unique, non-trivial passwords for each of them? Often the answer is no and multiple pieces of your identity can be chipped away by malicious actors (see this link for a detailed discussion).

When you next authenticate yourself via CERN Single-Sign-On, scroll to the bottom of the page where you will find the option to sign in via a trusted, alternative organisation, e.g. your home university. CERN has established a trusted relationship with these institutions, allowing them to vouch for you and to assert your identity on your behalf. By allowing logins from reliable organisations, we are limiting the creation of unnecessary accounts and trivial passwords. By using this form of login, known as Federated Login, you are limiting the fragmentation of your identity profile. Whether you choose to separate your social and your research profiles remains up to you.

This idea is called Federated Identity Management. You are already able to access resources worldwide using your CERN account; why not test it and use Foodle to schedule your next meeting or create a survey? CERN has proven itself to be a trusted partner and so this service, based in Norway, allows us to use their app. 

For further information, questions or help, check our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. 

Access the entire collection of Computer Security articles here.

More than 450 scientists, researchers and leaders of high-tech industry gathered in Rome to review the progress of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) design study.

The study was kicked off in 2014 as a response to a statement in the European Strategy for Particle Physics, and today embraces 74 institutes from 26 countries.

With the LHC programme well under way, particle physicists are at an exciting juncture. New results from the 13 TeV run could show that we are on the threshold of an eye-opening era that presents new challenges and calls for developments. “To prepare for its future, CERN should continue to develop a vibrant R&D programme that should take advantage of its strengths and uniqueness, pursue design studies for future accelerators and create opportunities for scientific diversity,” said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General, during her talk at the meeting.

Given the long lead times in the field of high-energy physics, the FCC study is exploring possible options for the post-LHC era. “As one of the high-priority items on CERN's agenda, the FCC design study is exploring a potential post-LHC accelerator project that will ensure the continuation of the world’s particle physics programme,” noted Frédérick Bordry, CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology, in his welcome speech.

The FCC would allow a rich physics programme during the 21st century, tackling some of the open questions in fundamental physics. The main focus of the FCC design study is a circular hadron collider able to reach energies an order of magnitude greater than those of the LHC (for protons). As a possible first step, a future high-luminosity electron-positron collider is being explored. Finally, a lepton-hadron collider scenario is also being examined, testifying to the richness of the FCC design study.

During the FCC week, progress in all aspects of the study was reviewed: from accelerator to detectors and experiments, including technological R&D developments and infrastructure. To build these machines, new ideas, vigorous technological developments, perseverance and worldwide collaboration are needed. “We must now focus on the established parameter set and use it as basis for optimisation work for the machines, detectors, and key technologies, required to build such a large-scale research infrastructure,” Michael Benedikt, the leader of the FCC study, concludes.

Participants in the 2016 FCC Week will meet again in 2017 in Berlin. The FCC collaboration is preparing to deliver a design report by the end of 2018, in time for the next update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

It took eleven months of civil-engineering work to restore one of the best-known symbols of CERN, the Globe of Science and Innovation (or the Globe for short).

An inauguration ceremony was held on 18 April 2016, attended by representatives of the Swiss Confederation, the local authorities, the media and CERN management.

“The Globe has become an essential tool for CERN and a part of the landscape of international Geneva. It is a point of reference for CERN’s neighbours,” said Charlotte Warakaulle, CERN Director for International Relations, in her speech during the ceremony.

The ambitious renovation project was needed to replace the arcs that form the outer spherical structure of the Globe, and to renovate the exterior ramps and sun baffles.

Frédéric Magnin, head of Civil Engineering and Buildings (CEB) is very pleased with how the works have gone: “The wooden structure of the Globe makes it a unique type of building,” he explains. “It is also intended to be a symbol of sustainable development,” according to its original design scope – to house the Swiss national “Expo 2002” exhibition in Neuchâtel. “Renovating the building, respecting its uniqueness while honouring its sustainability has been the most challenging part of the project,” he continues.

At the start of the renovation project, several modifications to the initial plan were necessary. For example, some of the sun baffles were found to be in a poorer condition than anticipated. The project team, in close collaboration with the architects from Groupe H and the design office Charpente Concept, which supervised the renovation, made the decision to replace one third of them. 

“We also had to modify the design of the external ramps, but we ended up with something that’s both easier to maintain and more sustainable than we had foreseen in the initial plan, while also keeping the budget fully under control,” Magnin happily notes.

