Last Monday, 16 October 2017, exactly 50 years to the day after the first radioactive beam was produced at ISOLDE in 1967, we celebrated 50 years of physics at the facility.

ISOLDE is the longest-running experimental facility at CERN. What started as a small nuclear physics experiment, has now grown over half a century into a facility that provides beam for over 50 experiments, and 500 users. (Read: Meet ISOLDE: Where did it all begin?).

In this period, 113 isotopes have been discovered for the first time at ISOLDE, granting CERN fifth place worldwide on the Top 25 Labs for Nuclide Discovery list. With the long-awaited HIE-ISOLDE upgrade (Read: Future physics with HIE-ISOLDE), due to be completed next year, the scientists at ISOLDE will have the chance to study ever more exotic nuclei, be able to answer more of our questions about our universe and perhaps discover even more isotopes.

But ISOLDE does much more than make discoveries. The facility is helping to make computers faster with its research into solid state physics, and is currently contributing research on ways to treat cancer with radiation.

With the advent of CERN-MEDICIS (Read: What can ISOLDE do for cancer research?), a new facility attached to ISOLDE, which will start producing isotopes later this year, ISOLDE will have even more scope for helping make breakthroughs in medical research.

Radioactive isotopes are already widely used by the medical community, for imaging, diagnostics and radiation therapy. But many of the isotopes currently used are not perfect; they don’t target tumours closely enough, or a different type of radiation might be better suited for the imaging process. MEDICIS hopes to be able to produce isotopes that more accurately meet the needs of medical professionals.

To mark the anniversary, ISOLDE’s user community came together to publish a portrait of the Laboratory, with multiple open access reports looking at the different physics and applications currently studied at ISOLDE.

With fifty years of history and experience to back these new upgrades and clear benefits for our society ISOLDE is, and will remain, one of the best facilities in the world for nuclear physics research, and a jewel in CERN’s crown.

Find out more about ISOLDE by reading Meet ISOLDE and watching the short documentary series below (subtitles available in English and French).

On 16 November at 18:00, a premiere screening of the film The Sense of Beauty will take place in the Main Auditorium. 

The Sense of Beauty is a film by Valerio Jalongo, produced at CERN with the participation of many of the theorists, experimentalists and technicians working in the laboratory.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session.

A new user facility for accelerator R&D, the CERN Linear Electron Accelerator for Research (CLEAR), started operation in August and is ready to provide beam for experiments. CLEAR evolved from the former CLIC Test Facility 3 (CTF3) used by the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), which ended its successful programme in December 2016. Following approval of the CLEAR proposal, the necessary hardware modifications started in January and the facility is now able to host and test a broad range of ideas in the accelerator field.

CLEAR’s primary goal is to enhance and complement the existing accelerator R&D programme at CERN, as well as offering a training infrastructure for future accelerator physicists and engineers. The focus is on general accelerator R&D and component studies for existing and possible future accelerator applications. This includes studies of high-gradient acceleration methods, such as CLIC X‑band and plasma technologies, as well as prototyping and validation of accelerator components for the High-Luminosity LHC upgrade.

The scientific programme for 2017 includes: a combined test of critical CLIC technologies, continuing previous tests performed at CTF3; measurements of radiation effects on electronic components to be installed on space missions in a Jovian environment and for dosimetry tests aimed at medical applications; beam instrumentation R&D; and the use of plasma for beam focusing. Further experiments, such as those exploring THz radiation for accelerator applications and direct impedance measurements of equipment to be installed in CERN accelerators, are also planned.

The experimental programme for 2018 and beyond is still open to new and challenging proposals. An international scientific committee is currently being formed to prioritise proposals, and a user request form is available at the CLEAR website: cern.ch/clear.

This article first appeared in the November 2017 issue of the CERN Courier. You can read the original here:  http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/70118

Why do computers remain unpatched? Why are passwords lost even today? Why do people still open malicious attachments? Why is encryption not always embraced? Is the major problem with understanding cybersecurity that it is not tangible? You can’t touch it. You can’t smell it. You can’t hear it. While computers and smartphones can be touched/smelled/heard, their apps and your data can’t. That makes cybersecurity abstract and easy to ignore, forgotten as soon as the mind focuses elsewhere.

In the real world, we have become accustomed to acting securely. We lock our houses and shut the windows when going on holiday. If the lock or window is broken, we get it fixed. If some stranger asks us for our credit card PIN, we tell them to get lost. The same applies if a stranger offers us, for example, a small bag of white powder and asks us to carry it across the border: we (should) decline and leave. And, for sure, we do not shout out intimate details about recent family problems, illnesses, affairs and so on.

