News for CERN Community feed

Mentoring@CERN: A new and unique mentoring programme for the CERN community

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:00:17 +0000

Mentoring@CERN: A new and unique mentoring programme for the CERN community

The LHC Early Career Mentoring Committee and CERN’s Women in Technology group have teamed up to launch a new and unique mentoring programme: Mentoring@CERN.

The pilot phase of this initiative, which aims to promote professional development and support within the CERN community, is set to commence on 15 April.

Who can participate?

If you're associated with CERN through a contract, whether as staff, fellow, student, user, PART, or external contractor, you're eligible to join. You don't have to work for the LHC experiments or be a woman to take part.

There are no age or career level restrictions, ensuring that anyone can apply to be a mentor or mentee. We carefully pair mentors and mentees on a case-by-case basis with personalised matches.

Timeline for 2024

Registration for the pilot round opens on Monday 15 April 2024 and closes on Wednesday 15 May. By the end of May, you'll receive news about your match.

A kick-off meeting will take place in June, where we will share more information about mentoring best practices and helpful tools to jumpstart your mentorship experience.

How to participate?

Applying here will take less than 5 minutes.

Simply fill out the registration forms for mentors and/or mentees and attach your CV and a short cover letter. Your application will be carefully reviewed to find the perfect match for you.

Behind the scenes

The WIT mentoring programme, established in 2018, focused on pairing mentors and mentees with a special emphasis on female mentees. Meanwhile, the LHC Early Career Mentoring Programme, launched in 2020, connected mentors and mentees working on various LHC experiments.

Inspired by our shared vision, we are combining forces to merge the programmes, uniting our strengths to provide mentorship opportunities to the whole CERN community.

Information session

Whether you want to share your expertise or seek guidance to navigate your career path, we hope Mentoring@CERN will offer a unique experience.

If you are not sure what the programme can provide or if have questions you would like to ask, we invite you to attend our information session on 25 April at 12:30 CET: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1403801/

anschaef Wed, 04/17/2024 - 00:00

Publication Date

Wed, 04/17/2024 - 20:56

Fabiola Gianotti receives the 2024 prize from the “Fondation pour Genève”

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 21:08:13 +0000

Fabiola Gianotti receives the 2024 prize from the “Fondation pour Genève”

(Image: Fondation pour Genève)

The Fondation pour Genève will be presenting its 30th prize to Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to Geneva’s international reputation.

“I am extremely honoured to receive the Fondation pour Genève Prize. The development of science and technology, openness, collaboration across borders and the education of young people are fundamental values at CERN, which are also deeply rooted in international Geneva. The fact that these values, which are so dear to me, are being recognised is a particularly touching moment for me,” declared Fabiola Gianotti.

The award ceremony is open to everyone and will take place on Monday 13 May 2024 at 6.30 p.m. at the Victoria Hall in Geneva. To register, click here.

More information on the Fondation pour Genève website.

anschaef Tue, 04/16/2024 - 23:08

Publication Date

Wed, 04/17/2024 - 10:05

IT: interactions, innovations, impact

katebrad — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 09:03:37 +0000

IT: interactions, innovations, impact

In the logical sequence from collisions to a scientific breakthrough, computing comes last. But definitely not least. At CERN, computing is a distributed effort. Most of the activities that are necessary for research work to happen – such as data storage, data sharing, data access and security, data architecture – are directly designed and managed within the CERN IT department. However, huge expertise in computing is also to be found in the scientific collaborations. Interactions between experts, regardless of which department or collaboration they come from, are continuous, and successful projects are often created and managed by mixed teams.

A recent example is the ALICE O2 project. ALICE’s graphics processing unit (GPU)-based online data processing has the highest data recording requirement of all experiments. To address this challenge, experts from the IT department and members of the ALICE collaboration jointly developed a wholly novel approach whereby data from ALICE is sent directly to the CERN Data Centre in Meyrin, five kilometres away, through high-speed fibre-optic links. The O2 storage system is designed to be cost-efficient and highly redundant to keep data accessible even in the event of unexpected disruptions or hardware failures. The large-scale storage solution demonstrated its effectiveness last autumn, during the LHC ion run, and remains the largest disk storage system ever established in the Data Centre.

The Organization’s data management strategy relies on the high standards of the two CERN Data Centres – one in Meyrin and the second, recently inaugurated, in Prévessin – and goes much beyond the CERN campus. Thanks to its network of around 160 centres distributed across 40 countries, the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) makes the data deluge produced by the experiments available to the wide community of scientists distributed in all the collaborating institutes around the world. This would not be possible without the thousands of innovative solutions that the community has developed over the years.

Like for the Laboratory’s other activities, collaboration is also key for the IT department. It is here that the innovative public–private partnership of CERN openlab was born, over 20 years ago. Its new phase, which kicked off just a couple of weeks ago, is designed to attract new collaborations and to keep CERN openlab at the forefront of new technologies, in order to anticipate the needs of the research field and meet future challenges, including data storage at the exascale, development of innovative algorithms based on artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

We strive constantly for innovation. Here, the best talents that the Organization attracts work on technologies that will shape the future of computing, not only for science but also for society. The Quantum Technology Initiative, founded in 2018 to establish a comprehensive R&D programme in the field of quantum technologies, has evolved to also encompass a societal arm, the newly established Open Quantum Institute. The Institute will foster pioneering technological solutions that will benefit society while helping to avoid the creation of a new technological gap in our world.

