Over 180 participants from 10 different European Scientific Research Institutes came together on the first weekend of June in Divonne-les-Bains to take part in the ASCERI Sport & Science Mini Atomiades. Sports men and women from Belgium, Germany, France, Hungary, Russia and Switzerland battled it out in four different tournaments for medals, cups and, above all, lots of fun.

The four disciplines included football, golf, tennis and a 10km race. CERN was victorious in tennis, golf and the men's and women's 10k, and despite the CERN football team putting up an excellent fight against some very strong teams they came almost last (we cannot win everything, can we?). But CERN were the clear winners for team spirit, community and camaraderie, as confirmed by all the compliments we received from the other institutes following the event.

The Atomiades events are not only an opportunity to compete in the spirit of fair play with our counterparts in other European Scientific Research Institutes, but also to network and build links during the post tournament events, and what better way to do so than over a nice meal and good music. Our CERN colleagues pulled out all the stops to provide our guests with top-notch entertainment, for which we are extremely grateful. Indeed the success of the event was due to all the volunteers who gladly gave up their time to organise the different tournaments, help with the catering, take photographs and welcome our colleagues; again we are very grateful for their invaluable support.

More info and photos are available here: https://event-atomiade-2016.web.cern.ch/galleries

What do the Higgs boson and a pizza have in common? Pierluigi Paolucci, INFN and CMS collaboration member, together with INFN president Fernando Ferroni found out the answer one day in Naples: the pizzas in front of them looked exactly like two Higgs boson event displays.

A special recipe was then created in collaboration with the chef of the historic “Ettore” pizzeria in the St. Lucia area of Naples, and two pizzas were designed to resemble two Higgs boson decay channel event displays.

The “Higgs Boson Pizza Day” was held on Monday, 4 July 2016, on the fourth anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN. On this occasion, more than 400 pizzas were prepared and served at lunchtime in Restaurant 1.

For all pizza lovers who want to learn more about the Higgs boson, here is the recipe and the explanation of the culinary physics behind the pizzas. 

Buon appetito!

We couldn’t have imagined a more appropriate date: on 1 July (1.07), Linac4 reached an energy of 107 MeV. Having crossed the 100 MeV barrier, the linear accelerator is now on the home straight of its commissioning. “This stage was very quick – it took less than two weeks,” says Alessandra Lombardi, deputy project leader of Linac4.

In 2020, Linac4 will replace the existing Linac2 as the first link in the accelerator chain. It will accelerate beams of H- ions (protons surrounded by two electrons) to 160 MeV, compared to 50 MeV with Linac2.

The new machine is particularly sophisticated as it comprises four types of accelerating structure: the particles are accelerated in several stages, first to 3 MeV by a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ), then to 50 MeV by drift tube linacs (DTLs), then o 100 MeV by coupled-cavity drift tube linacs (CCDTLs), and finally to 160 MeV by Pi-mode structures (PIMS).

At the end of 2015, Linac4 accelerated beams to 50 MeV, the same energy as Linac2, for the first time. For the current stage, the Linac4 team put the last two types of accelerating structure, the CCDTLs and PIMS, into operation. All seven CCDTL cavities and one of the twelve PIMS cavities have been tested. “We were therefore able to verify that the entire acceleration chain was working,” explains Jean-Baptiste Lallement, who is in charge of the commissioning. 

The team is especially happy to have been the first in the world to use the innovative CCDTL cavities. They work on the same principle as normal DTLs: the particles travel through a series of tubes with spaces between them and are accelerated between the tubes by electric fields, entering the next tube when the oscillating field changes direction. In the shelter of the tube, they drift along to the next space, where the field accelerates them once again.

The difference between DTLs and CCDTLs is the way in which they are focused. DTL cavities contain permanent magnets, inside the tubes, that keep the bunches of particles together. “But this solution is quite expensive and, as the permanent magnets are inside the vacuum chamber, it’s difficult to work on them,” Maurizio Vretenar, Linac4 project leader, explains.

At a higher energy, a new solution was possible: placing quadrupole magnets between two series of tubes, outside the vacuum chamber. “This way, we can use electromagnets and can regulate the magnetic field to improve the focusing,” Vretenar continues. Maintenance is much easier and the manufacturing cost is lower.

The initial design of the CCDTL cavities, involving very specific coupling cells, was done at CERN. The development is the fruit of a collaboration between CERN and the Russian institutes VNIITF (Russian Institute for Technical Physics) and BINP (Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics). The Russian institutes then manufactured the components.

