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We love your CERN poems

CERN community, we asked you to send us your CERN-related Valentine’s poems, thank you for all the entries that we received! It wasn’t easy to pick a favourite, but in the end, here is our winning English poem:

Ninety five percent of the Universe
has not been discovered, yet
My search for perfection stopped
when I saw you – si parfaite

You Opened the Gateway to my heart
You’re in all my Ideas, fair and Square
The force that draws me to you
Is stronger than the ions from LEIR

I had my whole week blocked
To just look at you in awe
until you broke my heart by saying
“I work in Prevessin”

When it comes to you,
I don’t have to think twice
Will you meet me halfway
At CERN Animal Shelter for Computer Mice?

In the end it’s you and me, 
Surrounded by all this neige
Our own little Quantum Entanglement
Where Data becomes Knowledge

By Varsha Bhat (IT/CD)

A special mention also goes to the CMS and ATLAS haikus:

What is CMS?
Compact Muon Solenoid.
The best detector.

By Sofia Hurst (EP/CMX)


I love you, ATLAS.
CMS got long bus rides.
We got point 1. ha.

By Rea Thornberry (EP/UAT)

The authors of the winning English poem and winning French poem each receive a goodie bag from the CERN shop including “I love CERN” socks, an attractive magnetic pencil and a Standard Model notebook to compose more odes to technology.

Thank you once again to everyone who entered. The full list of poems is available here: https://cern.ch/2024-poems (CERN login required).

 

katebrad Wed, 02/28/2024 - 11:15 Byline Internal Communication Publication Date Thu, 02/29/2024 - 12:13

ABB and CERN identify 17.4% energy-saving opportunity in the Laboratory’s cooling and ventilation motors

In a joint research project conducted between 2022 and 2023, ABB and CERN developed a roadmap for reducing the energy consumption of CERN’s cooling and ventilation systems via data-driven energy efficiency audits. These systems are responsible for the cooling and ventilation of CERN’s accelerator complex, experimental areas and data centres. The roadmap identified potential annual energy savings of up to 31 gigawatt-hours (GWh). If achieved, these savings could be enough to power more than 18,000 European households(1) and could avoid 4 kilotonnes of CO2 emissions(2), the same as planting 420,000 trees(3).

Energy efficiency audits involve evaluating the performance and efficiency of motors, based on their operating data. Such audits help large facilities like CERN to identify the most significant energy-saving opportunities across whole groups of motors. CERN and ABB experts assessed a wide variety of data from motors used for various cooling and ventilation applications. They combined data from multiple sources, including digitally connected motors, CERN’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which is responsible for the control and monitoring of the cooling and ventilation installations, and data gathered directly from pumps, piping and instrumentation. The experts analysed the efficiency of the whole system in order to pinpoint the motors that present the best business case for energy efficiency upgrades.

Giovanni Anelli, Head of CERN’s Knowledge Transfer group, said, “The collaboration with ABB was set up with the aim of optimising the Laboratory’s cooling and ventilation infrastructure to reduce its energy consumption, and is in line with CERN’s commitment to minimise its environmental footprint as well as to share the findings publicly for the benefit of society. It’s an excellent example of collaboration where each side brings its own contribution to the table. CERN brings its large-scale infrastructure and ABB contributes with its technology and service expertise. We are very happy with the final result of this research project as we have exceeded our goal of identifying a 10-15% energy efficiency improvement.”

“We are proud to cooperate with CERN and to support its goal to conduct physics research with a low-carbon footprint by helping it to improve the energy efficiency of its cooling and ventilation systems,” said Erich Labuda, President of the Motion Services division at ABB.

CERN’s next step will be to selectively upgrade motors with the highest energy-saving potential, based on the data collected during the audit.