We believe that the only way to shape the future is to do it in a sustainable and inclusive way. Access to science and technology must remain open to all, the cutting-edge tools that we develop must be shared with society, and we have to keep a keen eye on their environmental impact. To fulfil our challenging mission and to carry out our impactful projects, we will keep investing in attracting the best talents who believe in and share our objectives.

katebrad Tue, 04/16/2024 - 11:03

Byline

Enrica Porcari

Publication Date

Wed, 04/17/2024 - 09:11

Blazing trails: CMS cavern evacuation paves the way for future safety design

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 21:45:06 +0000

Blazing trails: CMS cavern evacuation paves the way for future safety design

CERN strives for excellence in safety matters, with a commitment to continuous improvement in the field. Emergency preparedness is a priority for the Organization as it is a key element in its aim to protect both people participating in its activities and its installations. In this context, regular evacuation exercises of all accelerator and experimental areas are a regulatory requirement and part of the CERN-wide safety objectives.

On a warm, sunny day in February 2024, 48 people were going about their daily work in the CMS cavern, unaware that an evacuation exercise, which had been carefully planned for several months, was about to take place. Such exercises are crucial for facility users and rescue teams to gain familiarity with emergency procedures in various contexts and settings. When the alarm sounded, all 48 people reacted calmly, reaching the assembly point quickly and safely. It was a pleasing result for CMS and, apart from the important lessons learned from the exercise, additional data was gathered to improve not only evacuation procedures but also the design of installations in order to make emergency plans even more effective.

This exercise was part of a pilot collaboration between CMS Safety, the HSE Fire Safety Engineering (FSE) team and the Fire Safety Engineering division of Lund University in Sweden, which took this opportunity to maximise the usefulness of the evacuation to study human behaviour in emergency situations.

Comprising reports by undercover observers, questionnaires and footage from security cameras (used in full compliance with Operational Circular No. 11 to ensure anonymity), the data collected provides many useful insights into evacuation dynamics, occupant characteristics and perceptions of safety procedures.

This information is essential for the design of and emergency planning for subterranean experimental areas. As opposed to the design of buildings located above ground, which follows national safety standards, the design of underground areas relies extensively on computer modelling. Using various parameters, it is possible to simulate human behaviours in the event of an emergency to predict the effectiveness of a real-life evacuation.

In this pilot study, the Lund and FSE teams will use the CMS evacuation data to identify unique human behaviours observed in emergencies in complex underground environments. This will expand the current knowledge base and help build a database of specific input parameters to fine-tune and/or validate existing evacuation models.

Ultimately, this methodology will be instrumental not only to improve CERN’s emergency response in the caverns, but also to influence the safety design across current and future complex facilities, at CERN and beyond.

anschaef Tue, 04/16/2024 - 23:45

Byline

CMS collaboration

HSE unit

Publication Date

Wed, 04/17/2024 - 08:43

CERN donates computing equipment to South Africa

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 21:21:03 +0000

CERN donates computing equipment to South Africa

On 9 April 2024, a ceremony at CERN marked the donation of computing equipment to the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. The ceremony was attended by Mr. Curtis Singo, Political and Economic Counsellor at the South Africa Embassy in Bern, Joachim Mnich, CERN’s director for Research and Computing, and Bob Jones, deputy head of CERN’s IT department.

On this occasion, 21 servers and 4 network switches were sent to the Tshwane University of Technology, where the equipment will be used to support academic and research projects.

CERN regularly donates computing equipment that no longer meets its highly specific requirements but is still more than adequate for less demanding environments. To date, more than 2500 servers and 150 network switches have been donated by CERN to countries and international organisations, namely Algeria, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Palestine, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, Jordan, Lebanon and now South Africa.

If you are a publicly funded research organisation, you can request computing equipment from CERN.

anschaef Tue, 04/16/2024 - 23:21

Byline

Marina Banjac

Publication Date

Tue, 04/16/2024 - 23:20

Handover at the CERN Ombud’s Office

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 20:37:06 +0000

Handover at the CERN Ombud’s Office

The CERN Ombud’s Office was established in 2010 to provide the entire CERN community with support in resolving conflicts informally, in a consensual and impartial manner. Since then, several Ombuds have held the position, which is now firmly anchored at the Laboratory. On 1 May, Marie-Luce Falipou, the fifth CERN Ombud, will take up her duties. She takes over from Laure Esteveny, who has been in the role since April 2021 and is taking early retirement.

As they prepared for the handover, Laure and Marie-Luce agreed to answer the Bulletin team’s questions.

The Bulletin: Laure, what drove you to become Ombud?

Laure: I began my career as Ombud in 2021, after 35 years working in different departments of the Organization. I was attracted by the human side of the role, and I haven’t been disappointed. I’m extremely happy to have been able to serve out my career as CERN Ombud. It’s very rewarding to help people to overcome a conflict.

The Bulletin: What do you need to succeed in this role?