Fresh from this success, the commissioning of Linac4 will be stopped in a few days. The last PIMS cavities will be installed during the summer, along with the equipment that will inject the beam into the PS Booster – the second link in the accelerator chain. Commissioning will resume in September with the goal of reaching 160 MeV before the end of the year.

On 28 June, the LHCb collaboration reported the observation of three new "exotic" particles and the confirmation of the existence of a fourth one in data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Each of these particles seems to be formed by four quarks (the fundamental constituent of the matter inside all the atoms of the universe): two quarks and two antiquarks (that is, a tetraquark). Due to their non-standard quark content, the newly observed particles have been included in the broad category of so-called exotic particles, although their exact theoretical interpretation is still under study.

The quark model, proposed by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964, is considered to be the most valid scheme for the classification of hadrons (all the composite particles) that has been found so far, and it is part of the Standard Model of particle physics. In the quark model, hadrons are classified according to their quark content. However, the fact that all observed hadrons were formed either by a pair of quark-antiquarks (in the case of mesons) or by three quarks only (in the case of baryons) was a mystery for many years. But, in the last decade, several collaborations have found evidence of the existence of particles formed by more than three quarks. For example, in 2009 the CDF collaboration found such a particle, known as X(4140) – where the number in parentheses is its reconstructed mass in megaelectronvolts. This result was later confirmed by a new CDF analysis and by the CMS and D0 collaborations.

Nevertheless, the quantum numbers  – characteristic numbers with which the properties of a specific particle are identified –  of X(4140) were not fully determined, and this ambiguity exposed the theoretical explanation to uncertainty. The LHCb collaboration has now been able to determine these numbers with high precision. This result has a significant impact on the possible theoretical interpretations and, indeed, it excludes some of the previously proposed theories on its nature. 

“The studies are very tough,” says Guy Wilkinson, spokesperson of the LHCb collaboration, “requiring a sophisticated modelling of all possible processes contributing to what is seen in the detector, but our analysts are highly skilled in these techniques.” 

While the X(4140) had already been seen, this is the first time that the observation of the three new exotic particles with higher masses, known as X(4274), X(4500) and X(4700), has been announced. Even though the four particles all have the same quark composition, they each have a unique internal structure and mass and their own sets of quantum numbers. 

These results are based on a detailed analysis of the decay of a B⁺ meson into mesons called J/ψ, φ and K⁺, where the new particles appear as intermediate ones decaying to a pair of J/ψ and φ mesons. To perform this research, the LHCb physicists used the full set of data collected during the first LHC run, from 2010 to 2012. The large signal yield efficiently collected by the LHCb detector has allowed the collaboration to discover the three new particles, which were (literally, see the picture) “peaking out” from the data.

“The Run 1 data set has allowed us to uncover these new particles,” Wilkinson continues. “The much larger sample which we have started to collect in Run 2 will allow for a much detailed studies of their properties, to help us understand better how the strong force builds hadrons from the constituent quarks.”

This news follows the discovery of the first two pentaquark particles by the LHCb collaboration last year.

“The results on the tetraquark, following on from the pentaquark discovery, shows what a rich and powerful facility the LHC is for improving our knowledge of hadronic spectroscopy,” Wilkinson happily notices. “This is a topic that was given little consideration when the LHCb experiment was being designed, but one for which the detector is remarkably well adapted,” he concludes.

More information on the tetraquark results is available on the LHCb website and in the two submitted scientific papers (see here and here)

The IT department’s Communication Systems group has provided Wi-Fi connectivity at CERN for many years now but with a focus on meeting rooms, auditoriums and informal meeting places such as the restaurants. Although some buildings have Wi-Fi coverage in offices, most do not and CERN’s Wi-Fi service is lagging behind the demand driven by the growing number of tablets, lightweight laptops and other wireless-only devices.

Furthermore, the current network infrastructure can’t cope with the many devices in the Main Auditorium during events such as the recent LIGO announcement and it often has difficulty handling the demand at Restaurant 1 during lunchtimes. The wireless access points deployed today also have difficulty providing coverage in Building 40, due to its reinforced concrete walls and the circular open space.

Improvements are coming!
Fortunately, the CERN Management recently approved a proposal to provide full Wi-Fi coverage across CERN. Instead of the standalone Wi-Fi access points we have today, the IT-CS group will be installing new, centrally managed access points, which support the latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac “Wave 2”, in conference rooms and throughout office buildings. The new access points will be installed every three offices, providing effective coverage for everybody, with each access point easily capable of supporting up to 10 clients at the same level of performance as the wired network connections in offices today.