(1) EU average (~1670 kWh/year)

(2) Electricity Maps | Live 24/7 CO2 emissions of electricity consumption

(3) How Much CO2 Does A Tree Absorb? – One Tree Planted

_________

Read the press release published by ABB today.

anschaef Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:34 Byline CERN Knowledge Transfer group Publication Date Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:29

ABB and CERN identify 17.4% energy-saving opportunity in the Laboratory’s cooling and ventilation motors

In a joint research project conducted between 2022 and 2023, ABB and CERN developed a roadmap for reducing the energy consumption of CERN’s cooling and ventilation systems via data-driven energy efficiency audits. These systems are responsible for the cooling and ventilation of CERN’s accelerator complex, experimental areas and data centres. The roadmap identified potential annual energy savings of up to 31 gigawatt-hours (GWh). If achieved, these savings could be enough to power more than 18,000 European households(1) and could avoid 4 kilotonnes of CO2 emissions(2), the same as planting 420,000 trees(3).

Energy efficiency audits involve evaluating the performance and efficiency of motors, based on their operating data. Such audits help large facilities like CERN to identify the most significant energy-saving opportunities across whole groups of motors. CERN and ABB experts assessed a wide variety of data from motors used for various cooling and ventilation applications. They combined data from multiple sources, including digitally connected motors, CERN’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which is responsible for the control and monitoring of the cooling and ventilation installations, and data gathered directly from pumps, piping and instrumentation. The experts analysed the efficiency of the whole system in order to pinpoint the motors that present the best business case for energy efficiency upgrades.

Giovanni Anelli, Head of CERN’s Knowledge Transfer group, said, “The collaboration with ABB was set up with the aim of optimising the Laboratory’s cooling and ventilation infrastructure to reduce its energy consumption, and is in line with CERN’s commitment to minimise its environmental footprint as well as to share the findings publicly for the benefit of society. It’s an excellent example of collaboration where each side brings its own contribution to the table. CERN brings its large-scale infrastructure and ABB contributes with its technology and service expertise. We are very happy with the final result of this research project as we have exceeded our goal of identifying a 10-15% energy efficiency improvement.”

“We are proud to cooperate with CERN and to support its goal to conduct physics research with a low-carbon footprint by helping it to improve the energy efficiency of its cooling and ventilation systems,” said Erich Labuda, President of the Motion Services division at ABB.

CERN’s next step will be to selectively upgrade motors with the highest energy-saving potential, based on the data collected during the audit.

(1) EU average (~1670 kWh/year)

(2) Electricity Maps | Live 24/7 CO2 emissions of electricity consumption

(3) How Much CO2 Does A Tree Absorb? – One Tree Planted

_________

Read the press release published by ABB today.

anschaef Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:34 Byline CERN Knowledge Transfer group Publication Date Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:29

Nature Physics, Published online: 28 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02408-0

Cluster states made from multiple photons with a special entanglement structure are a useful resource for quantum technologies. Two-dimensional cluster states of microwave photons have now been deterministically generated using a superconducting circuit.

Computer Security: The hardship of three security paradigms

Bravo to all those who participated in the Bull**** Bingo in the last Bulletin issue, in particular to those who sent in their solution and won a delicious Hawaiian pizza topped with pineapple and a Coke. Given the many replies, it seems that our Bingo was too easy? But that’s what “security” should be: easy, straightforward, simple. Paradigm #1 ─ the “KISS” paradigm: “Keep it simple, stupid”.

Unfortunately, this simplicity is spoiled time and again by the complex computing environment at CERN mixing the divergent needs of academia (research and computing sector), administration (finance and HR sector) and industry (the accelerator sector); by CERN’s legacy of using its resources for personal business like sending/receiving private emails, hosting personal webpages, or our bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy to connect all of your own devices to CERN’s campus network; by the cacophony of historically grown systems performing similar ─ but not identical ─ tasks (CDS/CERNBox/EDMS/EOS/Google Workspaces/MyFiles/OneDrive/Sharepoint, or Kubernetes vs OpenStack vs OpenShift); and the problems coming with the cacophony of terminating old and outdated services (like the very slow and complicated AFS and DFS migration to CERNBox, killing the old SSO for the benefit of  the new one, or moving Drupal-hosted websites to WordPress). So, KISS is hardly a reality at CERN. We should strive to do better. Simpler. More homogenous. More centralised. More controlled. KISS.