Laure: When they take up their duties, all new CERN Ombuds follow the training courses run by the International Ombuds Association (IAO) and also receive training in mediation. This is clearly essential, but the skills I acquired throughout my career at CERN have also been invaluable. You need to have good analytical skills and be very thorough to succeed in this role.

Pierre Gildemyn, my predecessor, also supported me a lot. He was always available to answer my questions and shared his own experience as Ombud with me. I, in turn, am available for Marie-Luce; I will be delighted to help her. I would also urge her to turn to the IAO for support and to all the professional ombud networks, especially that of the United Nations and Related International Organizations (UNARIO) – ombuds are very good at supporting each other.

The Bulletin: Have you encountered any difficulties?

Laure: The role of Ombud is very rewarding on the human level. If I had to name a difficulty, I would say that the isolation that inevitably comes with the role is not always easy to cope with. In addition, by definition, the Ombud is only exposed to problematic situations in which people are suffering – to the “Dark Side of the Force” – which can sometimes be a heavy burden.

The Bulletin: Marie-Luce, what brought you to this role?

Marie-Luce: I’ve known Pierre and Laure for a long time, and I’ve seen them thrive in the role of Ombud, for which they developed a real passion. It’s a privilege to be the next to take on this role.

I’ve spent my whole career at CERN, 35 years now, in the Human Resources department. I’ve held various positions, notably HRA (human resources adviser) for 13 years, so I’m very familiar with the workplace culture. I’ve also been trained in active listening – skills that will certainly be very useful in my new position. For me, becoming Ombud is really a natural evolution, even if the role is of course unique.

The Bulletin: You take up your duties on 1 May, but you don’t become Ombud overnight, I imagine?

Marie-Luce: Indeed, I’ll take the necessary time to prepare myself for this new role, which is really something out of the ordinary and something with which I need to familiarise myself. I’m aware of the importance and the impact that the Ombud can have, and I’m humbled and grateful to accept this responsibility.

Le Bulletin: As the new Ombud, what message would you like to send to the CERN community?

Marie-Luce: I want people to know that the Ombud’s office is a safe, calm place where they will be listened to in confidence and understood. The Ombud is there to serve all members of the CERN community, regardless of their role in the Organization. Questions, problems and conflicts are part and parcel of life, including in the workplace. Finding the best way to handle them can make a big difference, and that’s where the Ombud can help.

The Bulletin: Any final words?

Marie-Luce: I’d like to say a big thank you to Laure for sharing her experience with me and for offering me her support; it’s a precious resource to have someone experienced to turn to.

Laure: Thank you to all those who placed their trust in me, and I wish Marie-Luce all the best!

The Bulletin: A big thank you to you both!

_____

The Ombud is available from Monday to Friday in office B500/1-004 on the Meyrin site. To make an appointment, in person or online, contact the Ombud at ombuds@cern.ch.

More information can be found on the Ombud’s website: https://ombuds.web.cern.ch

anschaef Tue, 04/16/2024 - 22:37

Byline

Internal Communication

Publication Date

Tue, 04/16/2024 - 22:31

Accelerator Report: The LHC is well ahead of schedule

anschaef — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 20:27:54 +0000

Accelerator Report: The LHC is well ahead of schedule

Almost the whole accelerator complex is now in “physics mode”, routinely delivering the various types of beam to the different physics facilities and experiments. Notably, the intensity ramp-up in the LHC is progressing remarkably well.

In particular, I am happy to start this report with the good news that, thanks to the excellent availability of the accelerator complex and the hard work of the LHC teams and experts, the LHC is now 12 days ahead of schedule, yielding a direct gain of integrated luminosity and thus physics and boding well for the 2024 run.

The first stable beams of 2024 in the LHC were initially scheduled for 8 April, but the teams working on the LHC beam commissioning managed to be ready earlier and declared first stable beams at 18.25 on 5 April, three days ahead of the official schedule. The first stable beams also mark the start of a period of intensity ramp-up interleaved with the completion of the final commissioning steps.

These final steps include the scrubbing of the LHC vacuum chamber to reduce the production of electron clouds that negatively impact the beam quality and put a strain on the cryogenics system. Usually, the scrubbing lasts two days, but this year an extra day was added since a new injection kicker and two TDIS (target dump injection systems) were installed during the YETS (the new TDIS replace the ones at Points 2 and 8 that suffered vacuum leaks in 2023). The scrubbing run was nevertheless completed in only 36 hours, resulting in another gain in the schedule.

The LHC availability during the recent intensity ramp-up was 85%, including stable beams for about 35% of the time, and the experts very efficiently signed off the checklists at each intensity step. This is why we are now about 12 days ahead of schedule, colliding beams of 1200 bunches and already producing a meaningful level of luminosity for physics. The next step is 1800 bunches, which, if all goes well, might be achieved before the end of this week.

On Tuesday, 16 April, at the end of the afternoon, the first 1.5 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity was collected. More than 90 fb^-1 are expected for 2024. (Image: CERN)

Meanwhile, the injectors are providing the experiment facilities with beams for physics. The PS was the first to routinely provide beams for physics to the East Area, on 22 March, and n_TOF followed suit on 25 March. ISOLDE, located behind the PS Booster, started physics on 8 April. The SPS fixed-target physics in the North Area started on 10 April. On 15 April, the AWAKE facility located behind the SPS started the first of five two-week proton runs scheduled for 2024. The next in line is the Antimatter factory: the AD and ELENA decelerators should start providing the experiments with antiprotons for physics on 22 April.

