Since the start of January, the liquid helium flowing through the veins of the LHC’s cooling system has gradually been removed the accelerator and, one by one, the eight sectors of the LHC have been brought back to room temperature. “It takes about four weeks to bring a single sector from its nominal temperature of 1.9 K (-271°C) back to room temperature,” explains Krzysztof Brodzinski, an engineer working on the operation of the LHC’s cryogenic system. At least 135 tonnes of helium are required to supply the whole of the LHC’s cryogenic system. Once it has been brought up to the surface, some of this precious cooling agent is stored at CERN and the remainder (about 80 tonnes) is entrusted to the suppliers for the duration of LS2.

The 70 helium compressors are the first links in the LHC’s cryogenic chain. They compress the helium, which is then cooled through expansion in the turbines of the cold boxes. During LS2, all the compressors will be sent away for a full service, mostly to two specialist centres, in Germany and Sweden. “Each of the 70 compressors must be taken apart and then reassembled, in order to check the condition of all parts and make replacements if necessary,” explains Gérard Ferlin, leader of the Operations section in the Cryogenics group. “The 70 electric motors that power the compressors will be sent to Italy to be serviced.”

As for the cold compressors used to lower the temperature of the helium from 4.5 K to 1.9 K, they’re off to Japan. Six of them (of the 28 in the accelerator) showed signs of weakness after the last four years of LHC running and need to be worked on by specialists.

Of course, here at CERN too, the Cryogenics group has a lot on its plate: over 4000 preventive and corrective maintenance operations are planned between now and mid-2020, when cooling of the first sectors of the LHC will start all over again! “Many maintenance operations have been planned for a long time, particularly on the LHC’s eight cold boxes (one per sector). The sensors, thermometers, valves, turbines, filters, etc. will be checked and validated or replaced,” explains Gérard Ferlin. “We will also use the opportunity of LS2 to do some advance upgrades of one of the cold boxes with a view to increasing its power ready for the HL-LHC.”

Throughout LS2, the instrumentation team in the Cryogenics group will also support the DISMAC (Diode Insulation and Superconducting Magnets Consolidation – an article on this subject is coming soon) project team, particularly for the validation of the instrumentation of the cryogenic system. This is especially important given that certain magnets are being replaced and new diagnostic instrumentation is being installed on a pre-determined selection of beam screens.

As part of its knowledge-transfer mission, CERN encourages and supports the creation of companies that seek to build on its technologies and thus make CERN’s technological research available to society. In order to clarify how the Organization supports companies established to use CERN technologies (spin-off companies), CERN adopted the CERN Spin-off Policy in August 2018.

The CERN Spin-off Policy complements the Policy on the Management of Intellectual Property (the CERN IP Policy), adopted in 2010.

The CERN Spin-off Policy summarises the framework of CERN’s support to spin-off companies, in terms of technology licensing, financial benefits and the use of CERN’s facilities and labels. It also details the Knowledge Transfer (KT) group’s role and the possible ways in which CERN personnel can be involved in spin-off companies and, by extension, in other types of commercial activity.

In addition to having access to CERN technology, spin-off companies qualify for technical support as well as access to equipment and infrastructure, subject to the availability of resources and the constraints of CERN’s international legal status. Access to the technology is granted through licence agreements that can cover different types of IP, as established by the CERN IP Policy.

These licence agreements detail, for example, the financial terms and conditions, the field-of-use limitations and the commitment to ensure all reasonable efforts are made to bring the technology to market. These are clauses that will typically be discussed in greater detail by the spin-offs’ teams and the CERN KT group.

Even though spin-offs are not exclusively established by CERN personnel, one way that knowledge transfer happens is through CERN personnel founding or working with spin-off companies. As such, the individual involvement of members of the personnel in spin-off companies should follow the terms of the Spin-off Policy and IP Policy. For example, employed members of personnel (MPEs) and associated members of personnel (MPAs) must ensure that the proposed spin-off-related activity does not give rise to any potential conflict of interest. CERN personnel are also required to disclose to the KT group any equity or other interest they hold in a spin-off company, as well as any financial or other form of compensation they receive.