On the other hand, we usually also store lots of (digital) valuables in our computers: bank information, private correspondence, family photos and videos. For some of us, our whole life is accessible through our computer (see our Bulletin article “Open door, open screen, open life..."), but we struggle to keep our computers up to date such that basic digital protections are in place. Some people reply if they receive an e-mail from a stranger, in an unusual context, possibly even in a foreign language, asking for their Apple ID, Office 365 account details or CERN password. Sure, they won’t have given away their PIN. But such e-mails are like any other unverified communications in the open with strangers. Only the context transforms the stranger and the conversation into something tangible and trustworthy (or not). The same holds for web links: every blue, underlined text pointing to another webpage is nothing other than a potential “small bag of white powder” offered to us by a stranger. Only the context makes it trustworthy (or malicious). Also, if you do not use encrypted channels (e.g. HTTPS, SSH or VPN), your digital communication with the world is public – whether you’re browsing the web, posting on Facebook or accessing your inbox. All unencrypted communication is shouted out aloud to those who want to listen…

So, please think a bit more about the real world. Think about the protection of your valuables at home. Think of your PIN. Of small bags offered in dark places. About the way you talk about family business. Then do the same in the virtual world: keep your computer, laptop and smartphone up to date, protect your password, STOP --- THINK --- DON’T CLICK, and make sure that you use “HTTPS” when browsing (check for the “https://” in your browser’s URL address bar --- the “s” is important). 

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

On Monday, 30 October, the CERN Control Centre operators announced good news: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had successfully met its production target for 2017, delivering more than 45 inverse femtobarns* to the ATLAS and CMS experiments. This achievement was all the more impressive as it was ahead of schedule.

The LHC is continuing to provide physics data to the experiments. Yet, earlier this year, it seemed unlikely that this target would be achieved. An issue had developed in the interconnection between two magnets, collectively known as 16L2, which was affecting machine performance. Then, in early September, thanks to effective and creative collaboration between various teams at CERN, several ways to deal with the technical issue were developed, enabling the LHC and its injector chain to reach top performances again. In addition, by the end of September, the 2017 production run had been shortened by bringing special runs planned for 2018 forward to 2017, putting yet more pressure on the operators to deliver in a shorter time frame. 

Nonetheless, with the target met, as well as another milestone achieved on Thursday, 2 November when stable beams were declared with a peak luminosity of 2.05 x 10³⁴cm^-2s^-1, more than twice the design luminosity, the LHC has once again shown its excellence. 

Lately the peak luminosity has been levelled down to 1.5 x 10³⁴ cm^-2s^-1 to avoid too much pile-up of events in the ATLAS and CMS detectors. However, on 2 November this was not done for two reasons: firstly to have the ATLAS and CMS detectors working under a high pile-up regime and secondly to gain more insight into the actual cooling margins of the triplet magnets that are situated on either side of the ATLAS and CMS experiments and absorb much of the collision debris.

The 2017 physics run will end this year, with 15 days of special runs plus a machine development period before the winter shutdown begins on 4 December, one week earlier than initially scheduled. At that point, the year-end technical stop (YETS) will be used to help consolidate and improve the machine and the experiments, ahead of the restart in spring 2018, ready to try and increase the integrated luminosity to 90 fb^-1, the goal set for 2017 and 2018.  

* The inverse femtobarn (fb^-1) is the unit of measurement for integrated luminosity, indicating the cumulative number of potential collisions. One inverse femtobarn corresponds to around 100 million million collisions.

Grab your friends and neighbours and take a wander around the Automnales. In between tasting longeole sausage and watching a demonstration of amazing kitchen gadgets, introduce them to CERN. This year, CERN is the guest of honour at Geneva’s huge local fair, which will take place at Palexpo from 10 to 19 November. It’s an opportunity for us to present CERN to people who would never have thought of visiting the Laboratory otherwise.

The CERN stand, whose structure represents a particle collision, will consist of 1000 square metres of exhibits and activities. Your friends and family will have the chance to find out all about the particle physics adventure and to meet researchers and other CERN personnel. All aspects of fundamental research and its applications will be presented using exhibits, activities, films, quizzes and even virtual reality headsets.

Everyone, regardless of their age or previous knowledge, will find activities to suit them. No fewer than 160 volunteers from CERN have offered to give their time to introduce the Laboratory to the 150 000 people expected to visit the fair.

The theme of this year’s Automnales is “Passionately!” That’s very appropriate, since scientific research is a fascinating field driven by passionate people. Come and share that passion at our stand!

The Automnales will take place at Palexpo from 10 to 19 November and will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays. Admission will be free of charge after 7 p.m.

A limited number of invitations will be available for pick-up from Thursday 9 November at the Reception in building 33.
Maximum 5 per person, while stock lasts.

The CERN stand will be located in Hall 1 and will offer a wide range of activities.

Activities available throughout

• Virtual reality tours- Duration: about 5 minutes.
  Virtual reality headsets will offer visitors the chance to see the LHC accelerator, a detector and the Data Centre up close.
• Proton football - Duration: about 5 minutes.
  How can we make a Higgs at the Automnales? By playing proton football! Take a shot and try to make the protons collide with as much energy as possible.  
• HEAL: protons fror health - Duration: about 5 minutes.
  A game designed to teach people about the role of accelerators in medicine.  
• Info screens, posters, objects, etc. - Duration: a few minutes for each item.
  Multimedia screens, informative posters and various objects take visitors on a journey into CERN’s world.