The 2024 run has been extended by four weeks, until 25 November, for the LHC, and by five weeks, until 2 December, for the injectors. The YETS will start later this year, which will allow more physics to be done in 2024.

anschaef Tue, 04/16/2024 - 22:27

Byline

Rende Steerenberg

Publication Date

Tue, 04/16/2024 - 22:10

Pension Fund Benefits service: relocation from 22 April to 31 August

anschaef — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 21:17:19 +0000

Pension Fund Benefits service: relocation from 22 April to 31 August

Due to the refurbishment of the Pension Fund offices (building 5, 5th floor), please note that, from 22 April to 31 August 2024, the Benefits service will be relocated to room 510/R-013 (next to the main building).

During this period, meetings will be by appointment only.

Thank you for your understanding.

Benefits Service
(pension-benefits@cern.ch or +41 22 767 88 11)

anschaef Mon, 04/15/2024 - 23:17

Publication Date

Tue, 04/16/2024 - 22:00

CMS releases Higgs boson discovery data to the public

abelchio — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 12:29:59 +0000

CMS releases Higgs boson discovery data to the public

CMS event display of a candidate Higgs boson decaying into two photons, one of the two decay channels that were key to the discovery of the particle. (Image: CERN)

As part of its continued commitment to making its science fully open, the CMS collaboration has just publicly released, in electronic format, the combination of CMS measurements that contributed to establishing the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. This release coincides with the publication of the Combine software – the statistical analysis tool that CMS developed during the first run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to search for the unique particle, which has since been adopted throughout the collaboration.

Physics measurements based on data from the LHC are usually reported as a central value and its corresponding uncertainty. For instance, soon after observing the Higgs boson in LHC proton–proton collision data, CMS measured its mass as 125.3 plus or minus 0.6 GeV (the proton mass being about 1 GeV). But this figure is just a brief summary of the measurement outcome, a bit like the title of a book.

In a measurement, the full information extracted from the data is encoded in a mathematical function, known as the likelihood function, that includes the measured value of a quantity as well as its dependence on external factors. In the case of a CMS measurement, these factors encompass the calibration of the CMS detector, the accuracy of the CMS detector simulation used to facilitate the measurement and other systematic effects.

A likelihood function of a measurement based on LHC data can be complex, as many aspects need to be pinned down to fully understand the messy collisions that take place at the LHC. For example, the likelihood function of the combination of CMS Higgs boson discovery measurements, which CMS just released in electronic format, has nearly 700 parameters for a fixed value of the Higgs boson mass. Among these, only one – the number of Higgs bosons found in the data – is the physics parameter of interest, while the rest model systematic uncertainties.

Each of these parameters corresponds to a dimension of a multi-dimensional abstract space, in which the likelihood function can be drawn. It is hard for humans to visualise a space with more than a few dimensions, let alone one with many. The new release of the likelihood function of the CMS Higgs boson discovery measurements – the first likelihood function to be made publicly available by the collaboration – allows researchers to get around this problem. With a publicly accessible likelihood function, physicists outside the CMS collaboration can now precisely factor in the CMS Higgs boson discovery measurements in their studies.

The release of this likelihood function, as well as that of the Combine software, which is used to model the likelihood and fit the data, marks a new milestone in CMS’s decade-long commitment to fully open science. It joins hundreds of open-access publications, the release of almost five petabytes of CMS data on the CERN open-data portal and the publication of its entire software framework on GitHub.

Find out more on the CMS website.

abelchio Tue, 04/09/2024 - 14:29

Byline

CMS collaboration

Publication Date

Tue, 04/16/2024 - 10:50

Upcoming events

katebrad — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:47:12 +0000

Upcoming events

16–20 Apr | Knowledge Sharing | Balexert | Geneva International | EN & FR
CERN and International Geneva at Balexert / Le CERN et la Genève internationale à Balexert

18 Apr 19:30 | Knowledge Sharing | CERN Science Gateway | CERN70 | EN
CERN70 public event: The virtuous circle of knowledge and innovation (more CERN70 events)

19 Apr 11:00 | Knowledge Sharing | Council Chamber | Knowledge Transfer & Detector Seminar | EN
Latest development on spectroscopic X-ray imaging in medicine

24 Apr 18:00 | Knowledge Sharing | Le Globe de la science et de l'innovation | Événements publics | FR
Session de présentation : Progrès de l'étude de faisabilité FCC
Cet événement public est destiné aux résidents des communautés locales (l'inscription est nécessaire, le nombre de places étant limité). Nous invitons la communauté du CERN à suivre l'événement en ligne (sans inscription).