The steps to obtain the appropriate authorisation for each type of involvement of CERN personnel are detailed in the CERN Spin-off Policy. The KT group may also offer advice on this subject.

The Spin-off Policy also introduces a new leave scheme, whereby an MPE, in the final months of employment with CERN, who can substantiate to the Head of the KT group a realistic and promising business plan for a spin-off company, may request authorisation for special leave for professional reasons to establish or join a spin-off company.

CERN’s KT group offers support on this matter, by advising all parties interested in setting up a spin-off company on the terms of CERN’s knowledge-transfer policies.

Since CERN provides access to its network of incubators and entrepreneur-minded individuals, the KT group might also be the point of contact for the spin-off companies to the network of Business Incubation Centres (BICs). The network aims at supporting the creation and development of companies in technical fields related to CERN’s areas of expertise.

For more information, please consult the CERN Spin-off Policy, or contact the KT group at kt@cern.ch.

With India having become an Associate Member State in 2017 following the long-standing collaboration between Indian scientists and CERN, it is high time for CERN's flagship travelling exhibition 'Accelerating Science' to tour India. The exhibition will be inaugurated today at a science museum in Mumbai and will later head to museums in Bengaluru and Kolkata.

The 300-square-metre exhibition uses animations, videos and interactive media to inspire the general public, particularly high-school and college students, with the wonders of fundamental science and technology. Its main themes are cosmology, particle physics and CERN's research activities. The exhibition also shows how fundamental research often leads to technological advances that we take for granted in our daily life.

The exhibition is hosted and funded by India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and is being shown at three museums that are members of the country’s National Council of Science Museums: the Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai between May and July, the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum in Bengaluru from July to September, and the Science City in Kolkata from November to December.

Other mega-science projects in which India participates will be showcased alongside the CERN exhibition, such as the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the Square Kilometre Array telescope (SKA), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). In addition to the main exhibition, there will also be seminars, interactions with scientists and industry events.

The ongoing production of a clone of ‘Accelerating Science’ will allow the exhibition to take place simultaneously at a second location. Since Estonia applied for CERN membership in September 2018, the second travelling exhibition will visit the AHHAA Science Centre, the Baltic's biggest science centre in Tartu, Estonia, for several months from November 2019 to March 2020. Several countries are eager to host the exhibition afterwards, but the exact itinerary is still being discussed.

An attractive but smaller alternative in CERN's exhibition portfolio is the 'LHC interactive tunnel' (LIT). This exhibition features the popular 'Proton Football’ game, which invites visitors to play football with protons, and an interactive game showing how proton therapy works. The LIT has already been shown at the Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre (also featuring the Future Circular Collider project) in March and April, and will travel to Lefkosia, Cyprus, in late May, and Rust, Germany, in October.

The competitors of the 2019 International Tournament of Physicists visited CERN between two rounds.

The International Physicists Tournament is an international physics competition addressed to physicists undergraduates from all over the world. The 2019 edition took place in Switzerland, at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The tournament consists of Physics problems that have to be solved by the teams. 

You can view the results here and try to solve the physics problems listed on this page. 

This summer, the CERN MusiClub is organising two rock concerts at CERN. Both will feature many fine CERN bands, and admission to both is free.

The first concert is Music on the Lawn, which will take place on the terrace of Restaurant 1 on the Meyrin site on the afternoon of Saturday, 15 June. Six of the MusiClub’s finest bands will be playing live. The music starts at 2 p.m.

The second event is the now legendary Hardronic Festival, which will take place on Saturday, 20 July behind Restaurant 3 on the Prévessin site. This festival will feature all of the MusiClub’s best bands, plus the club’s DJ section. Two stages will ensure the action will be non-stop through the afternoon and evening. As usual, food and drink will be on sale, with all proceeds going to charity. 