Shows

• Quiz and "CERN in 15 minutes" - Duration: 20 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French.
  After taking part in a quiz to test what you know (or think you know) about the Laboratory, learn about CERN in five steps. This is followed by a public question and answer session.
• Fun With Physics - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 7 and up.In French.
  The surprising properties of liquid nitrogen: smash a rubber tube using a hammer or make a train levitate - it’s not magic, it’s science!  
• The electric show - Hosted by the University of Geneva’s Physiscope - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French.
  What goes on inside the electrical circuits that power lamps or TVs? Is there any electricity in the air? Does the human body conduct electricity? Find out the answers to all these questions with the Electric Show!  
• Virtual guided tours - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French.
  See the control rooms of the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb detectors in real time, and take the opportunity to ask the researchers about their daily work.  
• Particle tracking - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up.In French.
  Find out how we can use a pixel detector, just like those used in the LHC experiments, along with a normal tablet to observe some of the particles surrounding us.  

Activities for young audiences

• Code science - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 7 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited. Children will be taught how to programme a robotic arm or a touch screen, two technologies used every day at CERN.
• Cloud chambers- Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited.
  Participants will have the chance to build their own particle detector and then use it, just a few minutes later, to observe the particles that are all around us, some of which come from space.
• Physics at home - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 6 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited.
  Fun experiments using household objects will demonstrate the principles on which CERN’s accelerators rely.

Film screenings (The programme will be shown on-screen. Free of charge, no reservation required.)

• Bienvenue au CERN - Every 15 minutes. In French. A physicist presents all aspects of CERN.
• Big science – Big data - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French. A short film about CERN’s incredible computing infrastructure, which is capable of collecting and storing tens of millions of gigabytes of data every year. 
• Big science – Big Bang - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French. A short film about the LHC, the biggest particle accelerator in the world. 
• Sur les routes de la science: le côté sombre de l'Univers - Duration: 47 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French. The “ordinary” matter that we know about makes up only 15% of the matter in the Universe. The rest, referred to as “dark matter”, remains a mystery. Two journalists investigate.
• Taming the quantum world - Duration: 46 minutes. For ages 14 and up. In English with French subtitles. The relationship between computing and quantum physics.
• BBC horizon: Inside CERN - Duration: 59 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In English with French subtitles. The ups and downs of fundamental research, from the excitement of a possible discovery to the disappointment when the signals fade away.

At the beginning of September, CERN’s computing systems came under attack. Adversaries tried to find their way into CERN’s Windows infrastructure with the aim of taking over the essential central Domain Controllers. And the experts from the University of Toronto did a great job!

Reviewing CERN’s computer security defences is part of our catalogue of best practices, as it is naturally better to identify suboptimal configurations under friendly fire than to succumb to evil BlackHats exploiting them for their malicious deeds. Therefore, CERN’s Computer Security Team repeatedly reviews and audits the various computing services, control systems, web applications, and software implemented and deployed at CERN.

But having an independent review can shed light from a different angle and highlight weaknesses and vulnerabilities missed by our audits. Enter the University of Toronto, where Allan Stojanovic and his team of professional hackers took up the challenge of trying to break into CERN, namely its Windows computing infrastructure.

During the first weekend of September 2017, Allan and his colleagues scanned CERN’s computing infrastructure as it is visible from the Internet – the “reconnaissance” phase. Having identified potential areas of interest, they then tried to take over servers and websites belonging to the Windows computing infrastructure – i.e. they tried to penetrate computing facilities that are usually protected behind CERN’s outer perimeter firewall.

Once inside, their mandate would have allowed them to continue as far as they could to show that they could have taken over administrator rights on the so-called central Domain Controllers, the core systems of the Windows infrastructure. Becoming administrators of those servers would have provided them with full access to any other centrally managed Windows system at CERN. In order to avoid any accidental damage, every step taken by them was coordinated and authorised by CERN’s Computing Security Officer. After three days of heavy poking, some frustration, and lots of pizza and coffee, the exercise ended and Allan provided CERN with a detailed report of significant, less significant and collateral areas for improvement. Thank you very much, Allan and colleagues!!! All of those weaknesses have now been addressed.

And we have not finished yet. The IT department and the Computer Security team are considering teaming up with other professional companies and teams to further poke around for areas for improvement under the umbrella of CERN’s WhiteHat Challenge. Given the complexity and vastness of CERN’s computing facilities, there must be more weaknesses!

And you can join in: if you also want to become a penetration tester and learn how to detect vulnerabilities, poke for weaknesses and identify potential areas for improving CERN’s computer security in general – or the security of your computing service, control system, web application or software in particular – sign up to the WhiteHat Challenge. Roughly 140 people plus six universities have done so far, constantly improving CERN’s computer security defences!