Unfortunately, again, and given additional constraints ─ lack of resources or time pressure ─ paradigm #2 kicks in: “cheap, convenient, secure ─ pick two”. That makes security a permanent uphill struggle as nobody would pick “secure” given that “cheap” and “convenient” always trump. Would you? Instead, security is given low priority, filed to the back, and applied only when time and resources allow (or the implementers are security aware). Again, we should strive to do better. Last year’s audit on cybersecurity urged higher priority and recommended that the Organization “define and implement a process to ensure security is considered in any project” and “implement a security risk management process” under the auspices of the Computer Security team (a dedicated Bulletin article on this topic will be published soon).

Following general best practices ─ and as re-emphasised by the aforementioned audit ─ the Computer Security team has always aimed to deploy and deepen “defence-in-depth” ─ paradigm #3. With your help ─ given that “security is everyone’s responsibility” (Bingo solution C1) ─ “2FA is a big step forward for account protection” (A2) and we are grateful to now have more than 10 000 accounts under this protection. On another defence level, we succeed well at dismissing malicious websites, domains and IPs on the firewall level, but struggle to filter malicious emails (and promise to improve on that during 2024). Still, we are counting on you to detect those that made it through: “Only the link behind a text/QR code reveals its truth” (B3). But we also try to help you, as “CERN’s anti-malware software is free for you to download” (E4)*. Defence-in-depth. Hard to implement, but possible to have.

Hence, these paradigms “KISS ─ keep it simple, stupid” and “defence-in-depth” go hand in hand once we all jointly pick the right two of “cheap, convenient, secure”. Let’s overcome the hardship imposed by these three paradigms. You and us together. Together securing the Organization. Preventing any disasters.

 

* The fifth solution is D5 ─ “Encryption is easy; key management is complicated” ─ but that is a technical detail being taken care of inside IT.

_______

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.

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 13:22 Byline Computer Security team Publication Date Mon, 02/26/2024 - 13:18

Computer Security: The hardship of three security paradigms

Bravo to all those who participated in the Bull**** Bingo in the last Bulletin issue, in particular to those who sent in their solution and won a delicious Hawaiian pizza topped with pineapple and a Coke. Given the many replies, it seems that our Bingo was too easy? But that’s what “security” should be: easy, straightforward, simple. Paradigm #1 ─ the “KISS” paradigm: “Keep it simple, stupid”.

Unfortunately, this simplicity is spoiled time and again by the complex computing environment at CERN mixing the divergent needs of academia (research and computing sector), administration (finance and HR sector) and industry (the accelerator sector); by CERN’s legacy of using its resources for personal business like sending/receiving private emails, hosting personal webpages, or our bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy to connect all of your own devices to CERN’s campus network; by the cacophony of historically grown systems performing similar ─ but not identical ─ tasks (CDS/CERNBox/EDMS/EOS/Google Workspaces/MyFiles/OneDrive/Sharepoint, or Kubernetes vs OpenStack vs OpenShift); and the problems coming with the cacophony of terminating old and outdated services (like the very slow and complicated AFS and DFS migration to CERNBox, killing the old SSO for the benefit of  the new one, or moving Drupal-hosted websites to WordPress). So, KISS is hardly a reality at CERN. We should strive to do better. Simpler. More homogenous. More centralised. More controlled. KISS.

Unfortunately, again, and given additional constraints ─ lack of resources or time pressure ─ paradigm #2 kicks in: “cheap, convenient, secure ─ pick two”. That makes security a permanent uphill struggle as nobody would pick “secure” given that “cheap” and “convenient” always trump. Would you? Instead, security is given low priority, filed to the back, and applied only when time and resources allow (or the implementers are security aware). Again, we should strive to do better. Last year’s audit on cybersecurity urged higher priority and recommended that the Organization “define and implement a process to ensure security is considered in any project” and “implement a security risk management process” under the auspices of the Computer Security team (a dedicated Bulletin article on this topic will be published soon).

