CERN Courier - Digital Edition

WELCOME
CERNCOURIER
July/August 2020 cerncourier.com Reporting on international high-energy physics
CERN Courier – digital edition

Welcome to the digital edition of the July/August 2020 issue of CERN Courier.
From giant detectors at the receiving end of artificial neutrino beams to vast
sub-ice or subsea arrays and smaller setups investigating whether neutrinos are
Majorana particles, neutrino experiments span an enormous range of types, scales
and locations. Today, as explored in this issue, a new generation of reactor and
accelerator experiments – including DUNE in the US, Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan
NEUTRINO
and JUNO in China – are gearing up to complete the measurements of neutrino- EXPERIMENTS
oscillation parameters and establish the neutrino mass ordering. Meanwhile, a
series of shorter baseline experiments are scrutinising the three-neutrino paradigm. STEP UP
Coordinated global action has seen Europe, via the CERN neutrino platform, European strategy update unveiled
participate in the long-baseline neutrino programmes in Japan and the US. This Neutrons on COVID-19
has proved a major success. The 2020 update of the European strategy for particle Big Science economics
physics, released on 19 June, recommends that the neutrino platform receives
continued support. Its highest priority recommendations are to pursue an
electron–positron Higgs factory to follow the LHC, and that Europe explores the
feasibility of a future energy-frontier hadron collider with a Higgs factory as a
possible first stage. These are exciting times, and this month’s Viewpoint also calls
on particle physicists to highlight the broader socioeconomic impact of our field.
Elsewhere in this issue: a global network of ultra-sensitive magnetometers called

GNOME homes in on exotic fields; neutron facilities prepare to study the structure
of SARS-CoV-2; graphene-based Hall probes trialled at CERN; reports on the
virtual IPAC and LHCP events; CLOUD experiment breaks new ground in
atmospheric science; and much more.
To sign up to the new-issue alert, please visit:

http://comms.iop.org/k/iop/cerncourier
To subscribe to the magazine, please visit:

https://cerncourier.com/p/about-cern-courier
E D I TO R : M AT T H E W C H A L M E R S, C E R N
DIGITAL EDITION C R E AT E D B Y I O P P U B L I SH I N G
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Cover_v3.indd 1 23/06/2020 17:47
www.
Volume 60 Number 4 J u ly / A u g u s t 2 0 2 0
DIGITIZER
CAEN Electronic Instrumentation
C E R N C O U R I E R .C OM
FAMILIES
IN THIS ISSUE Volume 60 Number 4 July/August 2020
A new high density and flexible digital solution

R5560 - 128 Channel 14-bit @125 MS/s Digitizer
J Goodman
R Cubitt
M Brice/CERN-PHOTO-201906-179-2
Versatile readout system with exceptional performance designed for 3He tubes in
neutron detection applications, PMTs, High Purity Germanium Detectors, RPCs, Silicon
Strips and others.
It is equipped with an open FPGA easily customizable by the user with the included
programming tool SCI-Compiler, for real-time data processing.
• 2U, 19” Rackmount unit with automatic fan NEW HAWC eye Gamma-ray observations are
being pushed above 100 TeV. 12
I spy Neutron diffraction offers unique
advantages for studying SARS-CoV-2. 43
Hold on tight How fundamental research
drives socioeconomic progress. 47
control
• 128 analog input channels, differential input
(single ended version coming soon)
NeWs PeoPle
A NALYSIS ENERGY FRONTIERS FIELD NOTES CAREERS OBITUARIES
• 14-bit @125 MS/s ADC Strategy update concludes Quartic coupling probed IPAC goes virtual Surveying the P Lazeyras 1931–2020
• Maximum flexibility thanks to USB3.0, • T2K publishes CP fit • LHCb interrogates • LHC physics shines surveyors • A Michelini 1930–2020
Ethernet, and Optical Link interfaces, supporting remote • Top-Higgs interactions X(3872) • Baryon source amid COVID-19 crisis. 21 CERN demands skills • A Minten 1931–2020
DT5560SE • CLOUD on smog • A Pullia 1935–2020
in proton collisions and tools beyond the
management and very fast data flow • Graphene debuts • LEP-era discrepancy scope of normal • T Rodrigo Anoro
32 Channel 14-bit@125 MS/s • Funky physics unravelled. 17 surveyor jobs. 53 1956–2020 • D Tlisov
• 2.4” touch screen display for quick configuration and status • 100 TeV photons. 7 1983–2020. 58
control
• Easy multiboard synchronization FeAtures
GNOME NEUTRINOS CP VIOLATION NEUTRON SCIENCE
Hy per-Kamiokande
Sensing a passage Tuning in to The search for Neutron sources
NEW SCI-Compiler
through the neutrinos leptonic CP violation join the fight
unknown A new generation of Boris Kayser unpacks against COVID-19
A global network of accelerator and reactor one of the key questions Advanced neutron
User Firmware Generator and Compiler for CAEN magnetometers has

begun its search for
experiments is opening
an era of high-precision
in neutrino physics. 40 facilities can enable a
deeper understanding
Programmable Boards exotic fields beyond the neutrino measurements. of SARS-CoV-2. 43
Standard Model. 25 32
• Block diagram based user firmware generator and compiler

• Automatic VHDL generation starting from logic blocks and oPINIoN DePArtmeNts
virtual instruments VIEWPOINT INTERVIEW REVIEWS FROM THE EDITOR 5
Matthew Kapust/SURF
• Automatic generation of drivers, libraries and demo A price worth Lofty thinking Fiction, in theory NEWS DIGEST 15
paying Jasper Kirkby looks at Big Bang • New
software for Windows, Linux and macOS to implement Large research how CERN’s CLOUD Perspectives on
APPOINTMENTS 54
& AWARDS
communication between devices and PC software infrastructures are experiment has Einstein’s E = mc2. 51
RECRUITMENT 55
through USB, ethernet and VME protocol essential drivers of merged the best of On the cover: Preparations
BACKGROUND 62
economic progress, particle physics and for the DUNE cavern at Sanford
argues Rolf Heuer. 47 atmospheric science. 48 Underground Research
CAEN Facility, South Dakota. 32
www.caen.it
Small details… Great differences CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 3
CERNCOURIER
R5560_2020.indd 1 19/06/20 13:12 CCJulAug20_Contents_v3.indd 3 24/06/2020 15:25
www.
FROM THE
HIGH PRECISION
POWER SUPPLIES
HIGH VOLTAGE. EXACTLY.

EDITOR
OUT NOW A neutrino success story
WITH ONBOARD I
n the 64 years since the direct discovery of the neutrino
M Brice/CERN
from a reactor source, experiments with reactor, solar,
PYTHON SCRIPTING
accelerator, atmospheric, cosmic and geological neutri-
nos have taken physicists ever closer to this most ethereal of
Standard Model particles. The revelation that neutrinos have
mass, confirmed in the 1990s via the discovery of neutrino
oscillations, also launched promising theoretical speculations
Matthew on the existence of particles beyond the Standard Model.
Chalmers Today, as our cover feature explores, a new generation of
Editor
reactor and accelerator experiments are gearing up to com-
plete the measurements of oscillation parameters (p32). A
priority is the complex phase of the mixing matrix, which Neutrino platform ProtoDUNE modules in CERN’s EHN1 hall.
encodes potential leptonic CP violation (p40) and for which the
T2K experiment in Japan recently published hints (p8), while spectrometer and contributions to T2K’s near-detector ND280
another target is the neutrino mass ordering. Three upcoming and its upgrade. ND280, which was built inside the magnet
mega-projects – DUNE in the US, Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan from the UA1 experiment in a collaboration with CERN dating
and JUNO in China – have these enigmas firmly in their sights. from much earlier, is vital for reducing neutrino-interaction
Meanwhile, a series of shorter-baseline experiments are to systematics, while the NA61 experiment at CERN is helping to
scrutinise the three-neutrino paradigm. improve neutrino-flux predictions. A strong need exists for
From giant detectors at the receiving end of artificial further such experiments if maximal physics is to be extracted
neutrino beams to vast sub-ice or subsea arrays and smaller from DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande.
setups investigating whether neutrinos are Majorana parti- The recent go-ahead for Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan, along
cles, neutrino experiments span an enormous range of types, with the continuing uncertainty over the International Linear
scales and locations. Their latest results will be showcased at Collider sited there, have slightly obscured the neat global
Neutrino2020, which was getting under way in a fully virtual vision of particle physicists back in 2013 of a world with an
It would be format as the Courier went to press. intensity frontier in the US, a precision frontier in Japan, and
NEW
an energy frontier in Europe. But it would be difficult to design
difficult to
Coordinated action two long-baseline accelerator-neutrino experiments more
design two Following the recommendations of the 2013 update of the different than Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE, and that brings
long-baseline European strategy for particle physics, Europe chose to par- richer physics opportunities. The 2020 update of the European
EDIT your python script directly on browser or locally with accelerator- ticipate in the long-baseline neutrino programmes in Japan strategy for particle physics, which was released just as the
access to all hardware parameters neutrino and the US rather than pursue its own facility, instead building Courier went to press (p7), envisions Europe retaining its lead-
experiments reciprocal support for the HL-LHC. This coordinated action, via ership at the energy frontier and identifies an electron–positron
the CERN neutrino platform, has proved a major success. It has Higgs factory as the highest priority next collider, whether
UPLOAD and start the script directly on iCS capable device more different
provided a large-scale demonstration of DUNE’s kiloton-scale in Europe or Asia. Appropriately, it recommends that Europe,
than Hyper- liquid-argon time-projection chambers and the refurbishment and CERN through the neutrino platform, should continue to
Kamiokande
CREATE your own visualisation easily in HTML / Javascript / CSS of ICARUS for use in the Fermilab short-baseline programme, support neutrino projects in Japan and the US for the benefit
and DUNE and has seen the development of the BabyMIND magnetic of the worldwide neutrino community.
THOUSANDS OF APPLICATIONS POSSIBLE Reporting on international high-energy physics

Data logging, event driven voltage channel control, testing, external control of voltage (by temperature changes), block rampup.
CERN Courier is distributed Editor Laboratory correspondents INFN Antonella Varaschin UK STFC Jane Binks Technical illustrator General distribution
Start easily with the iseg datalogger example, which stores measured values directly on USB flash drive. to governments, institutes Matthew Chalmers Argonne National Jefferson Laboratory SLAC National Accelerator Alison Tovey Courrier Adressage, CERN,
and laboratories affiliated Associate editor Laboratory Tom LeCompte Kandice Carter Laboratory Melinda Baker Advertising sales 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland;
Download the latest version from: www.iseg-hv.com/ics with CERN, and to Mark Rayner Brookhaven National JINR Dubna B Starchenko SNOLAB Samantha Kuula Tom Houlden e-mail courrier-
individual subscribers. Archive contributor Laboratory Achim Franz KEK National Laboratory TRIUMF Laboratory Recruitment sales adressage@cern.ch
It is published six times Peggie Rimmer Cornell University Hajime Hikino Marcello Pavan Chris Thomas
runs on: MMS / Mpod multichannel Low and High Voltage per year. The views Astrowatch contributor D G Cassel Lawrence Berkeley Advertisement Published by CERN, 1211
supplies with CC24 Controller card expressed are not Merlin Kole DESY Laboratory Laboratory Spencer Klein Produced for CERN by production Katie Graham Geneva 23, Switzerland
SHR labratory High Voltage necessarily those of the E-mail Till Mundzeck Los Alamos National Lab IOP Publishing Ltd Marketing and Tel +41 (0) 22 767 61 11
iCSmini2 Source-Measure-Unit CERN management. cern.courier@cern.ch Enrico Fermi Centre Rajan Gupta Temple Circus, Temple circulation Laura Gillham
controller box Guido Piragino NCSL Ken Kingery Way, Bristol BS1 6HG, UK Printed by Warners
Advisory board Fermilab Kurt Nikhef Robert Fleischer Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481 Advertising (Midlands) plc, Bourne,
Peter Jenni Riesselmann Novosibirsk Institute Tel +44 (0)117 930 1026 Lincolnshire, UK
Christine Sutton Forschungszentrum S Eidelman Head of Media Jo Allen (for UK/Europe display
Claude Amsler Jülich Markus Buescher Orsay Laboratory Head of Media advertising) or © 2020 CERN
Philippe Bloch GSI Darmstadt I Peter Anne-Marie Lutz Business Development +44 (0)117 930 1164 (for ISSN 0304-288X
Roger Forty IHEP, Beijing Lijun Guo PSI Laboratory P-R Kettle Ed Jost recruitment advertising);
Mike Lamont IHEP, Serpukhov Saclay Laboratory Production editor e-mail sales@
Joachim Kopp Yu Ryabov Elisabeth Locci Ruth Leopold cerncourier.com
CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 5

WWW.WIENER-D.COM | WWW.ISEG-HV.COM/ICS
CERNCOURIER
anzeige_cerncourier_2020_07_08_fullpage_ics_etw_coop_200607.indd 1 07.06.20 17:35 CCJulAug20_Editorial_v3.indd 5 23/06/2020 17:27
www.
NEWS
ANALYSIS
P olic y
European strategy update released

The discovery of the Higgs boson by the
FCC/CERN
ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC
in 2012 marked a turning point in particle
physics. Not only was it the last of the
Standard Model particles to be found, but
it is completely different to any particle
seen before: a fundamental scalar, with
profound connections to the structure of
the vacuum. Extensive measurements so
far suggest that the particle is the sim
plest possible version that nature per
mits. But the study of the Higgs boson
is still in its infancy and its properties
present enigmas, including why it is so
light, which the Standard Model cannot
explain. Particle physics is entering a new
era of exploration to address these and
other outstanding questions, including
unknowns in the universe at large, such
as the nature of dark matter. Outlining the itself – offering a deeper understanding CERN and research centres and national
The 2020 update of the European strat future An artist’s of the electroweak phase transition in the institutes in Europe should be strength
egy for particle physics (ESPPU), which impression of a early universe, after which the vacuum ened and expanded, in addition to building
was released on 19 June during the 199th particle collision gained a non-zero expectation value and strong collaborations with the astropar
session of the CERN Council, sets out an taking place at a particles were able to acquire mass. ticle and nuclear physics communities.
ambitious programme to carry the field future circular “We have started to concretely shape
deep into the 21st century. Following two collider, which CERN’s future after the LHC, which is Exploring the next frontier
years of discussion and consultation with is one of the a difficult task because of the different The 2013 ESPPU recommended that
particle physicists in Europe and beyond, highest priority paths available,” said Ursula Bassler, options for CERN’s next machine after
the ESPPU has identified an electron– recommendations president of the CERN Council. the LHC be explored. Today, there are
positron Higgs factory as the highest of the ESPPU. The strategy update is the second four possible options for a Higgs fac
priority collider after the LHC. The ultra since the process was launched in 2005, tory in different regions of the world:
clean collision environment of such a serving as a guideline to CERN and ena an International Linear Collider (ILC) in
machine (which could start operation bling a coherent science policy in Europe. Japan, a Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) at
at CERN within a timescale of less than Building on the previous strategy update CERN, a Future Circular Collider (FCCee)
10 years after the full exploitation of the in 2013, the 2020 update states that the at CERN and a Circular Electron Positron
highluminosity LHC in the late 2030s) successful completion of the high Collider in China. As Higgs factories, the
will enable dramatic progress in map luminosit y LHC should remain t he ESPPU finds all four to have comparable
ping the diverse interactions between focal point of European particle phys reach, albeit with different time sched
the Higgs boson and other particles, and ics, together with continued innovation ules and with differing potentials for the
form an essential part of a research pro in experimental techniques. Europe, via study of physics topics at other ener
gramme that includes exploration of the the CERN neutrino platform, should also gies. While not specifying which facility
flavour puzzle and the neutrino sector. continue to support the Long Baseline should be built, the ESPPU states that
Neutrino Facility in the US and neutrino the large circular tunnel necessary for
Unprecedented scales projects in Japan. Diverse projects that a future hadron collider at CERN would
To prepare for the longer term, the ESPPU are complementary to collider experi also provide the infrastructure needed for
prioritises that Europe, together with its ments are an essential pillar of the ESPPU FCC-ee as a possible first step. In addition
international partners, explore the tech recommendations, which urge European to serving as a Higgs factory, FCCee is
nical and financial feasibility of a future We have laboratories to support experiments ena able to provide huge numbers of weak
proton–proton collider at CERN with a started to bling, for example, precise investigations vector bosons and their decay products
centreofmass energy of at least 100 TeV. of flavour physics and electric or mag that would enable precision tests of elec
concretely
In addition to allowing searches for new netic dipole moments, and searches for troweak physics and the investigation of
phenomena at unprecedented scales, this
shape CERN’s axions, darksector candidates and feebly the flavour puzzle.
machine would enable the detailed study future after interacting particles. Considering colliders at the energy
of how the Higgs boson interacts with the LHC Cooperative programmes between frontier, a 3 TeV CLIC and a 100 TeV
s
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 7 24/06/2020 10:00
www.
C E R N C O U R I E R .C OM C E R N C O U R I E R .C OM
NEWS ANALYSIS NEWS ANALYSIS
circular hadron collider (FCC-hh) were explains Halina Abramowicz, chair of vigorously support theoretical research Cherenkov ring that can be distinguished imal electron–antineutrino enhance- says T2K international co-spokesper-
explored in depth. While the proposed the European Strategy Group, which was covering the full spectrum of particle as being created by an electron or muon. ment (δCP = +π/2), and the 82 and 17 events son Federico Sanchez of the University
380 GeV CLIC also offers a Higgs factory charged with organising the 2020 update. physics, pursuing new research direc- By changing the polarity of J-PARC’s expected for maximal electron–neutrino of Geneva. “These results indicate that
as a first stage, the dramatic increase “Europe should keep the door open to tions and links with cosmology, astro- magnetic focusing horn, this oscillation enhancement (δCP = –π/2). Being most CP violation in neutrino mixing may
in energy possible with a future hadron participate in other headline projects particle physics and nuclear physics. The can be compared to its CP-mirror process. compatible with the latter scenario, be large, and T2K looks forward to con-
collider compared to the LHC has led which will serve the field as a whole.” development of software and comput- Since the beam-line and detector com- the T2K data disfavour almost half of tinued operation with the prospect of
the ESPPU to consider this technology ing infrastructures that exploit recent ponents are made out of matter and not the possible values of δCP – including establishing evidence for CP violation in
as the most promising for a future ener- Ramping up accelerator R&D advances in information technology and antimatter, the observation of neutrinos δCP = 0, when averaged over other oscil- neutrino oscillations.”
gy-frontier facility. A feasibility study To achieve the ambitious ESPPU goals, data science are also to be pursued in is enhanced compared to antineutrinos. lation parameters – at 3 σ confidence. To further improve the experimental
into building such a machine at CERN particle physicists are urged to undertake collaboration with other fields of science The δCP parameter is a cyclic phase: if For the statistically favoured “normal” sensitivity to a potential CP-violating
with FCC-ee as a possible first stage is to vigorous R&D on advanced accelerator and industry, while particle physicists δCP = 0 or ±π, then neutrinos and antineutrino-mass ordering, the measured effect, the collaboration plans to upgrade
be established as a global endeavour and technologies, which also drive many should forge stronger relations with the neutrinos change from muon to electron 3 σ confidence-level interval for δCP is the ND280 near detector to reduce system-
completed on the timescale of the next other fields of science, industry and European Commission and continue their types in the same way during oscilla- [–3.41, –0.03], while for the “inverted” atic uncertainties and to accumulate more
strategy update later this decade. It is also society, notes the report. Europe should leadership in promoting open science. tion; any other value would enhance the mass ordering (in which the first mass
Finding data, while J-PARC will increase the beam
expected that Europe invests further in develop a technology roadmap, taking “It is an historic day for CERN and for oscillations of either neutrinos or anti- splitting is greater than the second) it is additional intensity by upgrading its accelerator and
R&D for the high-field superconducting into account synergies with interna- particle physics in Europe and beyond. neutrinos, violating CP symmetry. Ana- [–2.54, –0.32], with no parameter space sources of beam line. Future neutrino CP violation
magnets for FCC-hh while retaining a tional partners and other communities We are all very excited and we are ready lysing data with 1.49 × 1021 and 1.64 × 1021 inside the 1σ bound (see figure). CP violation measurements at DUNE and Hyper-
programme in the advanced accelerator such as photon and neutron science, to work on the implementation of this protons on target in neutrino- and anti- “Our results show t he st rongest is one of the Kamiokande are expected to determine
technology developed for CLIC, which fusion energy and industry. In addition very ambitious but cautious plan,” said neutrino-beam mode, respectively, T2K constraint yet on the parameter govern- the exact degree of CP violation in the
outstanding
also has significant potential applica- to high-field magnets, the roadmap CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti observed 90 electron–neutrino candi- ing CP violation in neutrino oscillations, neutrino system.
tions beyond high-energy physics. should include R&D for plasma-accel- following the unanimous adoption of the dates and 15 electron–antineutrino one of the few parameters governing mysteries
The repor t notes t hat t he timely eration schemes, an international design resolution to update the strategy by the candidates. This may be compared with fundamental particle interactions that in particle Further reading
realisation of the ILC in Japan would be study for a muon collider, and R&D on CERN Council’s national representatives. the 56 and 22 events expected for max- has not yet been precisely measured,” physics T2K Collaboration 2020 Nature 580 339.
compatible with this strategy and, in energy-recovery linacs. Europe should “We will continue to invest in strong
that case, European particle physicists The ESPPU recommendations strongly keep the cooperative programmes between CERN H ig gs pH ysics
would wish to collaborate. “The natural
next step is to explore the feasibility of
emphasise the need to continue with
efforts to minimise the environmen-
door open to
participate in
and other research institutes in CERN’s
member states and beyond. These col- First foray into CP symmetry of top-Higgs interactions
the highest priority recommendations, tal impact of accelerator facilities and laborations are key to sustained scientific
while continuing to pursue a diverse maximise the energy efficiency of future other headline and technological progress, and bring One of the many doors to new physics that ing the kinematic properties of the ttH
ATLAS and CMS