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

On 1 November 2007, the very first student of the special German Doctoral Student Programme at CERN (Wolfgang Gentner Scholarships) began his work, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Gentner Programme, which is based on cooperation between BMBF, CERN and DESY, the regular meeting of students and their supervisors held on 25 October 2017 was dedicated to celebrating this event.

Guest speaker Thomas Roth from BMBF highlighted the success of the programme, and the first "Gentner Doktor", who is now working at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), gave some insights into his time as a Gentner Doctoral Student and his later career. Students' presentations and a poster session completed the programme for the “Gentner Day”.

Students, university supervisors and CERN groups are benefiting greatly from the Gentner Programme, which was recently extended by 3 + 3 years until 2023, with a significant increase in funding.

See also the article published last year about the arrival of the 100^th student.

On Friday, 10 November, the final beams of the 2017 proton run circulated in the LHC. The run ended, as it does every year, with a round-up of the luminosity performance. The LHC has far exceeded its target for 2017. It has provided its two major experiments, ATLAS and CMS, with 50 inverse femtobarns of data, i.e. 5 million billion collisions.

This result is all the more remarkable because the machine experts had to overcome a serious setback. A vacuum problem in the beam pipe of a magnet cell limited the number of bunches that could circulate in the machine. Several teams were brought in to find a solution. Notably, the arrangement of the bunches in the beams was changed. After a few weeks, luminosity started to increase again.

At the same time, over the course of the year, the operators have optimised the operating parameters. Using a new system, the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing (ATS) scheme (see the text below) put in place this year, they have notably reduced the size of the beams when they meet at the centre of the experiments (the more squeezed the beams, the more collisions occur each time they meet). Last year, the operators managed to obtain 40 collisions at each bunch crossing, with each bunch containing 100 billion particles. In 2017, up to 60 collisions were produced at each crossing.

Thanks to these improvements, the instantaneous luminosity record was smashed, reaching 2.06 x 10³⁴ cm^-2s^-1, twice the nominal value.

The LHC will continue to operate for another three weeks for two special runs and operation studies. The first special run will consist of carrying out proton collisions at 5.02 TeV, the same energy as that planned for next year’s lead-ion runs. This will enable physicists to collect data with protons and set a reference for the comparison with the lead-ion data.

The second special run, at very low luminosity and high beta*, will provide data for the TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA experiments. The energy will be limited to 450 GeV, i.e. the injection energy into the LHC.

Finally, the operators will carry out a “machine development” campaign. Over a period of one week, they will perform operating tests to improve the accelerator’s performance still further, including tests with the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing scheme.

The magic of the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing scheme

At the beginning of the year, it was decided to make significant modifications to the LHC optics in order to make the optics compatible with the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing (ATS) scheme. This scheme offers innovative and complementary optics manipulations in order to reduce the beta*, which quantifies the beam spot size at the interaction point. This scheme is now accepted as being the most cost-effective and robust way to reach the very challenging beta* target of 10-15 cm for the HL-LHC, which otherwise would be intrinsically limited.

 The first challenge that had to be overcome to enable early implementation of the scheme in the LHC was to demonstrate an ATS-compatible version of the LHC optics at the  intermediate beta* of 40 cm, as already reached in 2016 (hence intermediate from the HL-LHC perspective but already beyond the LHC’s design value of 55 cm). The second challenge was to commission the scheme’s telescopic techniques, to be deployed later in the year. These techniques contributed to the existing LHC’s record-breaking performances, helping it to achieve a 30‑cm beta*, almost a factor of two below its design value. 

This week, come and learn about how waste is sorted and recovered in the Main Building (500), where the contractor responsible for collecting waste at CERN*, in partnership with the SMB department, will explain how to sort waste at CERN for optimal recycling. We can all make a difference, however small, to help protect the environment, so get involved!

What is recycled?

Paper, cardboard, PET, aluminium cans, glass, Nespresso capsules, wood and worksite waste: in 2016, CERN produced no less than 5700 tonnes of waste, about 50% of which was recycled. How can we improve on this? With your help! Numerous waste containers, skips and bins for recyclable materials are provided on the CERN sites – please use them!

In particular:

• Every office has a paper/cardboard recycling box.
• Recycling bins for PET items, aluminium cans and Nespresso capsules are available throughout the CERN sites**. Several skips for these kinds of waste have also been installed near Building 156 (Meyrin site) and Building 904 (Prévessin site).
• 19 recycling containers for glass bottles are spread out across the Meyrin and Prévessin sites.
• For larger volumes, skips ranging from 4 to 40 m³ in volume are available.

Moreover, to facilitate the recycling of worksite waste, any firm working for CERN can make use of the waste collection service. To promote the use of this service, we have established a procedure for informing worksite managers about CERN’s waste sorting and recycling policy. This service ensures better traceability of CERN’s worksite waste and a reduction in the amount of waste that is not sorted for recycling, as such waste is now separated out at the source into the different categories (wood, inert waste, scrap metal, etc.), which was very difficult before.