Having all the Wi-Fi traffic routed via the central controllers in the Computer Centre means we can finally fix the problems in Restaurant 1 at lunchtimes or during popular events in the main auditorium. Vincent Ducret, the Network Engineer responsible for the Wi-Fi service, explains: “In future, we’ll have one big pool of IP addresses for all of CERN rather than lots of little pools for each building. So when people are in Restaurant 1 for lunch, they’ll be able to get an IP address just as easily as if they were in their office.”

Also, as the IP addresses won’t be linked to location, you will be able to move around within the Wi-Fi coverage area without losing your network connection. No more frustration as connections break and web downloads stop when you move between your office and a meeting room! In some cases, outdoor coverage will also be provided, for example for the busy routes between Building 40 and the Main Building or between Building 774 and the CERN Control Centre.

Managing all of the user connections and routing the traffic centrally means that we will finally be able to introduce a proper “guest” Wi-Fi network at CERN. Short-term visitors will be able to quickly establish a network connection, identifying themselves by means of a code sent to a mobile phone without needing to wait for a contact at CERN to approve their request. Computer security will also be improved as users connected to this “guest” Wi-Fi network will not be able to access most resources at CERN; although they will of course be able to connect to the Internet to, for example, browse the web and read e-mail directly or via a VPN connection. Naturally, the eduroam service will remain, enabling trusted academic visitors to establish a full connection to CERN’s network environment just as they can today.

As well as managing user connections, the central controllers will also actively manage the access points, another big change from today’s configuration, where each access point is independent. This will help greatly with the situation in Building 40 where, as Adam Sosnowski, a fellow involved in preparing the proposal to deploy a campus-wide Wi-Fi service, explains: “In addition to installing many more access points — 200 instead of the 60 we have today — we need to manage the radio transmissions from each access point to avoid interference, for example across the central space.”

When will the new service be available?
“At the moment, we’re studying where best to place the new access points for optimal coverage,” explains Aurélie Pascal, leader of the Wi-Fi Service Enhancement Project, “and installing the necessary network cabling. Deployment of the new access points should start in early 2017 and we aim to complete the project by the beginning of LS2.”

New cabling is needed both because the existing structured cabling is in the wrong place and because it only supports a maximum bandwidth of 1 Gbps, well below the capabilities of the new access points. Unfortunately, cable installation inevitably leads to noise, dust and inconvenience. Having all the cable installation work done outside working hours would be prohibitively expensive but care is being taken to minimise disruption, for example by grouping all the drilling so the noise is over and done with as soon as possible rather than being spread throughout the work. The project team also collaborates with the Territorial Safety Officer during the planning of the work in each building to ensure, for example, that noisy work is suspended during important meetings. And don’t be surprised if you see a network socket being installed in every office: even if all the sockets aren’t needed now, they might be in future; installing all the sockets now will avoid possible disruption later.

Full technical details about the project are available in a video recording of an IT Technical Forum presentation.

All in all, the Wi-Fi service should soon be fully up-to-date and able to cope with today’s mobile computing devices! We hope the improved service will be worth the wait and will more than compensate the disruption during the installation work, especially for the new cabling.

Wi-Fi and non-ionising radiation

The new Wi-Fi network being installed at CERN minimises the emission of non-ionising radiation.

CERN’s new campus-wide Wi-Fi network, for which cabling has just been installed, will improve coverage throughout the Laboratory by using a higher number of lower power installations. This gives more uniform coverage, while at the same time minimising the emission of non-ionising radiation.

Non-ionising radiation (NIR) comprises any type of radiation that does not carry enough energy to ionise atoms or molecules. It includes electrical power distribution systems, infrared radiation, which we experience in the form of heat, microwave radiation and radio waves as well as Wi-Fi. The modern world is completely reliant on NIR. Without it, there would be no electricity distribution, no air traffic control, no television, radio or microwave ovens. Even humans emit non-ionising radiation in the form of heat.

Human exposure to NIR is subject to strict regulation. The International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) considers that exposure below the level that causes heating of the body is unlikely to be associated with adverse health effects, and the power limits for the operation of Wi-Fi base stations are thousands of times lower than the level that would be needed to cause such heating. Our existing installations are already comfortably below this limit, and the new installations will be lower still.