The Globe is open to the public from Monday to Saturday (except during official CERN closures), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The programme of lectures and events for the general public will restart at the end of April. For more information, see here. 

TOTEM bump
The main goal of the past couple of weeks was to advance with the preparation of collimators settings and protection devices. Over the weekend of 16-17 April, collisions were re-established after setting up a new orbit bump around the Roman Pot locations in IP5 (TOTEM), in order to improve their acceptance. The bump was smoothly incorporated into the machine settings that lead into Stable Beams. The LHC orbit was corrected towards the reference leaving the machine ready for the next steps: aperture measurements and final collimator alignment.

Alignment and aperture at 40 cm
The aperture is the available space in the transverse plane of the machine. Detailed simulations are used to predict the minimum machine aperture. At 40 cm β*, the bottlenecks (the locations in the machine with the smallest aperture) are the triplet magnets either side of the experiments. In order to protect these magnets, the tertiary collimators have to be setup to shadow the triplets and catch and absorb beam losses that would otherwise end up in the magnets. A very precise measurement of the aperture was performed at the end of squeeze and in collisions. About 10 σ is the smallest measured aperture in the machine (here σ is the transverse beam size). This allows for the predicted setup of the tertiary collimators at 9 σ.

Roman Pot alignment and TCT/TCL alignment
The final steps to prepare the machine for collisions are the alignment of the tertiary collimators (TCT) and physics debris collimators (TCL) located near the collision points. For the TCL the alignment is done by moving the collimator in steps of 5 μm towards the beam until both collimator jaws touch the beam halo. This gives a very precise measurement of the beam centre but is a lengthy process. In order to speed the collimator alignment, each tertiary collimator was equipped during LS1 with 4 beam position monitors embedded in the collimator jaws. The alignment for these collimators (16 collimators in total) now takes less than one minute with the additional advantage that the collimator is aligned without touching the beam halo. The alignment of the collimator system was successfully completed and was followed by the alignment of the Roman Pot detectors: TOTEM in IR5 and AFP in IR1.

Impedance and e-cloud
In order to prepare the machine for high beam intensity, the machine impedance needs also to be evaluated, in particular, the contribution from the collimators. This is measured by observing the tune shift while changing the collimator gaps. This was done this week for the main injection protection collimator, which is known as the TDI - a 4 m long graphite collimator that protects the machine in case of an injection failure. The contribution from the ring collimators will be measured during the coming days. Other equipment also needs to be prepared for high intensities; here the transverse damper system is a key player.

A tune scan at injection with 3 nominal bunches circulating in the machine was also performed in order to find the optimal working point for the tunes compatible with machine conditions during the upcoming scrubbing run. This run is aimed at reduction of the electron cloud. The transfer lines between SPS and LHC were successfully setup with nominal bunches. This exercise includes trajectory and collimators, and is now followed by setup and checks with bunch trains of 12 and 72 bunches.

Machine protection
A full campaign of machine protection validation is currently on-going in order to establish the first Stable Beam collisions and allow for higher intensities. Before the declaration of Stable Beams and the ramp-up of beam intensity, the full LHC cycle must be qualified. This is done by analyzing the expected beam loss distributions in the LHC ring in case of a failure scenario at every cycle step: injection, ramp, flat top, squeezed beams and collisions. Reference loss maps are established and thoroughly analyzed. This is done by inducing in an extremely controlled way beam losses with very little intensity in the machine (less than 3 x 10¹¹ protons per beam). The main beam loss locations are evaluated and maximum loss scaled to the final intensities to verify that it is well below the magnet quench limits.

Exciting moments in the next days, the machine is almost ready to start 2016's physics programme.

Early in the morning of Friday, 29 April, the LHC was running with Stable Beams with 49 bunches per beam. Earlier that week, the scrubbing run had been cut short after a vacuum leak had developed in the SPS beam dump. Following this, the LHC had started its planned intensity ramp-up, albeit with a limited number of bunches per injection from the SPS to avoid overstressing the compromised beam dump.

At 05:32:16 on Friday, the beams were dumped. The logbook entry reads “Foreign object (weasel) found on the 66kV transformer in P8, causing severe electrical disturbance throughout the complex”. The weasel, later more accurately identified as a beech marten, had taken out a 66 to 18 kV transformer at Point 8 of the LHC. It had caused a short to ground fault on a single phase on the 18 kV cables terminations on top of the transformer. However, the arc expanded damaging the others 18 kV terminations and 66 kV bushings. The protection system kicked in correctly but the perturbation impacted the 66 kV network and a lot of the CERN site.