The CERN MusiClub would like to thank the CERN Management and the CERN Staff Association for their continued and invaluable support, without which it would not to be possible to organise either of these events for the whole CERN community.

Stay tuned for all the details on http://cern.ch/musiclub

In addition to these events, on the occasion of the Fête de la musique, the CERN and Society Foundation is organising a musical, multimedia and performing arts show: Subatomic Desire. This show will take place on 21 June between 8 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. on the first floor of the Globe of Science and Innovation. 

Find out more about Subatomic Desire here: https://home.cern/events/spectacle-show-subatomic-desire

Please note the following restrictions on the CERN site during lunchtime:

• Circulation between Building 40 and Entrance A will be blocked from 12:00 until ~12:45.
• Circulation between Building 40 and the hostel (Building 38) will be blocked from 12:00 until ~12:45.
• Entrance B will be blocked for 5 minutes, between 12:15 and 12:20.
• Circulation on the Meyrin site will be difficult for 20 minutes, from 12:15 until 12:35

Users of the parking around building 40 can exit the car park at the end closest to Entrance A.

Please come and encourage the runners, enjoy the music and the refreshments bar, on the lawn of restaurant 1.

Presentation of prizes will be made at 13:00.

If you must drive during the race, please respect the safety of the runners.

The race route, and other details, can be found at http://runningclub.web.cern.ch/

CERN Running Club

Members of the personnel are reminded that, pursuant to Articles R V 1.38 and R V 1.39 of the Staff Regulations, they are obliged to declare the following in writing to the Organization within 30 calendar days:

• any change in family situation (marriage, civil partnership, birth or adoption of a child, divorce or dissolution of a partnership, death of a spouse or dependent child);
• any change in the situation of a dependent child (end of studies, start of paid employment, military service, marriage or civil partnership, change of residence or dependence status of a spouse’s child);
• the amount of any financial benefit of a similar nature to those stipulated in the Staff Regulations (e.g. family allowance, child allowance, infant allowance, non-resident allowance or international indemnity) to which the member of the personnel or a family member may be entitled from a source other than CERN.

The procedures to be followed are available in the Admin e-guide. 

The Human Resources department also remains at your disposal to answer any questions: HR-Family.Allowance@cern.ch.

Members of the personnel are also reminded that any false declaration or failure to make a declaration with a view to deceiving others or achieving a gain resulting in a financial loss or loss of reputation for the Organization constitutes fraud and may lead to disciplinary action in accordance with Article S VI 2.01 of the Staff Rules.

Human Resources department - HR-Family.Allowance@cern.ch

Besides clicking on links in malicious e-mails or opening dubious attachments, browsing to the wrong webpage is the second major way of getting your laptop, your account and your data compromised. One click on the wrong link, just one malicious URL, and your laptop gets infected, your password exposed, your data encrypted or stolen… Remembering to STOP --- THINK --- DON’T CLICK prior to opening a link is the conscious, responsible way to protect yourself. And a good choice of well-secured web browser can provide you with a second way of keeping your digital life in your own hands!

Indeed, think of your laptop – leaving aside your smartphone for a moment – as one of the digital centres of your life. If an attacker takes over your laptop (or smartphone), he or she owns your data; can use your embedded webcam to watch you (even at night!); can use the embedded microphone to listen to your conversations; can access all locally stored documents, photos and films; can spy on your keyboard and extract the passwords you type on it – and hence, write your Tweets, make your Facebook posts, buy stuff on Amazon and access your Internet banking. Frightening? Indeed it is (see our Bulletin article entitled “Protect your Family” for more on this).

The best way to protect your web access – your browsing of the World Wide Web – is to use a well-supported and up-to-date web browser like Chrome, Edge or Firefox. From the security perspective, Google’s implementation of Chrome clearly separates every individual website you access and thus follows best security practice. Mozilla’s Firefox Quantum has also started to employ a similar functionality, while Microsoft’s Edge browser does not (and never will). Especially if you have the default auto-update mechanism enabled, both Chrome and Firefox can be considered to be the most secure browsers currently on the market (as well as some variations of them like Brave). Firefox might well have a slight advantage thanks to a feature being added in the upcoming version 67: it will actively block the misuse of your laptop for unauthorised crypto-currency mining as well as stopping services that track your online activity.