Many studies on the health effects of ambient NIR have been carried out, all concluding that the technology is safe. Some of these reports can be found here and here.

Simon Baird, Head of the HSE Unit

Following the 2015-2016 end of year shutdown, the LHC restarted beam operation in March 2016.  Between the restart and the first technical stop (TS1) in June, the LHC's beam intensity was successively increased, achieving operation with 2040 bunches per beam. The technical stop on 7-8 June was shortened to maximise the time available for luminosity production for the LHC experiments before the summer conferences. Following the technical stop, operation resumed and quickly returned to the performance levels previously achieved. Since then, the LHC has been running steadily with up to 2076 bunches per beam.

Since the technical stop, a total integrated luminosity of more than 9 fb^-1 for ATLAS and CMS has been collected – to be added to the 3 fb^-1 previously collected in 2016 –  with a production rate significantly exceeding expectations, thanks to the excellent machine availability. In the period following TS1 the LHC was operating for about 80% of the total scheduled time, with only 20% of the time spent recovering from faults. This is an outstanding result for a machine as complex as the LHC and represents an improvement of more than 10% with respect to 2015.  The experience gained during Run 1 has resulted in a significantly improvements to operational efficiency, allowing for very smooth machine cycling. As a result, the total time with colliding beams – the so-called ‘Stable Beams’ efficiency – exceeded 50%. This number is particularly impressive when compared with the previous value of 33% in 2015.

The average duration of stable beams in recent weeks was 13.7 hours, compared to 6.3 hours achieved during the 25 ns run in 2015. The improved reliability of individual systems contributes significantly to the successful exploitation of the machine. This is the result of a systematic effort of hardware groups such as cryogenics, quench protection, power converters, RF, collimation, injection and others to improve the reliability and maintainability of their systems. Of particular note this year is the absence of radiation-induced failures of tunnel electronics, achieved despite the higher radiation levels due to the higher luminosity production thanks to the major effort co-ordinated by the radiation to electronics team.

On 26 June, the LHC has reached its design peak luminosity of 1 x 10³⁴ cm^-2s^-1 for the first time. This fill was kept in the machine for 37 hours – yet another record – producing 0.7 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity before being finally dumped by the operators. This is an impressive result, in particular when considering that the LHC is still operating at 6.5 TeV, below the nominal energy of 7 TeV.

Up until 5 July, 23 fills reached Stable Beams, six of which were dumped by operators after 20 to 30 hours. All other fills were kept in collision until the occurrence of a fault inducing a beam dump. This approach has been chosen by the LHC coordination team thanks to the excellent luminosity lifetimes of more than 30 hours, allowing for productive fills lasting more than one day.

Despite the excellent overall performance, the LHC suffered a few failures after the first technical stop. In particular, a water infiltration in the LHC tunnel resulted in flooding of the service area of LHC Point 3 on 21 June. This affected several systems, particularly the control racks of the nearby collimation system. Several control cables were damaged by the water infiltration and needed to be replaced. Work in the tunnel was delayed due to a problem with the lift in point 3, which was also a consequence of the flood. The overall downtime of the LHC due to this event was about 65 hours.

Moreover, some recurring causes of premature dumps are still being seen. Four beam dumps were induced by beam losses generated by the interaction of the beam with dust particles intercepting the beam trajectory (the so-called UFOs – Unidentified Falling Objects). These events were all observed at the same location in the machine, close to the left-hand side of LHC Point 1. UFOs do not threaten machine safety, but as they reduce machine availability the settings of the beam loss monitors were slightly optimised on 4 July to cope with the losses induced.

Even considering such events, after the excellent start of 2016, new records of luminosity production are expected to be made before the next year-end technical stop.

It’s been a record-breaking period for the LHC. On the evening of Wednesday, 1 June, the maximum number of bunches achievable with the current configuration, based on the injection of 72 bunches trains with a spacing of 25 ns, was reached. 2040 bunches were circulating in the machine. The rest of the week continued in a similar vein: the luminosity record at 6.5 TeV was broken with a peak luminosity of just over 8 x 10³³ cm^-2s^-1, reaching 80% of the design luminosity. This was followed by a new record for integrated luminosity in a single fill, with 370 pb^-1delivered in 18 hours of colliding beams. Finally, a third record was broken later in the week: with an availability for collisions of around 75% (the annual average is normally around 35%) and 6 long fills of particles brought into collision one after the other, around 2 fb^-1 of luminosity were delivered during the week, breaking the previous record of 1.4 fb^-1 in a single week established in June 2012.