CERN’s waste is sent to a recycling plant in Switzerland, where it goes through a second, more thorough, sorting process. Each different type of waste then goes through the appropriate recycling or recovery process: paper/cardboard is recycled into new paper; used wood can, for example, be used to make chipboard; scrap metal goes to steelworks; glass can be used in the manufacture of glass wool; certain plastics can be recycled into polystyrene, etc.

What is incinerated?

Waste to be incinerated (including the domestic waste collected by the cleaning service) is disposed of in containers outside each building. This waste is then sent to a recycling plant in Switzerland, where any potentially recyclable materials are extracted. The remaining non-recyclable waste is then sent to a Swiss incineration plant located near CERN, where it is converted into electrical and thermal energy.

What about the restaurants?

At the moment, not enough recycling bins are provided in the Novae restaurants at CERN. To address this issue, five recycling stations for the disposal of household waste, PET items and compostable coffee cups will be installed in Restaurant 1. Other recycling solutions will be implemented gradually in CERN’s restaurants. Glass bottles and organic waste are already recycled by Novae staff in the kitchens.

Of course, it’s not enough just to throw your rubbish into a recycling bin; please make sure you put each material in the correct bin - this is essential!

(In particular, please note that plastic cups are not PET.)

*The firms responsible for waste sorting and treatment were selected by means of a tender process using the criteria of proximity to the site, with a view to minimising CO₂ emissions resulting from transport.

**For more information on sorting and recycling at CERN, please see the SMB department’s website.

On Sunday, 19 November, the curtain came down on the Automnales, bringing to a close ten days of activities and exchanges at CERN’s magnificent blue stand. Some 145 000 people attended the fair, and most of them stopped at the CERN stand. There, they learnt about fundamental science by taking part in activities and workshops and meeting volunteers, who shared their passion for research. 114 workshops, shows and presentations complemented the continuous activities. 159 pupils came especially to visit the CERN stand, as did around 150 elderly people each morning. A huge thank you to the 172 volunteers who welcomed, guided and informed the public with great enthusiasm. Relive the event in pictures.

Do not deflect your attention, or you might miss an important achievement on the way to the high-luminosity era of the LHC. Like the completion of the new deflection magnets which will transfer the beam between the first two elements of the CERN accelerator complex, Linear Accelerator 4 (Linac4) and the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB).

As part of the LHC Injector Upgrade (LIU) project, the Vertical Booster Injection Septum Magnets (BISMV10) successfully passed their final test on 8 November. Hosted in their vacuum tank, they will be installed on the transfer line between LINAC 4 and the four superimposed rings of the PS Booster during the second Long Shutdown in 2019-2020.

In the future configuration, the beam coming from Linac4 will be divided in slices with the help of kicker magnets installed on the transfer line. Each slice will then be vertically deflected by the new septum magnets to reach the first, the second and the fourth ring of the PS Booster. Since ring number three is at the same level as the incoming beam, no deflection is required for it.

Septum magnets are designed in such a way that the magnetic field stays only in the magnet gap through which the beam passes. The leakage magnetic field on the outside of the septum is kept to an absolute minimum. This allows the septum magnets to be positioned as close as possible to the circulating beams in the PS Booster without inducing any unwanted oscillations. It also allows the beam that goes to ring three to pass unaffected between the two magnets. 

The predecessors of the new magnets, currently in use, are made of ferrite and are only capable of dealing with a 50 MeV beam coming from Linac2. The new system, on the other hand, is able to deflect the 160 MeV beam of negative hydrogen ions produced by Linac4. Each of the six new magnets is made of stacks of one thousand five hundred steel laminations, each one 350 microns thick. 

The upgrade of another component on the transfer line, the Beam Injection Distributor (BIDIS) which cuts the beam from Linac4 in six individual slices, is also currently in its final stages of testing. In early 2018 the assembly of new septum magnets based on the eddy current principle for the injection of the beam in the Proton Synchrotron will begin.

In 2011, CERN, DESY and the European Spallation Source, ESS, teamed up to launch a series of workshops on the topic of Energy for Sustainable Science. The goal was not only to improve energy efficiency at research infrastructures, but also to identify ways of contributing to global energy issues. The idea that research infrastructures should not be part of the problem in terms of energy consumption, but should be part of the solution, has become something of a mantra as the fourth workshop in the series gets underway.

Each workshop is structured around four themes: sharing experience in energy management, improving energy efficiency, recovering waste energy, and advanced energy technologies. Much has already been achieved since the first workshop in Lund, though this is just the beginning. In Lund, the workshop’s ambition was to raise awareness of the issues at stake, and that’s something that has definitely been achieved. The number of participants has been growing steadily from workshop to workshop, and participation has now extended beyond Europe. In Magurele, speakers from China, Japan, the Middle East and the USA are attending, and will be discussing energy needs for their future facilities. There will also be a presentation about the solar energy farm, currently under construction, that will power the new SESAME light source in Jordan, making it the world’s first major research infrastructure to be powered entirely by renewable energy.