programme of high-impact projects,” projects. Europe should also continue to projects many societal benefits.” has been opened by the discovery of the process and modifying tH production.
Higgs boson concerns the possibility of Exploring the CP properties of these
N eu tr iNos finding charge–parity violation (CPV) in interactions is non-trivial, and requires
Neutrino oscillations constrain leptonic CP violation Higgs–boson interactions. Were CPV to

be observed in the Higgs sector, it would
the full capacities of the detectors and
analysis techniques.
be an unambiguous indication of physics The collaborat ions employed
In April, the T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) Statistical strike After applying external beyond the Standard Model (SM), and machine-learning algorithms to dis-
Source: Nature
collaboration in Japan reported the reactor–neutrino constraints (top), T2K could have important ramifications for entangle the relative fractions of the
T2K + reactors (1σ)
strongest hint so far t hat charge– T2K only (1σ) has achieved the first closed 3σ confidence understanding the baryon asymmetry CP-even and CP-odd components of top-
0.032
parity (CP) symmetr y is violated by reactor (1σ) interval on δCP (middle). In the bottom of the universe. Recently, the ATLAS and Higgs interactions. The CMS collaboration
the weak interactions of leptons. Based panel, 1σ (box and line) and 3σ (error bar) CMS collaborations reported their first observed ttH production at a significance
on an analysis of nine years of neutrino– 0.028 confidence intervals for δCP are plotted for forays into this area by measuring the of 6.6σ, and excluded a pure CP-odd struc-
sin2θ13
oscillation data, the T2K results exclude the two possible neutrino mass orderings. CP structure of interactions between the ture of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling at
a substantial parameter space for δCP, Higgs boson and top quarks. Seeking cess, which accounts for around 1% of the 3.2σ. The ratio of the measured ttH pro-
the phase thought to govern leptonic CP 0.024 violation: a complex phase, δCP, in the While CPV is well established in the asymmetry Higgs bosons produced at the LHC, was duction rate to the predicted production
violation, at 3σ confidence. While further neutrino mi x ing matri x (see p40). weak interactions of quarks, and is Higgs-top observed by both collaborations in 2018. rate was found by CMS to be 1.38 with an
data are required to confirm the findings, Though models indicate that no value explained in the SM by the existence of interactions But the tH production channel is predicted uncertainty of about 25%. ATLAS data also
0.020
the result strengthens previous observa- of δCP could explain the cosmological a phase in the CKM matrix, the amount of recorded by the to be about six times rarer. This is due to show agreement with the SM. Assuming
0.65 1σ (68.27% confidence)
tions and offers hope for a future discovery matter–antimatter asymmetry without CPV observed is many orders of magni- ATLAS and CMS destructive interference between higher a CP-even coupling, ATLAS observed ttH
of leptonic CP violation at next-genera- 3σ (99.73% confidence) 10 new physics, the observation of leptonic tude too small to account for the observed detectors. order diagrams involving W bosons, and with a significance of 5.2σ. Comparing
tion long-baseline neutrino-oscillation 0.60 CP violation would make models such as cosmological matter–antimatter imbal- makes the tH process particularly sensi- the strength of the CP-even and CP-odd
experiments due to come online this 8 leptogenesis, which feature heavy Majo- ance. Searching for additional sources tive to new-physics processes. components, the collaboration favours a
0.55
–2 ln L
decade (see p32). rana partners for the Standard Model of CPV is a major programme in particle According to the SM, the Higgs boson CP-mixing angle very close to 0 (indicat-
sin2θ23
Discovered in 1964, CP violation has 6 neutrinos, more plausible. physics, with a moderate-significance is “CP even” – that is, it is possible to ing no CPV) and excludes a pure CP-odd
so far only been observed in the weak 0.50 The T2K experiment uses the Super hint among lepton interactions recently rotate-away any CP-odd phase from coupling at 3.9σ. ATLAS did not observe
interactions of quarks, mostly recently in 4 Kamiokande detector to observe neu- announced by the T2K collaboration (see the scalar mass term. Previous probes tH production, setting an upper limit on
the charm system by the LHCb collabora- 0.45 trinos and antineutrinos generated by story above). It is likely that sources of of the interaction between the Higgs its rate of 12 times the SM expectation.
tion. Since the size of the effect in quarks
2 a proton beam at the J-PARC accelera- CPV from phenomena beyond the scope In addition to further probing the CP
and vector bosons by CMS and ATLAS
is too small to explain the observed 0.40 tor facility 295 km away. As the beam of the SM are needed, and the detailed support the CP-even nature of the Higgs properties of the top–Higgs interaction
matter–antimatter disparity in the uni- travels through Earth, a fraction of properties of the Higgs sector are one of boson, determining its quantum num- with larger data samples, ATLAS and
normal order
verse, finding additional sources of CP muon neutrinos oscillate into electron several possible hiding places. bers to be most consistent with JPC = 0++, CMS are searching in other Higgs-boson
violation is one of the outstanding mys- inverted order neutrinos that are recorded via nuclear- Based on the full LHC Run-2 dataset, though small CP-odd contributions from interactions for signs of CPV.
teries in particle physics. The quantum recoil interactions in Super Kamiokande’s ATLAS and CMS studied events where the a more complex coupling structure are
mixing of neutrino flavours as neutrinos –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 50,000 tonne tank of ultrapure water, Higgs boson is produced in association not excluded. The presence of a CP-odd Further reading
travel over large distances provides a way δCP where the charged lepton generated with one or two top quarks before decay- component, together with the dominant ATLAS Collab. 2020 arXiv:2004.04545.
to probe another potential source of CP by the weak interaction creates a ing into two photons. The latter (ttH) pro- CP-even one, would imply CPV, alter- CMS Collab. 2020 arXiv:2003.10866.
s
8 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 9
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 8 24/06/2020 10:40 CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 9 24/06/2020 10:41
www.
NEWS ANALYSIS NEWS ANALYSIS
A tmospher ic science active sensing component made of atom- at CERN during the past year. The firm ing,” says Russenschuck. “Usually the
CLOUD clarifies cause of urban smog

ically thin graphene, which is effectively sought to develop and test the device operation of Hall sensors at cryogenic
two-dimensional, a graphene-based ahead of a full product launch by the end temperatures requires careful calibra-
Hall probe in principle suffers negligible of this year, and the results so far, based tion and in situ cross-calibration with
planar Hall effects and therefore could on well-calibrated field measurements fluxmetric methods. Moreover, we are
Urban particle pollution ranks fifth in the enable higher precision mapping of local in CERN’s reference magnets, have been now exploring the sensors on a rotating
H Cawley
risk factors for mortality worldwide, and magnetic fields. very promising. “The collaboration has shaft, which could be a breakthrough for
is a growing problem in many built-up Stephan Russenschuck, head of the proved that the sensor has no planar extracting local, transversal field har-
There is
areas. In a result that could help shape magnetic measurement section at CERN, effect,” says Paragraf’s Ellie Galanis. monics. Graphene sensors could get rid
policies for reducing such pollution, the spotted the potential of graphene-based “This was a learning step. There is prob-
probably no of the spurious modes that come from
CLOUD collaboration at CERN has uncov- Hall probes when he heard about a talk ably no other facility in the world to be other facility nonlinearities and planar effects.”
ered a new mechanism that drives winter given by Paragraf – a recent spin-out able to confirm this, so the project has in the world CERN and Paragraf, which has pat-
smog episodes in cities. from the department of materials sci- been a big win on both sides.” to be able to ented a scalable process for depositing
Winter urban smog episodes occur ence at the University of Cambridge – at The graphene Hall sensor also operates confirm two-dimensional materials directly onto
when new particles form in polluted air a magnetic measurement conference in over a wide temperature range, down to semiconductor-compatible substrates,
this, so the
trapped below a temperature inversion: December 2018. This led to a collabo- liquid-helium temperatures at which plan to release a joint white paper com-
warm air above the inversion inhibits ration, formalised between CERN and superconducting magnets in the LHC
project has municating the results so far and detail-
convection, causing pollution to build up Paragraf in April, which has seen several operate. “How these sensors behave at been a big win ing the sensor’s performance across a
near the ground. However, how additional role i n pa r t ic le for mat ion, si mply Clearer view episode with a high number of particles. graphene sensors installed and tested cryogenic temperatures is very interest- on both sides range of magnetic fields.
aerosol particles form and grow in this exchanging with ammonium nitrate in Large-eddy “Although the emission of nitrogen
highly polluted air has puzzled research- the particles. However, the new CLOUD simulations of oxides is regulated, ammonia emissions Da r k m at ter Dark reflections
KIT
ers because they should be rapidly lost
through scavenging by pre-existing
study finds that small inhomogenei-
ties in the concentrations of ammonia
urban flow patterns
depicting pollution
are not and may even be increasing with
the latest catalytic converters used in Funky physics The FUNK
experimental
aerosol particles. CLOUD, which uses an
ultraclean cloud chamber situated in a
and nitric acid can drive the growth
rates of newly formed particles up to
inhomogeneities
superimposed on
gasoline and diesel vehicles,” explains
CLOUD spokesperson Jasper Kirkby. “Our at KIT area, where the
black-painted floor
beamline at CERN’s Proton Synchrotron more than 100 times faster than seen a composite study shows that regulating ammonia can be seen with the
to study the formation of aerosol particles before, but only in short spurts that London skyline. emissions from vehicles could contribute Using a large spherical mirror as an photomultiplier
and their effect on clouds and climate, have previously escaped detection. to reducing urban smog.” electromagnetic dark-matter antenna, tube–camera pillar
has found that ammonia and nitric acid These ultrafast growth rates are suf- z CLOUD’s science is described in depth in a novel experiment at Karlsruhe Insti- at the centre and the
can provide the answer. ficient to rapidly transform the newly our interview with Jasper Kirkby on p48. tute of Technology (KIT) called FUNK – mirror on the left.
Deriving in cities mainly from vehicle formed particles to larger sizes, where Finding U(1)s of a Novel Kind – has set an
emissions, ammonia and nitric acid were they are less prone to being lost through Further reading improved limit on the existence of hidden
previously thought to play a passive scavenging, leading to a dense smog CLOUD Collab. 2020 Nature 581 184. photons as candidates for dark matter.
Despite overwhelming astronomical
A pplic Ations evidence for the existence of dark matter,
Paragraf/CERN
Graphene trialled at direct searches for dark-matter particles
at colliders and dedicated nuclear-recoil
CERN for magnetic experiments have so far come up empty
handed. With these searches being mostly
for the Pierre Auger Observatory with a
surface area of 14 m 2 – in the basement
dish-antenna at the University of Tokyo
and the SHUKET experiment at Paris-
measurements sensitive to heavy dark-matter particles, of KIT. Various photodetectors placed at Saclay – though FUNK’s factor-of-10
namely weakly interacting massive par- the radius point allow FUNK to search for larger mirror surface brings a greater
ticles (WIMPs), the search for alternative a signal in different wavelength ranges, experimental sensitivity, says the team.
First isolated in 2004 by physicists at the light dark-matter candidates is growing corresponding to different hidden-pho- Other experiments, such as NA64 at CERN
University of Manchester using pieces of in momentum. Hidden photons, a cold, ton masses. The dark-matter nature of which employs missing-energy tech-
sticky tape and a graphite block, the one- ultralight dark-matter candidate, arise a possible signal can then be verified by niques, are setting stringent bounds on
atom-thick carbon allotrope graphene in extensions of the Standard Model that observing small daily and seasonal move- the strength of dark-photon couplings
has been touted as a wonder material contain a new U(1) gauge symmetry and ments of the spot around the radius point for masses in the MeV range and above.
on account of its exceptional electrical, are expected to couple very weakly to as Earth moves through the dark-matter “The mass range of viable hidden-
thermal and physical properties. Turn- charged particles via kinetic mixing with field. The broadband dish-antenna tech- photon dark matter is huge,” says FUNK
ing these properties into scalable com- regular photons. Laboratory experiments nique is able to scan hidden photons over collaborator Joerg Jaeckel of Heidelberg
mercial devices has proved challenging, that are sensitive to such hidden or dark a large parameter space. University. “For this reason, techniques
however, which makes a recently agreed photons include helioscopes such as the Completed in 2018, the experiment took that can scan over a large parameter
collaboration between CERN and UK firm CAST experiment at CERN, and “light- data during last year in several month- space are especially useful, even if they
Paragraf on graphene-based Hall-probe shining-through-a-wall” methods such long runs using low-noise photomulti- cannot explore couplings as small as
sensors especially novel. as the ALPS experiment at DESY. plier tubes. In the mass range 2.5–7 eV, the is possible with some other dedicated
With particle accelerators requiring 2D sense Paragraf and CERN scientists setting up the graphene Hall sensor for performance evaluation in FUNK exploits a novel “dish antenna” data exclude a hidden-photon coupling methods. A future exploitation of the
large numbers of normal and super- the reference dipole magnet of CERN’s magnetic measurement section. method first proposed in 2012, whereby a stronger than 10–12 in kinetic mixing. “This setup in other wavelength ranges is
conducting magnets, high-precision hidden photon crossing a metallic spheri- is competitive with limits derived from possible, and FUNK therefore carries an
and reliable magnetic measurements current proportional to the field strength non-perpendicular field components in cal mirror surface would cause faint elec- astrophysical results and partially exceeds enormous physics potential.”
are essential. While the workhorse for when the sensor is perpendicular to a the three-dimensional sensing region tromagnetic waves to be emitted almost The mass those from other existing direct-detec-
these measurements is the rotating-coil magnetic field. However, measurement of existing Hall probes can increase the perpendicularly to the mirror surface, and tion experiments,” says FUNK principal Further reading
range of
magnetometer with a resolution limit uncertainties in the 10–4 range required measurement uncertainty, requiring be focused on the radius point. The exper- investigator Ralph Engel of KIT. A Andrianavalomahefa et al. 2020
of the order of 10–8 Vs, the most impor- for determining field multipoles are dif- complex and time-consuming calibra- iment was conceived in 2013 at a workshop viable hidden- So far, two other experiments of this arXiv:2003.13144.
tant tool for local field mapping is the ficult to obtain, even with the state-of- tion and processing to separate true sig- at DESY when it was realised that there photon dark type have reported search results for D Horns et al. 2013 J. Cosmol. Astropart.
Hall probe, which passes electrical the-art devices. False signals caused by nals from systematic errors. With an was a perfectly suited mirror – a prototype matter is huge hidden photons in this energy range – the Phys. 1304 016.
s
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 10 24/06/2020 10:44 CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 11 24/06/2020 10:44
www.
NEWS ANALYSIS
A strowAt ch
100 TeV photons test Lorentz invariance

O ver t he past decades, t he photon
HAWC collab.
emission from astronomical objects
has been measured across 20 orders of
magnitude in energy, from radio up to
TeV gamma rays. This has not only led
to many astronomical discoveries, but
also, thanks to the extreme distances and
energies involved, allowed researchers
to test some of the fundamental tenets
of physics. For example, the 2017 joint
measurement of gravitational waves and
gamma rays from a binary neutron-star
merger made it possible to determine the
speed of gravity with a precision of less
than 10–16 compared to the speed of light.
Now, the High-Altitude Water Cheren-
kov (HAWC) collaboration has pushed
the energy of gamma-ray observations
into new territory, placing constraints
on Lorentz-invariance violation (LIV)
that are up to two orders of magnitude
tighter than before. and above) cosmic rays are produced,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 021102