These records follow the decision taken at the end of May to focus on delivering the highest possible integrated luminosity by the summer conferences, given the delays caused by the recent technical problems.

As a consequence of this decision, the first machine development period, in which machine experts carry out machine studies, has been postponed to allow luminosity production to be given priority until the first technical stop (TS1). Given the long stop caused by the problem with the PS main power supply, which had ended just the week before the decision was taken, it was also decided to reduce the length of the LHC technical stop from five days to two and a half days.

With 2040 bunches circulating in the machine, the heat load deposited on the LHC beam screens in the arcs reached 150 W per half cell (one quadrupole and 3 dipoles) in sector 12 (between ATLAS and ALICE), just below the maximum of 160 W that can be tolerated by the cryogenics system. Electron clouds induced in the vacuum chamber by the closely spaced LHC bunches are responsible for this heat load. With a new cryogenic feed-forward system in place to tune the beam screen cooling parameters according to the intensity stored in the machine and the beam energy, operation is now significantly smoother than in 2015. The waiting periods needed to allow the cryogenics system to stabilise before starting the energy ramp-up or the ramp-down after a dump have virtually disappeared as a result, significantly speeding up the machine cycle.

The technical stop finished on schedule around midday on Thursday, 9 June. It was followed by a number of fills with a low number of bunches to validate the machine set-up. The aperture and optics were measured and a full set of loss maps was performed. These confirmed that the machine is in good shape and ready for a sustained period of operation at high luminosity.

CERN has awarded funding to six new projects with the aim to bridge the gap between technology and society. Over 600,000 CHF (€542, 766) of capital was granted through its competitive Knowledge Transfer Fund (KT Fund). The fund is issued as part of CERN’s goal to maximize its overall impact on society.

The selected projects cover new applications for CERN technology in a broad range of fields beyond high-energy physics, ranging from cancer diagnostics and aerospace applications, to next-generation cloud computing, radiation safety, and digital preservation. The technologies were developed at CERN as part of the variety of high-energy physics needs, and arise from several research departments: Engineering, Information Technology, Beams and Experimental Physics.

Since the fund’s creation in 2011, 38 projects have been funded, each project receiving grants between 15-240 kCHF in value over one or several years.

One of the projects can be used for non-invasive Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans, which can help for early diagnostics of cancer in patients, and was funded by the Medical Applications section. “The technology readiness level is often in the early stages compared to industry standards,” said Manuela Cirilli, section leader of Medical Applications at CERN. Cirilli started working at CERN as a physicist and then became passionate about how CERN detector and accelerator technology could be used to solve societal challenges through medical applications. “The KT Fund ensures increased marketability of CERN technology so it has a better chance to be useful to society as soon as possible,” Cirilli adds.

In addition to increased marketability, the KT Fund aims to grow its public-private cooperation as a tested way to accelerate the innovation process. Relevant industrial companies, hospitals, external universities, startups and sometimes spin-offs are involved in the technological development financed by the KT Fund. The partnerships are set up internationally and are a true testimony to CERN’s international nature. 

The development of human capital is also central to the KT Fund activities. The grants contribute to material and equipment costs, but also mean CERN teams can hire associate members, technical students or PhD students to contribute to R&D activities. These new contributors gain knowledge related to product industrialization and project management, and leave CERN with direct links with industry. This helps them develop their careers, and contributes to the dissemination of CERN’s knowledge towards industry.

CERN’s Knowledge Transfer process focuses on maximizing impact rather than profit, so part of the revenue generated by other Knowledge Transfer activities is directly re-invested into the KT Fund.

CERN members working on new technology or knowledge that is potentially transferable can contact the Knowledge Transfer Group. The KT Fund encourages CERN researchers, engineers or technicians interested in applying for the next KT Fund call to contact their INET coordinator or the Knowledge Transfer group as early as possible to discuss opportunities.

This year, the event, which is held over four stages in the Geneva area, took place on Wednesday evenings from 25 May to 15 June.

CERN shone in the “Entreprise” categories, taking first place in both the female and male group rankings. There were also some excellent individual results, with particularly impressive times in the “Vétérans 2” category (Camille Ruiz Llamas and Graham Dore were placed third and sixth respectively).

See the full results on the Tour website and on the CERN Running Club website.