Following general best practices ─ and as re-emphasised by the aforementioned audit ─ the Computer Security team has always aimed to deploy and deepen “defence-in-depth” ─ paradigm #3. With your help ─ given that “security is everyone’s responsibility” (Bingo solution C1) ─ “2FA is a big step forward for account protection” (A2) and we are grateful to now have more than 10 000 accounts under this protection. On another defence level, we succeed well at dismissing malicious websites, domains and IPs on the firewall level, but struggle to filter malicious emails (and promise to improve on that during 2024). Still, we are counting on you to detect those that made it through: “Only the link behind a text/QR code reveals its truth” (B3). But we also try to help you, as “CERN’s anti-malware software is free for you to download” (E4)*. Defence-in-depth. Hard to implement, but possible to have.

Hence, these paradigms “KISS ─ keep it simple, stupid” and “defence-in-depth” go hand in hand once we all jointly pick the right two of “cheap, convenient, secure”. Let’s overcome the hardship imposed by these three paradigms. You and us together. Together securing the Organization. Preventing any disasters.

 

* The fifth solution is D5 ─ “Encryption is easy; key management is complicated” ─ but that is a technical detail being taken care of inside IT.

_______

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.

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 13:22 Byline Computer Security team Publication Date Mon, 02/26/2024 - 13:18

Indico: 20 years of event managing

Thanks to 300 active servers located in 52 different countries, some 400 000 users can experience the powerful and user-friendly features that Indico offers to any event organiser. Born about twenty years ago with the “Event 0” – the CHEP 04 scientific conference – today Indico serves not only the large community of particle physicists working at CERN but also a plethora of other institutions, including the JACoW.org conferences and the UN.

Indico started as a follow-up to the AgendaMaker tool that a small team of developers had created for the ATLAS collaboration, which today is still one of the most active users of the platform. “Following that initial request, a funding request was made to the EU to evolve from a meeting-oriented application to a catch-all platform where we could host a one-hour meeting as well as a one-week conference with parallel sessions,” recalls Jean-Yves Le Meur, in charge of the early developments of Indico. “Since the beginning, Indico was designed to be modular, and I am amazed to see today how the successive managers of this system have extended and enriched its features in all directions.”

In 2023, the Indico application managed some 145 000 events worldwide and accommodated a regular flow of requests coming from the community, whose members also contribute to the development of the open source software package. Last December, a big release – Indico 3.3 – was made available on the CERN-managed instances, and the release for the general public will follow in the coming months. “The release has brought a lot of improvements compared to previous versions,” explains Adrian Mönnich, Indico's project manager and lead developer. “For example, thanks to contributions from the UN, we have improved the accessibility of Indico. Indeed, the application is now more suitable for visually impaired people who use screen readers. The existing Indico check-in mobile application has also been completely rewritten, and Indico now supports the generation of fully customisable PDF documents, including receipts, certificates of attendance and any other document that the user might need. Once generated, the documents can be downloaded from the registration page.”

The continuous Indico upgrade never stops, and here is a sneak peek of what we can expect in 2024: “We plan to release a brand-new conference timetable interface, which will replace the current one that dates back to 2008,” says Pedro Ferreira, leader of the Conferencing Technologies section. “The team is also working on a new integration with the next-generation conferencing rooms, and we hope to make significant steps towards a refreshed Indico user interface including greater mobile friendliness.”

Indico is a CERN-developed open source software. Since last year, a new governance model has been in place to encourage contributions from partner institutions. Find more technical information here.   

Events and you

Find relevant Indico events and what’s on at CERN and beyond:

• Upcoming events is a curated list of events published in every Bulletin
• CERN Campus app now includes events
• Home.cern ongoing and upcoming events list
• Indico also shows ALL events happening today, this week and in a calendar view. 

