CERN Document Server: Weekly Bulletin

AMBASSADOR’S COCKTAIL, Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 09:04:39 GMT

The Staff Association would like to thank all the people who make these events a success, our “ambassador” colleagues who are always available, as well as the catering and moving services who contributed to the success of our cocktail party. We do not forget the secretariat of the Association for the organization and also the secretariat of the Council for sending invitations to delegations.

Twice a year, in March and September after the Finance Committee meeting, the Staff Association organizes a cocktail party bringing together delegates from the Member States and Associate Member States -- since 2017 -- with a few of our fellow citizens, chosen by the Staff Association to be “ambassadors” of the Association and the staff.

These cocktails are an opportunity to discuss with delegates certain topics selected by the Staff Association according to current events, but also to exchange more broadly about CERN and its staff. These discussions, which take place in the national language of each State and in a convivial atmosphere, also provide an opportunity to hear the positions and arguments of the national delegations.

Upcoming training sessions (up to end October) - Places available

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 20:10:33 GMT

Please find below a list of training sessions scheduled to take place up to the end of October with places available.

Safety and Language courses are not included here, you will find an up-to-date list in the Training Catalogue.

If you need a course which is not featured in the catalogue, please contact one of the following: your supervisor, your Departmental Training Officer or the relevant learning specialist.

CERN & Society – Spreading our spirit of scientific curiosity

Mon, 03 Oct 2016 11:10:09 GMT

With the third group of winners of the CERN Beamline for Schools (BL4S) competition on their way home after successfully conducting their experiments at CERN, now is a good time to take a look at the CERN & Society programme.

Established in 2014, the CERN & Society Foundation raises funds for a range of projects designed to maximise CERN’s impact by deploying our facilities and expertise beyond our core mission.

BL4S is among the most successful projects in the CERN & Society portfolio. Now entering its fourth annual cycle, BL4S has allowed hundreds of schools around the world to experience particle physics research first hand by preparing their proposals for experiments, frequently with guidance from members of the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, IPPOG, and other physicists around the world. Each year, two lucky winning teams come to CERN to carry out their experiments: a fabulous prize by any standard.

BL4S, however, is far from the only project in the CERN & Society portfolio. Within the domain of Education and Outreach, CERN & Society also supports non-Member State summer students, national teacher programmes, CERN-UNESCO schools for digital libraries in Africa, and PhD students at ATLAS. CERN & Society supports the Arts at CERN programme, as well as initiatives in innovation and knowledge exchange, including KiCad, an open-source software suite for electronics design, and the CERN-developed Zenodo data repository, which is much in demand. All of these initiatives ensure that CERN knowledge and expertise have a greater impact than CERN could achieve without the support of the Foundation. Just as important, they allow CERN to forge partnerships with the private sector, conveying the value of fundamental science to audiences that would not otherwise be open to us as multipliers.

Research is our core business, and for more than 60 years CERN research has enriched the pool of human knowledge immensely. It is our main mission and will remain so. But we also have a role – and a responsibility – to advance education, innovation and collaboration between nations, all of which supports our fundamental science as part of a virtuous cycle. We can all be proud of the successes of the CERN & Society programme and how it helps to multiply our work. It is in this spirit that the CERN & Society Foundation was established: spreading the CERN spirit of scientific curiosity, for the inspiration and benefit of society.

Charlotte Warakaulle, Director for International Relations

LHC Report: LHC smashes collision records

Mon, 03 Oct 2016 10:10:27 GMT

The Large Hadron Collider is now producing more than a billion proton-proton collisions per second.

The LHC is colliding protons at a faster rate than ever before: approximately 1 billion times per second.

Since April 2016, the LHC has delivered more than 30 inverse femtobarns (fb^-1) to both ATLAS and CMS. This means that around 2.4 quadrillion (2.4 million billion) collisions have been seen by each of the experiments this year. The inverse femtobarn is the unit of measurement for integrated luminosity, indicating the cumulative number of potential collisions. This compares with the total of 33.2 fb^-1 produced between 2010 and 2015.

The unprecedented performance this year is the result of both the incremental increases in collision rate and the sheer amount of time the LHC has been up and running.

This comes after a slow start-up in 2015, when scientists and engineers still needed to learn how to operate the machine at a much higher energy.

“With more energy, the machine is much more sensitive,” says Jorg Wenninger, head of the LHC operations team. “We decided not to push it too much so that we could learn about the machine and how to operate at 13 TeV. Last year we had good performance and no real show-stoppers, so now we are focusing on pushing up the luminosity.”

Astonishingly, 2.4 quadrillion collisions represent only 1 percent of the total amount of collisions planned during the lifetime of the LHC research programme. The LHC is scheduled to run through 2037 and will undergo several rounds of upgrades to further increase the collision rate.

KT Training: Introduction to knowledge transfer tools | 7 October

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:09:10 GMT

Target population: All CERN staff and fellows

Prerequisites: None

Objectives:
Get an overview of different forms of knowledge transfer
Learn about available tools to:

• Facilitate knowledge and technology transfer
• Securing ownership and recognition for knowledge and technology

Understand what services and support are available to the CERN community from the KT group

Content:
Why CERN engages in knowledge and technology transfer
Modes of knowledge transfer and the general workflow of a knowledge transfer project
Introduction to intellectual property with a focus on patents
Overview of contracts for knowledge transfer and the basic structure and content of a typical contract
Entrepreneurship and available support for starting a company
Examples of knowledge transfer projects at CERN

For more information, see the Training catalogue.

A new building for testing magnets

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 15:09:02 GMT

A ceremony to mark the laying of the foundation stone of Building 311, which will house a magnetic measurement laboratory, took place on 22 September.

