Updated: 2009-11-23 06:00:00
Geneva, 23 November 2009. Today the LHC circulated two beams simultaneously for the first time, allowing the operators to test the synchronization of the beams and giving the experiments their first chance to look for proton-proton collisions. With just one bunch of particles circulating in each direction, the beams can be made to cross in up to two places in the ring. From early in the afternoon, the beams were made to cross at points 1 and 5, home to the ATLAS and CMS detectors, both of which were on the lookout for collisions. Later, beams crossed at points 2 and 8, ALICE and LHCb.
Updated: 2009-11-20 06:00:00
Geneva, 20 November 2009. Particle beams are once again circulating in the world's most powerful particle accelerator, CERN 's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This news comes after the machine was handed over for operation on Wednesday morning. A clockwise circulating beam was established at ten o'clock this evening. This is an important milestone on the road towards first physics at the LHC, expected in 2010.
Updated: 2009-10-30 14:50:00
The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) is calling for candidates to the position of the Director of the Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules, IN2P3, (successor of Prof. Michel Spiro). The President and the Director-General of CNRS have charged a committee of internationally renowned scientists to prepare a short-list of suitable candidates for their final selection. Interested candidates should send their application before November 15th, since the new director should be in place on January 1st. A description of the position and more information on the procedure may be found (in French) at: http://www.sg.cnrs.fr/drh/cadres-sup/pdf/mob-encad_annonce_directeur_IN2P3.pdf
Updated: 2009-10-20 14:10:00
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has received £12.32 million, from the Government's Large Facilities Capital Fund, to invest in new hardware for the UK's High Performance Computing Consortia (HPC) - providing UK particle physicists and astronomers with upgraded HPC technology to address some of the most challenging scientific problems.
Updated: 2009-10-05 16:30:00
CERN is preparing the Large Hadron Collider for a restart in 2009. The first beam of the year is likely to be injected in mid-November. This will be followed by a short period of collisions at the injection energy of 450GeV per beam and a ramp in energy to 3.5TeV per beam. Following this, LHC physics will begin with collisions at this energy. The time from first injection to first high-energy collisions will be at least four weeks. However, the complexity of scheduling coupled with inevitable glitches in a machine of this complexity could lead to this process taking longer. The first high energy collisions will most likely occur at a date after mid-December 2009.
Updated: 2009-10-02 06:50:00
It has been announced today that Professor Andrei Seryi will be the next Director of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science (JAI). Professor Seryi is currently leading the work on the Facilities for Accelerator Science and Experimental Test Beams (or FACET) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, as well as being the leader of the Beam Delivery System for the International Linear Collider. Professor Seryi is also deputy spokesperson for the Accelerator Test Facility collaboration, based in Japan.