Models incorporating LIV allow for but could also allow new constraints
modifications to the standard energy– to be placed on LIV. The spectra of four
momentum relationship dictated by sources studied by the collaboration did
special relativity, predicting phenom- not show any signs of a cutoff, allowing
enological effects such as photon decay HAWC to exclude the LIV energy scale to
and photon splitting. Even if the prob- 2.2 × 1031 eV – an improvement of one-to-
ability for a photon to decay through two orders of magnitude over previous
such effects is small, the large distances limits.
involved in astrophysical measurements
in principle allow experiments to detect Pushing the limits
it. The most striking implication would High altitude lar. But their indirect detection and the It is likely that LIV will be further con-
be the existence of a cutoff in the energy Several different large background coming from cosmic strained in the near future, as a range of
spectrum above which photons would sources are observed rays make such measurements difficult. new high-energy gamma-ray detectors
decay while travelling towards Earth. by the HAWC Recently, significant improvements are developed. Perhaps the most powerful
Simply by detecting gamma-ray pho- observatory (top) to have been made in ground-based detec- of these is the Large High Altitude Air
Vacuum solutions
tons above the expected cutoff would put emit photons at tor technology and data analysis. The Shower Observatory (LHAASO) located
strong constraints on LIV. energies exceeding Japanese–Chinese Tibet air shower in the mountains of the Sichuan prov-
56 TeV. The gamma-ray experiment AS γ, a Cher- ince of China, the first stage of which
Expensive and complex bright source enkov-based detector array built at an commenced data-taking in 2018. Once
from a single source

Increasing the energy limit for photons on the right of the altitude of 4 km in Yangbajing, added finished, LHAASO will be close to two
with which we observe the universe is, lower image underground muon detectors to allow orders of magnitude more sensitive than
however, challenging. Since the flux of is the strongest hadronic air showers to be differen- HAWC at 100 TeV and capable of pushing
a typical source, such as a neutron star, contributor to the tiated from photon-induced ones via the photon energy into the PeV range.
decreases rapidly, ever-larger detectors LIV limit. the difference in muon content, and Additionally, the limit of direct-detection
are needed to probe higher energies. improved data-analysis techniques to measurements will be pushed beyond
Photons with energies of hundreds of more accurately remove the isotropic that from Fermi-LAT and DAMPE by the
GeV can still be directly detected using all-sky background. In 2019, this ena- Chinese European High Energy cosmic Pfeiffer Vacuum is proud to have been a supplier of innovative and customized vacuum solutions to the particle accelerator
satellite-based detectors equipped bled the ASγ team to observe a source at Radiation Detector (HERD), a 1.8 tonne community for more than 50 years. Our complete product portfolio for vacuum technology, our focus on competent and
with tracking and calorimetry. How- energies above 100 TeV for the first time. calorimeter surrounded by a tracker specialized advice supported by robust and reliable service, makes Pfeiffer Vacuum the partner of choice for the analytical
ever, these instruments, such as the This measurement was soon followed by scheduled for launch in 2025, which is and research communities worldwide.
US–European Fermi-LAT detector and measurements of nine different sources foreseen to be able to directly detect pho-
the Chinese–European DAMPE detector, above 56 TeV by the HAWC observatory tons up to 100 TeV. ■ Pumps for vacuum generation down to UHV
require a mass of several tonnes, making located at 4 km altitude in the moun-
■ Vacuum measurement and analysis equipment
launching them expensive and complex. tains near Puebla, Mexico. These new Further reading
■ Leak detectors and integrity test systems
To get to even higher energies, ground- measurements of astrophysical sources, HAWC Collab. 2020 Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 021102.
■ Vacuum chambers and components
based detectors, which detect gamma which are likely all pulsars, could not HAWC Collab. 2020 Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 131101.
rays through the showers they induce only lead to an answer of the question Tibet ASγ Collab. 2019 Phys. Rev. Lett.
■ Pumping stations and customized solutions
in Earth’s atmosphere, are more popu- as to where the highest energy (PeV 123 051101.
Are you looking for a perfect vacuum solution? Please contact us:
Pfeiffer Vacuum (Schweiz) AG · T +41 44 444 22 55 · F +41 44 444 22 66 · info@pfeiffer-vacuum.ch
12 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0
www.pfeiffer-vacuum.com
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NewsAnalysis_v5.indd 12 24/06/2020 10:45 20.06.15_ID1609_CernCourier_JulyAug_VSFASS_3Prod_213x282mm_EN.indd 1 15.06.2020 16:36:33
www.
NEWS
DIGEST
extremes. Scientists in Paris have transition was excited at 1631 nm the rigidity dependences of neon,
now detected denizens of this – a wavelength used for optical- magnesium and silicon nuclei
third kingdom of particles for fibre telecommunication, thus were found to be both identical
the first time (Science 368 173). affording the researchers access and markedly different from
The team used the quantum Hall to superior optical devices. Laser helium, carbon and oxygen
effect to build an anyon collider spectroscopy of mesonic atoms cosmic rays above 86.5 GV (Phys.
in a 2D electron gas, and observed could place upper limits on exotic Rev. Lett. 124 211102). The new
correlations corresponding to forces, claims the team. AMS data, which comprise about
“fractional” statistics with a two million cosmic rays of each
phase of π/3. Anyons are the Multimessenger non-coincidences species, suggest a new subdivision
Mark Bissell (University of Manchester) most recent of a growing list of The ANTARES collaboration, of primary cosmic rays into at
inspects the CRIS setup at CERN. fundamental ideas observed first which operates a neutrino least two distinct classes.
as an emergent phenomenon in a telescope 2.5 km under the
Radioactive spectroscopy condensed-matter system. Mediterranean Sea, has Quark-matter cores
A team at CERN’s ISOLDE reported a search for neutrino Astroparticle theorists have
facility has staked a claim to Thoroughly modern Millikan counterparts to six gravitational- uncovered evidence that
the first laser-spectroscopy A dark sector could be introduced wave events thought to originate matter in the interior of
measurements of a short- into the Standard Model via a in the coalescence of binary maximally massive stable
lived radioactive molecule, new gauge field, the dark photon, black holes observed by LIGO or neutron stars (NSs) may exist
opening new opportunities which can transform back and Virgo between June and August in the deconfined phase of
to test physics beyond the forth into ordinary photons. quantum chromodynamics.
F Montanet
Standard Model (BSM). A Should the dark photon be The team used gravitational
Proton Synchrotron Booster massless, dark-sector particles waves from NS mergers and
beam collided with a uranium- that couple to it should also have electromagnetic observations
carbide target to produce small effective electric charges. of binary systems with a pulsar
RELIABLE
radioactive radium isotopes that In 2017 a prototype scintillator– (a highly magnetised rotating
formed radioactive radium- bar array called the milliQan NS) to constrain theoretical
monofluoride (RaF) ions in a demonstrator was installed 33 m models. While 1.4M NSs are
UNDER ALL fluoride-rich gas surrounding

the target. By using ISOLDE’s
collinear resonance ionisation
from the interaction point of the
CMS experiment at the LHC, to
fill a high-mass gap in searches
still expected to have neutron
cores, quark–matter cores should
now be considered the standard
CONDITIONS. spectroscopy (CRIS) setup,

the team was able to identify
the low-lying energy levels of
for such particles. The team has
now reported a first search using
the prototype. The results match
A visualisation of the ANTARES
detector.
scenario for NSs of around
2M, say the authors (Nat. Phys.
doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0914-9).
RaF and demonstrate that it the ArgoNeuT collaboration’s
Heading into the unknown to open new horizons can be laser cooled for future leading exclusion of new particles 2017 (Eur. Phys. J. C 80 487). While Milestone for open science
demands reliable tools. Help turn your resarch precision studies, as implied with a charge of more than about previous analyses included only Researchers at CERN can now
goals into reality. by theoretical calculations. 0.1e and a mass of a few GeV upward-going muon neutrinos, publish open-access in 42 of the
Radioactive molecules promise (arXiv:2005.06518), and the team the new result includes all journals of the publishing arm
Vacuum valve solutions and bellows high sensitivity to BSM physics is now pursuing an optimised flavours and the whole sky. of the UK Institute of Physics,
from VAT provide unfailing reliability as certain isotopes exhibit detector with 100 times the mass. The search for prompt neutrino IOP Publishing, which also
and enhanced process safety – deformations such as nuclear emission within ±500 seconds of publishes this magazine. The
pear shapes, which should Pionic helium sighted in Villigen the events yielded no candidates. agreement includes authors
under all conditions. amplify non-standard effects Researchers have used an intense Though neutrino counterparts with a secondary affiliation to
(Nature 581 396). pion beam at the Paul Scherrer are not expected in typical CERN and CERN experimental
Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, binary-black-hole mergers, collaborations, and the CC-BY
Anyon statistics observed and equipment constructed systems with asymmetric or license will allow authors to
In 3D space, the many-body at CERN via the ASACUSA very large masses are less well retain copyright. This is the
wave function accumulates a collaboration, to synthesise understood theoretically. 10th arrangement of its kind
phase 0 or π when two particles pionic helium atoms (Nature for IOP Publishing, and the first
are exchanged, the basis of a 581 37). The team attempted to AMS continues to surprise for CERN, marking a milestone
fundamental classification of excite pionic orbital transitions The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer towards extending the open
particles as bosons or fermions. in the metastable He2+e–π– atom (AMS) experiment on the dissemination of its research.
In 1982 Frank Wilczek showed using lasers, with the resonance International Space Station has The agreement builds on the
that in two dimensions other evidenced by neutron, proton published the first measurements CERN-hosted SCOAP3 initiative,
phases can be realised too, and deuteron fragments from of the rigidity (p/q) dependence which in 2014 established free
defining types of elementary the resulting electromagnetic of the flux of heavy species of and immediate open access to
excitations that lie somewhere cascade and fission. After several cosmic rays. Following previous published articles as the standard
between the boson and fermion surprising null observations, a unexpected results from AMS, in particle physics.
www.vatvalve.com CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 15
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NewsDigest_v2.indd 15 22/06/2020 18:49
www.
ENERGY
Design better
devices — faster.
FRONTIERS
Reports from the Large Hadron Collider experiments
Engineers from Fraunhofer IAPT used topology CMS
Vector-boson scattering probes quartic coupling

optimization and additive manufacturing to design a
heat sink, a common component in many electronic
devices. The topology-optimized design was then
transformed into a simulation application to automate The electroweak (EW) sector of the and muons. The W ± W ± and WZ produc-
and customize certain design tasks. Now, engineers, Standard Model (SM) predicts self- CMS 137 fb–1 (13 TeV) tion modes were studied by simulta-
designers, and manufacturers companywide are able interactions between W and Z gauge Vγ data neously measuring their production
to efficiently optimize intricate heat sink geometries bosons t hroug h t r iple a nd qua r t ic 400 wrong sign bkg. unc. cross sections using several kinemat-
other bkg. EWK WZ
and prepare them for 3D printing. gauge couplings. Following first meas-
WZ
ical observables. The measured total
urements at LEP and at the Tevatron ZZ cross section for W ± W ± production of
The COMSOL Multiphysics® software is used for during the 1990s, these interactions 300 nonprompt 3.98 ± 0.45 (± 0.37 stat. only) fb is the
tVx
simulating designs, devices, and processes in all fields are now a core part of the LHC physics most accurate to date, with a precision
events/bin
of engineering, manufacturing, and scientific research. programme, as they offer key insights of roughly 10%. No deviation from SM
into EW symmetry breaking, which, 200 predictions is evident.
See how you can apply it to topology optimization and
in the case of the SM, causes the W and Thoug h t he cont r ibut ion f rom
additive manufacturing processes. Z bosons to acquire mass as a result of background processes induced by the
the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism. 100 st rong inter ac t ion is consider ably
Topology optimization of a heat sink. comsol.blog/3D-printing-optimization The quartic coupling can be probed larger in the WZ and ZZ final states,
at colliders via rare processes such as the scattering centre-of-mass energy
tri-boson production, which the CMS and the polarisation of the final-state
collaboration obser ved for the first 1.4 bosons can be measured as these final
data/SM
time earlier this year, and vector-boson states can be more fully reconstructed
scattering (VBS). 1.0 than in W ± W ± production. To optimally
The scat ter ing of long it udina l ly isolate signal from background, the
0.6
polarised W and Z bosons is a particu- kinematical information of the WZ
larly interesting probe of the SM, as its –1.0 –0.5 0 0.5 1.0 and ZZ candidate events is exploited
tree-level amplitudes would violate BDT score w it h a b o os te d de c i sion t re e a nd
unitarity at high energies without del- matrix element likelihood techniques,
icate cancellations from quartic gauge respectively (see figure). The observed
couplings and Higgs-boson contribu- CMS preliminary 137 fb–1 (13 TeV) statistical significances for the WZ
104
tions. Thus, the study of VBS processes and ZZ processes are 6.8 and 4.0 stand-
provides key insight into the quartic Z+X ard deviations, respectively, in line
gauge couplings as well as the Higgs – with the expected SM significances of
103 mjj > 100 GeV ttZ, VVZ
sector. These processes offer sensitivity qq– → ZZ 5.3 and 3.5 standard deviations. The
to enhancements caused by models of gg → ZZ possible presence of anomalous quar-
physics beyond the SM, which modify 102 EW ZZjj tic gauge couplings could result in
events/0.04
the Higgs sector with additional Higgs data an excess of events with respect to
bosons contributing to VBS. the SM predictions. Strong new con-
Vector-boson scattering is character- 10 straints on the structure of quartic
ised by the presence of two forward jets, gauge couplings have been set within
•
with a large di-jet invariant mass and the framework of dimension-eight
Full Beamline Solutions a large rapidity separation. CMS pre- 1 effective-field-theory operators.
• Accelerator and Neutron Instrumentation

viously reported the first observation The observation of the EW produc-
of same-sign W ± W ± production using tion of W ± W ±, WZ and ZZ boson pairs
10–1
•
the data collected in 2016. The same- is a n essent ia l m i lestone tow a rds
Monochromator and Mirror Systems sign W ± W ± process is chosen because pre c ision test s of V BS at t he LHC,
data/bkgd.
• High Stability Cryo Coolers
of the smaller background yield from 3 sobs = 4.0σ and there is much more to be learned
other SM processes compared to the from the future LHC Run-3 data. The
Sub-20nrad
1
opp osite-sig n W ± W  pro c e ss. The High-Luminosity LHC should allow for
• Experimental Stations
ieved
Stability Ach
collaboration has now updated this ver y precise investigations of VBS,
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
analysis and performed new studies including finding ev idence for t he
• Insertion Devices of the EW production of two jets pro-
KD
scattering of longitudinally polarised
Two Horizontal-Bounce Cryo-Cooled DCMs duced in association w it h WZ, and Fig. 1. Distributions of the boosted-decision-tree score in the WZ W bosons.
• Professional Engineering Support
for Diamond Light Source DLS ZZ boson pairs using data collected signal region (top) and the matrix-element discriminant in the ZZ
between 2016 and 2018 at a centre- signal region (bottom). The lower panels show the ratios of data to Further reading
of-mass energy of 13 TeV, correspond- the SM and background-only predictions, respectively. The grey CMS Collab. 2020 arXiv:2005.01173.
ing to 137 fb–1. Vector-boson pairs were band shows the uncertainty on the predicted yields. The grey line is CMS Collab. 2020 CMS-PAS-SMP-20-001.
selected by their decays to electrons the ratio of the total fit to its background-only component. CMS Collab. 2020 CMS-PAS-SMP-19-014.
Axilon AG • Emil-Hoffmann Str. 55-59 • 50996 Köln • Germany • +49 (221) 165 324 00 • beamlines@axilon.de • www.axilon.de
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_EnergyFrontiers_v3.indd 17 22/06/2020 19:00
www.
ENERGY FRONTIERS ENERGY FRONTIERS
LHCb a common core source with a Gaussian size, indicating a common emission source This result is This observation can be exploited by coa-
LHCb interrogates X(3872) line shape

shape. The core source was then folded for all baryons. The observed scaling of the a milestone lescence models studying the production
with the exponential tails introduced by source size with mT is very similar to that of light nuclei, such as deuterons or 3He,
in the field of
the resonance decays. The resulting root- observed in heavy-ion collisions, wherein in hadronic collisions. Moreover, the
mean-square width of the Gaussian core the effect is attributed to the collective
correlation femtoscopy formalism relates the emis-
In 2003 the Belle collaboration reported limit from Belle (see figure). scales from 1.3 fm to 0.85 fm as a function evolution of the system. studies sion source to the interaction potential
the discovery of a mysterious new hadron, Combining the two analyses, the of an increase in the pair’s transverse This result is a milestone in the field of between pairs of particles, enabling the
the X(3872), in the decay B+ → X(3872)K+. LHCb B+ → χc1 (3872)K +
mass of the χc1(3872) was found to be mass (mT) from 1.1 to 2.2 GeV, for both p–p correlation studies, as it directly relates study of the strong nuclear force between
Their analysis suggested an extremely LHCb b → χc1 (3872)X 3871.64 ± 0.06 MeV – just 70 ± 120 keV and p–Λ pairs (see figure). The transverse to important topics in physics. The com- hadrons, such as p–K–, p–Ξ–, p–Ω– and
–
small width, consistent with zero, and below the D 0D*0 threshold. The prox- mass of a particle is its total energy in a mon source size observed for p–p and p–Λ Λ–Λ, with unprecedented precision.
a mass remarkably close to the sum of Belle B → χc1 (3872)K imity of the χc1(3872) to this threshold coordinate system in which its velocity is pairs implies that the spatial- temporal
the masses of the D0 and D*0 mesons. The puts a question mark on measuring the zero along the beam axis. The two systems properties of the hadronisation process Further reading
BES III e+e– → χc1 (3872)γ
particle’s existence was later confirmed width using a simple fit to the well-known exhibit a common scaling of the source are independent of the particle species. ALICE Collab. 2020 arXiv:2004.08018.
by the CDF, D0 and BaBar experiments. BaBar B → χc1 (3872)K Breit–Wigner function, as this approach
LHCb first reported studies of the X(3872) neglects potential distortions. Conversely, ATLAS
LEP-era universality discrepancy unravelled