Olaf Dunkel, head of the Building 311 project, José Miguel Jiménez, head of the Technology Department, and Lluis Miralles, head of the Site Management and Buildings Department, during the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone of Building 311.

Lluis Miralles, head of the Site Management and Buildings Department, José Miguel Jiménez, head of the Technology Department, Roberto Losito, head of the Engineering Department, and Simon Baird, head of the Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Protection Unit, officially laid the foundation stone of Building 311 during a ceremony on Thursday, 22 September.

Situated beside the water tower, the building will house a magnetic measurement laboratory for the Technology Department. With a floor space of around 1400 square metres, it will comprise a main hall for testing magnets on the ground floor and a mezzanine with offices on the first floor. Work began in April and the main construction (walls and roof) should be finished in May 2017, with the completed building ready at the end of the year. Just to make things more interesting, because of the building’s proximity to the tunnel of the old Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) accelerator, the designers had to anchor it in the ground using tilted piles.

Nicolas Delruelle (1965 - 2016)

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 15:09:23 GMT

Nicolas Delruelle passed his degree in aerospace engineering with flying colours at the University of Liège, Belgium, in 1987. He was soon recruited by the FN Moteur company, a subsidiary of Snecma, and was seconded to the Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP) in Vernon, France, where he worked on testing the cryogenic engines for the third stages of the Ariane rockets. Subsequently he developed and carried out simulations for the new Vulcain cryogenic engine, for use on the Ariane 5 rockets.

At the end of 1991, Nicolas was recruited by CERN to join the Cryogenics group, where he worked on the SPS superconducting cavities, for the injection of electrons and positrons into LEP. He proved his mastery of cryogenic processes by taking delivery of two helium coolers allowing the superconducting cavities to be cooled to 4.5 K. In the early 1990s, CERN was deploying real-time process monitoring using microprocessors for the first time. Nicolas played a pioneering role in this new activity and the SPS cooling system had the highest level of automation of any cooling system at CERN.

Later, he defined the functional logic of the cryogenic infrastructure for the new cryogenic test stations to be installed at SM18 and in the superconducting cable laboratory (Building 163) for the future superconducting magnets of the LHC – a vital contribution to the project.

Building on this experience, in 2001 Nicolas became the project leader for the helium cryogenics system of the ATLAS experiment, a role which considerably broadened his professional horizons and responsibilities. He was involved in the installation of the cryogenic test station that was used for the qualification of ATLAS’s toroid magnets in Building 180 and then in the definition and procurement of helium coolers and distribution systems for the exterior cryogenics of ATLAS at Point 1 of the LHC. After having implemented the associated functional logic, he supervised the testing of the cryogenic system with the detectors’ superconducting magnets. He also supported the operation of ATLAS’s cryogenics throughout the first run that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson, all the while working on the optimisation of the system.

More recently, in 2010, Nicolas took up the responsibility for defining and implementing the cryogenics system for the HIE-ISOLDE project. He devoted himself to ensuring that this system would be operational on time so that the new physics at this accelerator could begin. The system is now in its second year of operation, much to the satisfaction of the HIE-ISOLDE collaboration.

Nicolas was a man of conviction who fully invested himself in all of his projects with the utmost professionalism. He demonstrated his commitment to CERN throughout the years he spent working in the technical field and also through his work supporting relations between CERN and its personnel. Nicolas was hard-working and brave, but also jovial; he knew how to communicate his sense of fun and joy to those around him. We have lost a colleague, a true professional and, most of all, a friend.

His colleagues and friends

We deeply regret to announce the death of Nicolas Delruelle on 14 September 2016. Nicolas Delruelle, who was born on 20 July 1965, worked in the TE Department and had been at CERN since 1st February 1992.

The Director-General has sent a message of condolence to his family on behalf of the CERN personnel.

Social Affairs 
Human Resources Department

CERN’s flags were flown at half-mast on Tuesday, 20 September 2016, the day of the funeral, in accordance with the procedure for the death of an employed member of the personnel.

Looking for charming asymmetries

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:09:21 GMT

New results presented by the LHCb collaboration on the decay of particles containing a “charm” quark delve deeper into the mystery of matter-antimatter asymmetry.

A view of the LHCb experimental cavern. (Photo: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

One of the biggest challenges in physics is to understand why everything we see in our universe seems to be formed only of matter, whereas the Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

CERN’s LHCb experiment is one of the best hopes for physicists looking to solve this longstanding mystery.

At the VIII International Workshop on Charm Physics, which took place in Bologna earlier this month, the LHCb Collaboration presented the most precise measurement to date of a phenomenon called Charge-Parity (CP) violation among particles that contain a charm quark.

CP symmetry states that laws of physics are the same if a particle is interchanged with its anti-particle (the “C” part) and if its spatial coordinates are inverted (P). The violation of this symmetry in the first few moments of the universe is one of the fundamental ingredients to explain the apparent cosmic imbalance in favour of matter.

Until now, the amount of CP violation detected among elementary particles can only explain a tiny fraction of the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. Physicists are therefore extending their search in the quest to identify the source of the missing anti-matter.

The LHCb collaboration made a precise comparison between the decay lifetime of a particle called a D⁰ meson (formed by a charm quark and an up antiquark) and its anti-matter counterpart Dbar⁰ (formed by a charm antiquark and an up quark), when decaying either to a pair of pions or a pair of kaons. Any difference in these lifetimes would provide strong evidence that an additional source of CP violation is at work. Although CP violation has been observed in processes involving numerous particles that contain b and s quarks, the effect is still unobserved in the charm-quark sector and its magnitude is predicted to be very small in the Standard Model.