On 13 July a new exhibition about CERN opens in Milan, Italy, with free entry to those with a CERN access card.

More information is available here.

A record number of 142 CERN teams battled June rain to achieve ninth place in this year’s Swiss Bike2Work competition, in terms of the number of participating teams.

Close to 54,000 employees from more than 1700 companies and organisations took part in this annual, national campaign, launched in 2004.

It aims to encourage commuters to grab a helmet and travel on two wheels, improving fitness and reducing congestion on the roads.

Overall, the CERN teams cycled 97,091 kilometres; amounting to a 15,000 kg reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, compared to what would have been produced by cars.

A 15% participation rate also placed us third among companies with 1000-5000 employees.

Both the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH) had more teams than CERN: 149 EPFL teams cycled over two months and 209 ETH teams cycled over one month.

But it was the Paul Scherrer Institute’s 67 teams who were crowned victorious in terms of distance cycled, accumulating an impressive 140,000 kilometres over May and June.

Despite this year’s Bike2Work being over, there is no reason to put your bike away: a new cycle path is under construction between CERN’s two sites and more showers are being installed.

What are you waiting for? Sign up to “Bike To CERN through the year” and join the ever-growing list of people adopting a healthier, more eco-friendly commute to work. 

Bike2Work: facts & figures 2016

The CERN & Society programme encompasses projects in the areas of education and outreach, innovation and knowledge exchange, and culture and creativity that spread the CERN spirit of scientific curiosity for the inspiration and benefit of society.

The programme is funded primarily by the CERN & Society Foundation, a charitable foundation established by CERN and supported by individuals, trusts, organisations and commercial companies. The projects are inspired or enabled by CERN but lie outside of the Laboratory’s specific research mandate. We especially want to help young talent from around the world to flourish in the future.

The programme is now launching its newsletter, which will be issued quarterly. Everybody who wants to be informed about CERN & Society’s activities, stay up-to-date with its latest initiatives and challenges and explore the possibilities to join in is invited to sign up here.

Sunday 24 July sees the opening of the seventh EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF 2016), which takes place every two years in a different European city. In 2016, it’s Manchester’s turn to host Europe’s largest public-facing scientific event, and CERN will be there along with our EIROforum partners.

Reflecting Manchester’s historical and ongoing association with science and industry, the eight members of EIROforum have put together a programme of activity focusing on how science gives rise to innovation. The focal point of EIROforum’s activity will be a stand developed by the EIROforum Innovation Management and Knowledge Transfer working group, highlighting science and innovation. Sessions in the main programme will cover the science done at the EIROs and how they generate business value. A keynote session featuring the Directors-General of CERN and EMBL and the Science Director of ESO will cover the importance of science on a European scale.

Other EIROforum activities include sessions in the exhibition hall on innovation, business opportunities and working at the EIROs.

If you are interested in attending, you can still sign up for the event. Look out for the page in the programme covering all EIROforum’s activities at ESOF, and for a session about SESAME, which will feature the work coordinated by CERN under the EU’s CESSAMag project. 

In 2007, the German Gentner Doctoral Student Programme was established at CERN, named in honour of the celebrated nuclear physicist Wolfgang Gentner, President of the CERN Council from 1972-74. On 1 July 2016, the 100th Gentner Doctoral Student, Christian Zimmer, started his PhD at CERN, where he will work on setting up the sympathetic laser cooling of antiprotons at the AEgIS experiment.

CERN’s Doctoral Student Programme has been running for many years, with 200 students currently enrolled. The Gentner programme is fully integrated into the general CERN Doctoral Student Programme, but is entirely funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The programme sponsors 30 to 40 students for three years and is open to any EU nationals enrolled at a German university.

Many CERN groups have profited greatly from the Gentner programme. Lots of new and innovative ideas could not otherwise have been developed because of a lack of funding. “The externally funded Gentner students give a unique opportunity for visions to become reality, and the programme is establishing new ties to research groups in Germany,” says Michael Hauschild, coordinator of the programme.

The first ‘Gentner Doktor’ finished his PhD in 2011 and took up a position at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. However, the majority of former Gentner students go on to pursue careers at CERN: about two-thirds of them became applied fellows and some are still employed here as staff. This indicates the excellent career prospects that the programme offers.

Christian Zimmer, the 100th Gentner PhD student, comments on his experience at CERN: “The framework of the Gentner programme at CERN offers a unique opportunity for me to contribute to the fascinating research that is performed here. For the next three years, I will be part of the AEgIS collaboration and will participate in the project aiming to cool antiprotons to temperatures in the range of millikelvins, which has never been done before. I am really excited about setting this up for the experiment.”