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:36 Byline Antonella Del Rosso Publication Date Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:34

Indico: 20 years of event managing

Thanks to 300 active servers located in 52 different countries, some 400 000 users can experience the powerful and user-friendly features that Indico offers to any event organiser. Born about twenty years ago with the “Event 0” – the CHEP 04 scientific conference – today Indico serves not only the large community of particle physicists working at CERN but also a plethora of other institutions, including the JACoW.org conferences and the UN.

Indico started as a follow-up to the AgendaMaker tool that a small team of developers had created for the ATLAS collaboration, which today is still one of the most active users of the platform. “Following that initial request, a funding request was made to the EU to evolve from a meeting-oriented application to a catch-all platform where we could host a one-hour meeting as well as a one-week conference with parallel sessions,” recalls Jean-Yves Le Meur, in charge of the early developments of Indico. “Since the beginning, Indico was designed to be modular, and I am amazed to see today how the successive managers of this system have extended and enriched its features in all directions.”

In 2023, the Indico application managed some 145 000 events worldwide and accommodated a regular flow of requests coming from the community, whose members also contribute to the development of the open source software package. Last December, a big release – Indico 3.3 – was made available on the CERN-managed instances, and the release for the general public will follow in the coming months. “The release has brought a lot of improvements compared to previous versions,” explains Adrian Mönnich, Indico's project manager and lead developer. “For example, thanks to contributions from the UN, we have improved the accessibility of Indico. Indeed, the application is now more suitable for visually impaired people who use screen readers. The existing Indico check-in mobile application has also been completely rewritten, and Indico now supports the generation of fully customisable PDF documents, including receipts, certificates of attendance and any other document that the user might need. Once generated, the documents can be downloaded from the registration page.”

The continuous Indico upgrade never stops, and here is a sneak peek of what we can expect in 2024: “We plan to release a brand-new conference timetable interface, which will replace the current one that dates back to 2008,” says Pedro Ferreira, leader of the Conferencing Technologies section. “The team is also working on a new integration with the next-generation conferencing rooms, and we hope to make significant steps towards a refreshed Indico user interface including greater mobile friendliness.”

Indico is a CERN-developed open source software. Since last year, a new governance model has been in place to encourage contributions from partner institutions. Find more technical information here.   

Events and you

Find relevant Indico events and what’s on at CERN and beyond:

• Upcoming events is a curated list of events published in every Bulletin
• CERN Campus app now includes events
• Home.cern ongoing and upcoming events list
• Indico also shows ALL events happening today, this week and in a calendar view. 

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:36 Byline Antonella Del Rosso Publication Date Wed, 02/28/2024 - 10:34

ATLAS congratulates its 2023 Thesis Awards winners

The ATLAS collaboration celebrated the achievements of its exceptional PhD students at the recent Thesis Awards ceremony. Established in 2010, the ATLAS Thesis Awards recognise the remarkable contributions made by students to the ATLAS collaboration through their doctoral theses. Students play pivotal roles in the collaboration while gaining invaluable skills crucial to their professional pursuits.

The 2023 ATLAS Thesis Awards were announced on 15 February 2024 at a ceremony held at CERN's main auditorium. The award winners are: Joshua Beirer from CERN & Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany), Prajita Bhattarai from Brandeis University (USA), Savannah Clawson from the University of Manchester (UK), Hassnae El Jarrari from Université Mohammed-V De Rabat (Morocco), Nicole Hartman from Stanford University & SLAC (USA), Samuel Van Stroud from University College London (UK), and Xiao Yang from the University of Science and Technology of China (China).

“PhD students aren’t just the beating heart of the ATLAS collaboration – they’re the brains behind many of our achievements,” said Antonella De Santo, Chair of the Thesis Awards Committee. “PhD students make up a significant fraction of ATLAS collaboration members and contribute to a diverse range of research areas, including physics analysis, detector operations and upgrades, and software and hardware developments. The ATLAS Thesis Awards are our way of recognizing and highlighting their outstanding achievements.”

____________

Read the full story and explore the winning theses on the ATLAS website.