Thanks to the excellent performance of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, for the first time the LHCb collaboration is accumulating a dataset large enough to access the required level of precision on CP-violating effects in charm-meson decays. The latest results indicate that the lifetimes of the D⁰ and Dbar⁰ particles, measured using their decays to pions or kaons, are still consistent, thereby demonstrating that any CP violation effect that is present must indeed be at a tiny level.

However, with many more analyses and data to come, LHCb is looking forward to delving even deeper into the possibility of CP violation in the charm sector and thus closing in on the universe’s missing antimatter. “The unique capabilities of our experiment, and the huge production rate of charm mesons at the LHC, allow us to perform measurements that are far beyond the sensitivity of any previous facility,” says Guy Wilkinson, spokesperson for the LHCb collaboration. “However, nature demands that we dig even deeper in order to uncover an effect. With the data still to come, we are confident of responding to this challenge,” he adds.

New arrivals

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:09:51 GMT

On Tuesday 20 September 2016, recently-recruited staff members and fellows participated in a session in the framework of the Induction Programme.

Netherlands in the spotlight at the ENLIGHT meeting on particle therapy

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 11:09:54 GMT

The annual meeting of ENLIGHT, which focuses on particle therapy for cancer treatment, was held in the Netherlands.

Participants of the annual meeting of ENLIGHT, held in the Netherlands from 15-17 September 2016.

The annual meeting of ENLIGHT (European Network for Light Hadron Therapy), which gathers experts working worldwide in centres and research institutions for particle therapy for cancer treatment, was hosted this year by the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) and the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, from 15-17 September. Chaired by the co-coordinator of ENLIGHT, Manjit Dosanjh, and the local organisers, Els Koffeman and Jan Visser from Nikhef, the meeting was attended by almost 100 participants from 15 countries.

The Netherlands took centre stage at the ENLIGHT meeting: four brand new centres for proton therapy in the Netherlands are currently at various phases of completion as a consequence of the recent approval by the Dutch government of a plan for making proton therapy available nationwide. The establishment of these centres and their mode of collaboration for making this cancer treatment available throughout the country was indeed one of the key points of discussion of the meeting.

Many other hot topics were discussed, including recent progress and technological breakthroughs in medical imaging, the importance of using a standard “normal tissue control probability” (NTCP) model for selecting patients for treatment with particles (protons, carbon and so on), and the need for access to and sharing of clinical data for selecting patients and monitoring outcomes.

The authors of the three winning posters with Manjit Dosanjh, ENLIGHT co-coordinator.

Two full sessions were dedicated to medical imaging, given its key role in delivering an effective dose to the target tumour site while minimising the side effects on healthy tissues: the volume and position of the tumour has to be assessed before, after and during treatment whenever possible by using a whole range of imaging tools, such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) scans, – alone or in combination. Moving organs such as lungs presents a challenging task for medical imaging, since the position of the tumour has to be monitored while it is being treated. The integration of MRI with a linear accelerator, for example, can provide image-guidance that is simultaneous with treatment, thus reducing the patient’s exposure to the additional ionising radiation of CT scans.

Time was also given to young researchers: on the second day of meeting the authors of three winning posters were given the chance to present their work to the ENLIGHT participants.

For the first time since the establishment of the network in 2002, this year the annual ENLIGHT meeting concluded with a one-day training session on key aspects of particle therapy, including radiobiology, medical imaging and data sharing. In fact, particle therapy centres require highly trained staff, and yet few experts exist in this rapidly expanding field. The training session was highly appreciated by the members of the community, so a similar course will be offered at the next annual meeting, to be held in June 2017.

The location selected for next year is Aarhus, which will be the home of the first particle therapy centre in Denmark, and the meeting will coincide with the installation of the cyclotron in the facility.

Beamline for Schools 2016: How to be a CERN scientist

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 11:09:12 GMT

Two teams of high-school students from the UK and Poland had the opportunity to conduct their own experiments at a fully equipped CERN beamline.

Students from the 2016 Beamline for Schools competition working on their experiment. (Image: Noemí Carabán Gonzalez/CERN)

Two teams of high-school students from the UK and Poland had the opportunity to conduct their own experiments at a fully equipped CERN beamline, after winning the Beamline for Schools competition.

The teams, ”Pyramid Hunters” from Poland and “Relatively Special” from the United Kingdom, spent 10 days at CERN conducting the experiments they had dreamt up in their winning proposals.

The Beamline for Schools competition gives high-school students the chance to run an experiment on a fully equipped CERN beamline, in the same way researchers do at the Large Hadron Collider and other CERN facilities every day.

To know more about their stay at CERN and the experiments they’ve conducted, read the full article here.

Stefania Pandolfi

A safe(ty) day

As part of the trainings organised during the safety-dedicated day, the students learned, among other things, how to properly use a fire extinguisher. (Photo: Julien Ordan)

For their first day at CERN, 16 youngsters spent the day learning about safety. The students were so driven to start performing their experiments that they couldn’t wait to jump straight into the East Area. But they learned that, besides the exciting experience of doing an experiment here, one must never forget to be safe. “Safety first” is our motto, indeed.

In the morning, they listened to presentations on safety hazards and computer security and also followed e-learning courses at the Technical Training Centre. They spent the afternoon at the Safety Training Centre in Prévessin. There, they visited the mock-up LHC tunnel and participated in classroom-based courses about cryogenic safety and fire extinguishers. Can you guess what they enjoyed the most?

Ewa, from the Polish team, says she learnt a lot about fires and how they spread. She feels safer now. “We were told about safety procedures and how nothing happens to you if you follow them,” she explains.

James, a member of the UK team, says: “For our project, we had to study the instructions for the fire extinguisher attentively before coming, but we never got the chance to actually use one. I couldn’t believe it when I had to do it as part of the fire extinguisher training!”