in the data sample taken in 2010, and later BaBar B → χc1 (3872)K a precise measurement of the line shape
unambiguously determined its quantum could help elucidate the nature of the
numbers to be 1++, leading the Particle Data 0 1 2 3 4 5 χc1(3872). This has led LHCb to explore a
Group to change the name of the particle Γχc1(3872) [MeV] more sophisticated Flatté parametrisation The family of charged leptons is com- lifetime and its lower momentum decay
to χc1(3872). and report a measurement of the χc1(3872) posed of the electron, muon (μ) and tau ATLAS preliminary data products are exploited by the precise
6
The nature of this state is still unclear. line shape with this model, including the lepton (τ). According to the Standard 10 √s = 13 TeV, 139 fb–1 prompt μ (top) muon reconstruction available from the
signal region
Until now, only an upper limit on the width lapping data sets. The first uses Run-1 data Fig. 1. New LHCb pole positions of the complex amplitude. Model (SM), these particles only differ τ → μ (top) ATLAS detector to separate muons from
105 eμ, 20 < pμT < 250 GeV μ (hadron decay)
of the χc1(3872) of 1.2 MeV has been avail- corresponding to an integrated luminosity constraints on the The results favour the interpretation of in their mass: the muon is heavier than tau-lepton decays and muons produced
events/0.01 mm
– post-fit Z → ττ
able. No conventional hadron is expected of 3 fb–1, in which (15.5 ± 0.4) × 103 χc1(3872) Breit–Wigner width the state as a quasi-bound D0D*0 mole- the electron and the tau lepton is heavier 104 directly by a W decay (so-called prompt
other SM processes
to have such a narrow width in this part of particles were selected inclusively from of the χc1(3872) cule, but other possibilities cannot yet be than the muon. A remarkable feature of muons). Specifically, the absolute distance
103 uncertainty
the otherwise very well understood char- the decays of hadrons containing b state (red) and ruled out. Further studies are ongoing. the SM is that each flavour is equally likely of closest approach of muon tracks in the
monium spectrum. Among the possible quarks. The second analysis selected previous upper Physicists from other collaborations are to interact with a W boson. This is known plane perpendicular to the beam line, |d 0μ|
explanations are that it is a tetraquark, (4.23 ± 0.07) × 10 3 fully reconstructed limits at the 90% also keenly interested in the nature of the
102
as lepton flavour universality. (as shown in the top figure), and the trans-
a molecular state, a hybrid state where B+ → χc1(3872)K+ decays from the full Run confidence level. χ c1(3872), and the very recent observation In a new ATLAS measurement, a novel 10 verse momentum, pTμ, of the muons, are
the gluon field contributes to its quan- 1–2 data set, which corresponds to an inte- The orange band by CMS of the decay process B0s → χ c1(3872)φ technique using events with top-quark used to isolate these contributions. These
tum numbers, or a glueball without any grated luminosity of 9 fb–1. In both cases, shows the average suggests another laboratory for studying pairs has been exploited to test the ratio of variables, in particular |d 0μ|, are calibrated
data/pred.
1.05
valence quarks at all. A mixture of these the χ c1(3872) particles were reconstructed of the two LHCb its properties. probabilities for tau leptons and muons to 1.00 using a pure sample of prompt muons
explanations is also possible. through decays to the final state J/ψπ+π–. measurements. be produced in on-shell W boson decays, 0.95 from Z → μμ data.
The LHCb collaboration has now pub- For the first time the measured Breit– Further reading R(τ/μ). In the SM, R(τ/μ) is expected to be The extraction of R(τ/μ) is performed
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
lished two new measurements of the width Wigner width was found to be non-zero, LHCb Collab. 2020 arXiv:2005.13419. unity, but a longstanding tension with μ using a fit to |d 0μ| and pTμ, where the can-
|d0| [mm]
of the χc1(3872), based on minimally over- with a value close to the previous upper LHCb Collab. 2020 arXiv:2005.13422. this prediction has existed since the LEP cellation of several systematic uncertain-
era in the 1990s, where, from a combina- ties is observed as they are correlated
ALICE to study the baryon–baryon interaction, tion of the four experiments, R(τ/μ) was ATLAS preliminary LEP (Phys. Rept. 532 119) between the prompt μ and τ → μ con-
Common baryon 1.4
ALICE pp √s = 13 TeV
and would impose strong constraints on
particle-production models.
measured to be 1.070 ± 0.026, deviating
from the SM expectation by 2.7σ. This
√s = 13 TeV, ATLAS – this result tributions. This includes uncertainties
related to jet reconstruction, flavour tag-
139 fb–1
source found in 1.3 high-mult. (0 − 0.17 % INEL > 0) statistical error
The ALICE collaboration has recently strongly motivated the need for new systematic error ging and trigger efficiencies. As a result,
Gaussian + resonance source
1.2 used p–p and p–Λ pairs to perform the measurements with higher precision. If the measurement obtains very high
proton collisions first study of the particle-emitting source the LEP result was confirmed it would
total error
precision, surpassing that of the previous
rcore (fm)
1.1
for baryons produced in pp collisions. The correspond to an unambiguous discovery LEP measurement.
High-energy hadronic collisions, such as 1.0 chosen data sample isolates the 1.7 per- of beyond-the-SM physics. The measured value is R(τ/μ) = 0.992
those delivered by the LHC, result in the p–p mille highest-multiplicity collisions in To conclusively prove either that the 0.98 1.00 1.02 1.04 1.06 1.08 1.11 ± 0.013 [± 0.007 (stat) ± 0.011 (syst)], form-
0.9
production of a large number of particles. p–Λ (NLO) the 13 TeV data set, yielding events with LEP discrepancy is real or that it was just ing the most precise measurement of this
R(τ/μ) = BR(W→ τν)/BR(W→μν)
Particle pairs produced close together in 0.8 30 to 40 charged particles reconstructed, a statistical fluctuation, a precision of at ratio, with an uncertainty half the size of
both coordinate and momentum space p–Λ (LO) on average, per unit of rapidity. The yields least 1–2% is required – something pre- Fig. 1. Top: an example |d 0μ| distribution (in the electron tagging that from the combination of LEP results
0.7
are subject to final-state effects, such as of protons and Λ baryons are dominated by viously not thought possible at a hadron channel for the highest p Tμ bin) after the fit to data has been (see bottom figure). This is in agreement
quantum statistics, Coulomb forces and, 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 contributions from short-lived resonances, collider like the LHC, where inclusive W performed, showing the separation power between prompt μ and with the Standard Model expectation and
in the case of hadrons, strong interac- 〈mT〉 (GeV) accounting for about two thirds of all pro- bosons, albeit produced abundantly, suffer τ → μ contributions. Bottom: a comparison of this measurement suggests that the previous LEP discrep-
tions. Femtoscopy uses the correlation duced particles. A basic thermal model (the from large backgrounds and kinematic to that from LEP. The vertical dashed line indicates equal ancy may be due to a fluctuation.
of such pairs in momentum space to gain Fig. 1. The Gaussian core radius as a function of the transverse statistical hadronisation model) was used biases due to the online selection in the branching ratios (SM value) to different lepton flavours. Though surviving this latest test, the
insights into the interaction potential mass of the p–p and p–Λ pairs, extracted from femtoscopic fits to to estimate the number and composition trigger. The key to achieving this is to principle of lepton flavour universal-
and the spatial extent of an effective the ALICE data. The scaling is observed independently of the of these resonances, indicating that the obtain a sample of muons and tau leptons W boson is used to select the events and ity will not quite be out of the woods
particle-emitting source. interaction model used to describe the p–Λ interaction (leading or average lifetime of those feeding to protons from W boson decays that is as insensitive the other is used, independently of the until the anomalies in B-meson decays
Abundantly produced pion pairs are next-to-leading order chiral-effective-field-theory calculations). (1.7 fm) is significantly shorter than those as possible to the details of the trigger first, to measure the fractions of decays recorded by the LHCb experiment (CERN
used to assess the size and evolution of feeding to Λ baryons (4.7 fm) – this would and object reconstruction used to select to tau leptons and muons. Courier May/June 2020 p10) have also been
the high-density and strongly inter- heavy-ion collisions, motivating detailed have led to a substantial broadening of them. ATLAS has achieved this by exploit- The analysis focuses on tau-lepton definitively probed.
acting quark–gluon plasmas, which are investigations of the particle source in the source shape if not properly accounted ing both the LHC’s large sample of more decays to a muon, rather than hadronic
formed in heavy-ion collisions. Recently, such systems as well. A universal descrip- for. An explicit treatment of the effect of than 100 million top-quark pairs produced tau-lepton decays that are more compli- Further reading
high-multiplicity pp collisions at the LHC tion of the emission source for all baryon short-lived resonances was developed in the latest run, and the fact that top cated to reconstruct, thus reducing the ATLAS Collab. 2020 ATLAS-CONF-2020-014.
have raised the possibility of observing species, independent of the specific quark by assuming that all primordial parti- quarks decay exclusively to a W boson and systematic uncertainties associated with LEP Electroweak Working Group 2013
collective effects similar to those seen in composition, would open new possibilities cles and resonances are emitted from a quark. In a tag-and-probe approach, one object reconstruction. The tau-lepton Phys. Rept. 532 119; arXiv:1302.3415.
▲
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_EnergyFrontiers_v3.indd 18 22/06/2020 19:01 CCJulAug20_EnergyFrontiers_v3.indd 19 22/06/2020 19:03
www.
Mass spectrometers for vacuum, gas, plasma and surface science C E R N C O U R I E R .C OM
FIELD
RGA Series
Residual Gas Analysers
NOTES
Reports from events, conferences and meetings
IPAC ’20
3F Series RGA IPAC goes virtual

Triple filter mass spectrometers More than 3000 accelerator specialists
IPAC’2020
gathered in cyberspace from 11 to 14 May
for analytical applications for the 11th International Particle Accel-
erator Conference (IPAC). The conference
Triple filter technology provides extended was originally destined for the GANIL
laborator y in Caen, a charming city
mass ranges, increased mass resolution,
in Normandy, and host to the flagship
enhanced sensitivity and improved radioactive-ion-beam facility SPIRAL-2,
contamination resistance for more but the coronavirus pandemic forced the
cancellation of the in-person meeting
demanding analytical applications. and the French institutes CNRS/IN2P3,
CEA/IRFU, GANIL, Soleil and ESRF agreed
to organise a virtual conference. Oral
presentations and the accelerator-prize
HAL 101X session were maintained, though unfor-
tunately the poster and industry sessions
had to be cancelled. The scientific pro-
For beam line/torus fusion research gramme committee whittled down more
than 2000 proposals for talks into 77 The seven IPAC’20 presentations Live around pioneered at SSRL. Stressing the value
Unique radiation hardened mass spectrometer presentations, which garnered more than with the most views included four by the world of international collaboration, Hastings
for operation in harsh radiation environments 43,000 video views across 60 countries, outstanding female scientists. CERN A selection of more presented the outcome of an international
making IPAC’20 an involuntary pioneer Director-General Fabiola Gianotti pre- than 3000 X-ray facilities meeting that took place
such as beam lines and synchrotrons with of virtual conferencing and a lighthouse sented strategic considerations for future registered in April and defined an action plan for
remote analyser mounting up to 80m from of science during the lockdown. accelerator-based particle physics. While participants at ensuring the best possible support to
pointing out the importance of Europe IPAC’20’s online COVID-19 research.
sensitive electronics.
Top of the talks participating in projects elsewhere in the closing session. GANIL director Alahari Navin pre-
IPAC’20’s success relied on a programme world, she made the strong point that sented new horizons in nuclear science,
of recent technical highlights, new devel- CERN should host an ambitious future reviewing facilities around the world and
opments and future plans in the accel- collider, and discussed the options being presenting his own laboratory’s latest
HALO 201 erator world. Weighing in at 1998 views,
the most popular talk of the conference
considered, pointing to the update of the
European Strategy for Particle Physics
activities. GANIL has now started com-
missioning SPIRAL-2, which will allow
was by Ben Shepherd from STFC’s Dares- soon to be approved by the CERN Council. users to explore the as-yet unknown
For residual gas analysis bury Laboratory in the UK, who spoke on Sarah Cousineau from Oak Ridge reported properties of exotic nuclei near the lim-
high-technology permanent magnets. on accelerator R&D as a driver for science its of the periodic table, and has per-
Suitable for vacuum fingerprint analysis, Accelerators not only accelerate ensem- in general, pointing out that accelerators formed its initial science experiment.
leak detection and trend analysis. bles of particles, but also use strong mag- have directly contributed to more than 25 Liu Lin from LNLS in Brazil presented
netic fields to guide and focus them into Nobel prizes, including the Higgs-boson the commissioning results for the new
very small volumes, typically just micro discovery at the LHC in 2012. The devel- fourth-generation SIRIUS light source,
or nanometres in size. Recent trends opment of superconducting accelerator showing that the functionality of the
indicate increasing usage of perma- technology has enabled projects for col- facility has already been demonstrated
3F-PIC
nent magnets that provide strong fields liders, photon science, nuclear physics by storing 15 mA of beam current. Last, but
but do not require external power, and and neutron spallation sources around not least in the top-seven most-viewed
can provide outstanding field quality. the world, with several light sources and talks, Anke-Susanne Müller from KIT
Describing the major advances for per- neutron facilities currently engaged in presented the status of the study for a
Pulse ion counting detection manent magnets in terms of production, COVID-19 studies (see p43). 100 km Future Circular Collider – just one
for fast event studies radiation resistance, tolerances and field
tuning, Shepherd presented high-tech
The benefits of accelerator-based
photon science for society were also
of the options for an ambitious post-LHC
project at CERN.
Ultra-fast pulse ion counting detection devices developed and used for the SIR- emphasised by Jerry Hastings from Stan- Recent trends Many ot her highl ights from t he
IUS, ESRF–EBS, SPRING-8, CBETA, SOLEIL ford University and SLAC, who presented indicate accelerator field were presented during
provides seven decade continuous dynamic and CUBE-ECRIS facilities, and also pre- the tremendous progress in structural IPAC’20. Kyo Shibata (KEK) discussed
increasing
range with optimum sensitivity at UHV/XHV. sented the Zero-Power Tunable Optics biology driven by accelerator-based
usage of
the progress in physics data-taking at
(ZEPTO) collaboration between STFC and X-ray sources, and noted that research the SuperKEKB factory, where the Belle
CERN, which offers 15–60 T/m tunability can be continued during COVID-19 times permanent II experiment recently reported its first
in quadrupoles and 0.46–1.1 T in dipoles. thanks to the remote synchrotron access magnets result. Ferdinand Willeke (BNL) presented
W www.HidenAnalytical.com E info@hiden..co.uk CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 21
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_FieldNotes_v3.indd 21 24/06/2020 12:59
www.
FIELD NOTES FIELD NOTES
the electron–ion collider approved to be accelerator-applications session rounded To the credit of the French organis- process. The observed signal significance The first width of the resonance (see p18). Though ons. The results from this measurement
built at BNL, Porntip Sudmuang (SLRI) the picture off with presentations by ers, the virtual setup worked seamlessly. was found to be 4.3 standard deviations, observation of the results favour its interpretation as a can be used in propagation models of
–
showed construction plans for a new Annalisa Patriarca (Institut Curie) on The concept relied on pre-recorded pres- in excess of the expected sensitivity quasi-bound D0 D*0 molecule, more data antideuterons within the interstellar
the combined
light source in Thailand, and Mohammad accelerator challenges in a new radia- entations and a text-driven chat function of 2.4, assuming SM four-top-quark- and additional analyses are needed to medium for interpreting dark-matter
Eshraqi (ESS) discussed the construction-therapy technique called FLASH, that allowed registered participants to production properties. While the meas-
production of rule out other hypotheses. searches, including intriguing results
tion of the European Spallation Source in in which ultra-fast delivery of radiation join from time zones across the world. ured value of the cross section was found three massive from the AMS experiment. Future anal-
Sweden. At the research frontier towards dose reduces damage to healthy tissue; Activating the sessions in half-day steps to be consistent with the SM prediction vector bosons ALICE and the dark sector yses with higher statistics will improve
compact accelerators, Chang Hee Nam by Charlotte Duchemin (CERN) on the preserved the appearance of live pres- within 1.7 standard deviations, the data was reported The ALICE collaboration presented a first the modelling and extend these studies
(IBS, Korea) explained prospects for production of non-conventional radi- entations to some degree, before a final collected during Run 3 will shed further by CMS measurement of the inelastic low-energy to heavier antinuclei.
laser-driven GeV–electron beams from onuclides for medical research at the live session, during which the four prizes light on this rare process. antideuteron cross section using p–Pb The above are just a few of the many
plasma-wakefield accelerators and Arnd SPIRAL-2 will MEDICIS hadron-beam facility; by Toms of the accelerator group of the European The LHCb collaboration presented, collisions at a centre-of-mass energy excellent results that were presented at
Specka (LLR/CNRS) showed plans for the Torims (Riga Technical University) on Physical Society were awarded. with unprecedented precision, meas- per nucleon–nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. LHCP’20. The extraordinary performance
explore exotic
compact European plasma-accelerator the treatment of marine exhaust gases urements of t wo proper t ies of t he Low-energy antideuterons (composed of the LHC coupled with progress reported
facility EuPRAXIA, which is entering nuclei near the using electron beams; and by Adrian Mike Seidel PSI and EPFL, mysterious X(3872) particle. Originally of an antiproton and an antineutron) by t he t heor y communit y, and t he
its next phase after successful comple- limits of the Fabich (SCK–CEN) on proton-driven Ralph Aßmann DESY and discovered by the Belle experiment in are predicted by some models to be a excellent data collected by the exper-
tion of a conceptual design report. The periodic table nuclear-waste transmutation. Frédéric Chautard GANIL. 2003 as a narrow state in the J/ψπ+π– mass promising probe for indirect dark-mat- iments, has inspired LHC physicists
spectrum of B+ → J/ψπ+π–K+ decays, this ter searches. In particular, antideuterons to continue with their rich harvest of
LHCP Con fer enCe particle has puzzled particle physicists could be produced during the annihila- physics results, despite the current world
LHC physics shines amid COVID-19 crisis