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:24 Byline Katarina Anthony Publication Date Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:20

ATLAS congratulates its 2023 Thesis Awards winners

The ATLAS collaboration celebrated the achievements of its exceptional PhD students at the recent Thesis Awards ceremony. Established in 2010, the ATLAS Thesis Awards recognise the remarkable contributions made by students to the ATLAS collaboration through their doctoral theses. Students play pivotal roles in the collaboration while gaining invaluable skills crucial to their professional pursuits.

The 2023 ATLAS Thesis Awards were announced on 15 February 2024 at a ceremony held at CERN's main auditorium. The award winners are: Joshua Beirer from CERN & Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany), Prajita Bhattarai from Brandeis University (USA), Savannah Clawson from the University of Manchester (UK), Hassnae El Jarrari from Université Mohammed-V De Rabat (Morocco), Nicole Hartman from Stanford University & SLAC (USA), Samuel Van Stroud from University College London (UK), and Xiao Yang from the University of Science and Technology of China (China).

“PhD students aren’t just the beating heart of the ATLAS collaboration – they’re the brains behind many of our achievements,” said Antonella De Santo, Chair of the Thesis Awards Committee. “PhD students make up a significant fraction of ATLAS collaboration members and contribute to a diverse range of research areas, including physics analysis, detector operations and upgrades, and software and hardware developments. The ATLAS Thesis Awards are our way of recognizing and highlighting their outstanding achievements.”

____________

Read the full story and explore the winning theses on the ATLAS website.

anschaef Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:24 Byline Katarina Anthony Publication Date Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:20

Nature Physics, Published online: 26 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02402-6

Electric dipoles are common in insulators, but extremely rare in metals. This situation may be about to change, thanks to flexoelectricity.

Nature Physics, Published online: 26 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02413-3

Although dissipation is often detrimental to the observation of topological effects, a photonic molecule driven at several incommensurate frequencies is shown to be a candidate system for quantized topological transport in synthetic dimensions.

A new data centre at CERN The inauguration of the new data centre in Prévessin. From left to right: Pippa Wells, CERN’s Deputy Director for Research and Computing; Charlotte Warakaulle, CERN’s Director for International Relations; Aurélie Charillon, Mayor of Prévessins-Moëns; Joachim Mnich, CERN’s Director for Research and Computing; Yves Nussbaum, Director Marché Industrie, AXIMA; and Enrica Porcari, Head of Information Technology Department at CERN. (Image: CERN)

On 23 February 2024, a brand-new data centre was inaugurated on CERN’s Prévessin site (France), marking the completion of a major project for the Organization’s computing strategy. Spanning more than 6000 square metres and including six rooms for IT equipment with a cooling capacity of 2 MW each, the centre will host CPU (central processing unit) servers for physics data processing as well as a small amount of CPU servers and storage capacity for business continuity and disaster recovery (for example, when data is corrupted). CERN’s main data centre on the Meyrin site (Switzerland) will continue to house the majority of the Organization’s data storage capacity.

The rate of data production of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) continues to grow, already reaching some 45 petabytes per week, and this is expected to double in the era of the High-Luminosity LHC, the major upgrade of CERN’s current flagship accelerator, the LHC. The data from these experiments is fed into the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), a collaboration of around 170 data centres distributed across more than 40 countries, with a storage capacity of about 3 exabytes and one million CPU cores distributed across the network. While the Meyrin data centre has so far performed the Tier 0 role, that is, the core for the LHC Computing Grid, the Prévessin centre will provide vital additional computing capacity to CERN.

The new building was built in a record time of less than two years. It complies with strict technical requirements to ensure its environmental sustainability, and is equipped with an efficient heat-recovery system that will contribute to heating buildings on the Prévessin site.

The backbones of our interconnected world, data centres are energy-intensive infrastructures. According to a recent report, their energy consumption accounts for about 1.5% of the European Union’s total electricity consumption. Two parameters characterise the environmental sustainability of a data centre: the power usage effectiveness (PUE) – the ratio of total data centre input power to IT load power – and the water usage effectiveness (WUE) – the ratio between the use of water in data centre systems and the energy consumption of the IT equipment.