Find out more information about the German Gentner Doctoral Student Programme at CERN here.

For around ten years, the Underwriters Laboratories Firefighter Safety Research Institute (UL FSRI) has been carrying out scientific research on the various techniques used by firefighters in the United States and around the world. This research has focused on evaluating the effectiveness and safety of current practices worldwide with the aim of developing even better techniques. In many cases the research has shown that a combination of techniques gives the best results.

Art Arnalich, who has worked with fire brigades in the United States and Europe and is now a member of CERN’s Fire Brigade, has actively participated in this research since 2013. His knowledge of the techniques currently deployed on both sides of the Atlantic is much appreciated. “The UL FSRI laboratory has several life-size model houses that the researchers can set alight for their tests,” explains Art Arnalich. “They have used them, in particular, to study the various tactics used to attack a fire. Some fire brigades prefer to fight fires from inside a building, others from the outside. But the researchers have shown that a combined internal/external approach, combined with the use of a ventilator at the entrance to the building to repel the smoke, is much more effective. Their work is really innovative; it’s helping to improve the techniques used by firefighters all over the world!” 

In the framework of the collaboration with UL FSRI, Art Analich and Javier Cuadrado, another Spanish-speaking firefighter from the CERN Fire Brigade, have worked in cooperation with eight Spanish-speaking fire brigades from all over the world on the Spanish translation of Governors Island, a free online training programme that has already been followed by more than 30,000 firefighters worldwide. In addition, the Spanish audio for the training programme was recorded at CERN, with help from the Audiovisual Production service.

From 18 to 23 April, Art also participated as a guest instructor representing CERN at FDIC International 2016 in Indianapolis (United States), the world’s biggest conference on firefighting techniques, which this year was attended by over 32,000 participants. Art gave a lecture on the differences between European and American techniques and the benefits of a combined approach, as demonstrated by UL FSRI. “At CERN, scientific research is part of our daily life,” concludes Art, “and we know how essential it is for making progress. It’s important for the firefighting world to be able to rely on sound research based on scientific data.”

On 17 July 2016, Romania became the twenty-second Member State of CERN, 25 years after the first cooperation agreement with the country was signed. “CERN and Romania already have a long history of strong collaboration”, says Emmanuel Tsesmelis, head of Relations with Associate Members and Non-Member States. “We very much look forward to strengthening this collaboration as Romania becomes CERN’s twenty-second Member State, which promises the development of mutual interests in scientific research, related technologies and education,” he affirms.

Romania's scientific community at CERN has grown over the years and currently numbers around a hundred visiting scientists involved in the LHC experiments ALICE, ATLAS and LHCb as well as NA62, n_TOF, ISOLDE and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. Some of these physicists share their thoughts about this new stage for their community.

“I am very proud and honored to be a member of Romanian team in this very exciting moment when we become a Member State,” comments Valentina Tudorache, a member of the ATLAS collaboration from the National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH) in Bucharest. “I strongly believe that as a new Member State we will have the opportunity to contribute even more to CERN’s mission particularly at this important time of the year while many analyses are under way so that we can publish LHC Run 2 results,” she concludes.

“With Romania being a CERN Member State, we really hope that this will create the necessary conditions to enhance the synergies, with real benefits on both sides,” declares Mihai Petrovici, head of the Hadron Physics department at IFIN-HH and leader of one of the Romanian teams within ALICE. “The Romanian scientific community has the chance to become more coherent, competitive and visible within the various research activities carried out at CERN. Having access to all CERN facilities on an equal footing with other Member States will have a significant impact on the efficiency and motivation of many researchers and young talented students planning to join this field of research in Romania,” he remarks.

“From the very beginning, we have received a huge amount of support from the CERN administration and we have been greatly encouraged by our colleagues,” says Calin Alexa of IFIN-HH’s Particle Physics department, who is also Romania’s National Contact Physicist in ATLAS and head of his institute’s ATLAS group. What it will change is that the Romanian groups at CERN will benefit from greater stability, increased confidence and a formal support struture. This stability is of a primary importance, especially for the funding agencies.”

“The status of Romania as a Member State of CERN will have a major impact, especially for students, who will now have the opportunity to be much more involved in CERN experiments from a younger age thanks to the fellowship or summer student programmes,” states Ana Elena Dumitriu, a PhD student in the ATLAS collaboration and member of the Department of Elementary Particle Physics at IFIN-HH.