So what about the privacy side? Both Chrome and Firefox come with a plethora of plugins making your browsing experience more secure (“HTTPS everywhere”) and more private (“Ghostery”, “uBlock Origin”, “DuckDuckGo Privacy”, “Privacy Badger”, “Privacy Possum”). You just need to install them via “chrome://extensions/” or “about:addons” respectively. And, of course, permanently engaging the “Incognito” or “Privacy” mode makes your browsing more stealthy (but beware, not 100% stealthy; you would need to use, for example, TOR’s “Onion“ browser for much better anonymity). However, the major difference between Chrome and Firefox is that the former is a closed-source product of one of the world’s biggest data aggregators and the latter is an open-source browser maintained centrally by a community foundation. Out of the box, Mozilla's Firefox is a much more privacy-preserving alternative to Google's Chrome browser. Google operates an extensive data-collection ecosystem in which its search engine and a vast array of other products and services are used to build a profile of a person's interests by tracking users' online activities. Red pill or blue pill. Take your pick. But choose wisely.

______

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

On 25 April 2019, a ceremony at CERN marked the donation of computing equipment to An-Najah National University in Palestine.

On this occasion, 56 servers from the CERN computing centre were donated to An-Najah National University. The donation included more than a thousand processor cores and eight disk servers providing about 400 terabytes of storage. This equipment will be instrumental in supporting the creation of the High Energy Physics (HEP) laboratory at the Centre for Excellence which will be hosted at An-Najah National University, solidifying the role of An-Najah as the hub for HEP development in Palestine.

Since 2012, CERN has regularly donated computing equipment that no longer meets its highly specific requirements on efficiency but is still more than adequate for less exacting environments. To date, a total of 2135 servers and 123 network switches have been donated by CERN to countries and international organisations, namely Algeria, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, the SESAME laboratory in Jordan, Nepal and now An-Najah National University, in Palestine.

Geneva and Granada. The European particle physics community is meeting this week in Granada, Spain, to discuss the roadmap for the future of the discipline. The aim of the symposium is to define scientific priorities and technological approaches for the coming years and to consider plans for the medium- and long-term future. An important focus of the discussions will be assessing the various options for the period beyond the lifespan of the Large Hadron Collider.

“The Granada symposium is an important step in the process of updating the European Strategy for Particle Physics¹ and aims to prioritise our scientific goals and prepare for the upcoming generation of facilities and experiments,” said the President of the CERN Council, Ursula Bassler. “The discussions will focus on the scientific reach of potential new projects, the associated technological challenges and the resources required.”

The European Strategy Group, which was established to coordinate the update process, has received 160 contributions from the scientific community setting out their views on possible future projects and experiments. The symposium in Granada will provide an opportunity to assess and discuss them.

“The intent is to make sure that we have a good understanding of the science priorities of the community and of all the options for realising them,” said the Chair of the European Strategy Group, Professor Halina Abramowicz. “This will ensure that the European Strategy Group is well informed when deciding about the strategy update.”

The previous update of the European Strategy, approved in May 2013, recommended that design and feasibility studies be conducted in order for Europe “to be in a position to propose an ambitious post-LHC accelerator project.” Over the last few years, in collaboration with partners from around the world, Europe has therefore been engaging in R&D and design projects for a range of ambitious post-LHC facilities under the CLIC and FCC umbrellas. A study to investigate the potential to build projects that are complementary to high-energy colliders, exploiting the opportunities offered by CERN’s unique accelerator complex, was also launched by CERN in 2016. These contributions will feed into the discussion, which will also take into account the worldwide particle physics landscape and developments in related fields.