Investigations by EN/EL revealed that the transformer – a 1991 model made back in the USSR – was OK but that there was damage to the 18 kV cables and terminations. The 18 kV cables were repaired over the weekend and on Monday an external company carried out careful checks of the four 66 kV bushings. One of the bushings had slightly damaged porcelain. The positions of two of the bushings were therefore swapped to bring the damaged bushing to the neutral position (which is not stressed dielectrically in normal operation). The whole assembly was then tested without load before switching back to the nominal electrical network configuration in the morning of Thursday, 5 May.

With Point 8 fully back in action, the first step was to carry out some low intensity tests with beam to make sure that all systems were fully functioning and that everything was as it should be from the beam perspective. After flushing out a number of issues, the LHC was back in Stable Beams by the evening of Friday, 6 May and the intensity ramp-up was resumed.

At present, the intensity ramp-up has reached 900 bunches per beam. The peak luminosity is around 3 x 10³³ cm^-2s^-1 and things are looking healthy. 900 bunches have passed machine protection qualification and the next physics fills are planned to be with 1200 bunches. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week are dedicated to luminosity calibration with Van der Meer scans being performed in ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb. After a quick test of the special set-up to be used later in the year for the forward experiments, luminosity production will resume.

Even if he’s recently stopped coming to CERN on his bike, Jack Steinberger and his piercing blue eyes are still regular visitors to our corridors. As he celebrates his 95^th birthday today, we pay tribute to one of CERN’s greatest scientists. Jack emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1934 to escape the persecution of the Jews. He later he went on to study under Enrico Fermi in Chicago and in the 1950s, he contributed to the development of bubble chambers. Using this new detection apparatus, he was involved in the myriad discoveries and results that led to the construction of the Standard Model. In 1961, as a student at the University of Columbia (New York), he took part in the first experiment with a high-energy neutrino beam, which gave rise to the discovery of the muon neutrino. This discovery was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physics, which he shared with Leon Lederman and Melvin Schwartz. In 1968, Jack Steinberger joined CERN and took part in the first CP violation experiments. But perhaps his proudest achievement at CERN was the CDHS experiment, which he led during the 1970s and 80s. CDHS used a neutrino beam from the SPS to plumb the depths of matter and, in so doing, produced many results. Jack Steinberger was subsequently appointed spokesperson of the ALEPH experiment at the Large Electron-Positron collider, LEP. He took a step back from front-line research in the 1990s, but curiosity does not fade away with age and Jack continues to study a range of subjects, from cosmology to climate change. 

On 4 May, around ten children from the Centre pour enfants sourds de Montbrillant (Montbrillant Centre for Deaf Children), a public school funded by the Office médico-pédagogique du canton de Genève, took a guided tour of the Microcosm exhibition and were treated to a Fun with Physics demonstration.

The tour guides’ explanations were interpreted into sign language in real time by a professional interpreter who accompanied the children, and the pace and content was adapted to maximise the interaction with the children. This visit demonstrates CERN’s commitment to remaining as widely accessible as possible. To this end, most of CERN’s visit sites offer reduced-mobility access. In the past few months, CERN has also welcomed children suffering from xeroderma pigmentosum (a genetic disorder causing extreme sensitivity to UV light) and blind adults.

With a record participation of 128 teams and 768 runners, this year’s CERN Relay Race took place on 19 May on the Meyrin site.

The teams were mainly composed of CERN staff or contractors working on the CERN site.  A few external teams took also part in the race. Times ranged from 10 min 19 s to over 18 min.

The Running Club website now has both the results, and the photos from race day.

The CERN Relay Race is jointly organised every year by the CERN Running Club and the Staff Association. It is a tradition that is appreciated by many as a team building, rather than a competitive, event.

The CERN Running Club wishes to thank all runners and all volunteers for making this event a success.

