CERN scientist, Giovanna Vandoni, coordinated the recent installation of crab cavities. (Image: Julien Ordan/CERN)
The High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project aims at increasing the number of collisions in the LHC and consequently improving the precision of the experiments’ analyses. For several years, engineers, technicians and operators have been devising, designing and building the components, some of which are completely novel. Among these innovative components are the “crab cavities”, which will rotate bunches of the beams to increase the overlap between them and therefore the probability of collisions inside the experiments. CERN scientist, Giovanna Vandoni, has coordinated the recent installation of the cryomodule containing the first two prototype cavities in the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), where they will be tested this year. Here’s the story so far in pictures.