“At least two decades will be needed to design and build a new collider to succeed the LHC. Such a machine should maximise the potential for new discoveries and enable major steps forward in our understanding of fundamental physics” said CERN Director-General, Fabiola Gianotti. “It is not too early to start planning for it as it will take time to develop the new technologies needed for its implementation.”

The Granada symposium will be followed up with the compilation of a “briefing book” and with a Strategy Drafting Session, which will take place in Bad Honnef, Germany, from 20 to 24 January 2020. The update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics is due to be completed and approved by the CERN Council in May 2020.

An online Q&A session will be held on Thursday 16 May – 4pm CEST

Reporters interested in participating are invited to register by sending an e-mail to press@cern.ch

> https://europeanstrategy.cern

Diversity is a catalyst for creativity at CERN. Including everyone and ensuring equal opportunities for all is one of the Organization’s main principles. However, inclusivity requires accessibility. If a site, building, form of communication or knowledge-sharing medium excludes even a tiny minority of people, we cannot claim to be truly diverse.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which will take place on 16 May, offers a reminder that, if we don’t want to leave anyone out in the cold, accessibility for all – and particularly for those with disabilities – is an absolute necessity. CERN is committed to promoting inclusivity and accessibility and has many teams working on this. The Diversity Office supports and keeps track of initiatives in this area.

The Human Resources department, along with its Social Affairs service and the Occupational Health Service, has long been implementing measures to help people with disabilities to integrate at CERN. When necessary, a working group comprising all the relevant parties meets to adapt the working environment to the person in question. An informal network is also in place to help our colleagues with disabilities with practical questions.

But ensuring equal opportunities sometimes requires a helping hand. Statistics show, for example, that the unemployment rate among people of working age is higher for people with disabilities. Since 2018, the Human Resources department has offered an internship reserved specifically for science and technology students with disabilities. The initiative, which is open only to students from CERN’s two Host States for now, has been recognised by the European Physical Society (EPS), which has awarded it a grant.

Accessibility is also a question of mobility and building design. The GIS portal shows all the areas that are accessible to wheelchair users, and new building and development projects take accessibility into account.

The International Relations sector is also working on improving access to guided tours, exhibitions and the website. A diversity working group within the IR sector supports initiatives in this area. The reception area and conference room in Building 33 and the first few rows of seating in the Globe have recently been equipped with an audio induction loop for people with a hearing impairment. At a public lecture this week, the local communication team offered an on-request sign language interpretation service for the first time; this will also be available at future events. In December, the exhibitions team held a joint workshop for people with visual impairments and tour guides, with a view to making CERN’s exhibitions more accessible. Tactile and audio content was developed as a result. Web accessibility has also been improved: the new public website has better colour contrast and descriptive texts for images.

A collaboration between the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and three CERN teams (IT, the Translation service and the Diversity Office) has been launched to develop a speech-to-text transcription system. If the project is successful, subtitles will be added to lecture recordings, making them accessible to people with a hearing impairment.

Initiatives abound and the sharing of experience and information is bearing fruit. Sometimes, a simple action or minor adjustment is all that’s needed to improve the daily lives of our colleagues and visitors with disabilities.

Staff and fellows are reminded that, pursuant to Article IV 2.02 of the CHIS Rules, they are obliged to declare the following information concerning their spouse in writing to the Organization:

• any other primary health insurance scheme of which the spouse is a member; and
• in the event that the spouse does not have adequate primary health insurance, the amount of any income received by the spouse deriving from a professional activity and/or a retirement pension.

This declaration mustbe made within the 30 calendar days following any changein the spouse’s:

• professional activity (e.g. start or end of employment contract, change of employer);
• health insurance; 
• gross income, if this results in a change of income bracket (see the table here). 

Declarations must be made using the “SHIPID” (Spouse Health Insurance & Professional Income Declaration) form.