ever since. The nature of the state is still tion or decay of neutralinos or sneutrinos, crisis. Results presented at the confer-
unclear and several hypotheses have which are hypothetical dark-matter can- ence showed that huge progress has
been proposed, such as it being an exotic didates. Contributions from cosmic-ray been made on several fronts, and that
tetraquark (a system of four quarks interactions in the low-energy range Run 3 and the High-Luminosity LHC
The eighth Large Hadron Collider Physics bound together), a two-quark hadron, below 1–2 GeV per nucleon are expected upgrade programme will enable fur-
LHCP
(LHCP) conference, originally scheduled or a molecular state consisting of two D to be small. ALICE collaborators used a ther exploration of particle physics at
to be held in Paris, was hosted as a fully mesons. LHCb collaborators reported the novel technique that utilised the detector the energy frontier.
online conference from 25 to 30 May. To most precise mass measurement yet, and material as an absorber for antideuterons
enable broad participation, the organ- measured, for the first time, and with five to measure the production and annihi- Tulika Bose University of
isers waived the registration fee and, standard-deviations significance, the lation rates of low-energy antideuter- Wisconsin-Madison.
with the help of technical support from
CERN, hosted about 1300 registered
participants from 56 countries, with
attendees actively engaging via Zoom
webinars. Even a poster session was
possible, with 50 junior attendees from
all over the world presenting their work
via meeting rooms and video recordings.
The organisers must be complimented
for organising a pioneering virtual simultaneous production of three mas- Brainpower ment with SM predictions, more data is
conference that succeeded in bringing sive vector bosons has eluded us so far, as A cross section of needed for the individual measurements
the LHC community together, in larger the cross sections are small and the back- online delegates at of the WZZ and ZZZ processes.
and more diverse numbers t han at ground contributions are rather large. LCHP 2020. The first evidence for four-top-quark
previous editions. Such measurements are crucial, both to production was announced by ATLAS. The
test the underlying theory and to probe top-quark discovery in 1995 launched a
Enhanced sensitivity non-standard interactions. For example, rich programme of top-quark studies
LHCP’20 presentations covered a wide if new physics beyond the SM is present at that includes precision measurements
assortment of topics and several new high mass scales not far above 1 TeV, then of its properties as well as the observa-
results with significantly enhanced cross-section measurements for tribo- tion of single-top-quark production. In
sensitivity than was previously possible. son final states might deviate from SM particular, since the large mass of the top
These included both precision measure- predictions. The CMS experiment took quark is a result of its interaction with
ments with excellent potential to uncover advantage of the large Run-2 dataset and the Higgs field, studies of rare processes
discrepancies that can be explained only machine-learning techniques to search such as the simultaneous production of
by physics beyond the Standard Model for these rare processes. Leveraging the four top quarks can provide insights into
(SM) and direct searches using innova- relatively background-free leptonic final the properties of the Higgs boson. Within
tive techniques and advanced analysis states, CMS collaborators were able to the SM, this process is extremely rare,
methods to look for new particles. combine searches for different decay occurring just once for every 70,000 pairs
The first observation of the combined modes and different types of triboson of top quarks created at the LHC; on the
production of three massive vector bos- production (WWW, WWZ, WZZ and ZZZ) other hand, numerous extensions of the
ons (VVV with V = W or Z) was reported to achieve the first observation of com- SM predict exotic particles that couple to
by the CMS experiment (see also p17). In bined heavy triboson production (with top quarks and lead to significantly higher
the nearly 40 years that have followed an observed significance of 5.7 standard production rates. The ATLAS experiment
the discovery of the W and Z boson, their deviations), and at the same time evi- performed this challenging measurement
properties have been measured very pre- dence for WWW and WWZ production using the full Run-2 dataset using sophis-
cisely, including via “diboson” measure- with observed significances of 3.3 and 3.4 ticated techniques and machine-learning
ments of the simultaneous production of standard deviations, respectively. While methods applied to the multilepton final
two vector bosons. However, “triboson” the results obtained so far are in agree- state to obtain strong evidence for this
Untitled-1 1 20/04/2020 12:50

CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_FieldNotes_v3.indd 22 24/06/2020 13:01 CCJulAug20_FieldNotes_v3.indd 23 24/06/2020 13:16
www.
FEATURE GNOME
SENSING A PASSAGE
THROUGH THE UNKNOWN
A global network of ultra-sensitive optical atomic magnetometers – GNOME –
has begun its search for exotic fields beyond the Standard Model.
Long shot
Previous
precision
measurements
could have
,, "',.... missed exotic
transient
phenomena.
-2 -1 0 1 2 3
Input Power {dBm)
Shutterstock/bluebay
IOP Concise Physics A Morgan & Claypool Publication
A Modern Introduction to EDITOR’S

A Modern Introduction
Neutrino Physics
S
PICK ince the inception of the Standard Model (SM) of decades are not effects that persist over the many weeks
to Neutrino Physics particle physics half a century ago, experiments of or months of a typical measurement campaign, but rather
Frank F Deppisch Frank F Deppisch all shapes and sizes have put it to increasingly strin- transient events that occur only sporadically? For example,
gent tests. The largest and most well-known are collider might not cataclysmic astrophysical events such as black-
A deeper understanding of neutrinos, with the goal to reveal their nature and exact role within experiments, which in particular have enabled the direct hole mergers or supernova explosions produce hypothet-
particle physics, is at the frontier of current research. This book reviews the field in a concise discovery of various SM particles. Another approach utilises ical ultralight bosonic fields impossible to generate in the
fashion and highlights the most pressing issues, in addition to the strongest areas of topical the tools of atomic physics. The relentless improvement in laboratory? Or might not Earth occasionally pass through
interest. The text provides a clear, self-contained, and logical treatment of the fundamental the precision of tools and techniques of atomic physics, both some invisible “cloud” of a substance (such as dark matter)
physics aspects appropriate for graduate students. experimental and theoretical, has led to the verification of produced in the early universe? Such transient phenomena
the SM’s predictions with ever greater accuracy. Examples could easily be missed by experimenters when data are aver-
Frank Deppisch earned his undergraduate qualification in physics at the University of
include measurements of atomic parity violation that reveal aged over long times to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. THE AUTHORS
Würzburg, where he also worked as a doctoral student and research assistant, and completed
the effects of the Z boson on atomic states, and measure- Detecting such unconventional events represents
his doctoral thesis. He is an associate professor within the high energy physics group at Dmitry Budker
ments of atomic energy levels that verify the predictions of several challenges. If a transient signal heralding new Johannes
University College London and he worked as a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the
quantum electrodynamics (QED). Precision atomic physics physics was observed with a single detector, it would Gutenberg
Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
experiments also include a vast array of searches for effects be exceedingly difficult to confidently distinguish the University and
predicted by theories beyond-the-SM (BSM), such as fifth exotic-physics signal from the many sources of noise that University of
forces and permanent electric dipole moments that violate plague precision atomic physics measurements. However, California,
parity- and time-reversal symmetry. These tests probe if transient interactions occur over a global scale, a net- Derek Jackson
Kimball
To access this title, visit iopscience.org/books. If you have an idea for a book that you’d like to discuss, potentially subtle yet constant (or controllable) changes of work of such detectors geographically distributed over
California State
please e-mail ebooks@ioppublishing.org. atomic properties that can be revealed by averaging away Earth could search for specific patterns in the timing and
University and
noise and controlling systematic errors. amplitude of such signals that would be unlikely to occur Szymon Pustelny
But what if the glimpses of BSM physics that atomic spec- randomly. By correlating the readouts of many detectors, Jagiellonian
troscopists have so painstakingly searched for over the past local effects can be filtered away and exotic physics could University.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_GNOME_v5.indd 25 22/06/2020 19:13
www.
FEATURE GNOME FEATURE GNOME

M Longnickel
GNOME collaboration
A Wickenbrock
Mainz, Germany topological defect magnetic signals
transient
Jena, Germany exotic field detector
1. Berkeley, US
pump
Lewisburg, light
Berkeley, PA, US Krakow, Poland 2. Lewisburg, US
CA, US
Beijing, China atomic vapour 4 5
Hayward, Oberlin, 6 3. Oberlin, US
CA, US OH, US Daejeon, South Korea 1
velocity
Hefei, China polarisation rotation 4. Daejeon, US

Los Angeles, 2
8
CA, US 3
7
5. Beijing, China
Canberra, Australia spin precession 6. Hefei, China

Fribourg, Be’er Sheva,
Switzerland Israel 7. Mainz, Germany
probe light
8. Krakow, Poland
Correlated be distinguished from mundane physics. Optical rotation In a GNOME optical atomic magnetometer,
time now
The Global This idea forms the basis for the Global Network of Optical linearly polarised light optically pumps atomic-spin
Network of Optical Magnetometers to search for Exotic physics (GNOME), an alignment along the light polarisation axis, making the
Magnetometers to international collaboration involving 14 institutions from atomic vapour optically anisotropic. If a transient torque from Benchtop physics The OAM setup at the GNOME station at photons. There is even a possibility of exotic spin-0 or New domains
search for Exotic all over the world (see “Correlated” figure). Such an idea, an exotic field causes the spins to precess, the axis of the optical California State University – East Bay in Hayward, California. spin-1 gravitons: while the graviton for a quantum theory An artist’s
physics (GNOME) like so many others in physics, is not entirely new. The anisotropy, parallel to the spin alignment, also rotates. This of gravity matching that described by general relativity rendition of the
is specifically same concept is at the heart of the worldwide network of causes optical rotation of the light polarisation, which can be collaboration’s search efforts, are ultralight bosonic fields. must be spin-2, alternative gravity theories (for example Earth passing
designed to search interferometers used to observe gravitational waves (LIGO, precisely measured with a polarimeter. A canonical example of an ultralight boson is the axion. torsion gravity and scalar-vector-tensor gravity) predict through a
for global-scale Virgo, GEO, KAGRA, TAMA, CLIO), and the global network The axion emerged from an elegant solution, proposed additional spin-0 and/or spin-1 gravitons. topological defect
transient or of proton-precession magnetometers used to monitor geo- dependent energy shifts by controlling and monitoring an by Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn in the late 1970s, to It also turns out that such ultralight bosons could explain of an axion-like
oscillating events magnetic and solar activity. What distinguishes GNOME ensemble of atomic spins via angular momentum exchange the strong–CP problem. The Peccei–Quinn mechanism dark matter. Most searches for ultralight bosonic dark field in the form of
resulting from from other global sensor networks is that it is specifically between the atoms and light. The high efficiency of optical explains the mystery of why the strong interaction, to the matter assume the bosons to be approximately uniformly a “domain wall”
the coupling dedicated to searching for signals from BSM physics that pumping and probing of atomic spin ensembles, along with highest precision we can measure, respects the combined distributed throughout the dark matter halo that envelopes (left). As various
between atomic have evaded detection in earlier experiments. a wide array of clever techniques to minimise atomic spin CP symmetry whereas quantum chromodynamics naturally the Milky Way. However, in some theoretical scenarios, GNOME stations
spins and GNOME is a growing network of more than a dozen relaxation (even at high atomic vapour densities), have accommodates CP violation at a level ten orders of magni- the ultralight bosons can clump together into bosonic pass through the
beyond-the- optical atomic magnetometers, with stations in Europe, enabled OAMs to achieve sensitivities to spin-dependent tude larger than present constraints. If CP violation in the “stars” due to self-interactions. In other scenarios, due topological defect,
Standard-Model North America, Asia and Australia. The project was pro- energy shifts at levels well below 10–20 eV after only one strong interaction can be described not by a constant term to a non-trivial vacuum energy landscape, the ultralight signals appear in
fields. posed in 2012 by a team of physicists from the University of second of integration. One of the 14 OAM installations, but rather by a dynamical (axion) field, it could be signif- bosons could take the form of “topological” defects, such as the OAM data at
California at Berkeley, Jagiellonian University, California at California State University – East Bay, is shown in the icantly suppressed by spontaneous symmetry breaking domain
topologicalwalls
defectthat separate regions of space
magnetic with different
signals particular times
State University – East Bay, and the Perimeter Institute. “Benchtop physics” image. at a high energy scale. If the symmetry breaking scale is vacuum states of the bosonic field (see “New domains” (right), normalised
velocity
The network started taking preliminary data in 2013, with However, one might wonder: do any of the theoretical at the grand-unification-theory (GUT) scale (~1016 GeV), figure). In either of these cases, the mass-energy associated
1. Berkeley, USA so that the
the first dedicated science-run beginning in 2017. With scenarios suggesting the existence of exotic fields predict the axion mass is around 10-10 eV, and at the Planck scale with ultralight bosonic dark matter would be concentrated apparent signals
2. Lewisburg, USA
more data on the way, the GNOME collaboration, consist- signals detectable by a magnetometer network while also (1019 GeV) around 10-13 eV – both many orders of magnitude in large composite structures that Earth might only occa- have the same
ing of more than 50 scientists from around the world, is evading all existing astrophysical and laboratory con- less massive than even neutrinos. Searching for ultralight sionally encounter, leading to the sort of transient
3. Oberlin, USA signals amplitude
1
presently combing the data for signs of the unexpected, straints? This is not a trivial requirement, since previous axions therefore offers the exciting possibility of probing that GNOME
3 2 is designed to search for. and sign.
with its first results expected later this year. high-precision atomic spectroscopy experiments have physics at the GUT and Planck scales, far beyond the direct Yet another possibility 4. Daejeon,
is that intense bursts USA
of ultra-
7 8
established stringent limits on BSM physics. In fact, OAM reach of any existing collider. light bosonic fields might be generated 5 by cataclysmic
5. Beijing, China
Exotic-physics detectors techniques have been used by a number of research groups astrophysical events such as black-hole
6 mergers. Much
Optical atomic magnetometers (OAMs) are among the most (including our own) over the past several decades to search Beyond the Standard Model of the underlying physics of coalescing
4 singularities
6. Hefei, China is
sensitive devices for measuring magnetic fields. However, for spin-dependent energy shifts caused by exotic fields In addition to the axion, there are a wide range of other unknown, possibly involving quantum-gravity effects far
7. Mainz, Germany
the atomic vapours that are the heart of GNOME’s OAMs sourced by nearby masses or polarised spins. Closely related hypothetical ultralight bosons that couple to atomic spins beyond the reach of high-energy experiments on Earth,
are placed inside multi-layer shielding systems, reducing work has ruled out vast areas of BSM parameter space by and could generate signals potentially detectable with and it turns out that quantum gravity theories generically
8. Krakow, Poland
the effects of external magnetic fields by a factor of more comparing measurements of hyperfine structure in simple GNOME. Many theories predict the existence of spin-0 bos- predict the existence of ultralight bosons. Furthermore,
than a million. Thus, in spite of using extremely sensitive hydrogen-like atoms to QED calculations. Furthermore, if ons with properties similar to the axion (so-called axion- if ultralight bosons exist, they may tend to condense time
in now
magnetometers, GNOME sensors are largely insensitive to exotic fields do exist and couple strongly enough to atomic like particles, ALPs). A prominent example is the relaxion, gravitationally bound halos around black holes. In these
magnetic signals. The reasoning is that many BSM the- spins, they could cause noticeable cooling of stars and proposed by Peter Graham, David Kaplan and Surjeet Rajen- scenarios, a sizable fraction of the energy released when
ories predict the existence of exotic fields that couple to affect the dynamics of supernovae. So far, all laboratory dran to explain the hierarchy problem: the mystery of why black holes merge could plausibly be emitted in the form
atomic spins and would penetrate through magnetic shields experiments have produced null results and all astro- the electroweak force is about 24 orders-of-magnitude of ultralight bosonic fields. If the energy density of the
If such exotic largely unaffected. Since the OAM signal is proportional to physical observations are consistent with the SM. Thus stronger than the gravitational force. In 2010, Asimina ultralight bosonic field is large enough, networks of atomic
fields exist, the spin-dependent energy shift regardless of whether or if such exotic fields exist, their coupling to atomic spins Arvanitaki and colleagues found that string theory suggests sensors like GNOME might be able to detect a signal.
their coupling not a magnetic field causes the energy shift, OAMs – even must be extremely feeble. the existence of many ALPs of widely varying masses, from In order to use OAMs to search for exotic fields, the
to atomic enclosed within magnetic shields – are sensitive to a broad Despite these constraints and requirements, theoret- 10-33 eV to 10-10 eV. From the perspective of BSM theories, effects of environmental magnetic noise must be reduced,
spins must class of exotic fields. ical scenarios both consistent with existing constraints ultralight bosons are ubiquitous. Some predict ALPs such controlled, or cancelled. Even though the GNOME mag-
be extremely The basic principle behind OAM operation (see “Opti- and that predict effects measurable with GNOME do exist. as “familons”, “majorons” and “arions”. Others predict netometers are enclosed in multi-layer magnetic shields
feeble cal rotation” figure) involves optically measuring spin- Prime examples, and the present targets of the GNOME new ultralight spin-1 bosons such as dark and hidden so that signals from external electromagnetic fields are
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_GNOME_v5.indd 26 22/06/2020 19:14 CCJulAug20_GNOME_v5.indd 27 24/06/2020 15:21
www.
FEATURE GNOME
Particle and SUPERCON, Inc.

the signals appearing in different GNOME magnetometers
nuclear Superconducting Wire and Cable

physics
A fach et al. 2018

100 50
are proportional to S∙v. Both the signal-timing pattern and
0 0
Standard and Specialty designs are available to meet your most demanding
Berkeley 1
the signal-amplitude pattern should be consistent with a
–100 –50 single value of v; signals inconsistent with such a pattern
100 50 can be rejected as noise. superconductor requirements.
Find the information you need from IOP Publishing’s
0 0 To claim discovery of a signal heralding BSM physics, world-leading journals and award-winning books
SUPERCON,
programme, alongInc. has been proceedings
producingand niobium-based superconducting wires and cables for half a century.
Berkeley 2
–100 –50 detections must be compared to the background rate of with conference
100
50 spurious false-positive events consistent with the expected
We are the
science newsoriginal SUPERCON
from Physics World. – the world’s first commercial producer of niobium-alloy based wire and
cable for superconducting applications.
0 0 signal pattern but not generated by exotic physics. The
–100
Fribourg false-positive rate can be estimated by analysing time- iopscience.org/particle-and-nuclear-physics
δB (pT)
–50
shifted data: the data stream from each GNOME magneto-
100
50
meter is shifted in time relative to the others by an amount Standard SC Wire Types Product Applications
NbTi Wires Magnetic Resonance Imaging
0 0
Hayward much larger than any delays resulting from propagation
Nb3Sn —Bronze Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
–100 –50
of ultralight bosonic fields through Earth. Such time-
Nb3Sn —Internal Tin High Energy Physics
100 50
shifted data can be assumed to be free of exotic-physics
CuNi resistive matrix wires SC Magnetic Energy Storage
0 0 signals, so any detections are necessarily false positives:
Krakow
–100
Fine diameter SC Wires Medical Therapeutic Devices
–50 merely random coincidences due to noise. When the GNOME
50 data are analysed without timeshifts, to be regarded as
Aluminum clad wire Superconducting Magnets and Coils
100
0 0 an indication of BSM physics, the signal amplitude must
Wire-in-Channel Crystal Growth Magnets
Mainz
–100 –50 surpass the 5 σ threshold as compared to the background
12:00 AM 6:00 AM 12:00 PM 6:00 PM
6/7/2017
12:00 AM 6:00 AM 12:00 PM 6:00 PM
6/7/2017
determined with the time-shifted data. This means that, Innovative composite wires Scientific Projects
date and time date and time for a year-long data set, an event due to noise coinciden-
tally matching the assumed signal pattern throughout the
network would occur only once every 3.5 million years. “We deliver superconductivity!”
Spurious signals significantly suppressed, there is a wide variety of phe-
Sample data for nomena that can mimic the sorts of signals one would Inspiring efforts Contact us at sales@supercon-wire.com
the apparent
magnetic field
expect from ultralight bosonic fields. These include vibra-
tions, laser instabilities, and noise in the circuitry used
Having already collected over a year of data, and with
more on the way, the GNOME collaboration is presently
www.SUPERCON-WIRE.com
deviation from the for data acquisition. To combat these spurious signals, combing the data for signs of BSM physics. New results
ad.indd 1 28/03/2012 09:43
mean (δB) from each GNOME station uses auxiliary sensors to monitor based on recent GNOME science runs are expected in 2020.
several GNOME electromagnetic fields outside the shields (which could This would represent the first ever search for such tran-
stations. The blue leak inside the shields at a far-reduced level), accelerations sient exotic spin-dependent effects. Improvements in
traces (left) show and rotations of the apparatus, and overall magnetometer magnetometer sensitivity, signal characterisation, and
Particle and
the raw data and performance. If the auxiliary sensors indicate data may be data-analysis techniques are expected to improve on these
the red traces suspect, the data are flagged and ignored in the analysis initial results over the next several years. Significantly,
(right) show the (see “Spurious signals” figure). GNOME has inspired similar efforts using other networks
nuclear physics
data after GNOME data that have passed this initial quality check of precision quantum sensors: atomic clocks, interferom-
high-pass and can then be scanned to see if there are signals matching the eters, cavities, superconducting gravimeters, etc. In fact,
notch filters are patterns expected based on various exotic physics hypoth- the results of searches for exotic transient signals using
applied to remove eses. For example, to test the hypothesis that dark matter clock networks have already been reported in the literature,
slow drifts and takes the form of ALP domain walls, one searches for a constraining significant parameter space for various BSM
noise at line signal pattern resulting from the passage of Earth through scenarios. We would suggest that all experimentalists
Find the information you need from IOP
frequencies (50 or an astronomical-sized plane having a finite thickness given should seriously consider accurately time-stamping, stor-
60 Hz). An event by the ALP’s Compton wavelength. The relative velocity ing, and sharing their data so that searches for correlated Publishing’s world-leading journals and
flagged by between the domain wall and Earth is unknown, but can signals due to exotic physics can be conducted a posteriori. award-winning books programme, along with
auxiliary sensors be assumed to be randomly drawn from the velocity distri- One never knows what nature might be hiding just beyond
as spurious is bution of virialised dark matter, having an average speed of the frontier of the precision of past measurements. 
conference proceedings and science news
highlighted in about one thousandth the speed of light. The relative timing from Physics World.
green on the plots of signals appearing in different GNOME magnetometers Further reading
of the data from should be consistent with a single velocity v: i.e. nearby S Afach et al. 2018 Phys. Dark Universe 22 162.
Hayward. stations (in the direction of the wall propagation) should D Budker and A Derevianko 2015 Phys. Today 68 10.
Publish with us
detect signals with smaller delays and stations that are far C Dailey et al. 2020 arXiv:2002.04352. We offer a range of publishing options to suit your
apart should detect signals with larger delays, and further- A Derevianko and M Pospelov 2014 Nat. Phys. 10 933. needs, ensuring that your work gets the attention that
more the time delays should occur in a sensible sequence. D F Jackson Kimball et al. 2018 Phys. Rev. D 97 043002.
The energy shift that could lead to a detectable signal in H Masia-Roig et al. 2020 Phys. Dark Universe 28 100494.
it deserves.
GNOME magnetometers is caused by an interaction of the M Pospelov et al. 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 021803.
domain-wall field φ with the atomic spin S whose strength is S Pustelny et al. 2013 Annalen der Physik 525 659. iopscience.org/particle-and-nuclear-physics
proportional to the scalar product of the spin with the gra- B M Roberts et al. 2017 Nat. Commun. 8 1.
dient of the field, S∙∇φ. The gradient of the domain-wall field M S Safronova et al. 2018 Rev. Mod. Phys. 90 025008.
∇φ is proportional to its momentum relative to S, and hence P Wcisło et al. 2016 Nat. Astron. 1 1.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_GNOME_v5.indd 28 22/06/2020 19:17
www.
NEWS UPDATE!
Best
Best Cyclotron
Cyclotron Systems
Systems off
offers
ers aa large
large family
family of
of cyclotron
cyclotron designs
designs with
with aa broad
broad energy
energy range
range Best
Best Particle
Particle Therapy
Therapy is
is developing
developing aa Best
Best Medical
Medical International
International signed
signed aa
from
from 11 MeV
MeV to
to 150
150 MeV
MeV that
that can
can be be confi
configured
gured and
and optimized
optimized for
for diff
different
erent applications.
applications. Proton-to-Carbon
Proton-to-Carbon therapy
therapy system
system toto deliver
deliver Memorandum
Memorandum of of Understanding
Understanding with
with
Best
Best 20u
20u to
to 25
25 MeV
MeV and
and 30u
30u to
to 35
35 MeV
MeV are
are fully
fully upgradeable
upgradeable on
on site.
site. energetic
energetic particle
particle beams
beams ofof protons
protons and
and
University
University of
of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Medical
Medical Radiation
Radiation
carbon
carbon ions,
ions, achieving
achieving aa high
high level
level of
of
Research
Research Center
Center (UWMRRC)
(UWMRRC) toto develop
develop
1–3
1–3 MeV
MeV Deuterons
Deuteronsfor
formaterials
materialsanalysis
analysis(Patent
(PatentPending)
Pending) precision
precision to
to treat
treat deep-seated
deep-seated as as well
well as
as
radiation-resistant
radiation-resistant tumors.
tumors.
Revolutionary
Revolutionary New
New Carbon
Carbon Therapy
Therapy
NEW
NEW Best
Best Cyclotrons
Cyclotrons 70–150
70–150 MeV
MeV For
ForProton
ProtonTherapy
Therapy(Patent
(PatentPending)
Pending)
3–90
3–90 MeV
MeV High
Highcurrent
currentproton
protonbeams
beamsfor
forneutron
neutronproduction
productionand
anddelivery
delivery(Patent
(PatentPending)
Pending) Visit
Visit the
the link
link below
below to
to read
read more:
more:
Best
Best 15p
15p Cyclotron
Cyclotron 15
15 MeV
MeV Proton
Protononly,
only,capable
capableofofhigh
highcurrent
currentup
upto
to1000
1000Micro
MicroAmps,
Amps,for
formedical
medicalradioisotopes
radioisotopes 400
400 MeV
MeV ion
ion Rapid
Rapid Cycling
Cycling Medical
Medical Synchrotron
Synchrotron http://www.teambest.com/news_press.html
http://www.teambest.com/news_press.html
for
for Proton-to-Carbon
Proton-to-Carbon Heavy
Heavy Ion
Ion Therapy:
Therapy:
Best
Best 20u/25p
20u/25p Cyclotrons
Cyclotrons 20,
20, 25–15
25–15 MeV
MeV Proton
Protononly,
only,capable
capableofofhigh
highcurrent
currentup
upto
to1000
1000Micro
MicroAmps,
Amps,for
formedical
radioisotopes
Best
Best 30u/35p
30u/35p Cyclotrons
Cyclotrons 30,
30, 35–15
35–15 MeV
MeV Proton
Protononly,
only,capable
capableofofhigh
highcurrent
currentup
upto
to1000
1000Micro
MicroAmps,
Amps,for
formedical
radioisotopes Intrinsically
Intrinsically small
small beams
beams facilitating
facilitating beam
beam
delivery
delivery with
with precision
precision
Best
Best 70p
70p Cyclotron
Cyclotron 70–35
70–35 MeV
MeV Proton
Protononly,
only,capable
capableofofhigh
highcurrent
currentup
upto
to1000
1000Micro
MicroAmps,
Amps,for
formedical
radioisotopes
From
From 70
70 MeV
MeV
Small
Small beam
beam sizes
sizes –– small
small magnets,
magnets, light
light
For
Forall
allMedical
MedicalTreatments
Treatmentsincluding
includingBenign
Benignand
andMalignant
MalignantTumors
Tumorsfor
forNeurological,
Neurological,Eye,
Eye, gantries
gantries –– smaller
smaller footprint
footprint
Best
Best 150p
150p Cyclotron
Cyclotron up
up to
to 150
150 MeV
MeV
(non-variable)
(non-variable) Head/Neck,
Head/Neck,Pediatric,
Pediatric,Lung
LungCancers,
Cancers,Vascular/Cardiac/Stenosis
Vascular/Cardiac/Stenosis/Ablation,
/Ablation,etc.
etc.(Patent
(PatentPending)
Pending)
Highly
Highly effi
efficient
cient single
single turn
turn extraction
extraction
400
400 MeV
MeV ion
ion Rapid
Rapid Cycling
Cycling Medical
Medical Synchrotron
Synchrotron (iRCMS)
(iRCMS)
Effi
Efficient
cient extraction
extraction –– less
less shielding
shielding
Flexibility
Flexibility –– heavy
heavy ion
ion beam
beam therapy
therapy (protons
(protons
and/or
and/or carbon),
carbon), beam
beam delivery
delivery modalities
modalities
COMING
COMING SOON!
SOON! Best
Best™™ Particle
Particle Therapy
Therapy
Best
Best Proton
ProtonTherapy
Therapy Cyclotron
Cyclotron up
up to
to 150
150 MeV
MeV Upgradeable
Upgradeable Single
Single && Multi-Room
Multi-Room
Installation
Installation of
of Best
Best 70
70 MeV
MeV dedicated
dedicated for
for proton
proton therapy
therapy with
with two
two beam
beam Synchrotrons,
Synchrotrons, Proton-to-Carbon
Proton-to-Carbon Variable
Variable
Cyclotron
Cyclotron at
at INFN,
INFN, Legnaro,
Legnaro, Italy
Italy lines
lines and
and two
two treatment
treatment rooms
rooms (Patent
(Patent Pending)
Pending) Energy
Energy with
with or
or without
without Gantries
Gantries
PARTICLE
PARTICLE
THERAPY
THERAPY
NUCLEAR
NUCLEAR
PHARMACY
PHARMACY
NUCLEAR
NUCLEAR
The
The BG-75
BG-75 Biomarker
Biomarker Generator
Generator MEDICINE
MEDICINE Upgradeable
Upgradeable
integrates
integrates aa compact
compact mini-cyclotron,
mini-cyclotron, Single
Single Room
Room
automated
automated radiochemistry
radiochemistry and
and quality
quality Solution
Solution
control,
control, simplifying
simplifying in-house
in-house production
production
of
of 18
18
F-FDG
F-FDG and
and advanced
advanced biomarkers.
biomarkers.
•• Push
Push button
button graphic
graphic interface
interface
•• Kit
Kit based
based chemistry
chemistry TELETHERAPY
TELETHERAPY
•• Single
Single or
or batch
batch dose
dose production
production PATIENT
PATIENT PREP
PREP
BRACHYTHERAPY
BRACHYTHERAPY
•• Final
Final dose
dose delivery
delivery to
to syringe
syringe or or vial
vial (option)
(option)
•• Automated
Automated quality
quality control
control testing
testing Multi-Room
Multi-Room Solution
Solution
•• Integrated
Integrated cyclotron
cyclotron && chemistry
chemistry self-shielding
self-shielding
•• Complete
Complete production
production lablab in
in aa 55 xx 55 meter
meter area
area BEST
BEST RADIATION
RADIATION THERAPY
THERAPY &
& DIAGNOSTIC
DIAGNOSTIC CENTER
CENTER
Best
Best Medical
Medical International,
International, Inc.
Inc. 7643
7643 Fullerton
Fullerton Road,Road, Springfield,VA
Springfield,VA 2215322153 USA USA
www.bestcyclotron.com • www.bestabt.com • www.bestproton.com 703
703 451
451 2378
TeamBest
TeamBest 2378
Companies800
800©
Companies ©336
336 4970
4970 **www.bestmedical.com
2020
2020 www.bestmedical.com
Best
Best iRCMS
iRCMS isis under developmentwww.teambest.com
under development www.teambest.com
and
and not
not available
available for
for sale
sale currently.
currently.
BCS tel: 604 681 3327 • Best ABT tel: 865 982 0098 • BPT tel: 703 451 2378
CERNCOURIER
www.
FEATURE NEUTRINOS
TUNING IN TO NEUTRINOS
A new generation of accelerator and reactor experiments is opening an era of high-precision neutrino measurements to tackle questions
such as leptonic CP violation, the mass hierarchy and the possibility of a fourth “sterile” neutrino, writes Mark Rayner.
I
n traditional Balinese music, instruments are made experiments span more than four orders of magnitude in
in pairs, with one tuned slightly higher in frequency size and energy and fall into three groups (see “Not natural”
than its twin. The notes are indistinguishable to the figure on p34). Much of the limelight is taken by experiments
2
human ear when played together, but the sound recedes that are sensitive to the large mass splitting ∆m32 , which
and swells a couple of times each second, encouraging include both a cluster of current (such as T2K) and future
meditation. This is a beating effect: fast oscillations at (such as DUNE) accelerator-neutrino experiments with long
the mean frequency inside a slowly oscillating envelope. baselines and high energies, and a high-performing trio of
Similar physics is at play in neutrino oscillations. Rather reactor-neutrino experiments (Daya Bay, RENO and Double
than sound intensity, it’s the probability to observe a neu- Chooz) with a baseline of about a kilometre, operating just
trino with its initial flavour that oscillates. The difference above the threshold for inverse beta decay. The second
is how long it takes for the interference to make itself group is a beautiful pair of long-baseline reactor-neutrino
felt. When Balinese musicians strike a pair of metallo- experiments (KamLAND and the soon-to-be-commissioned
phones, the notes take just a handful of periods to drift JUNO), which join experiments with
out of phase. By contrast, it takes more than 1020 de Broglie solar neutrinos in having sensitivity The zeitgeist
wavelengths and hundreds of kilometres for neutrinos to to the smaller squared-mass splitting
oscillate in experiments like the planned mega-projects ∆m212
. Finally, the third group is a hostbegan to shift to
Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE.
Neutrino oscillations revealed a rare chink in the armour
of short-baseline accelerator-neutrino
experiments and very-short-base-
artificially produced
of the Standard Model: neutrinos are not massless, but are
evolving superpositions of at least three mass eigenstates
line reactor neutrino experiments
that are chasing tantalising hints of
neutrinos
with distinct energies. A neutrino is therefore like three a fourth “sterile” neutrino (with no
notes played together: frequencies so close, given the as-yet Standard-Model gauge interactions), which is split from
immeasurably small masses involved, that they are not the others by a squared-mass splitting of the order of 1 eV2.
just indistinguishable to the ear, but inseparable accord-
ing to the uncertainty principle. As neutrinos are always Artificial sources
ultra-relativistic, the energies of the mass eigenstates differ Experiments with artificial sources of neutrinos have a
only due to tiny mass contributions of m 2/2E. As the mass storied history, dating from the 1950s, when physicists toyed
eigenstates propagate, phase differences develop between with the idea of detecting neutrinos created in the explosion
them proportional to squared-mass splittings ∆ m 2. The of a nuclear bomb, and eventually observed them stream-
sought-after oscillations range from a few metres to the ing from nuclear reactors. The 1960s saw the invention
diameter of Earth. of the accelerator neutrino. Here, proton beams smashed
into fixed targets to create a decaying debris of charged
Orthogonal mixtures pions and their concomitant muon neutrinos. The 1970s
The neutrino physics of the latter third of the 20th century transformed these neutrinos into beams by focusing the
was bookended by two anomalies that uncloaked these charged pions with magnetic horns, leading to the discovery
effects. In 1968 Ray Davis’s observation of a deficit of solar Golden opportunity Liquid-argon time-projection chambers can serve as both target and tracker for neutrino interactions. Here, an engineer is of weak neutral currents and insights into the structure of
neutrinos prompted Bruno Pontecorvo to make public his pictured adjusting the charge-readout plane of the DUNE experiment’s dual-phase prototype detector at CERN. nucleons. It was not until the turn of the century, however,
conjecture that neutrinos might oscillate. Thirty years that the zeitgeist of neutrino-oscillation studies began
later, the Super-Kamiokande collaboration’s analysis of “Little and large” figure, p34). It is not yet known if ν3 is entries, which could signal the breaking of CP symmetry,” to shift from naturally to artificially produced neutrinos.
a deficit of atmospheric muon neutrinos from the other the lightest or the heaviest of the trio. This is called the she explains. “The very different mixing patterns in quarks Just a year after the publication of the Super-Kamiokande
side of the planet posthumously vindicated the visionary mass-hierarchy problem. and leptons could hint at a symmetry relating families, and collaboration’s seminal 1998 paper on atmospheric–
Italian, and later Soviet, theorist’s speculation. Subsequent “In the first two decades of the 21st century we have a more accurate exploration of the lepton-mixing pattern neutrino oscillations, Japanese experimenters trained a
observations have revealed that electron, muon and tau achieved a rather accurate picture of neutrino masses and and the neutrino ordering in future experiments will be new accelerator-neutrino beam on the detector.
neutrinos are orthogonal mixtures of mass eigenstates mixings,” says theorist Pilar Hernández of the University of essential to reveal any such symmetry pattern.” Operating from 1999 to 2006, the KEK-to-Kamioka (K2K)
THE AUTHOR ν1 and ν2, separated by a small so-called solar splitting Valencia, “but the ordering of the neutrino states is unknown, Today, experiments designed to constrain neutrino mix- experiment sent a beam of muon neutrinos from the KEK
2
Mark Rayner ∆m21 , and ν3, which is separated from that pair by a larger the mass of the lightest state is unknown and we still do ing tend to dispense with astrophysical neutrinos in favour laboratory in Tsukuba to the Super-Kamiokande detec-
2
associate editor. “atmospheric” splitting usually quantified by ∆ m 32 (see not know if the neutrino mixing matrix has imaginary of more controllable accelerator and reactor sources. The tor, 250 km away under Mount Ikeno on the other side of
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NEUTRINOS_v5.indd 32 24/06/2020 11:11 CCJulAug20_NEUTRINOS_v5.indd 33 24/06/2020 11:12
www.
FEATURE NEUTRINOS FEATURE NEUTRINOS
from Fermilab to northern Minnesota from 2005 to 2012, Not super

B Kayser
Hy per-Kamiokande
normal hierarchy inverted hierarchy
made world-leading measurements of the parameters but hyper
ν3 ν2
describing the oscillation. A visualisation of
ν1 With νμ → ν τ oscillations established, the next generation the Hyper-
of experiments innovated in search of a subtler effect. Kamiokande
T2K (K2K’s successor, with the beam now originating at detector – a
(mass)2 J-PARC in Tokai) and NOvA (which analyses oscillations 260,000 tonne
over the longer baseline of 810 km between Fermilab and gadolinium-doped
Ash River, Minnesota) both have far detectors offset by water-Cherenkov
ν2
a few degrees from the direction of the peak flux of the detector with a
ν1 ν3 beams. This squeezes the phase space for the pion decays, fiducial volume
resulting in an almost mono-energetic flux of neutrinos. 8.4 times greater
Here, a quirk of the mixing conspires to make the musical than its
νe [|Uei|2] νμ [|Uμi|2] ντ [|Uτi|2] analogy of a pair of metallophones particularly strong: to a predecessor.
good approximation, the muon neutrinos ring out with two Excavation of
2
Little and large A narrow splitting between neutrino mass eigenstates, ∆m21 , frequencies of roughly equal amplitude, to yield an almost the cavern has
–5 2 2
is known to be about +7.4 × 10 eV , and a larger splitting, ∆m32 , is known to be perfect disappearance of muon neutrinos – and maximum already begun.
approximately 2.5 × 10–3 eV 2 in magnitude, though its sign is unknown. The colours sensitivity to the appearance of electron neutrinos.
roughly indicate coupling to the charged leptons.
Testing CP symmetry
M Ray ner
maximum sensitivity to Δm2 = 10 eV2 1 eV2 0.1 eV2 10–2 eV2 The three neutrino mass eigenstates mix to make electron,
emulsion neutrino factory muon and tau neutrinos according to the Pontecorvo–
plastic scintillator OPERA ICARUS Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata (PMNS) matrix, which describes
10 GeV water MINOS+ 10–3 eV2 three rotations and a complex phase δCP that can cause
liquid argon charge–parity (CP) violation – a question of paramount δCP does not affect disappearance probabilities. By switch- The next generation
liquid scintillator MINOS
DUNE importance in the field due to its relevance to the unknown ing the polarity of the magnetic horn, the experiments can Two long-baseline accelerator-neutrino experiments
magnetised iron
K2K NOvA 10–4 eV2 origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the uni- compare the probabilities for the CP-mirror oscillations roughly an order of magnitude larger in cost and detector
1 GeV SBND MicroBooNE verse (see p40). Whatever the value of the complex phase, νμ → νe and – – directly. NOvA data are inconclusive at
ν μ → ν mass than T2K and NOvA have received green lights from
ICARUS e
T2K
neutrino energy
SciBooNE MiniBooNE
ND280 leptonic CP violation can only be observed if all three of present. T2K data currently err towards near maximal CP the Japanese and US governments: Hyper-Kamiokande
Hyper-Kamiokande the angles in the PMNS matrix are non-zero. Experiments violation in the vicinity of δCP = –π/2. The latest analysis, and DUNE. One of their primary missions is to resolve the
10–5 eV2 with atmospheric and solar neutrinos demonstrated this published in April, disfavours leptonic CP conservation question of leptonic CP violation.
100 MeV
for two of the angles. At the beginning of the last decade, (δ CP = 0, ±π) at 2 σ significance for all possible mixing Hyper-Kamiokande will adopt the same approach as T2K,
KARMEN
LSND short-baseline reactor-neutrino experiments in China parameter values (see p8). Statistical uncertainty is the but will benefit from major upgrades to the beam and the
Δm 2
32
Δm 2
2
21
JSNS (Daya Bay), Korea (RENO) and France (Double Chooz) were biggest limiting factor. near and far detectors in addition to those currently under-
10 MeV
accelerator
neutrinos
in a race with T2K to establish if the third angle, which Major upgrades planned for T2K next year target sta- way in the present T2K upgrade. To improve the treatment of
reactor leads to a coupling between ν3 and electrons, was also tistical, interaction-model and detector uncertainties. systematic errors, the suite of near detectors will be comple-
neutrinos
non-zero. In the reactor experiments this would be seen A substantial increase in beam intensity will be accom- mented by an ingenious new gadolinated water-Cherenkov
PROSPECT DANSS Double Chooz
SoLid NEOS Daya Bay KamLAND as a small deficit of electron antineutrinos a kilometre or panied by a new fine-grained scintillating target for the detector at an intermediate baseline: by spanning a range
Neutrino-4 STEREO RENO JUNO
1 MeV so from the reactors; in T2K the smoking gun would be the ND280 near-detector complex, which will lower the energy of off-axis angles, it will drive down interaction-model
appearance of a small number of electron neutrinos not threshold to reconstruct tracks. New transverse TPCs will systematics by exploiting previously neglected informa-
1m 10 m 100 m 1 km 10 km 100 km 103 km 104 km
present in the initial muon-neutrino-dominated beam. improve ND280’s acceptance at high angles, yielding a bet- tion on the how the flux varies as a function of the angle
oscillation distance
After data taking was cut short by the great Sendai earth- ter cancellation of systematic errors with the far detector, relative to the centre of the beam. Hyper-Kamiokande’s
Not natural Neutrino-oscillation experiments using neutrinos from nuclear quake and tsunami of March 2011, T2K published evidence Super-Kamiokande, which is being upgraded by loading increased statistical reach will also be impressive. The
reactors or accelerator beams, as a function of the distance from source to detector for the appearance of six electron-neutrino events, over the 0.01% gadolinium salts into the otherwise ultrapure water. power of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex
and the peak energy of the neutrinos. Open markers indicate future projects expected background of 1.5 ± 0.3 in the case of no coupling. As in reactor-neutrino detectors, this will provide a tag (J-PARC) beam will be increased from its current value of
(for detectors in excess of 5 kton, the area of the marker is proportional to the Alongside a single tau-neutrino candidate in OPERA, these for antineutrino events, to improve sample purities in the 0.5 MW up to 1.3 MW, and the new far detector will be filled
detector mass) and italics indicate completed experiments. The experiments are were the first neutrinos seen to appear in a detector with search for leptonic CP violation. with 260,000 tonnes of ultrapure water, yielding a fiducial
coloured according to target material. The “magic-baseline” neutrino factory a new flavour, as previous signals had always registered a T2K and NOvA both plan to roughly double their current volume 8.4 times larger than that of Super-Kamiokande.
proposed in the 2011 international design study is plotted for reference. deficit of an expected flavour. In the closing days of the year, data sets, and are working together on a joint fit, in a bid to Procurement of the photo-multiplier tubes will begin this
Double Chooz published evidence for 4121 electron–anti- better understand correlations between systematic uncer- year, and the five-year-long excavation of the cavern has
Honshu. K2K confirmed that muon neutrinos “disappear” as neutrino events, under the expected tally for no coupling tainties, and break degeneracies between measurements already begun. Data taking is scheduled to commence
Muon
a function of propagation distance over energy. The exper- of 4344 ± 165, reinforcing T2K’s 2.5σ indication. Daya Bay of CP violation and the mass hierarchy. If the CP-violating in 2027. “The expected precision on δCP is 10–20 degrees,
neutrinos ring
iments together supported the hypothesis of an oscillation and RENO put the matter to bed the following spring, with phase is indeed maximal, as suggested by the recent T2K depending on its true value,” says Hyper-Kamiokande
out with two
to tau neutrinos, which could not be directly detected at 5σ evidence apiece that the ν3-electron coupling was indeed result, the experiments may be able to exclude CP con- international co-spokesperson Francesca di Lodovico of
that energy. By increasing the beam energy well above the non-zero. The key innovation for the reactor experiments servation with more than 99% confidence. “At this point King’s College, London.
frequencies of
tau-lepton mass, the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) was to minimise troublesome flux and interaction sys- we will be in a transition from a statistics-dominated to In the US, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment roughly equal
project, which ran from 2006 to 2012, confirmed the oscil- tematics by also placing detectors close to the reactors. a systematics-dominated result,” says T2K spokesperson (DUNE) will exploit the liquid-argon–TPC technology amplitude,
lation to tau neutrinos by directly observing tau leptons in Since then, T2K and NOvA, which began taking data Atsuko Ichikawa of the University of Kyoto. “It is difficult to first deployed on a large scale by ICARUS – OPERA’s sister to yield
the OPERA detector. Meanwhile, the Main Injector Neutrino in 2014, have been chasing leptonic CP violation – an say, but our sensitivity will likely be limited at this stage by detector in the CNGS project. The idea for the technology almost perfect
Oscillation Search (MINOS), which sent muon neutrinos analysis that is out of the reach of reactor experiments, as a convolution of neutrino-interaction and flux systematics.” dates back to 1977, when Carlo Rubbia proposed using liquid disappearance
CERNCOURIER
www.
FEATURE NEUTRINOS FEATURE NEUTRINOS

VISOSim/R Haidari and X Lu
JUNO
JUNO
2000 days of data taking
120 no oscillations
only solar term
normal hiearchy
100 inverted hierarchy
thousands of events per MeV

80
60 sin2 2θ12
sin2 2θ13
40
20 2
Δm21
2 Δm32
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
E–νe (MeV)
An oscillation within an oscillation Left: the evolution of the fraction of each flavour in the wavefunction of electron antineutrinos as they
2
traverse the 5 3 km from a nuclear reactor to the JUNO detector at three different energies. The fine oscillations due to ∆m32 are plotted coiling in
the sense corresponding to the normal mass hierarchy. The evolution of a muon neutrino in the T2K experiment is plotted for reference.
Right: JUNO plans to distinguish the mass hierarchy through exquisite energy resolution.
rather than gaseous argon as a drift medium for ionisa- this decade. Work on the near-detector site and the “PIP-II” will also encompass proton decay, high-precision meas- accelerator or atmospheric neutrinos,” says spokesperson Call to ordering
tion electrons. Given liquid-argon’s higher density, such upgrade to Fermilab’s accelerator complex began last year. urements of solar neutrinos, supernova-relic neutrinos, Yifang Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Excavation of the
detectors can serve as both target and tracker, providing Though similar to Hyper-Kamiokande at first glance, dark-matter searches, the possible detection of solar-flare “In six years of data taking, the statistical significance will cavern for the
high-resolution 3D images of the interactions – an inval- DUNE’s approach is distinct and complementary. With beam neutrinos and neutrino geophysics.” be higher than 3σ.” JUNO experiment,
uable tool for reducing systematics related to the murky energy and baseline both four times greater, DUNE will have Half a century since Ray Davis and two co-authors JUNO has completed most of the digging of the under- a 20 kton
world of neutrino–nucleus interactions. greater sensitivity to flavour-dependent coherent-forward- published evidence for a 60% deficit in the flux of solar ground laboratory, and equipment for the production and liquid-scintillator
scattering with electrons in Earth’s crust – an effect that neutrinos compared to John Bahcall’s prediction, DUNE purification of liquid scintillator is being fabricated. A total detector located
Spectacular performance modifies oscillation probabilities differently depending already boasts more than a thousand collaborators, and of 18,000 20-inch photomultiplier tubes and 26,000 3-inch 700 m beneath the
The technolog y is currently being developed in two on the mass hierarchy. With the Fermilab beam directed Hyper-Kamiokande’s detector mass is set to be 500 times photomultiplier tubes have been delivered, and most of Dashi hill in
prototype detectors at CERN. The first hones ICARUS’s straight at the detector rather than off-axis, a broader greater than Davis’s tank of liquid tetrachloroethylene. them have been tested and accepted, explains Wang. The Guangdong,
single-phase approach. “The performance of the proto- range of neutrino energies will allow DUNE to observe the If Ray Davis was the conductor who set the orchestra in installation of the detector is scheduled to begin next year. China, is almost
type has been absolutely spectacular, exceeding everyone’s oscillation pattern from the first to the second oscillation motion, then these large experiments fill out the massed JUNO will arguably be at the vanguard of a precision era for complete.
expectations,” says DUNE co-spokesperson Ed Blucher of maximum, and simultaneously fit all but the solar mixing ranks of the violin section, poised to deliver what may well the physics of neutrino oscillations, equipped to measure the
the University of Chicago. “After almost two years of oper- parameters. And with detector, flux and interaction uncer- be the most stirring passage of the neutrino-oscillation mass splittings and the solar mixing parameters to better
ation, we are confident that the liquid–argon technology is tainties all distinct, a joint analysis of both experiments’ symphony. But other sections of the orchestra also have than 1% precision – an improvement of about one order
ready to be deployed at the huge scale of the DUNE detec- data could break degeneracies and drive down systematics. important parts to play. of magnitude over previous results, and even better than
tors.” In parallel, the second prototype is testing a newer “If CP violation is maximal and the experiments collect the quark sector, claims Wang, somewhat provocatively.
dual-phase concept. In this design, ionisation charges data as anticipated, DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande should Mass hierarchy “JUNO’s capabilities for supernova-burst neutrinos, diffused
drift through an additional layer of gaseous argon before both approach 5σ significance for the exclusion of lep- The question of the neutrino mass hierarchy will soon supernova neutrinos and geoneutrinos are unprecedented,
reaching the readout plane. The signal can be amplified tonic CP conservation in about five years,” estimates DUNE be addressed by the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino and it can be upgraded to be a world-best double-beta-decay
here, potentially easing noise requirements for the read- co-spokesperson Stefan Söldner-Rembold of the University Observatory (JUNO) experiment, which is currently under detector once the mass hierarchy is measured.”
out electronics, and increasing the maximum size of the of Manchester, noting that the experiments will also be construction in China. The project is an evolution of the With JUNO, Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE now joining
detector. The dual-phase prototype was filled with argon highly complementary for non-accelerator topics. The most Daya Bay experiment, and will seek to measure a deficit a growing ensemble of experiments, the unresolved leit-
in summer 2019 and is now recording tracks. striking example is supernova-burst neutrinos, he says, of electron antineutrinos 53 km from the Yangjiang and motifs of the three-neutrino paradigm may find resolution
A rich
The final detectors will have about twice the height and referring to a genre of neutrinos only observed once so far, Taishan nuclear-power plants. As the reactor neutrinos this decade, or soon after. But theory and experiment both
programme of
10 to 20 times the footprint. Following the construction of during 15 seconds in 1987, when neutrinos from a supernova travel, the small kilometre-scale oscillation observed by hint, quite independently, that nature may have a scherzo
short-baseline
an initial single-phase unit, the DUNE collaboration will in the Large Magellanic Cloud passed through the Earth. Daya Bay will continue to undulate with the same wave- twist in store before the grand finale.
experiments likely pick a mix of liquid-argon technologies to complete “While DUNE is primarily sensitive to electron neutrinos, length, revealed in JUNO as “fast” oscillations on a slower A rich programme of short-baseline experiments prom-
promises their roster of four 10 kton far-detector modules, set to be Hyper-Kamiokande will be sensitive to electron antineu- and deeper first oscillation maximum due to the smaller ises to bolster or exclude experimental hints of a fourth
to confirm installed a kilometre underground at the Sanford Under- trinos. The difference between the timing distributions of solar mass splitting ∆ m212
(see “An oscillation within an sterile neutrino with a relatively large mixing with the
or exclude ground Research Laboratory in Lead, South Dakota. Site these samples encodes key information about the dynamics oscillation” figure). electron neutrino that have dogged the field since the late
hints of a preparation and pre-excavation activities began in 2017, of the supernova explosion.” Hyper-Kamiokande spokes- “JUNO can determine the neutrino mass hierarchy in an 1990s. Four anomalies stack up as more or less consist-
fourth sterile and full excavation work is expected to begin soon, with person Masato Shiozawa of ICRR Tokyo also emphasises unambiguous and definite way, independent from the CP ent among themselves. The first, which emerged in the
neutrino the goal that data-taking begin during the second half of the broad scope of the physics programmes. “Our studies phase and matter effects, unlike other experiments using mid-1990s at Los Alamos’s Liquid Scintillator Neutrino
CERNCOURIER
www.
FEATURE NEUTRINOS
TPCs – a bespoke new short-baseline detector (SBND), the