25 Apr 18:00 | Knowledge Sharing | Online | CERN Alumni | EN
News from the Lab – CERN Venture Connect

26 Apr 11:30 | At CERN | CERN | TH department | EN
Live stream of the funeral of Peter Higgs

26 Apr 14:30 | Knowledge Sharing | Online | CERN Alumni | EN
Moving Out of Academia to Machine Learning

29–30 Apr | Knowledge Sharing | 4/3-006 | Gender in High Energy Theory | EN
GenHET meeting in String Theory

Registration now open

May & Jun | At CERN | CERN | Bike to Work | EN & FR
Bike to Work 2024

11 May 19:30 | At CERN | Main Auditorium | CERN MusiClub | EN
Eurovision Song Contest 2024 apèro, karaoke, games and live screening

15 May | Knowledge Sharing | Lausanne | Famelab | EN, FR or DE
Famelab Switzerland local heats, open to 18–35-year-olds

23 May 14:00 | Knowledge Sharing | Online | HR Learning and Development | EN
L&D Micro-talk 10 – Artificial Intelligence (AI) & The Future of Work

2–15 Jun | Accelerators | Sint-Michielsgestel (NL) | CERN Accelerator School | EN
Mechanical & Materials Engineering for Particle Accelerators and Detectors

10–12 Jun | Knowledge Sharing | Online | Sustainable HEP | EN
Sustainable HEP 2024 – 3rd Edition

11–13 Jun | Engineering | CERN | FDF | EN
1st FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) Developers' Forum meeting

12–25 Jun | Physics | Nakhon Pathom (TH) | Asia-Europe-Pacific School of High-Energy Physics (AEPSHEP) | EN
2024 Asia-Europe-Pacific School of High-Energy Physics

23 Jul–1 Aug | Knowledge Sharing | European Scientific Institute (FR) | I.FAST | EN
Accelerators for healthcare? 10-day innovation challenge

22 Sep–5 Oct | Accelerators | Santa Susanna (ES) | CERN Accelerator School | EN
Introduction to Accelerator Physics

This is a curated list of events relevant to the CERN community.
More events are available here: home.cern/events
Indico also shows ALL events happening today, this week and in a calendar view.

If you would like your event to appear on an upcoming Bulletin events list, please contact bulletin-editors@cern.ch

katebrad Wed, 03/27/2024 - 17:47

Publication Date

Mon, 04/15/2024 - 17:06

Mitigating the environmental impact of CERN procurement

ndinmore — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 14:39:55 +0000

Mitigating the environmental impact of CERN procurement

Every year, CERN spends some 500 MCHF on goods and services to build, maintain and operate its infrastructure to fulfil its scientific objectives. These purchases not only come at a financial cost, but also have an impact on the environment through the indirect emissions arising from their procurement. In 2023, CERN reported its procurement-related indirect emissions in the CERN Environment Report for the first time. These amounted to 98 030 tCO₂e and 104 974 tCO₂e in 2021 and 2022 respectively. To put this in context, this represents more than 90% of CERN’s total indirect emissions, the rest being attributed to personnel mobility, duty travel and catering, and just over 30% of CERN’s total emissions.

CERN strives to be a model for environmentally responsible research by taking action on its most impactful domains, including energy and water consumption and emissions, and setting objectives to minimise its environmental footprint. Adopting measures to positively influence procurement-related emissions is a priority for which a comprehensive strategy has been set out that will commit CERN, its suppliers and each and every one of us to making conscious decisions when purchasing goods or services.

Underpinning this strategy, the Environmentally Responsible Procurement Policy was approved by the Enlarged Directorate in June 2023. Anchored in the principle of embedding environmental responsibility where appropriate throughout all phases of the procurement process, the Policy commits the Organization to environmentally responsible procurement and to achieving sustainable results both internally and throughout its supply chains, integrating relevant best practices in its processes, measuring their impact, and communicating with and raising the awareness of all stakeholders.

In December 2023, the Enlarged Directorate approved the implementation of the Policy, effective from 1 January 2024. This entails a one-year kick-off phase to identify suitable areas for policy implementation, including a comprehensive awareness-raising programme with tailored training for technical officers and workshops for the departments focusing on their purchasing activities.

Additionally, pilot projects will help evaluate the integration of environmental criteria into market surveys and invitations to tender. Procurement officers will have access to a supplier sustainability due diligence tool and guidelines outlining best practices. These resources will equip them with the knowledge they need to assess suppliers based on their sustainability efforts.

Furthermore, a supplier engagement programme will be launched in order to foster discussions on sustainability within our supply chains, aiming to collaborate with and encourage suppliers to adopt sustainable practices.

Overall, this comprehensive implementation plan is designed to ensure a smooth transition towards policy compliance and create a sustainable framework for all stakeholders involved. Successful implementation will depend on all actors in CERN’s supply chains challenging our choices and decisions, from CERN’s IPT department, to CERN personnel involved in purchasing, to the suppliers themselves spanning our 23 Member and 11 Associate Member States, while continuing to strive for balanced returns.

According to Chris Hartley, Head of the IPT Department: “It is of great importance that we have established an Environmentally Responsible Procurement Policy for CERN. All CERN stakeholders want to see CERN continue to minimise its environmental impact. This Policy, underpinned by our progressive commitment to responsible sourcing, waste reduction and supplier engagement, will contribute to a more sustainable future.”

ndinmore Mon, 04/15/2024 - 16:39

Byline

IPT department

Publication Date

Mon, 04/15/2024 - 16:35

ProtoDUNE’s argon filling underway

ckrishna — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 08:15:38 +0000

ProtoDUNE’s argon filling underway

CERN’s Neutrino Platform houses a prototype of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) known as ProtoDUNE, which is designed to test and validate the technologies that will be applied to the construction of the DUNE experiment in the United States.