The Human Resources department therefore advises staff and fellows to check with their spouse that the details submitted in their latest declaration are still up-to-date and, if this is not the case, to make a new declaration using the “SHIPID” form without delay. We remain at your disposal to answer any questions about the SHIPID form via the following e-mail address: chis.shipid@cern.ch

Finally, members of the personnel are also reminded that a false declaration or the failure to make a declaration may constitute fraud and may therefore lead to disciplinary action in accordance with the provisions of Article V 5.03 of the CHIS Rules and Article S VI 2.01 of the Staff Rules.

HR department

In the LHC, 1232 superconducting dipole magnets and 392 quadrupole magnets guide and focus the beams around the accelerator’s 27-kilometre ring, which is divided into eight sectors. These magnets operate at very low temperatures – 1.9 K or −271.3 °C – where even a tiny amount of energy released inside a magnet can warm its windings to above the critical temperature, causing the loss of superconductivity: this is called a quench. When this happens, the energy stored in the affected magnet has to be safely extracted in a short time to avoid damage to the magnet coil.

To do so, two protection elements are activated: at the level of the quenching magnet, a diode diverts the current into a parallel by-pass circuit in less than a second; at the level of the circuit, 13 kA energy extraction systems absorb the energy of the whole magnet circuit in a few minutes. There are equivalent extraction systems installed for about 200 corrector circuits with currents up to 600 A.

“In the framework of a long-lasting and fruitful collaboration between CERN and the Russian Federation, energy extraction systems for quench protection of the LHC superconducting magnets were designed in close partnership with two Russian institutes, the NRC Kurchatov-IHEP Institute in Protvino for the 13 kA systems and the Budker Institute in Novosibirsk for the 600 A systems. Russian industry was involved in the manufacturing of the parts of these systems,” explains Félix Rodríguez Mateos, leader of the Electrical Engineering (EE) section in the Machine Protection and Electrical Integrity (MPE) group of CERN’s Technology department.

With a wealth of expertise and know-how, the Russian teams have continuously provided invaluable support to the MPE group. “Our Russian colleagues come to CERN for every year-end technical stop (YETS) and long shutdown to help us perform preventive maintenance and upgrade activities on the energy extraction systems,” says Rodríguez Mateos.

During LS2, an extensive maintenance campaign is being performed on the 13 kA systems, which already count 10 years of successful operation in the LHC. “We are currently replacing an element, the arcing contact, in each one of the 256 electromechanical switches of the energy extraction systems to ensure their continuous reliable operation throughout the next runs,” adds Rodríguez Mateos. “In February, we fully replaced 32 switches at Point 8 of the accelerator in anticipation of consolidation for the future HL-LHC.”

During LS2, the Electrical Engineering section is involved in many other activities that will be the subject of future articles.

The Sharing Knowledge Foundation is holding its annual conference on the theme of "Science for Impact" at CERN on 7 and 8 June 2019.

Scientists, innovators, business leaders and policy makers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa will explore how science can be a vehicle for social and sustainable change. Issues that will be discussed include the European refugee crisis and the role of science and innovation for reconstruction and integration, gender equality in STEM, the importance of open access for scientific innovation and CERN’s position as a innovation hub.

Technology and lab-to-market innovations will be at the forefront with presentations and pitching sessions involving startups.

The conference will allow participants to meet some of today’s and tomorrow’s most prominent science and tech leaders, discover future applications of cutting-edge scientific research and reflect on the role of science for a social and sustainable impact.

Information and registration: https://indico.cern.ch/event/775100/

The Europe of innovation gathered last week at CERN. The leaders of the ATTRACT¹ initiative announced in CERN’s Main Auditorium the 170 breakthrough projects that will receive funding. The ATTRACT project, which is part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, finances breakthrough ideas in the fields of detection and imaging. The selection committee had to choose from 1200 proposals from scientists and entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. “The 170 breakthrough ideas were selected based on a combination of scientific merit, innovation readiness and potential societal impact,” explains Sergio Bertolucci, chair of ATTRACT’s Independent R&D&I Committee. The selection committee gave priority to projects pledging to share their results in an open-innovation philosophy in line with the open-science policy promoted by CERN and its partners.