The workshop series was also designed to raise energy awareness at the European level, a goal that has also been achieved. The EU is well represented in Magurele, with a presentation from Jean-David Malo of the Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation, and discussions covering the ARIES accelerator R&D programme, which has energy efficiency built-in as a key area for study in any future project.

Here at CERN, we have been working hard on all four of the workshop themes. As with the other organizing institutions, we have appointed an energy coordinator and established an Energy Management Panel (EMP). The simple act of doing so has served to focus minds on areas for improvement, and the results are already impressive. Some 90% of CERN’s energy consumption is linked to the research programme, powering our accelerators, detectors and IT facilities, so it is natural that attention should be focused there.

When we recently consolidated the East Area, improving energy efficiency was part of the design brief, with the result that the beam line magnets will now be pulsed so that they are on only when needed. This simple expedient will reduce energy consumption by 90%, a saving of some 600kCHF per year of operation. That may be modest compared to CERN’s overall energy bill, but as we continue to introduce such measures, the sums will add up.

Other measures implemented or under consideration by the EMP include an agreement with our main electricity supplier to forecast our energy consumption for the year ahead. By matching our forecast, we help our supplier to plan ahead, and in return we receive a discount. We have developed an energy economy cycle for the SPS that kicks-in when beam is not available from the upstream accelerators. The major experiments are also implementing low energy modes of operation for periods of operational stops.

All of this contributes to making research infrastructures part of the solution, but we want to go further, by applying our technologies to energy needs. To this end, we have been working with local communities on ways to use our waste heat, and are in the process of installing systems that will use waste heat from the LHC to contribute to the heating of a new neighbourhood.

When we were building the LHC, the eyes of the energy supply industry were on us. Never before had here been such a large superconducting installation, or one that required such metronomic reliability. We have risen to that challenge, and eyes are still on us, because we’re now working with one of the most promising conventional superconductors, Magnesium Diboride. It’s early days yet, but this material could prove interesting for a new generation of high-field magnets, and might also offer a route to superconducting, loss-free, electricity distribution.

CERN has the ambition to become a reference for environmentally responsible research, and managing our energy is a vital ingredient. The Energy for Sustainable Science workshops are a driving force in making this vision a reality.

The staff members having reached 25 years of service at CERN in 2017 were invited by the Director-General to a reception in their honour on 24 November 2017. We thank them for their continued commitment and wish them all the best!

Founded in Paris in 1900, the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services (CTIF*) has become the world’s leading expert forum for firefighters, with some 40 Member Countries around the world and a similar number of Associate Members, including CERN. The work of the CTIF is built around a dozen specialised commissions focusing on issues ranging from volunteer fire brigades to forest fires. Each commission allows firefighters to share their experience with a view to improving operational techniques.

CERN is a member of the Hazardous Materials Commission, which meets twice a year, most recently in Greece and the UK. CERN was asked to host the second meeting of 2017, due to the Laboratory’s unique firefighting environment. Around 20 attendees represented some 13 CTIF members. This allowed CERN to share its experience and challenges and to learn from external expertise. The programme was divided into three parts, beginning with a series of presentations highlighting case studies from each of the participants. CERN’s contribution was a talk outlining the Fire and Rescue Service’s plans for dealing with a fire at MEDICIS. These presentations were followed by topical working groups, and the business part of the meeting concluded with a workshop focusing on firefighting in a cryogenic environment, an area in which the CERN Fire and Rescue Service has considerable expertise. The cryogenic workshop included tests of firefighting equipment in extremely cold conditions.

The workshop allowed CERN to learn from its guests, while they learned from CERN. It was a unique opportunity to contribute to the work of a leading global network of firefighters and to reinforce working links with fire services around the world, building valuable partnerships for a safe future at CERN.

*From the French acronym Comité technique international de prévention et d’extinction du feu.

CERN is taking part in a project, called ARIA, for the construction of a 350-metre-tall distillation tower that will be used to purify liquid argon (LAr) for scientific and, in a second phase, medical use.

The full tower, composed of 28 identical modules plus a top (condenser) and a bottom (re-boiler) special module, will be installed in a disused mine site in Sardinia, Italy. The project is led by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and was initiated to supply the purest argon possible to the international dark matter experiment DarkSide at INFN’s Gran Sasso National Laboratories. 

DarkSide is a dual-phase liquid-argon time-projection chamber that aims to detect the possible passage of a dark matter particle in the form of a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) when it hits the argon nuclei contained in the detector. Since this WIMP-nuclei interaction is predicted to be extremely rare, the detector must contain only the purest argon possible, so as not to accidentally produce a spurious signal.

ARIA has been designed to produce this extra-pure argon. Atmospheric argon contains many “impurities” such as water, oxygen, krypton and argon-39, an isotope of argon, which are all sources of unwanted signals. Argon from underground sources is already depleted from the argon-39 isotope by a factor of 1400, but this is still not enough for dark-matter research. ARIA is designed to purify underground argon by a further factor of 100, leaving only the radio-stable argon-40 isotope, by harnessing a very simple physical principle: the two isotopes have different volatility, which means that argon-39 will vaporise faster than argon-40 because it has one less nucleon in its nucleus.