Being able to use a fire extinguisher properly is something that could come in handy in our daily life too, unlike handling cryogenic fluids. “The topic of cryogenic safety was covered in such a way that it wasn’t complex for me to understand,” explains Timothy, another member of the UK team. He was extremely impressed by the course and by seeing the liquid air droplets bursting into sparks, so as to explain the hazard related to oxygen enriched air. “It was very interesting and made me understand the danger and the importance of being properly trained”.

Rosaria Marraffino

Computer Security: Android’s Armageddon… Reloaded

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:09:35 GMT

About 1 billion Android smartphones are facing their Armageddon. Again.

Android could be facing another Armageddon, just as we saw with the “Stagefright” vulnerability last summer (see “Android’s Armageddon”). But while that “Mother of all Android Vulnerabilities” targeted Android’s Multimedia Messaging Service, this time the driver for Qualcomm’s LTE chipset is in the firing line… And as before, while a fix for this vulnerability has been quickly made available, the big problem has been getting this fix to your Android device: mobile phone manufacturers and providers are incredibly slow at passing it along…

What can you do to get this fix? Basically, there's nothing you can do but wait. For certain smartphone models (e.g. HTC One M9 and HTC 10; LG G4, G5, and V10; Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge; and others), you are completely exposed. This four-fold vulnerability, dubbed “QuadRooter”, in the driver for the LTE mobile communication chipset of Android smartphones can be exploited by just one malicious app… Once installed, it becomes “root”, the master and commander-in-chief of that smartphone. Luckily, so far, no public exploitation of that vulnerability has been reported! Potential defences? Usually we would recommend applying the corresponding fix made by Google. However, this requires your preferred smartphone manufacturer to adapt that patch to your hardware. And, as experience has shown, this can take a while or might never happen. Alternatively, you can try to re-compile your Android device’s operating system yourself – but this is an approach recommended only for experts.

So, interesting times lie ahead. Not only for Androids but also for many other devices. Vulnerability disclosure cycles are getting faster and faster, and patching, i.e. fixing those vulnerabilities, must be done more promptly. With a world full of smartphones, the Internet-of-Things, inter-connected fridges and cars (see the article “Our life in symbiosis”), and SmartMeters, a new patching paradigm is needed… Today, our patching methods are too slow and inflexible (see the article “Agility for computers”). Android’s Armageddon is just another example.

P.S.: If you believe that Apple’s iOS is better… Er, no, as the recent “Pegasus” exploit showed. However, at least Apple controls the update chain, so security fixes are always rolled out quickly (for iOS versions 9 and above).

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

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

Access the entire collection of Computer Security articles here.

There’s more to particle physics at CERN than colliders

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 09:09:38 GMT

CERN’s scientific programme must be compelling, unique, diverse, and integrated into the global landscape of particle physics. One of the Laboratory’s primary goals is to provide a diverse range of excellent physics opportunities and to put its unique facilities to optimum use, maximising the scientific return.

In this spirit, we have recently established a Physics Beyond Colliders study group with a mandate to explore the unique opportunities offered by the CERN accelerator complex to address some of today’s outstanding questions in particle physics through projects complementary to high-energy colliders and other initiatives in the world. The study group will provide input to the next update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

The process kicked off with a two-day workshop at CERN on 6 and 7 September, organised by the study group conveners: Joerg Jaeckel (Heidelberg), Mike Lamont (CERN) and Claude Vallée (CPPM Marseille and DESY). Its purpose was to present experimental and theoretical ideas, and to hear proposals for compelling experiments that can be done at the extremely versatile CERN accelerator complex. From the linacs to the SPS, CERN accelerators are able to deliver high-intensity beams across a broad range of energies, particle types and time structure.

Over 300 people attended the workshop, some three quarters coming from outside CERN. The call for proposals resulted in around 30 submissions for talks, with about two third of those being discussed at the workshop. It was interesting to see a spirit of collaborative competition, the hallmark of our field, building up as the workshop progressed. The proposals addressed questions of fundamental physics using approaches complementary to those for which colliders are best adapted. They covered, among others, searches for dark-sector particles, measurements of the proton electric dipole moment, studies of ultra-rare decays, searches for axions, and many more.

The next step for the study group is to organise the work to develop and consolidate the ideas that were heard at the workshop and others that can be put forward in the coming months. Working groups will examine the physics case and technical feasibility in the global context: indeed, carrying out research here that could be done elsewhere does not allow for the best use of the discipline’s resources globally.

I’m looking forward to following the interactions and activities that these working groups will foster over the coming years, and to reading the report that will be delivered in 2018 to inform the next European Strategy update. There’s a bright future, I’m sure, for physics beyond - and alongside - colliders at CERN.

Fabiola Gianotti

News from Council - September 2016

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 17:09:48 GMT

I would like to inform you of the main news from the Council this week. First of all, the Council congratulated CERN and the Collaborations on the superb performance of the accelerator complex and experiments. It has been a great year so far, with important physics results across the whole spectrum of the CERN research programme.

Looking forward, one of the main accomplishments from this week’s meetings is that the Council has approved the opening of a credit facility with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to cover the cash shortage during the peak years of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) construction. This is very good news since it will allow us to carry out the work necessary for the HL-LHC without compromising the rest of the Laboratory’s scientific programme.

Turning to the scientific and geographical enlargement, the Council approved the admission of India as an Associate Member State, and I very much hope that the agreement can be signed in the near future so that India can be welcomed into the CERN family soon. The Council also heard a report by the fact-finding mission to Lithuania, and I was authorised to move ahead with the next steps.

The week ended with a visit to the East Hall to meet this year’s Beamline for Schools competition winners. Following a full day of safety training on Thursday, the winning teams from Poland and the United Kingdom had the opportunity to discuss their projects with Council delegates during their first day at the beam line.