CERN scientists are involved in 19 of these projects. From magnets and cryogenics to electronics and informatics, many CERN teams and technologies were represented. The Laboratory’s scientists were able to showcase their unparalleled expertise in the detection of the infinitesimal and in extreme environment technologies. Several of the selected projects involve the design of sensors or signal-transmission systems that operate at very low temperatures or in the presence of radiation. Many of the 19 projects target applications in the fields of medical imaging and treatment or in the aerospace sector. Others seek industrial applications, such as the high-tech 3D printing of systems equipped with sensors, the inspection of operating cryostats or applications in environmental monitoring.

For the 170 winners, the clock now starts ticking again. They have one year to develop their ideas in the form of products or services, using the initial 100 k€ grant they will each receive, together with the support of innovation and business experts. The results will be presented in Brussels in autumn 2020 and the most promising projects will receive further funding.

More information on the selected projects can be found in the press release from ATTRACT.

1- The ATTRACT initiative involves CERN, EMBL, ESO, ESRF, the European XFEL, ILL, Aalto University, the EIRMA association and ESADE. It is led by CERN and funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme under grant agreement No 777222.

As announced in the DG’s speech at the beginning of the year, on 4^thJune CERN HR will be launching an engagement and satisfaction survey for all Fellows at CERN.

This survey is an ideal opportunity for all fellows at CERN to share what they appreciate or don’t appreciate about their job, team, the Fellowship Programme and CERN as employer, which will help us to identify the strengths and areas to improve for the benefit of the current and future fellows in the Organization.

The feedback will be solely processed by Effectory, an external, industry-leading research company which has over 20 years in the employee survey business, and have proven that employees can make significant improvements by sharing their ideas and feedback. Openness and honesty are key, so we have ensured that all answers will be fully anonymous.

Fellows will receive further information including a link to complete this survey on 4^thJune (closing date 25^thJune), and results will be presented later this year.

Thank you in advance to all CERN Fellows for their participation!

As of Thursday 23rd May 2019, the central heating will be progressively turned off throughout CERN. Within the next few days, all buildings will no longer have heating.

Thank you for your understanding.

SMB Department

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague Olga Borisovna Igonkina, Senior Researcher at Nikhef, and professor by extraordinary appointment at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Olga joined the ATLAS Collaboration in 2006 via the University of Oregon and moved to Nikhef in 2008. In ATLAS she has been a key member of the trigger group since Run 1 where she contributed to many activities with great ideas and enthusiasm: menu coordinator, tau trigger coordinator, B physics and LS trigger coordinator. She was so proud of the L1 topological trigger commissioning success, for which she also received an ATLAS outstanding achievement award in 2018. Physics-wise her passion was lepton flavour violation, in particular in tau decays, which already started well before when she joined BaBar in 2002. 

At Nikhef her LFV research accelerated thanks to numerous personal grants and she supervised many PhD students and postdocs on this topic. Olga was an enthusiastic teacher and also very active in outreach activities with masterclasses and at Open Days at Nikhef. Recently she organised The 15th International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics in Amsterdam.

Olga was a great scientist with a memorably strong work ethos. Until the very last moment she gave little room for her illness to affect her work. She will be missed dearly, inside and outside Nikhef.

Her colleagues and friends 
 

Experiments have confirmed the Standard Model of particle physics time and again. But the model is incomplete. Among other features, it cannot explain dark matter, or the small mass of the Higgs boson or why the forces acting between particles do not unify at high energies. Give each particle a “superpartner”, however, and these three problems could disappear. If such superpartners, which are predicted by an extension of the Standard Model called supersymmetry, exist and are not too weighty, then they could turn up in data from proton collisions collected by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

At the Large Hadron Collider Physics (LHCP) conference, taking place this week in Puebla, Mexico, the ATLAS collaboration reported new searches for three such superpartners around uncharted regions of particle masses.