Recently, ProtoDUNE has entered a pivotal stage: the filling of one of its two particle detectors with liquid argon. Filling such a detector takes almost two months, as the chamber is gigantic – almost the size of a three-storey building. ProtoDUNE’s second detector will be filled in the autumn.

ProtoDUNE will use the proton beam from the Super Proton Synchrotron to test the detecting of charged particles. This argon-filled detector will be crucial to test the detector response for the next era of neutrino research. Liquid argon is used in DUNE due to its inert nature, which provides a clean environment for precise measurements. When a neutrino interacts with argon, it produces charged particles that ionise the atoms, allowing scientists to detect and study neutrino interactions. Additionally, liquid argon's density and high scintillation light yield enhance the detection of these interactions, making it an ideal medium for neutrino experiments.

Interestingly, the interior of the partially filled detector now appears green instead of its usual golden colour. This is because when the regular LED light is reflected inside the metal cryostat, the light travels through the liquid argon and the wavelength of the photons is shifted, producing a visible green effect.

The DUNE far detector, which will be roughly 20 times bigger than protoDUNE, is being built in the United States. DUNE will send a beam of neutrinos from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) near Chicago, Illinois, over a distance of more than 1300 kilometres through the Earth to neutrino detectors located 1.5 km underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota.

Watch a short time-lapse video of protoDUNE being filled with liquid argon:

ckrishna Fri, 04/12/2024 - 10:15

Byline

Chetna Krishna

Publication Date

Fri, 04/12/2024 - 10:30

Searching for new asymmetry between matter and antimatter

abelchio — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 09:41:56 +0000

Searching for new asymmetry between matter and antimatter

The LHCb detector seen in 2018 during its opening (Image: CERN)

Once a particle of matter, always a particle of matter. Or not. Thanks to a quirk of quantum physics, four known particles made up of two different quarks – such as the electrically neutral D meson composed of a charm quark and an up antiquark – can spontaneously oscillate into their antimatter partners and vice versa.

At a seminar held recently at CERN, the LHCb collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented the results of its latest search for matter–antimatter asymmetry in the oscillation of the neutral D meson, which, if found, could help shed light on the mysterious matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe.

The weak force of the Standard Model of particle physics induces an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, known as CP violation, in particles containing quarks. However, these sources of CP violation are difficult to study and are insufficient to explain the matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe, leading physicists to both search for new sources and to study the known ones better than ever before.

In their latest endeavour, the LHCb researchers have rolled up their sleeves to measure with unprecedented precision a set of parameters that determine the matter–antimatter oscillation of the neutral D meson and enable the search for the hitherto unobserved but predicted CP violation in the oscillation.

The collaboration had previously measured the same set of parameters, which are linked to the decay of the neutral D meson into a positively charged kaon and a negatively charged pion, using its full data set from Run 1 of the LHC and a partial data set from Run 2. This time around, the team analysed the full Run-2 data set and, by combining the result with that of its previous analysis, excluding the partial Run-2 data set, it obtained the most precise measurements of the parameters to date – the overall measurement uncertainty is 1.6 times smaller than the smallest uncertainty achieved before by LHCb.

The results are consistent with previous studies, confirming the matter–antimatter oscillation of the neutral D meson and showing no evidence of CP violation in the oscillation. The findings call for future analyses of this and other decays of the neutral D meson using data from the third run of the LHC and its planned upgrade, the High-Luminosity LHC.

Other neutral D meson decays of interest include the decay into a pair of two kaons or two pions, in which LHCb researchers observed CP violation in particles containing charm quarks for the first time, and the decay into a neutral kaon and a pair of pions, with which LHCb clocked the speed of the particle’s matter–antimatter oscillation. No avenue should be left unexplored in the search for clues to the matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe and other cosmic mysteries.

Find out more on the LHCb website.

abelchio Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:41

Byline

Ana Lopes

Publication Date

Thu, 04/11/2024 - 17:00

Entrance C closed for vehicles until Monday 15 April

ndinmore — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 10:01:46 +0000

Entrance C closed for vehicles until Monday 15 April

Following damages caused by a car accident on Wednesday 10 April in the morning, Entrance C on the Meyrin site (Route Maxwell) will remain closed for vehicles until Monday 15 April. As of Monday morning, the entrance will be open again for outgoing vehicles during the usual hours from 7 am to 8 p.m., and for entering vehicles between 7:00 am and 3:00 pm with a security guard keeping the gate.

The entrance remains accessible to pedestrians and bicycles.

Thank you for your understanding.

(This announcement was updated on 12 April)

ndinmore Thu, 04/11/2024 - 12:01

Byline

SCE department

Publication Date

Thu, 04/11/2024 - 12:00

The next-generation triggers for CERN detectors

ckrishna — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 09:45:16 +0000

The next-generation triggers for CERN detectors

The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) require high-performance event-selection systems – known as “triggers” in particle physics – to filter the flow of data to manageable levels. The triggers pick events with distinguishing characteristics, such as interactions or collisions of particles recorded in particle detectors, and make them available for physics analyses. In just a few seconds, the complex system can determine whether the information about a given collision event is worth keeping or not.