On behalf of the Directorate, I would like to thank the Council for its continuous support and all of the people who have contributed, directly or indirectly, to making this week so fruitful.

Fabiola Gianotti

LHC Report: playing with angles

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 11:09:08 GMT

Ready (after a machine development period), steady (running), go (for a special run)!

The crossing angles are an essential feature of the machine set-up. They have to be big enough to reduce the long-range beam-beam effect.

The LHC has recently enjoyed a period of steady running and managed to set a new record for “Maximum Stable Luminosity Delivered in 7 days” of 3.29 fb^-1 between 29 August and 4 September. The number of bunches per beam remains pegged at 2220 because of the limitations imposed by the SPS beam dump. The bunch population is also somewhat reduced due to outgassing near one of the injection kickers at point 8. Both limitations will be addressed during the year-end technical stop, opening the way for increased performance in 2017.

On 10 and 11 September, a two day machine development (MD) period took place. The MD programme included a look at the possibility of reducing the crossing angle at the high-luminosity interaction points. The crossing angles are an essential feature of the machine set-up, intended to avoid undesired collisions of bunches either side of the interaction point when the beams are travelling in a single beam pipe. Despite crossing at an angle, the bunches still interact with each other via long-range electromagnetic interactions. The crossing angles therefore have to be big enough to ensure sufficient separation, reducing this long-range beam-beam effect to an acceptable level.

However, a distinct drawback of the increase in the crossing angle is a decrease in luminosity, with the reduction factor depending on the crossing angle, bunch length and beam size. Under the present LHC parameters, the high luminosity experiments see around 60% of what they would if we could operate without a crossing angle.

Two measures are being explored to claw back some of this reduction. One is a reduction of the crossing angle at the start of a fill. We can consider this because of the smaller than nominal beams being delivered by the injectors (smaller beams means better separation at the long range encounters). The aim is to restart physics in the last few months of the year with the crossing angle reduced from 370 to 280 microradians. This should increase the peak luminosity by around 15%. The second approach, targeted by the MD, is a stepwise reduction of the crossing angle during a fill as the bunch population decreases. This will not be implemented this year but could be used after appropriate tests in 2017.

A five-day technical stop followed the MD period. One of the major interventions performed during the stop was the replacement of the bushings on the transformer damaged by the “weasel” earlier this year.

Finally, this week a four-day special physics run for the forward experiments will start. It will be aimed at measuring small angle elastic proton–proton scattering. You can read more about this special physics run here.

Johan Blouw (1968 - 2016)

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:09:36 GMT

We deeply mourn the untimely departure of our dear friend and colleague Johan Blouw, who unexpectedly passed away on Monday, September 5, 2016, leaving behind a wife and three children.

After a PhD thesis with the HERMES experiment and a postdoc position with BaBar, Johan joined LHCb in 2003, where his excellent background in computing was of great help in the efforts to launch the then nascent field of Grid-computing. In addition, as a member of the LHCb Silicon Tracker project, he contributed to the R&D efforts and the construction of the LHCb silicon strip detectors.

After the completion of the detector, Johan moved on to work on the alignment of the tracking system, and recently became a central player in the growing LHCb ion physics programme, analysing Run 1 proton-lead data and contributing in making the Run 2 ion-ion and fixed-target plans a reality.

In July this year, he left the group at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics to join a software company in Heidelberg. All who had the pleasure to know him will miss a person with good humour and always ready to help, who brought enthusiasm, dedication and kindness to each team he was on.

His colleagues and friends

LHCb Early Career Scientist Awards

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 15:09:51 GMT

On 15 September 2016, the LHCb collaboration awarded the first set of prizes for outstanding contributions of early career scientists.

From left to right: Guy Wilkinson (LHCb spokesperson), Sascha Stahl, Kevin Dungs, Tim Head, Roel Aaij, Conor Fitzpatrick, Claire Prouvé, Patrick Koppenburg (chair of committee) and Sean Benson.

Twenty-five nominations were submitted and considered by the committee, and 5 prizes were awarded to teams or individuals for works that had a significant impact within the last year.

The awardees are:

Roel Aaij, Sean Benson, Conor Fitzpatrick, Rosen Matev and Sascha Stahl for having implemented and commissioned the revolutionary changes to the LHC Run-2 high-level-trigger, including the first widespread deployment of real-time analysis techniques in High Energy Physics;
Kevin Dungs and Tim Head for having launched the Starterkit initiative, a new style of software tutorials based on modern programming methods. “Starterkit is a group of physicists who want to improve the working lives of young researchers working on the LHCb experiment” (https://lhcb.github.io/starterkit/);
Manuel Schiller for speed improvements in the tracking of LHCb, enabling the full event reconstruction in the HLT. Manuel used advanced numerical methods to provide mathematical tools that speed up the tracking by large factors;
Claire Prouvé for the development of the automated RICH mirror alignment within the Online framework. Claire's work has ultimately led to RICH mirror alignment taking 20mins to complete, compared to many days which it took before;
Paolo Durante for the development of the PCIe40 board, the corner-stone of the LHCb upgrade. Paolo's contributions were crucial to demonstrate the overall superiority of the PCIe40 based-architecture, which made the LHCb upgrade technically possible, with a solution that is significantly less expensive than the original plan.

Werner Kienzle (1936 – 2016)

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 15:09:02 GMT

Werner was born in Wiernsheim, a small town in Baden-Württemberg close to Stuttgart. His childhood was profoundly marked by the war and the death of his father on the German eastern front.

Despite life after the war being difficult for his family, he was very successful in his academic studies and earned a fellowship at the University of Göttingen, where he did his PhD in solid-state physics.