The Standard Model classifies particles as either fermions or bosons depending on a property known as spin, which can be thought of as the rotation of a system around its axis. The fermions, which make up matter, all have half of a unit of spin. The bosons, which carry forces, have 0, 1 or 2 units of spin.

Supersymmetry predicts that each fermion or boson in the Standard Model has a superpartner with a spin that differs by half of a unit. That is, bosons are accompanied by superpartner fermions and vice versa. So, for example, an electron has a superpartner called selectron and a Higgs boson has a superpartner called a Higgsino; superpartners of bosons get the suffix “ino” and those of fermions get the prefix “s”.
 
In its latest supersymmetry studies, the ATLAS collaboration has sifted through the entire proton–proton collision data collected by the experiment during the LHC’s second run, which took place between 2015 and 2018, to look for signs of staus and higgsinos; staus are the superpartners of heavier versions of the electron called taus. Such superpartners are expected to be produced in very little amounts at the LHC and to be unstable, so the ATLAS team searched for them by tracking particles into which they can transform, or “decay”.

In the search for staus, ATLAS looked for pairs of staus each decaying into a tau and a hypothetical “lightest supersymmetric particle”, which would be invisible and a possible candidate for dark matter. Each tau further decays into composite particles called hadrons and an invisible neutrino. The invisible particles are detected by identifying missing momentum in the collisions: if the combined momentum of the particles that are produced in a proton–proton collision does not match the momentum of the two protons in the direction perpendicular to the axis of the proton beams, it is deduced that an invisible particle carried away the missing momentum.

The collaboration explored an unprecedented range of possible masses for the stau, but did not see any signs of this superpartner in the data. However, it was able to place the tightest limits yet on the stau mass.

Meanwhile, the higgsinos search focused on higgsinos transforming into pairs of electrons or muons with very low momenta; like the taus, muons are also heavier versions of the electron. Such low-momenta particles are very hard to catch, but the collaboration was able to expand this search to the lowest-yet measured muon momenta for ATLAS. Just like for the staus search, this search did not reveal any signs of higgsinos, but the results led to stronger limits on their mass than those previously obtained by ATLAS and by the LHC’s predecessor the Large Electron–Positron collider.

For more information about these studies and the mass limits obtained, see the ATLAS website.

In the last few months, ten new computing modules have been delivered to ALICE and LHCb as part of their data centres’ upgrades for Runs 3 and 4. These modular data-centres are provided by the Belgian company Automation. They will equip CERN with two modern data-centres, which use indirect free-air cooling and are designed to achieve a very respectable energy efficiency with less than 10% overhead energy consumption.

At ALICE, two modules have been delivered, installed and connected; two additional ones will arrive in July 2019. Each module includes 18 racks, representing a total power of 2.1 MW. These will constitute ALICE’s new processing farm for use during Runs 3 and 4, and will host up to 750 servers with graphic processing units (GPUs).

At LHCb, four modules have already been delivered. Six modules will ultimately be installed, which will together host 132 racks for a total power of more than 2 MW. The two central modules will be home to the readout system for Run 3, comprised of about 500 servers with special readout cards developed by LHCb and used also by ALICE. Over 14 000 optical fibres enter these two modules from the detector. They bring about 40 terabit/s of raw data and are distributed to the readout servers (each module can host more than 1000 servers). The remaining four modules will host the servers of the high-level trigger farm. LHCb will deploy at least 2000 servers at the start of Run 3 and at least 20 PB of storage.

The flexible and cost-efficient implementation of the data-centre modules made it possible to include head-room in terms of rack space and cooling capacity for future expansions of LHCb’s computing infrastructure. During LS2 and Run 3, the modules will be shared with CERN’s IT department in order to make efficient use of the facility. CERN IT has already installed 780 servers, relocated from the Wigner data centre, and has put them into operation.

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Watch the video about the upgrade of the LHCb experiment during LS2: