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Marek Gazdzicki: Four Decades at the SPS – and Still Surprised by Strong Interactions

After nearly two decades at the helm of NA61/SHINE, Marek Gazdzicki reflects in this interview on a lifetime at the SPS — from proposing the world’s first two-dimensional scan of nuclear collisions to the unexpected discovery of a large isospin…

ISOLDE charts the shores of the islands of inversion

For decades, CERN’s ISOLDE (Isotope Separator On-Line Device) facility has been a global leader in exploring the behaviour of exotic nuclei far from stability. By delivering beams of short-lived isotopes and enabling their study with advanced…

Breakthrough: Coherent Spectroscopy with a Single Antiproton Spin

BASE physicist Barbara Latacz in front of the experiment’s cryostat. This cylinder, which is kept at 4 kelvins (-269°C), houses the system of traps that cool and measure the antiprotons and a very strong magnet. (Image: CERN) In a significant…

AMS-02: A New Chapter in Orbit to Probe the Nature of Cosmic Rays

Since its launch aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2011, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) has recorded more than 250 billion cosmic-ray events, offering precision measurements of the composition and energy spectra of…

Decoding r-Process Nucleosynthesis: Precision Studies of Exotic Indium Isotopes at ISOLDE

How are the chemical elements synthesised in stellar environments? Which processes lead to their creation? What impact does nuclear physics have on their production? Describing the origins of the chemical elements and their observed…

TELMAX: A New Era of Flexibility at CERN's Antimatter Factory

PAX UHV test chamber equipped with linear target manipulator and Ti x-ray window. The ADR cryostat containing the TES detector can be seen facing the chamber in its measurement position. X-rays from the antiprotonic atom cascade traverse the Ti…

Exploring New Frontiers in Light Dark Matter Searches: The Latest NA64 Proposal

The quest to understand the nature of dark matter remains one of the most compelling challenges in modern physics. The NA64 experiment (see Fig. 1) at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) has been at the forefront of efforts to explore dark sector…

Unlocking the Secrets of Antimatter: A journey through low-energy antimatter studies at CERN

The existence of antimatter is a fundamental aspect of our Universe and is predicted by the laws of quantum physics and symmetry principles. However, the theory does not match the experimental observations. According to our models, we would expect…

Optical fibre link to assist in ultra-high precision spectroscopy of antihydrogen

Figure 1: Atoms in this part of the Cs fountain clock are trapped and laser cooled in preparation of their vertical launch. Experiments at CERN’s Antimatter Factory test fundamental principles such as CPT invariance by studying the properties and…

Updates from the ISOLDE Solenoidal Spectrometer

The field of nuclear physics is well into its second century. From its initial experiment bombarding a gold foil with alpha particles, experimental techniques have become more sophisticated to keep pace with the technology and innovation that has…

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