Werner joined CERN in 1964 as a post-doc fellow and he remained at the Organization for his entire career in experimental particle physics. Concerned and eager for peace in the tense context of the cold war, he was deeply involved in collaboration with Russian colleagues and participated in experiments in Serpukhov from 1968 to 1972. Back at CERN, his work concentrated on the search for experimental evidence of the presence of quarks in hadrons. He was among the main initiators of the NA3 experiment at the SPS that measured the structure functions of the pions: the results indicated a cross-section about twice as high as anticipated, and this enhancement, corresponding to QCD high-order corrections, was named the “K” factor by the collaboration as recognition of Werner’s contribution.

Werner was appointed SPS coordinator at the beginning of the eighties and participated in the discovery of the W and Z bosons with the p-pbar collider. In parallel, Werner got involved in new outreach programs: in particular, he was the promoter of the Microcosm in 1988 and the editor of the “Hadrons for Health” reference booklet in 1996. While reaching his retirement age, Werner participated in the development of the total cross-section measurement setups that initiated the TOTEM experiment at the LHC.

Werner was a fantastic and enthusiastic storyteller, an adventurer and an innovator. His wife, Maria, and his sons, Francesco and Marco, can be proud of everything he did for CERN.

His colleagues and friends

The fourth edition of the ASP took place in Kigali

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 15:09:40 GMT

The fourth biennial African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications (ASP) took place on 1-19 August in Africa’s cleanest city, Kigali in Rwanda.

The students of the fourth African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications pose for the traditional conference group picture. Many lecturers flew in from CERN to give lectures and mentor students. (Photo: Gilbert Tekoute)

Seventy-five students from around the African continent, chosen from 439 applicants, were hosted in the University of Rwanda’s College of Sciences and Technology for about 3 weeks.

The school received financial support from CERN and 19 other institutions in total, including the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Brookhaven National Laboratory, the South African National Research Foundation and Department of Technology, the Rwandan Ministry of Education, INFN, and other major particle physics laboratories, as well as governmental institutions in Africa, Europe and the United States.

The CMS Virtual Visit from Kigali campus of the University of Rwanda was part of a day-and-a-half teacher workshop at the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications 2016. (Photo: Tom McCauley)

Forty lecturers from various different fields in physics flew in from CERN and many other parts of the world to give lectures and mentor students. “What makes this programme unique is that we tailor each programme to whichever area of physics is interesting to the host country,” says Ketevi Assamagan, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and a member of the international organising committee of the school. “The ultimate goal is to host the school in as many countries on the continent as possible, with the help of the host country governments.”

The biennial summer school, originally launched in South Africa in 2010, has also been hosted by Ghana in 2012 and by Senegal in 2014. The programme has grown in leaps and bounds, with each school seeing an increase in the number of applications from interested students. “The summer school was born out of a need to see African scholars represented in some of the world’s major research labs,” explains Assamagan. “Imparting STEM skills is key to making sure that our young people graduating from universities and research institutions will be going on to create jobs instead of relying on governments or private-sector salaried employment.”

In 2018 the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications will be hosted in Namibia and promises to have an even bigger number of applications and interest from learners across Africa.

About ASP

The African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications is a non-profit organisation that is passionate about increasing capacity development in fundamental physics and related applications in Africa. It was founded in 2010 with the aim of fostering collaboration through education. For more information visit the ASP website: www.africanschoolofphysics.org.

Ombud’s Corner: the gift of feedback (part 2)

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:09:54 GMT

“When feedback is specific and timely, and also accompanied by a genuinely positive intention, it may be considered to be a gift”. This was the concluding message of the article in the last Bulletin. But how can negative feedback be perceived as an appreciated and useful gift?

As discussed in the previous article, delivering meaningful and effective feedback is an art, and as such, it may also be considered a duty for supervisors, in particular, to invest in honing their skills in order to achieve this aim without triggering demotivation or frustration in their supervisees. But the feedback loop is a two-way process, and requires an open mind on the receiving end in order to be truly useful. If delivered in a constructive and respectful way, feedback can provide us with important clues as to our own possible weaknesses and point us towards ways in which to develop and grow professionally. However, for it to be truly effective, it is up to each of us to hold back our initial defensive reactions and focus on those aspects of the message that indicate the way forward.

When Anna provides John with specific appreciation of his strengths as a technical expert as well as the areas that he needs to develop if he wishes to move towards leadership, he is faced with a clear and informed picture of both his current limitations and his future potential. If he is able to put aside his feelings of disappointment, and recognise the wisdom in her words, he will find himself much better equipped to choose the best path that he should pursue, together with an understanding of the steps he needs to take to get there.

So if feedback is a gift, what sometimes prevents our supervisors from offering it – could it be that we ourselves are at least partially responsible for their reluctance? How often are we guilty of instantly rejecting feedback or reacting emotionally without even being willing to consider it? Do we take the initiative to ask for feedback and respond by actually acknowledging our own shortcomings with a view to improving on them? Are we indeed always the best judges of our own performance or future potential?

Thanks to Anna’s constructive attitude, John actually listens to her view of the situation and thanks her … “ feeling much more valued for his role as technical trouble-shooter and specialist”… and, far from defending himself or instantly rejecting her feedback, he is able to acknowledge his current lack of leadership ability, all the more because she accompanies this with a recognition of the strengths that he does however bring to the team.

There can be no doubt that our own attitudes to receiving feedback have an impact on the actual quality of the message we receive, and the importance of keeping an open mind and listening cannot be stressed enough. If we make a genuine effort to understand what lies behind a certain judgement or perception, we will be in a much better position to either defend ourselves or take on board the message in a constructive spirit.