The new Prévessin centre has a PUE target of 1.1, lower than the worldwide average of 1.6, and close to 1.0, which would be the value for a perfectly efficient data centre, where all the power is delivered to the IT equipment.

It has a WUE target of 0.379 litres per kWh thanks to an innovative water recycling system. The cooling system will be automatically triggered when the outside temperature reaches 20 degrees Celsius. Five huge fan-walls installed in each room will ensure that the overall temperature does not exceed 32 degrees Celsius.

The new centre was designed, built and will be operated in the framework of a FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers) Gold Book contract, which also ensures its financial sustainability. The building’s IT rooms will gradually be equipped with up to 78 racks each. Starting from the top-floor rooms, they are expected to be fully equipped over the next ten years.

ndinmore Fri, 02/23/2024 - 15:12 Byline Antonella Del Rosso Publication Date Fri, 02/23/2024 - 15:10

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02403-5

AI needs to develop more solid assumptions, falsifiable hypotheses, and rigorous experimentation.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02406-2

Attosecond interferometry measurements of photoionization delays in planar carbon-based molecules can provide information on the dimension and shape of the two-dimensional hole generated in the process.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-024-02409-z

A transducer that generates microwave–optical photon pairs is demonstrated. This could provide an interface between optical communication networks and superconducting quantum devices that operate at microwave frequencies.

From particle physics to medicine

 

Did you know that particle accelerators are also used to treat cancer? That medical imaging has taken great leaps forwards thanks to the crystals and chips developed for particle physics? And that CERN is home to a facility that develops isotopes for medical research?

Ever since X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895, physics and medicine have been closely intertwined. Medical imaging and cancer treatments have benefited from developments in particle physics over the years, and the innovations continue today, including in collaboration with CERN.

As part of CERN’s 70th anniversary celebrations, doctors, biologists and physicists will walk you through how the collaboration between fundamental physics and medicine is leading to innovative treatment methods and diagnostic techniques. One special patient – a researcher, writer and populariser of science – will share with us his experience of being treated for cancer in one of the four European centres for hadron therapy.

Entrance to the event is free, but registration is mandator. Click here to register.

This is the second in a series of events being organised to mark CERN’s 70th anniversary.

From the big questions in physics today to the machines of the future and the human adventure of scientific collaboration without borders, CERN invites you to discover the many facets and benefits of its research through lectures, debates and artistic performances.

Have your diaries at the ready. Consult the full programme of events on the CERN at 70 webpage.

 

cmenard Thu, 02/22/2024 - 16:55 Publication Date Thu, 02/22/2024 - 16:45

CERN’s accelerators gear up for action after the winter maintenance break

As winter bids farewell, the recommissioning of CERN’s accelerator complex gathers pace, with the scientific community eagerly awaiting particle beams in their experiments. Following the traditional winter break (called the “year-end technical stop” (YETS)), the Linear accelerator 4 (Linac4) is the first machine to resume beam operation, followed by the downstream machines: the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB), Proton Synchrotron (PS), Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Beam entered Linac4 on 5 February, and the PS Booster a few days later. This week, the first beam was injected into the PS, which is now preparing the first beam for the SPS beam commissioning, scheduled to start on 1 March. The first particle beams will reach the LHC on 11 March.

The expectations for 2024 are high. In the LHC, the focus is on luminosity production with proton–proton collisions. The luminosity is an important indicator of the performance of an accelerator: it is proportional to the number of collisions that occur in the experiments in a given amount of time. The higher the luminosity, the more data the experiments can gather to allow them to observe rare processes.

The 2024 LHC run will conclude with lead–lead ion collisions; the first lead ions will be injected into the LHC on 6 October. The 2024 run is scheduled to end on 28 October.