The ATLAS and CMS experiments use triggers on two levels. The first trigger runs in sync with the rate of particle bunches colliding in the detectors, deciding in less than 10 microseconds which data to keep. Events that pass the first-level trigger move on to the second high-level trigger for further selection. The selected events are then sent to the CERN Data Centre, where the data is copied, stored and eventually made available to scientists around the world for data analysis.

In preparation for the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the ATLAS and CMS detectors are being upgraded with finer spatial and timing granularity, which will result in more data for each collision. The principle is the same as taking a picture with a camera with more pixels: the resulting file will be bigger because the image contains more detail, and the picture will be of higher quality. To prepare for the data deluge expected when the LHC enters the high-luminosity era, scientists need to develop new strategies for more sophisticated event processing and selection.

The key objective of the five-year Next-Generation Triggers (NextGen) project is to get more physics information out of the HL-LHC data. The hope is to uncover as-yet-unseen phenomena by more efficiently selecting interesting physics events while rejecting background noise. Scientists will make use of neural network optimisation, quantum-inspired algorithms, high-performance computing and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) techniques to improve the theoretical modelling and optimise their tools in the search for ultra-rare events.

The foundations of the NextGen project were laid in 2022 when a group of private donors, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, visited CERN. This first inspiring visit eventually evolved into an agreement with the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation, approved by the CERN Council in October 2023, to fund a project that would pave the way for the future trigger systems at the HL-LHC and beyond: NextGen was born.

NextGen will collaborate with experts in academia and industry. The work builds on the open-science and knowledge-sharing principles embedded in CERN's institutional governance and modus operandi. The project includes a work package dedicated to education and outreach, a unique multi-disciplinary training programme for NextGen researchers and targeted events and conferences for the wider community of scientists interested in the field. The intellectual property generated as part of the NextGen Triggers project, owned by CERN, will be released and shared under open licences in compliance with the CERN Open Science Policy.

The NextGen Triggers project will mark a new chapter in high-energy physics, leveraging upgraded event-selection systems and data-processing techniques to unlock a realm of discoveries.

ckrishna Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:45

Byline

Antonella Del Rosso

Publication Date

Thu, 04/11/2024 - 12:00

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

abelchio — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:03:51 +0000

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

View of an ATLAS collision event in which a candidate W boson decays into a muon and a neutrino. The reconstructed tracks of the charged particles in the inner part of the ATLAS detector are shown as orange lines. The energy deposits in the detector’s calorimeters are shown as yellow boxes. The identified muon is shown as a red line. The missing transverse momentum associated with the neutrino is shown as a green dashed line. (Image: ATLAS/CERN)

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 slotted in the final missing piece of the Standard Model puzzle. Yet, it left lingering questions. What lies beyond this framework? Where are the new phenomena that would solve the Universe's remaining mysteries, such as the nature of dark matter and the origin of matter–antimatter asymmetry?

One parameter that may hold clues about new physics phenomena is the “width” of the W boson, the electrically charged carrier of the weak force. A particle’s width is directly related to its lifetime and describes how it decays to other particles. If the W boson decays in unexpected ways, such as into yet-to-be-discovered new particles, these would influence the measured width. As its value is precisely predicted by the Standard Model based on the strength of the charged weak force and the mass of the W boson (along with smaller quantum effects), any significant deviation from the prediction would indicate the presence of unaccounted phenomena.

In a new study, the ATLAS collaboration measured the W-boson width at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first time. The W-boson width had previously been measured at CERN’s Large Electron–Positron (LEP) collider and Fermilab’s Tevatron collider, yielding an average value of 2085 ± 42 million electronvolts (MeV), consistent with the Standard-Model prediction of 2088 ± 1 MeV. Using proton–proton collision data at an energy of 7 TeV collected during Run 1 of the LHC, ATLAS measured the W-boson width as 2202 ± 47 MeV. This is the most precise measurement to date made by a single experiment, and — while a bit larger — it is consistent with the Standard-Model prediction to within 2.5 standard deviations (see figure below).

This remarkable result was achieved by performing a detailed particle-momentum analysis of decays of the W boson into an electron or a muon and their corresponding neutrino, which goes undetected but leaves a signature of missing energy in the collision event (see image above). This required physicists to precisely calibrate the ATLAS detector’s response to these particles in terms of efficiency, energy and momentum, taking contributions from background processes into account.

However, achieving such high precision also requires the confluence of several high-precision results. For instance, an accurate understanding of W-boson production in proton–proton collisions was essential, and researchers relied on a combination of theoretical predictions validated by various measurements of W and Z boson properties. Also crucial to this measurement is the knowledge of the inner structure of the proton, which is described in parton distribution functions. ATLAS physicists incorporated and tested parton distribution functions derived by global research groups from fits to data from a wide range of particle physics experiments.

The ATLAS collaboration measured the W-boson width simultaneously with the W-boson mass using a statistical method that allowed part of the parameters quantifying uncertainties to be directly constrained from the measured data, thus improving the measurement’s precision. The updated measurement of the W-boson mass is 80367 ± 16 MeV, which improves on and supersedes the previous ATLAS measurement using the same dataset. The measured values of both the mass and the width are consistent with the Standard-Model predictions.