Of course, it is never easy to accept criticism, particularly if it is vague and blame-oriented, but when someone takes the time and care to deliver feedback in a sensitive manner with clear indications of ways to improve, then surely the onus shifts to us on the receiving end to recognise it for the gift that it is and accept the insight it brings with due consideration and thanks.

Contact the Ombud Early!

All previous Ombud's Corners can be accessed in the Ombud's blog.

De-squeeze the beams: the TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA experiments

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:09:57 GMT

A special week-long proton–proton run with larger beam sizes at the interaction point is intended to probe the p-p elastic scattering regime at small angles.

Nicola Turini, deputy spokesperson for TOTEM, in front of one of the experiment’s ‘Roman Pot’ detectors in the LHC tunnel. (Photo: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

Usually, the motto of the LHC is “maximum luminosity”. But for a few days per year, the LHC ignores its motto to run at very low luminosity for the forward experiments. This week, the LHC will provide the TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA experiments with data for a broad physics programme.

The TOTEM experiment at Point 5 and the ATLAS/ALFA experiment at Point 1 study the elastic scattering of protons, which are not observable in normal operation runs. In the elastic scattering process, the two protons survive their encounter intact and only change directions by exchanging momentum.

To allow this special run, the operators play with the so-called beta-star parameter. The higher the beta star, the more de-squeezed the beams are, and the more parallel the beams are when they arrive at the interaction point. For this special run, the beta-star had to be raised to 2.5 km (whereas in normal runs it is as small as 0.4 m).

Running with such a high beta-star parameter is an achievement: during Run 1, at 8 TeV, a value of 1 km was reached. But with a higher energy, the two incoming protons deviate by smaller angles, for equal transferred momentum. Since the TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA Roman Pot detectors cannot be moved closer to the beams, the beta-star parameter must be raised to even higher values to provide acceptance for the smaller angles. “The effort that is required for the machine to deliver beams with such a high value of the beta-star parameter is extremely challenging,” says Simone Giani, spokesperson of the TOTEM Collaboration. “We are very thankful to the LHC team for having pushed the machine to such extreme settings,” adds Karlheinz Hiller, ALFA project leader.

Part of the ATLAS/ALFA experiment apparatus at Point 1 in the LHC tunnel. (Photo: Ronaldus Suykerbuyk)

The TOTEM physics programme foreseen for this special high beta-star run features many interesting measurements. In addition to the precise determination of the total proton–proton interaction probability (closely related to the “cross-section”) at 13 TeV, TOTEM will focus on a detailed study of the region of low transferred momentum of the elastic scattering, that is, when the two protons barely interact and the scattering angles are very small.

An in-depth study of this region is important for many different reasons. First of all, the interaction probability seems to diverge for very small transferred momenta, but as this should not be physically possible, a detailed study of that region will shed light on what is happening when the two protons almost don’t interact.

Secondly, in the same region, the contribution of the electromagnetic interaction (“Coulomb” scattering) interferes with the nuclear part of the elastic interaction. Studying this interference zone can shed light on the internal structure of the protons, and on which part of the protons (either the peripheral or the inner part) is actually responsible for the elastic scattering process.

Moreover, it is also possible to get information on the probability that two protons pass through each other without interfering, transparently. “This might appear awkward if you think of a proton as a billiard ball,” notes Simone Giani. “But the protons should be thought as multi-body quantum systems.”

In other words, to use a metaphor, one can imagine the two scattering protons as two large “galaxies” (made internally of tiny moving particles) launched at high speed against each other: there is a finite probability that the two “galaxies” will pass through each other without the inner particles interacting significantly.

Finally, the TOTEM collaboration plans to conduct physics studies looking for evidence of special states formed by three gluons, which are theoretically predicted but for which the experimental evidence is still weak.

The physics goal of the ATLAS/ALFA experiment is also to perform a precision measurement of the proton–proton total cross section, but then to use this to determine the absolute LHC luminosity at Point 1 for the 2.5 km run.

For ATLAS/ALFA, the interesting part of the spectrum is at low values of transferred momentum, where Coulomb scattering is dominant: since the Coulomb scattering cross-section is theoretically known, its measurement gives an independent estimate of the absolute luminosity of the LHC. The luminosity measurements are otherwise normally done via Van der Meer scans, during the standard high-luminosity runs.

“With good statistics – such as 10 million good elastic events – we hope to be able to measure the absolute luminosity with a 3% precision,” says Patrick Fassnacht, deputy project leader of the ATLAS/ALFA project.

The latest results published by the TOTEM Collaboration include a first observation of deviations from a pure exponential form of the elastic cross-section at 8 TeV. More information on the TOTEM website.

The latest result published by the ATLAS/ALFA Collaboration is the measurement of the total cross section from proton-proton elastic scattering at 7 and 8 TeV with the beta-star parameter at 90 m, whereas the data with beta-star at 1 km are still under analysis. More information on the ATLAS/ALFA website.

SAFETY ALERT - Failure of brass non-return valves in gas point installations

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:09:10 GMT

There have been three recent failures in brass non-return valves in separate high pressure gas point installations across CERN. Whilst each was in a different gas service, the visual nature of the failure has been similar.

In all three cases, these components were connected to stainless steel flexible connections and stainless steel pipework.

From the metallurgical investigation of the failed component, it appears that the failure is linked to uncontrolled tightening, leading to a localised weakening resulting in premature failure when subjected to pressure.

Lead levels in the examined components appear to be a contributing factor to the reduction in ductility but are not identified as the root cause. It has also not been possible to attribute failure to a particular batch of material.