The argon gas is injected at the top of the column, where the condenser transforms it into liquid argon. The liquefied argon starts falling through a series of filters distributed along the column, where it is progressively purified. At the bottom, the boiler transforms the liquid argon back into gas and through a series of tubes brings it back to the condenser, where the process begins again. As the distillation occurs at cryogenic temperatures, the whole process takes place within a vacuum-insulated cryostat.

ARIA’s modules are being built at Polaris, a company on the outskirts of Milan, Italy. The modules are then brought to CERN, where, one by one, they are being leak tested by the Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (VSC) group of the Technology Department. On Friday, 24 November, the top and bottom modules plus one standard module were brought to Building 180 and lined up to precisely check their alignment, geometry and interconnection interfaces, prior to welding. After this, the three modules will be taken to Sardinia, where they will be assembled vertically, initially above ground, to start operating and to test their functionality before assembling the complete column in the mine shaft.

ARIA is expected to be fully assembled by the end of 2018 and to start operations in 2019. Once the technique is proven, many other air components, such as oxygen-18, nitrogen-15 and carbon-13, could be distilled by applying the same process. These elements have important applications in many fields of research and technology, including diagnostic techniques for the detection of cancer.

At its last meeting, the CERN Council approved the Management’s proposal for CERN to apply to become an Observer to the SESAME Council.

SESAME is the new synchrotron for the Middle East and neighbouring regions. The machine started operation last January and the first experiments should start in the coming weeks.

What makes SESAME unique is the collaboration it has brought about between scientists from its eight Members in the region: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.

CERN has been a staunch supporter of SESAME ever since the mid-1990s, when certain discussions in the CERN cafeteria turned to the subject of applying the CERN model to other regions. CERN was established in the aftermath of the Second World War as a place for promoting both excellent science and peaceful collaboration between formerly belligerent nations. Could CERN’s success be emulated elsewhere?

The idea took root in the Middle East, and slowly began to grow. Since then, three former CERN Directors-General have held the position of President of the SESAME Council, and CERN has provided tangible help, with EU support, through the CESSAMag project whereby it supplied the magnet system for SESAME’s main ring. CERN is now contributing to another EU project, Open SESAME, which offers valuable training to SESAME staff and users.

Now, with SESAME about to bear fruit as its experimental programme gets under way, it is a natural next step for CERN to apply to become an Observer.

"CERN has always stood by SESAME and offered its valuable support to help bring SESAME to where it is today,” said SESAME Director Khaled Toukan. “The recent vote by the CERN Council giving CERN the go-ahead to apply for Observer status is indeed another pillar of CERN’s support, helping SESAME fulfill its goals." The proposal will be discussed at the next meeting of the SESAME Council in December.

Standard best practice in computer security involves always keeping all your devices up-to-date so that malicious evil-doers cannot exploit known vulnerabilities and weaknesses to their advantage. However, the problem is the word “known”. Not all vulnerabilities and weaknesses are immediately reported and published. On one hand, there is a generally accepted grace period for those that practice “responsible disclosure”: software owners usually have about three months to fix reported vulnerabilities before they are made public. Alongside publication, remediation measures are also documented – and applied through the standard update mechanisms. However, some people, organisations or companies prefer a different approach. Instead of “responsible disclosure”, they collect weaknesses and vulnerabilities to allow evil deeds, selling them to the highest bidder (often on the black market), or using them for offensive action like espionage or other cyber-attacks…

So let’s look at another standard best practice in computer security: reduction of the attack surface. The fewer software packages that are installed on a device, the “better” they are programmed, or the less “mainstream” they are on the market, the smaller the attack surface. Software which does not exist or is not running on a device does not pose any potential risk. Software of high quality that is well programmed, with best-practice security principles in mind, is harder to exploit. And software that is not “mainstream” might not be the main target for attackers as it is not prolific enough to create revenue when abused.

Operating systems aside, for standard Windows PCs but also for Mac and Linux computers, some of the applications with the most vulnerabilities reported in 2017 are Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, and Oracle Java JDK and JRE. While there are others, those listed have maximum domination of the IT market and are installed on many different devices – most likely including yours. But do you really need them? Or are there similar, less common products that have less chance of being exploited?

For sure there are. And this is the main reason why CERN has chosen “PDF-Xchange” for Windows PCs and “PDF Expert” for Mac systems as its new default readers for PDFs. Together with other security measures (namely CERN’s sophisticated SPAM filtering engine), this new default reader will avoid computer infections coming via malicious PDF documents aimed at exploiting the vulnerabilities of the market leader. While we do not necessarily believe that the software has fewer vulnerabilities, the chances of them being exploited is just much lower, as most malicious evil-doers will concentrate on mainstream products – the list above – and abuse them for their deeds.