“I don't see this as reaching a final destination, but rather as an important milestone in a long journey that we started many years ago,” affirms Andrei Gheata, a member of CERN’s EP-SFT group. “Romanian researchers, computer scientists, engineers and technicians have been participating in many CERN projects for quite some time, and I have witnessed a constant increase in this participation during the last 15 years,” he continues. “I am confident that this will bring about many opportunities that will benefit both Romanian research and industry, while also contributing to CERN's mission to push the limits of knowledge and technology,” he concludes.

After winning both regional and national competitions in Turkey, 18-year-old student Baris Volkan Gürses competed against 169 young scientists and was awarded a visit to CERN by EIROforum for his physics project in EUCYS 2015.

His project, entitled “Generation of artificial gravity by using electrostatic force for presentation of muscle atrophy and osteoporosis occurring in gravity-free environments”, focused on the design of a mechanism to help with the impact of spaceflight on the human body.

“My objective was to eliminate the negative effects of a gravity-free environment on astronauts who stay in space for longer periods of time, like in the International Space Station,” explained Volkan.

“I designed a mechanism that would create an electric field and designed a suit to be worn by the astronauts and a plate to be placed on the floor of the spacecraft.”

Using this mechanism, astronauts would have to use more force to overcome the pressure of the electric field and electrostatic force, thereby minimising the effects of low-gravity environments such as osteoporosis and muscle atrophy.

His stay at CERN comprised a visit to see experiments such as CMS, ATLAS, SM18, AMS, and CLIC first hand, a meeting at the Theory department and a trip to the Globe of Science and Innovation.

“You hear about CERN and the experiments in the news from a more distant perspective,” said Volkan. “But when you come here, there is a just seven-metre-thick wall between you and a world-renowned experiment. It was very exciting to be so close and see all the live data.”

EUCYS was established in 1989 to encourage the interests of potential future scientists and to foster collaboration between science and society.

Volkan will begin attending the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States in autumn 2016 and aims to major in electrical engineering.

Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari was the first-ever female spaceflight participant, spending eight days on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2006. She now has a new addition to her list of extraordinary sights ­– the home of the world’s largest particle accelerator: CERN.  

On 15 July, Anousheh Ansari came to CERN and, unsurprisingly, visited the control room of the experiment attached to the ISS: the AMS.

At the AMS Payload Operations Control Centre (AMS POCC) on CERN’S Prévessin site, she met the Nobel laureate Samuel Ting, spokesperson of the AMS experiment.

Ansari and her accompanying guests were thrilled to expand their knowledge about CERN, its research and its people, as part of one inspiring, unforgettable day. 

 
 

Computer security at CERN must always find the right balance between CERN’s academic environment, its operations and security itself. Of course we can easily overdo it one way or another, but that would kill our academic freedom and bring the Organization to a halt. That certainly isn’t in our interest. On the other hand, CERN is permanently under attack and we have to do everything possible to ensure that those attacks are kept at bay. Otherwise they could impact CERN’s operations… So, have we found the right balance?

Concerning access to the Internet and in particular to the web, we have not and will not block random websites because of their content unless – and this is crucial – unless the website hosts malicious content that could impact the operation of CERN’s computers or accounts. Malware hosting sites are a good example, as browsing onto such a website might infect a large number of CERN Windows or Mac computers. This is why we blocked the website “20min.ch” a while ago (see our Bulletin article “Drive-bye” on this subject). Sites resembling the CERN Single Sign-On webpage and deliberately created for phishing attacks against CERN are also blocked as a protective measure. And we block Doppelgänger domains, i.e. domain names which resemble those of CERN (like “cem.ch”) or are just one typo away from CERN’s (like “cern.cg”, etc.), in order to protect you against typo-squatting.

But that’s it. We do not block webpages because of other, arguably undesirable content, whatever “undesirable” might mean. For example, we do not filter pornographic sites. Of course, the consultation of pornographic content violates the CERN Computing Rules and CERN’s Code of Conduct and I doubt there is anyone at CERN with a professional need to consult such material, but we do not block them (just monitor their illicit usage). Hence, in response to the question: “How dare we censor Internet access?” the answer is: “We don’t dare: we do not censor at all. We believe in and value academic freedom at CERN and aim to balance our computer security measures accordingly.”

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

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