The Occupational Health & Safety and Environmental Protection Unit prescribes the following actions to be taken, aligned with the CERN Safety Rules:

Verification of all brass non-return valves (prioritising on those used within stainless steel systems):
- Visual examination of general installation condition and visual aspect, including markings;
- If there is any evidence of damage or deterioration, or a lack of traceability, then the non-return valve is to be appropriately disposed of and replaced with a new component;
- Where there is reasonable doubt on the condition or integrity of the component due to, for example, the age of the installation, then the non-return valve is to be appropriately disposed of and replaced with a new component;
- Replacement non-return valves in stainless steel systems are to be stainless steel, to minimise leak-tightness issues due to a mismatch in materials properties.
Verification of the state of high pressure flexible elements on gas point installations:
- Visual examination of general condition;
- Assurance of the fixture of the anti-whip cables, since these are safety elements in case of failure;
- Visual examination of the condition of the sealing joints...
  
  ... with replacement as necessary if there is evidence of damage or deterioration.
When working on gas point installations, provision and use of personal protective equipment against splashing/spills, as well as the use of hearing protection in case of sudden pressure releases resulting in high proximity noise levels.
All tightening activities on gas point installations are to use only correct and controlled torque values, using appropriate torque wrenches or equivalent. The use of ‘flogging’ (e.g. using pipe extensions or hammering on spanners) is to be totally excluded.
New gas point installations are to be designed, manufactured, procured, installed, accepted and commissioned and used in accordance with the CERN Safety Rules including Specific Safety Instruction SSI-M-2-4 Metallic Pressurised Piping. The use of brass fittings (e.g. non-return valves) in stainless steel systems is to be avoided.

Siegmund Brandt (1936 – 2016)

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:09:19 GMT

With deep sorrow, I must announce that our colleague Siegmund Brandt passed away on Sunday last week after a long struggle with illness.

(Photo by Dr. Sven Faller/University of Siegen)

Brandt first worked at CERN in 1961 on pion-proton interactions using bubble chambers and earned his PhD in bubble chamber work from the University of Bonn in 1963.

Later, he joined DESY working on PLUTO and TASSO at PETRA where he contributed to the three-jet analysis that led to the discovery of gluons in 1979. After that, in the mid-eighties, he returned to CERN, where he worked on ALEPH. His group contributed to the forward detectors of ALEPH with the Small Angle Tracker (SATR) and the Small Angle Monitor for Background (SAMBA). Brandt did some analysis work on Bhabha scattering and on jet production. After his retirement, he concentrated on writing books on physics. His last book, The Harvest of the Century was well received. Brandt was also elected to the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. His friends and colleagues will dearly miss him.

Claus Grupen (for the Siegen ALEPH group)

A tribute to Siegmund Brandt will be published in an upcoming issue of the CERN Courier.

Computer Security: e-mail is broken and there is nothing we can do

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:09:54 GMT

Have you ever received an e-mail from a friend or someone you know and been surprised or appalled by its contents? Or, worse, have you have received a response to an e-mail that wasn’t written by you? Maybe with similarly surprising or appalling contents? If yes, welcome to the insecurity of the mail protocol, where nothing is as it seems…

No, this time we are not talking about “phishing” or malicious attachments but the very basics of the e-mail protocol. “SMTP” aka the “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol” is exactly what it says: very simple! In many respects, e-mails are identical to physical hand-written letters: you cannot deduce from the sender’s address nor from the message text whether it has really been sent by that person. Impersonation has never been as easy as with the SMTP protocol. Due to its simple design, I can pretend to be Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter or anyone else, and send you text messages resembling or contradicting Mickey’s opinion and thinking, deeply offend Hermione, bluntly lie to you, or try to lure you into disclosing secrets to me like your password (“Phishing”, you may recall). But the risk is not only that you are spammed with unwanted messages, the bigger risk is that I can diminish your reputation by sending offensive, weird or embarrassing e-mails in your name…

And there is not much we can do on the mail service or security protection side*. E-mail address spoofing is permitted by the protocol. Technically, we cannot block or filter legitimate, but misused, sender addresses – that would deeply affect the free communication of legitimate users with/to/from CERN. For the same reason, we cannot just block certain mail server addresses. And we shouldn’t, if we value the academic freedom of CERN (see our Bulletin article on “WWW Censorship? Not at CERN”). In order to combat malicious e-mails, we will soon deploy an advanced filtering engine, which will dynamically analyse all e-mails for malicious content and reject any problematic messages. But this will not cover e-mails that arrive with somehow legitimate and valid content – even if this content is wrong, offensive, contradictory, etc.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is sending this letter to physics departments around the world exposing the fraudulent use of email addresses belonging to Academy members.

This implies that we all have to live with this kind of SPAM. And that we have to live with the fact of someone writing in our name… And hope for the recipients that they contact you to inform you of the nonsense they’ve received so that you can rectify the problem. Conversely, if you really want to be sure that the mail you just received is legitimate and comes from the person who it claims to be coming from, use common sense. Are you expecting such a mail from him/her? Do the content and context make sense? Could you call him/her to cross-check? Or, for the more technophile among you, digitally sign your mails so that the recipient can verify their real origin - you: for Microsoft Outlook, for the Mac OS mail client and for Thunderbird. Dedicated instructions for using S/MIME at CERN can be found here.

* The mail industry is trying to solve this issue with new restrictions like the SPF, DKIM and DMARC initiatives. However, as mailing lists can be incompatible with these new security features, none of them have been widely deployed, so far at least...

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

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

Access the entire collection of Computer Security articles here.

Individual breakdown of pension rights

Tue, 06 Sep 2016 15:09:40 GMT

You should have recently received, via email, your “Individual breakdown of pension rights”.

Please note that:

the calculation was based on data as at 1st July 2016,
as at 1st September 2016, CERN will introduce a new career structure; the salary position will now be expressed as a percentage of a midpoint of a grade.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that your pension rights will remain unchanged.

Benefits Service
CERN Pension Fund