The resumption of operation of the accelerator complex heralds a new year of physics, surely leading to important physics results. As the countdown to 11 March continues, the operations and other expert teams are working diligently to prepare the machines and the beams for another successful physics run.

anschaef Wed, 02/21/2024 - 11:32 Byline Rende Steerenberg Publication Date Thu, 02/22/2024 - 09:31

CERN’s accelerators gear up for action after the winter maintenance break

As winter bids farewell, the recommissioning of CERN’s accelerator complex gathers pace, with the scientific community eagerly awaiting particle beams in their experiments. Following the traditional winter break (called the “year-end technical stop” (YETS)), the Linear accelerator 4 (Linac4) is the first machine to resume beam operation, followed by the downstream machines: the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB), Proton Synchrotron (PS), Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Beam entered Linac4 on 5 February, and the PS Booster a few days later. This week, the first beam was injected into the PS, which is now preparing the first beam for the SPS beam commissioning, scheduled to start on 1 March. The first particle beams will reach the LHC on 11 March.

The expectations for 2024 are high. In the LHC, the focus is on luminosity production with proton–proton collisions. The luminosity is an important indicator of the performance of an accelerator: it is proportional to the number of collisions that occur in the experiments in a given amount of time. The higher the luminosity, the more data the experiments can gather to allow them to observe rare processes.

The 2024 LHC run will conclude with lead–lead ion collisions; the first lead ions will be injected into the LHC on 6 October. The 2024 run is scheduled to end on 28 October.

The resumption of operation of the accelerator complex heralds a new year of physics, surely leading to important physics results. As the countdown to 11 March continues, the operations and other expert teams are working diligently to prepare the machines and the beams for another successful physics run.

anschaef Wed, 02/21/2024 - 11:32 Byline Rende Steerenberg Publication Date Thu, 02/22/2024 - 09:31

CMS collaboration explores how AI can be used to search for partner particles to the Higgs boson Event display showing two collimated bursts of light. (Image: CMS collaboration)

As part of their quest to understand the building blocks of matter, physicists search for evidence of new particles that could confirm the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Many of these beyond-SM theories postulate the need for additional partner particles to the Higgs boson. These partners would behave similarly to the SM Higgs boson, for example in terms of their “spin”, but would have a different mass.

To search for Higgs partner particles, scientists at the CMS collaboration look for the signatures of these particles in the data collected by the detector. One such signature is when the particles decay from a heavy Higgs partner (X) particle to two lighter partner particles (φ), which in turn each decay into collimated pairs of photons. Photon signatures are ideal to search for particles with unknown masses as they provide a clean, well-understood signature. However, if the φ is very light, the two photons will significantly overlap with each other and the tools usually applied for the photon identification fall apart.

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in. It is well known that machine learning computer vision techniques can differentiate between many faces, and now such AI methodologies are becoming useful tools in particle physics.

The CMS experiment searched for the X and φ partners of the Higgs boson using the hypothetical process X→φφ, with both φ decaying to collimated photon pairs. To do this, they trained two AI algorithms to distinguish the overlapping pairs of photons from noise, as well as to precisely determine the mass of the particle from which they originated. A wide range of masses was explored. No evidence for such new particles was seen, enabling them to set upper limits on the production rate of this process. The result is the most sensitive search yet performed for such Higgs-like particles in this final state.

How can the scientists test the AI’s effectiveness? It is not as easy as verifying AI facial differentiation, where you can simply check by looking. Thankfully, the SM has well-understood processes, which CMS physicists used to validate and control the AI techniques. For example, the η meson, which also decays to two photons, provided an ideal test bench. Scientists at CMS were able to cleanly identify and reconstruct the η meson when searching for its decay into photons when they applied these AI techniques.

This analysis clearly shows that AI algorithms can be used to cleanly identify two-photon signatures from the noise and to search for new massive particles. These machine learning techniques are continuously improving and will continue to be used in unique analyses of LHC data, extending CMS searches to even more challenging cases.

Read more here

 

 

ndinmore Tue, 02/20/2024 - 13:21 Byline CMS collaboration Publication Date Wed, 02/21/2024 - 09:30