Future measurements of the W-boson width and mass using larger ATLAS datasets are expected to reduce the statistical and experimental uncertainties. Concurrently, advancements in theoretical predictions and a more refined understanding of parton distribution functions will help to reduce the theoretical uncertainties. As their measurements become ever more precise, physicists will be able to conduct yet more stringent tests of the Standard Model and probe for new particles and forces.

Comparison of the measured W-boson width with the Standard-Model prediction and with measurements from the LEP and Tevatron colliders. The vertical grey band illustrates the Standard-Model prediction, while the black dots and the associated horizontal bands represent the published experimental results. (Image: ATLAS/CERN)

abelchio Wed, 04/10/2024 - 12:03

Byline

ATLAS collaboration

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:57

Taxation in France

ndinmore — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 09:24:40 +0000

Taxation in France

The Organization would like to remind members of the personnel that they must comply with the national legislation applicable to them (cf. Article S V 2.02 of the Staff Rules).

I - Internal tax annual certificate and individual annual statement for 2023
The internal tax annual certificate or the individual annual statement for 2023, issued by the Finance and Administrative Processes Department, is available since 12 February 2024 via MyFiles (under “Financial and Social Benefits”). It is intended exclusively for the tax authorities.

If you are currently a member of the CERN personnel, you will have received an e-mail containing a link to your certificate or statement, which you can print if necessary.
If you are no longer a member of the CERN personnel or are unable to access your certificate or statement as indicated above, you will find information explaining how to obtain one on this page.

II - 2024 tax declaration form of 2023 income in France
The 2024 tax declaration form for 2023 income must be completed following the general indications available on this page.

If you have any specific questions, please contact your local “Service des impôts des particuliers” (SIP, Private Citizens’ Tax Office) directly.

HR-Internal-tax@cern.ch

ndinmore Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:24

Byline

HR department

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:23

One-to-one meetings with the French tax authorities for CERN members of personnel

ndinmore — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 09:21:13 +0000

One-to-one meetings with the French tax authorities for CERN members of personnel

In order to help members of the personnel who may need assistance, the Organization has decided to set up individual tax consultation sessions with the French tax authorities (Service des Impôts des Particuliers (SIP) de Valserhône) to answer questions on income tax matters in France.

These consultations will take place on the Meyrin site, on Friday 26 April 2024 and will be run by six representatives of the SIP. The sessions will require pre-booking an appointment via this portal.

There are a limited number of time slots available, so we recommend you sign up early.

Please note that these meetings will be in French. Should you need any assistance with the language, we advise you to ask a French-speaking colleague for help.

For any questions regarding these meetings, please contact SIPTax.support@cern.ch

ndinmore Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:21

Byline

HR department

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:19

Exchange rate for the tax declaration form of 2023 income: for the attention of members of the personnel and pensioners living in France

ndinmore — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 09:16:26 +0000

Exchange rate for the tax declaration form of 2023 income: for the attention of members of the personnel and pensioners living in France

For the tax declaration form of 2023 income, the average annual exchange rate to be used is EUR 1,05 * for CHF 1.

*Communicated by the French Tax Authorities.

ndinmore Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:16

Byline

HR department

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:15

CERN pays tribute to Peter Higgs

cmenard — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:33:08 +0000

CERN pays tribute to Peter Higgs

Peter Higgs has passed away at the age of 94. An iconic figure in modern science, Higgs in 1964 postulated the existence of the eponymous Higgs boson. Its discovery at CERN in 2012 was the crowning achievement of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics – a remarkable theory which explains the visible universe at the most fundamental level.

Alongside Robert Brout and François Englert, and building on the work of a generation of physicists, Higgs postulated the existence of the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) field. Alone among known fundamental fields, the BEH field is “turned on” throughout the universe, rather than flickering in and out of existence and remaining localized. Its existence allowed matter to form in the early universe some 10^-11 s after the Big Bang, thanks to the interactions between elementary particles (such as electrons and quarks) and the ever-present BEH field. Higgs and Englert were awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 in recognition of these achievements.

“Besides his outstanding contributions to particle physics, Peter was a very special person, an immensely inspiring figure for physicists around the world, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple yet profound way,” said CERN’s Director-General Fabiola Gianotti, expressing the emotion felt by the physics community upon his loss. “An important piece of CERN’s history and accomplishments is linked to him. I am very saddened, and I will miss him sorely.”

Peter Higgs’ scientific legacy will extend far beyond the scope of current discoveries. The Higgs boson – the observable “excitation” of the BEH field which he was the first to identify – is linked to some of most intriguing and crucial outstanding questions in fundamental physics. This still quite mysterious particle therefore represents a uniquely promising portal to physics beyond the SM. Since discovering it in 2012, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have already made impressive progress in constraining its properties – a painstaking scientific study which will form a central plank of research at the LHC, high-luminosity LHC and future colliders for decades to come, promising insights into the many unanswered questions in fundamental science.

(Video: CERN)

cmenard Wed, 04/10/2024 - 09:33

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 09:21