Do you want to do more? Review the software installed on your devices, in particular if it is listed here. Remove applications which you do not need or rarely use in order to reduce your personal attack surface. Think also about replacements. There are many good (i.e. more secure) and sometimes free alternatives to your favourite browser or PDF reader. And of course, for the rest: make sure that they are all up-to-date. “Secunia” provides a good tool for you to check (if you want to install another application to rule them all). 

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

Earlier this month, participants in the annual LHCreate workshop presented their most recent exciting ideas during a two-day event, designed to allow them to imagine the most incredible ways to solve our biggest questions.

This year, participants were challenged to answer one of the questions most asked by visitors to CERN: why does CERN do what it does? There was just one catch – they couldn’t answer with words. Instead, the participants were asked to design an interactive exhibit that would appeal to the general public.

As a catalyst for this explosion of imagination, we brought together people from diverse backgrounds at CERN (engineers, physicists, IT specialists, administrators, etc.) alongside design and architecture students from the IPAC design school in Geneva. Together they had 36 hours to imagine, design and build a prototype of the exhibit to be presented at a public event.

The winning prototype was inspired by the current trend for escape games; the twist is that the people playing are asked to break into CERN to learn more. The game consists of four different cubes around a touch screen and players are asked to solve a series of theoretical, experimental, IT and collaboration issues. Each solution provides a number, which, when entered in the right sequence on the touch screen, unlocks a prize.

IdeaSquare was bustling with excitement throughout the two days and, after the first few hours spent on the drawing board, this translated into manual work in the mechanical and electronic workshops and requests for materials that included yoga balls, Xbox Kinect sensors and springs. By the end of the workshop, the participants were ready to present their exhibits in both English and French to the public and a jury. The presentations proceeded very professionally and, after some deliberation, both the jury and the public unanimously selected the winning project, which will be displayed at the CMS site, the ATLAS site and the Tourist Office of the Pays de Gex.

More information on the LHCreate website.

CERN is taking part in testing phase project, called ARIA, for the construction of a 350-metre-tall distillation tower that will be used to purify liquid argon (LAr) for scientific and, in a second phase, medical and possibly other uses.

The full tower, composed of 28 identical modules plus a top (condenser) and a bottom (re-boiler) special module, will be installed in a disused shaft of a coal mine in Sardinia, Italy. The project was initiated to supply the purest argon possible to the international dark matter experiment DarkSide at INFN’s Gran Sasso National Laboratories. 

DarkSide is a dual-phase liquid-argon time-projection chamber that aims to detect the possible passage of a dark matter particle in the form of a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) when it hits the argon nuclei contained in the detector. Since this WIMP-nuclei interaction is predicted to be extremely rare, the detector must contain only the purest argon possible, so as not to accidentally produce a spurious signal.

ARIA has been designed to produce this extra-pure argon. Atmospheric argon contains many “impurities” such as water, oxygen, krypton and argon-39, an isotope of argon, which are all sources of unwanted signals. Argon from underground sources is already depleted from the argon-39 isotope by a factor of 1400, but this is still not enough for dark-matter research. ARIA is designed to purify underground argon from argon-39 by a further factor of 10 per pass, leaving only the radio-stable argon-40 isotope, by harnessing a very simple physical principle: the two isotopes have different volatility, which means that argon-39 will vaporise faster than argon-40 because it has one less nucleon in its nucleus.

The separation is done via a standard distillation process. First, the Argon is injected at roughly two thirds of the column in gaseous state. The gas reaches the top of the column where it is condensed. The liquid starts flowing to the bottom of the column where it enters the reboiler and is transformed again into gas. At the bottom, a small fraction of an argon-40-enriched flow is extracted as product of the distillation, while at the top a small fraction of argon-39-enriched flow is removed.

Although the process is much like standard distillation, there are certain differences. One of them is the spectacular size of the column – with its 350 metres, it is unique in the world.  Furthermore, in order to enhance the isotope separation power, ARIA is filled with a special packing that makes the column equivalent to a series of about 3000 single stage distillation processes. Also, less then 1 part per thousand of the total flow in the column is extracted as product, which means that the colum is working very close to its total reflux condition.

The size of the column and its working conditions are real technological challenges and the realization of the column requires several quality checks performed on each module before and during the installation.

After construction, the modules were brought to CERN, where, one by one, they were leak tested by the Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (VSC) group of the Technology Department. On Friday, 24 November, the top and bottom modules plus one standard module were brought to Building 180 and lined up to precisely check their alignment, geometry and interconnection interfaces, prior to welding. After this, the three modules will be taken to Sardinia, where they will be assembled vertically, initially above ground, to start operating and to test their functionality before assembling the complete column in the mine shaft.

ARIA is expected to be fully assembled by the end of 2018 and to start operations in 2019. Once the technique is proven, many other air components, such as oxygen-18, nitrogen-15 and carbon-13, could be distilled by applying the same process. These elements have important applications in many fields of research and technology, including diagnostic techniques for the detection of cancer.