CERN Accelerating science

A word from the Deputy Head of the EP department - June 2018

Dear Colleagues, members of the EP department and users,

Welcome to the summer edition of the EP newsletter. This is the last year of the current run for the accelerator complex, and the race is on to collect as much data as possible before the long shutdown begins at the end of the year. The signs so far are very good, with the LHC starting up amazingly quickly, and the detectors all taking data smoothly. The rest of the year will be packed with proton physics running plus a month of lead-ion running at the end.

While taking data the LHC experiments are also preparing their future, with major upgrades of LHCb and ALICE being installed during the coming shutdown, and further upgrades of the ATLAS and CMS detectors in preparation for the higher luminosity that will be delivered in the HL-LHC phase.  An official ground-breaking ceremony for that upgrade of the accelerator just took place, and articles here also cover high-granularity calorimetry and timing detector upgrades. Microelectronics have been in the spotlight with the recent problems with DC-DC converter in CMS—now thankfully understood—and preparation for HL-LHC will also include the replacement of the ATLAS and CMS trackers, for which an almost common chip design has been developed for their inner part within the RD53 project.

The other contents of this edition reflect the breadth of work that goes on in the department:  from a new fixed-target experiment studying tau production in charm meson decays, via the climate studies at CLOUD, to the remarkable progress being made on the neutrino detector prototypes, and studies for the detector magnets at a possible future collider. Despite the difficult budget situation that the current major investment in HL-LHC entails, it will be essential to maintain such diversity until the path becomes clearer towards the next revolution in our understanding of the physical world.

I wish you pleasant reading,

Roger Forty