 
 

In the past, we have repeatedly stated the importance of a well-chosen, complex and unique password, for your account at CERN (see the article “Oops, there it goes…”), but also for your accounts on Facebook, Amazon and all other sites (see the article “The value of your password”). While this is all still valid, it might not be enough anymore…

Of course, making your password complex (with letters, symbols, numbers, using mathematical formulas, song titles or poems; see our recommandations) is still a must. It is still a necessity to avoid using the same password for several sites and essential not to share the password with anyone else (“your password is your toothbrush - you don’t share it and you change it regularly”). But this is not always sufficient. Passwords can be cracked not only through guessing or brute-force dictionary attacks (hence the requirement for a complex password not to be found in any dictionary) but also just by sniffing. An attacker can sniff out a simple password as easily as a complex one just by installing some keyboard logging software on your computer. “Stop, think, don’t click” is the only way to protect ourselves from such attacks and their consequences: do not click on suspicious links, only click if you trust their source. Unfortunately, as our latest clicking campaign has shown (“One click and BOOM…”), far too many of us are still clicking on malicious links, so putting such a keylogger in place would be easier than we would like for an attacker in our environment. The campaign showed that an attacker could easily have taken control of 10 to 20% of all Windows computers at CERN and could have sniffed out a large number of CERN passwords…

The consequences? Severe, if you manage computing services, operate accelerators or experiments, or handle CERN’s finances! Once they own your password and the attached rights, the attackers would just sit and listen. They would take the time to understand how you work. They would observe when and how you access your resources and services. They would gather information. And when the time came, they would be in a position to impersonate you and strike hard: they could try to bring down your computing service, manipulate your accelerators or experiment, or steal money – to your dismay and to the harm of the Organization.

The silver bullet? Pimping up your password (i.e. something you know)! Then enhancing it by using an additional second token - namely something you have: a piece of hardware like your smartphone, your CERN access card, or a dedicated USB stick. Banks very often ask their customers to use a small card reader to authenticate themselves. In technical jargon, this is called multifactor authentication, and in collaboration with the IT department, the BE department and the FAP/AIS group, we are looking into how to use such authentication methods to better protect access to computing services, financial systems and the accelerator network and its control systems. Of course, this will cause some inconvenience, but we will strive to make it as seamless and simple as possible. A little bit more time at login for much more security while working – is that a fair trade-off? For more details, check out this dedicated webpage or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

Think also of the value of your passwords at home: those you use for Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon, for example. What havoc could attackers create in your private life if they knew your passwords? They could enter your private sphere, post in your name, spend your money, etc. For reasons similar to the ones that drove CERN to turn to multifactor authentication, Google, Facebook and others allow you to opt in to such authentication too. We strongly recommend that you benefit from this, for your own protection.

For further information, questions or help, check our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. 

Access the entire collection of Computer Security articles here.

Vehicle registration plate readers are now installed at the entrances and exits of the Les Cèdres car park and of the Building 4 and 5 car park, both on the Meyrin site. The information collected by these readers will allow the occupancy levels of these car parks to be analysed throughout the day, establishing periods of peak usage and the pattern of vehicle movements.

“We have been experiencing parking problems at CERN for several years now and have decided to gather concrete data in order to study these issues in more detail,” explains Didier Constant, head of the security service. “The vehicle registration plate readers will allow us to find out more about parking habits in this very busy area and to identify solutions to make it easier to use these car parks.” To this end, a web portal will be introduced at a later stage, on which drivers will be able to see the occupancy levels of the car parks in real time thanks to a colour-coded system: green for low occupancy, orange for medium occupancy and red when the car park is full.

The registration plate readers will also allow the study of the impact of “limpet cars”, i.e. vehicles that are parked on the CERN site for long periods, which is prohibited under Operational Circular No. 2: “Conditions of access to the fenced parts of the CERN site”. “We have created long-term car parks on the Meyrin and Prévessin sites precisely to avoid these ‘limpet cars’ taking up parking spaces in critical areas,” explains Didier Constant. To submit a request for long-term parking, go to the CERN Service Portal and create a ticket.

The registration plate readers will be operational from the start of the summer. At a later stage, two other car parks (next to Building 40 and the so-called “high-voltage” car park, see map) will also be equipped with registration plate readers.

CERN has published the Yellow Reports since the inception of the Laboratory. Until now this activity has followed a traditional, largely manual publishing workflow. Thanks to its new publishing platform, the CERN Publishing Service now offers a modern tool to the CERN community for its in-house publishing needs, managing the publication workflow from the submission of manuscripts to peer-review and publication.

Like every scientific institution, CERN has the important task of communicating its work, discoveries and achievements via publications in journals, the proceedings of conferences and books. For material that is not submitted to a third-party publisher, which is often the case for reports and in some cases for proceedings, the CERN Publishing Service supports the workflow with a dedicated Publishing Platform based on open-source software, Open Journal System, developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and currently used by thousands of institutions all over the world.

Now available to all CERN users, this Publishing Platform supports many services, ranging from editorial management (submission, peer-review, copy-editing, layout and proofreading of manuscripts) to publication tasks. “Once a document has been submitted to one of our publications, the editor receives an automatic message, so that he or she can manage the peer-review process and assign reviewers to the job,” explains Nikos Kasioumis, who is responsible for the technical aspects of the platform. As with classical scientific journals, the peer-review process can be done in different ways, including a double-blind peer-review. The papers can be accepted, conditionally accepted with requests for revisions, or rejected. Once a paper is accepted, if required by the specific workflow, it goes into production (copy-editing, layout and proofreading).

When the manuscripts are ready, the platform itself can be used to make them publicly available. “For the moment, the platform hosts three official CERN publications: the CERN Yellow Reports, the Annual Reports and the IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation,” says publisher Valeria Brancolini. “Each publication has its own homepage, where specific information about the publication itself (Editorial Board, publication guidelines, copyright policy, etc.) is displayed.” The articles can be viewed, downloaded and shared in different ways, statistics can be gathered and the system can automatically assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). For each new volume/issue, an alert can be sent out to subscribers.

To make the authors’ lives easier, the Publishing Service provides tailor-made guidelines. The team can also advise editors on copy-editing services and help with the indexing of publications in the relevant bibliographic databases. The system itself makes it easy for authors and editors to keep track of the status of the articles, as it sends automatic messages at each step. And of course, all the files and different versions are archived on CDS.

“The Publishing Platform is and will continue to be in constant evolution,” concludes Nikos. “We look forward to improving it and fulfilling users’ expectations wherever possible, so they should not hesitate to contact us with any suggestions. In particular, this tool offers interesting possibilities for anyone at CERN involved in the publication of conference proceedings.”

If you are would like to know more about the Publishing Platform, please contact Valeria Brancolini.

Mary K Gaillard began her career at the CNRS institute in France in the 1960's, at a time when women physicists in research institutes could be counted on the fingers of one hand. She first came to CERN with her husband in the late 1960's and stayed as a scientific visitor for many years, while still employed by the CNRS. In 1981, she joined the physics faculty at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), becoming the first woman to hold a tenured position in the faculty.

Gaillard not only made major contributions to the Standard Model of particle physics, such as the prediction of the mass of the charm quark and to the famous paper coining the term penguin diagram, she was also the first to address gender imbalance at CERN: for International Women’s Day in 1980, she published a report on women in scientific careers at CERN, an essay surveying the way in which women in scientific careers at CERN viewed their professional situation. This report was an important resource for a working group set up in the 1990s to study the situation of women at CERN. On this group’s recommendation, CERN established its Equal Opportunities programme, which has now grown into today’s Diversity Office.

Closing the circle, the Diversity Office, together with the CERN Library and the Theory Department invited Gaillard to deliver a Theory seminar on quantum effects on supergravity theories, and to give some insight into the genesis of her book and her journey in physics. "Her frank autobiography, A Singularly Unfeminine Profession, is an honest, revelatory account of her many discoveries, made as she battled gender bias and faced the demands of raising three children," said Valerie Gibson, Head of High Energy Physics and Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge in her review of the book in Nature. Professor Gibson complemented Gaillard’s presentation with her own experiences and views on the challenges facing women making a career in physics.

The conclusion of both women is that the situation has improved at CERN, as well as in academia in general, but there is still a long way to go, especially when it comes to women in senior positions and leadership roles. From one solitary female member of the faculty at UCB when Gaillard took up her post in 1981, the number has risen to five. Meanwhile, the number of young women completing physics PhD programmes climbed though the 60s, 70s and 80s to around 16%, where it has since levelled off.

Gender stereotypes are all around us, and as Gaillard points out, "There seems to be a problem, starting with very young children." As with any problem, the first step towards a solution is acknowledging that the problem exists, and Mary K Gaillard’s presentation served as a timely reminder that while progress has been made, there’s still much to do in particle physics, as in many areas of society.

The book can be borrowed from the CERN library, bought at the CERN library (bldg. 52, 1st floor) or accessed online on the publisher's website (World Scientific) (free of charge for anyone with a CERN account).

Watch the recording of the book presentation here.