Fermilab
existing MicroBooNE detector, and the refurbished ICARUS

detector – to resolve the LSND anomaly once and for all.
SBND is currently under construction, MicroBooNE is oper-
ational, and ICARUS, removed from its berth at Gran Sasso
and shipped to the US in 2017, has been installed at Fermilab,
following work on the detector at CERN. “The short-baseline
neutrino programme at Fermilab has made tremendous
technical progress in the past year,” says ICARUS spokes-
person and Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, noting that the
detector will be commissioned as soon as circumstances
allow, given the coronavirus pandemic. “Once both ICARUS
and SBND are in operation, it will take less than three years
with the nominal beam intensity to settle the question of
whether neutrinos have an even more mysterious character
than we thought.”
Outside of the purview of oscillation experiments with
artificially produced neutrinos, astrophysical observatories
will scale a staggering energy range, from the PeV-scale
neutrinos reported by IceCube at the South Pole, down,
perhaps, to the few-hundred-μeV cosmic neutrino back-
ground sought by experiments such as PTOLEMY in the
US. Meanwhile, the KATRIN experiment in Germany is Discovery science - Magnet UHV chamber
Sterile Detector (LSND), is an excess of electron antineutrinos zeroing in on the edges of beta-decay distributions to set an
suggestion that is potentially consistent with oscillations involving a absolute scale for the mass of the peculiar mixture of mass
In 2018 the sterile neutrino at a mass splitting ∆m2 ∼ 1 eV2. Two other eigenstates that make up an electron antineutrino (CERN
MiniBooNE quite disparate anomalies since then – a few-percent Courier January/February 2020 p28). At the same time, a host
collaboration deficit in the expected flux from nuclear reactors, and a of experiments are searching for neutrinoless double-beta
reported evidence deficit in the number of electron neutrinos from radio- decay – a process that can only occur if the neutrino is its
for an excess active decays in liquid-gallium solar-neutrino detectors own antiparticle. Discovering such a Majorana nature for
381.2 ± 85.2 – could be explained in the same way. The fourth anomaly, the neutrino would turn the Standard Model on its head,
electron–neutrino from Fermilab’s MiniBooNE experiment, which sought and offer grist for the mill of theorists seeking to explain
events in their to replicate the LSND effect at a longer baseline and a the tininess of neutrino masses, by balancing them against
detector higher energy, is the most recent: a sizeable excess of still-to-be-discovered heavy neutral leptons.
(pictured), both electron neutrinos and antineutrinos, though at a
compared to lower energy than expected. It’s important to note, how- Indispensable input
expected rates. ever, that experiments including KARMEN, MINOS+ and According to Mikhail Shaposhnikov of the Swiss Federal
IceCube have reported null searches for sterile neutrinos Institute of Technology in Lausanne, current and future
that fit the required description. Such a particle would reactor- and accelerator-neutrino experiments will provide
also stand in tension with cosmology, notes phenome- an indispensable input for understanding neutrino physics.
nologist Silvia Pascoli of Durham University, as models And not in isolation. “To reach a complete picture, we also
predict it would make too large a contribution to hot need to know the mechanism for neutrino-mass genera-
dark matter in the universe today, unless non-standard tion and its energy scale, and the most important question
scenarios are invoked. here is the scale of masses of new neutrino states: if lighter
Three different types of experiment covering three than a few GeV, these particles can be searched for at new
orders of magnitude in baseline are now seeking to settle experiments at the intensity frontier, such as SHiP, and at
the sterile-neutrino question in the next decade. A smat- precision experiments looking for rare decays of mesons,
tering of reactor-neutrino experiments a mere 10 metres or such as Belle II, LHCb and NA62, while the heavier states
so from the source will directly probe the reactor anomaly may be accessible at ATLAS and CMS, and at future circular
at ∆ m 2 ∼ 1 eV 2 . The data reported so far are intriguing. colliders,” explains Shaposhnikov. “These new particles
Korea’s NEOS experiment and Russia’s DANSS experiment can be the key in solving all the observational problems
report siren signals between 1 and 2 eV2, and NEUTRINO-4, of the Standard Model, and require a consolidated effort
also based in Russia, reports a seemingly outlandish sig- of neutrino experiments, accelerator-based experiments
nal, indicative of very large mixing, at 7 eV 2. In parallel, and cosmological observations. Of course, it remains to be
J-PARC’s JSNS2 experiment is gearing up to try to reproduce seen if this dream scenario can indeed be realised in the
the LSND effect using accelerator neutrinos at the same coming 20 years.”  Quality Production
energy and baseline. Finally, Fermilab’s short-baseline
programme will thoroughly address a notable weakness Further reading
of both LSND and MiniBooNE: the lack of a near detector. F Close 2012 Neutrino Oxford University Press.
The Fermilab programme will combine three liquid-argon C Giunti and T Lasserre 2019 Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 69 163.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NEUTRINOS_v5.indd 38 24/06/2020 11:18
www.
FEATURE LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION FEATURE LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION
hypothesis that this violation arises from a single complex Fig. 1. All the
THE SEARCH FOR

phase in the quark mixing matrix. This matrix gives the 1.5 experimental
exclu
excluded area has CL > 0.95
ded
amplitude for any particular negatively-charged quark, constraints on the
at
γ
CL >
whether down, strange or bottom, to convert via a weak quark-mixing
0.9
1.0
5
Δmd & Δms
interaction into any particular positively-charged quark, parameters
LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION
sin 2β
be it up, charm or top. Just two parameters in the quark relating to CP
0.5
mixing matrix, ρ and η, whose relative size determines the Δmd violation intersect
complex phase, account very successfully for numerous εK α
at a single point
quark phenomena, including both CP-violating ones and γ β at the apex of
0.0
α
others. This is impressively demonstrated by a plot of all –
η the black triangle.
the experimental constraints on these two parameters |Vub| α (Reproduced
–0.5
(figure 1). All the constraints intersect at a common point. from PDG Phys.
Of course, precisely which (ρ, η) point is consistent with Rev. D 2018 98
all the data is not important. Lincoln Wolfenstein, who –1.0 εK 030001 p234)
created the quark-mixing-matrix parametrisation that γ sol. w/cos 2β < 0
(excl. at CL > 0.95)
includes ρ and η, was known to say: “Look, I invented
–1.5
ρ and η, and I don’t care what their values are, so why –1.0 –0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
should you?” ρ–
Having observed CP violation among quarks in numerous
laboratory experiments of today, we might be tempted to
think that we understand how CP violation in the early
One ring to find them universe could have changed the world from one with equal μ+
An electron anti- e–
quantities of matter and antimatter to one in which matter ν
neutrino interacts in the dominates very heavily over antimatter. However, scenarios A detector
Super-Kamiokande that tie early-universe CP violation to that seen among the π+
detector in Japan. quarks today, and do not add new physics to the Stand-
Employing this detector ard Model of the elementary particles, yield too small a
to compare CP–mirror– present-day matter–antimatter asymmetry. This leads one
image oscillations, the to wonder whether early-universe CP violation involving μ– e+
ν (Dirac case)
T2K experiment reported leptons, rather than quarks, might have led to the present B anti-detector
a 95% confidence dominance of matter over antimatter. This possibility is π– ν (Majorana case)
exclusion of leptonic envisaged by leptogenesis, a scenario in which heavy neutral
CP invariance. leptons that were their own antiparticles lived briefly in the
early universe, but then underwent CP-asymmetric decays, Fig. 2. The pursuit of leptonic CP violation is based on
creating a world with unequal numbers of particles and comparing the rates for two CP-mirror-image processes.
antiparticles. Such heavy neutral leptons are predicted by
“see-saw” models, which explain the extreme lightness particles that are distinct from their antiparticles. How-
of the known neutrinos in terms of the extreme heaviness ever, many theorists strongly suspect that neutrinos are
of the postulated heavy neutral leptons. Leptogenesis can actually Majorana particles – that is, particles that are
successfully account for the observed size of the present identical to their antiparticles. In that case, the tradi-
matter–antimatter asymmetry. tional description of the search for leptonic CP violation
The unknown origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry observed is clearly inapplicable, since then the neutrinos and the
Deniable plausibility antineutrinos are the same objects. However, the actual
in the universe looms large in the scientific imagination. In the straightforward version of this picture, the heavy experimental approach that is being pursued is a perfectly
Boris Kayser explains how neutrino physicists are now closing in on a neutral leptons are too massive to be observable at the valid probe of leptonic CP violation regardless of whether
Super-Kamiokande
LHC or any foreseen collider. However, since leptogenesis neutrinos are of Dirac or of Majorana character. In fact,
crucial piece of evidence in this most convoluted of detective stories. requires leptonic CP violation, observing this violation in this approach is completely insensitive to which of these
the behaviour of the currently observed leptons would two possibilities nature has chosen.
make it more plausible that leptogenesis was indeed the
L
uckily for us, there is presently almost no antimatter cal systems whose behaviour changes if we replace every mechanism through which the present matter–antimatter Through a glass darkly
in the universe. This makes it possible for us – made particle by its antiparticle, and interchange left and right. asymmetry of the universe arose. Needless to say, observing The pursuit of leptonic CP violation is based on compar-
of matter – to live without being annihilated in In 1964, Cronin, Fitch and colleagues discovered that CP is leptonic CP violation would also reveal that the breaking of ing the rates for two CP mirror-image processes (figure
matter–antimatter encounters. However, cosmology tells us indeed violated, in the decays of neutral kaons to pions – a CP symmetry, which before 1964 one might have imagined 2). In process A, the initial state is a π+ and an undis-
that just after the cosmic Big Bang, the universe contained phenomenon that later became understood in terms of the to be an unbroken, fundamental symmetry of nature, is turbed detector. The final state consists of a μ+, an e–,
equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Obviously, for behaviour of quarks. By now, we have observed quark CP not something special to the quarks, but is participated and a nucleus in the detector that has been struck by an Leptogenesis
the universe to have evolved from that early state to the violation in the strange sector, the beauty sector and most in by all the constituents of matter. intermediate-state neutrino beam particle that travelled can account
present one, which contains quite unequal amounts of recently in the charm sector (CERN Courier May/June 2019 To find out if leptons violate CP, we are searching for a long distance from its source to the detector. Since the for the
matter and antimatter, the two must behave differently. p7). The observations of CP violation in B (beauty) meson THE AUTHOR what is traditionally described as a difference between neutrino was born together with a muon, but produced matter–
This implies that the symmetry CP (charge conjugation decays have been particularly illuminating. Everything Boris Kayser the behaviour of neutrinos and that of antineutrinos. This an electron in the detector, and the probability for this antimatter
× parity) must be violated. That is, there must be physi- we know about quark CP violation is consistent with the Fermilab. description is fine if neutrinos are Dirac particles – that is, to have happened oscillates as a function of the distance asymmetry
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_LEPTONIC_v7.indd 40 24/06/2020 11:47 CCJulAug20_LEPTONIC_v7.indd 41 24/06/2020 11:49
www.
FEATURE LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION FEATURE NEUTRON SCIENCE
Super NOvA
NOvA collaboration
A 14 kton stack of
scintillating cells
filled with mineral
oil, the NOvA far
detector, at Ash
River, Minnesota,
searches for
neutrino
oscillations using
an accelerator
beam created
810 km away at
Fermilab, near
Chicago.
the neutrino travels divided by its energy, the process As a result, while the quark mixing matrix is permitted
is commonly referred to as muon–neutrino to electron– to contain just one complex phase, its leptonic analogue
neutrino oscillation. may contain multiple complex phases that can contribute
In process B, the initial and final states are the same as to CP violation in neutrino oscillations.
in process A, but with every particle replaced by its anti- Leptonic CP violation is being sought by two current
particle. In addition, owing to the character of the weak neutrino-oscillation experiments. The NOvA experiment
interactions, the helicity (the projection of the spin along in the US has reported results that are consistent with An eye for structure The LADI instrument at the ILL, a quasi-Laue neutron diffractometer used for single-crystal studies of biological
the momentum) of every fermion is reversed, so that left either the presence or absence of CP violation. The T2K macromolecules at high resolution. Neutron Laue diffraction patterns are recorded on a cylindrical detector, allowing the determination of protein
and right are interchanged. Thus, regardless of whether experiment in Japan reports that the complete absence structures including the locations of hydrogen/deuterium atoms. (Credit: R Cubitt)
neutrinos are identical to their antiparticles, processes A of CP violation is excluded at 95% confidence (see p8).
and B are CP mirror images, so if their rates are unequal, Assuming that the leptonic mixing matrix is the same size
NEUTRON SOURCES JOIN THE

CP invariance is violated. Moreover, since the probability as the quark one, so that it may contain only one complex
of a neutrino oscillation involves the weak interactions of phase relevant to neutrino oscillations, the T2K data show
leptons, but not those of quarks, this violation of CP invar- a preference for values of that phase, δCP, that correspond to
FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

iance must come from the weak interactions of leptons. near maximal CP violation. Of course, as Lincoln Wolfen-
Of course, we cannot employ an anti-detector in process stein would doubtless point out, the precise value of δCP is
B in practice. However, the experiment can legitimately not important. What counts is the extremely interesting
use the same detector in both processes. To do that, it experimental finding that the behaviour of leptons may
must take into account the difference between the cross very well violate CP. In the future, the oscillation exper-
sections for the beam particles in processes A and B to iments Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan and DUNE in the US Advanced neutron facilities such as the Institut Laue-Langevin are gearing up
interact in this detector. Once that is done, the comparison will probe leptonic CP violation with greater sensitivity,
of the rates for processes A and B remains a valid probe of and should be capable of observing it even if it should prove to enable a deeper understanding of the structural workings of SARS-CoV-2.
CP non-invariance. to be fairly small (see p32).
T
By searching for leptonic CP violation, we hope to find he global scientific community has mobilised at ities, to determine the 3D structures of proteins of severe
The matrix reloaded out whether the breaking of CP symmetry occurs among an unprecedented rate in response to the COVID-19 acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),
Just as quark CP violation arises from a complex phase all the constituents of matter, including both the leptons pandemic, beyond just pharmaceutical and medical which can lead to COVID-19 respiratory disease, and to
in the quark mixing matrix, so leptonic CP violation in and the quarks, or whether it is a feature that is special researchers. The world’s most powerful analytical tools, identify potential drugs that can bind to these proteins in
neutrino oscillation can arise from a complex phase, δCP, in to the quarks. If leptonic CP violation should be defini- including neutron sources, harbour the unique ability to order to disable the viral machinery. This effort has already
T2K excludes the leptonic mixing matrix, which is the leptonic analogue tively shown to exist, this violation might be related to reveal the invisible, structural workings of the virus – delivered a large number of structures and increased our
the complete of the quark mixing matrix. However, if, as suggested the reason that the universe contains matter, but almost which will be essential to developing effective treatments. understanding of what potential drug candidates might THE AUTHORS
absence of by several short-baseline oscillation experiments, there no antimatter, so that life is possible.  Since the outbreak of the pandemic, researchers worldwide look like in a remarkably short amount of time, with the
Matthew
leptonic exist not only the three well-established neutrinos, but have been using large-scale research infrastructures such number increasing each week. Blakeley and
CP violation also additional so-called “sterile” neutrinos that do not Further reading as synchrotron X-ray radiation sources (CERN Courier May/ COVID-19 impacted the operation of all advanced neutron Helmut Schober
at 95% participate in Standard Model weak interactions, then The NOvA Collaboration 2019 Phys. Rev. Lett. 123 151803. June 2020 p29), as well as cryogenic electron microscopy sources worldwide. With one exception (ANSTO in Australia, Institut Laue-
confidence the leptonic mixing matrix is larger than the quark one. The T2K Collaboration 2020 Nature 580 339. (cryo-EM) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facil- which continued the production of radioisotopes) all of Langevin.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_LEPTONIC_v7.indd 42 24/06/2020 11:51 CCJulAug20_NEUTRON_v5.indd 43 24/06/2020 12:43
www.
FEATURE NEUTRON SCIENCE FEATURE NEUTRON SCIENCE
Structural power High flux
ILL
M Blakeley/A Kovalevsk y
The ILL reactor,
Nick Woolridge/Biomedical Communications

Determining the biological structures
which typically
that make up a virus such as SARS-
operates four
CoV-2 (pictured) allows scientists
50-day cycles per
to see what they look like in three
dimensions and to understand better year for user
how they function, speeding up the experiments,
design of more effective anti-viral provides the most
drugs. Knowledge of the structures intense continuous
highlights which parts are the neutron flux in the
most important: for example, once world: 1.5 × 1015
researchers know what the active site neutrons per
in an enzyme looks like, they can try
second per cm2 ,
to design drugs that fit well into the
with a thermal
active site – the classic “lock-and-
power of 58.3 MW.
key” analogy. This is also useful in the
development of vaccines. Knowledge of are often made from weakened or
the structural components that make killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, Neutron diffraction A neutron Laue diffraction pattern
up a virus are important since vaccines or one of its surface proteins. from a crystal of HIV-1 protease in complex with a clinical
inhibitor collected using the LADI instrument at ILL.
them were shut down in the context of national lockdowns Furthermore, in contrast to X-rays, which are scattered provides essential input into the long-term development tion. For example, the spike protein (S-protein) of SARS-
aimed at reducing the spread of the disease. The neutron by electrons, neutrons are scattered by atomic nuclei, and of pharmaceuticals. This role will be further enhanced in CoV-2 that is responsible for mediating the attachment and
community, however, lost no time in preparing for the so neutron-scattering lengths show no correlation with the context of advanced computer-aided drug development entry into human cells is of great relevance for developing
resumption of activities. Some facilities like Oak Ridge the number of electrons, but rather depend on nuclear that will rely on an orchestrated combination of high- therapeutic defence strategies against the virus. Here,
National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US have now restarted forces, which can even vary between different isotopes. power computing, artificial intelligence and broad-band neutron crystallography can potentially provide unique
operation of their sources exclusively for COVID-19 studies. As such, while hydrogen (H) scatters X-rays very weakly, experimental data on structures. information about the specific domain of the S-protein
Here in Europe, while waiting (impatiently) for the restart and protons (H+) do not scatter X-rays at all, with neutrons Neutron crystallography data add supplementary struc- where the virus binds to human cell receptors. Comparison
of neutron facilities such as the Institut Laue-Langevin hydrogen scatters at a similar level to the other com- tural information to X-ray data by providing key details of the structure of this region between different varia-
(ILL) in Grenoble, which is scheduled to be operational by mon elements (C, N, O, S, P) of biological macromolecules, regarding hydrogen atoms and protons, which are critical tions of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV) obtained
mid-August, scientists have been actively pursuing SARS- allowing them to be located. Moreover, since hydrogen and players in the binding of such drugs to their target enzyme using X-rays suggests small alterations to the amino-acid
CoV-2-related projects. Special research teams on the ILL its isotope deuterium (2H/D) exhibit different scattering through hydrogen bonding, and revealing important details sequence may enhance the binding affinity of the S-protein
site have been preparing for experiments using a range lengths and signs, this can be exploited in neutron studies of protein chemistry that help researchers decipher the to the human receptor hACE2, making SARS-CoV-2 more
of neutron-scattering techniques including diffraction, to enhance the visibility of specific structural features by exact enzyme catalytic pathway. In this way, neutron crys- infectious. Neutron studies will provide further insight
small-angle neutron scattering, reflectometry and spec- substituting one isotope for the other. Examples of this tallography data can be hugely beneficial towards under- into this binding, which is crucial for the attachment of
troscopy. Neutrons bring to the table what other probes include small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) studies of standing how these enzymes function and the design of the virus. These experiments are scheduled to take place,
cannot, and are set to make an important contribution to macromolecular structures that provide low-resolution more effective medications to target them. For example, e.g. at ILL and ORNL (and possibly MLZ), as soon as large
the fight against SARS-CoV-2. 3D information on molecular shape without the need for in the study of complexes between HIV-1 protease – the enough crystals have been grown.
crystallization, and neutron-crystallography studies of enzyme responsible for maturation of virus particles into
Unique characteristics proteins that provide high-resolution structures of pro- infectious HIV virions – and drug molecules, neutrons The big picture
Discovered almost 90 years ago, the neutron has been teins, including the locations of individual hydrogen atoms can reveal hydrogen-bonding interactions that offer ways Biological systems have a hierarchy of structures: start-
put to a multitude of uses to help researchers understand that have been exchanged for deuterium to make them to enhance drug-binding and reduce drug-resistance of ing from molecules that assemble into structures such as
the structure and behaviour of condensed-matter. These particularly visible. Indeed, neutron crystallography can anti-retroviral therapies. proteins; these form complexes which, as supramolecular
applications include a steadily growing number of investi- provide unique information on the chemistry occurring More than half of the SARS-CoV-2-related structures arrangements like membranes, are the building blocks of
gations into biological systems. For the reasons explained within biological macromolecules, such as enzymes, as determined thus far are high-resolution X-ray structures of cells. These are of course the building blocks of our bodies.
below, these investigations are complementary to the use recent studies on HIV-1 protease, an enzyme essential for the virus’s main protease, with the majority of these bound Every part of this huge machinery is subject to continu-
of X-rays, NMR and cryo-EM. The necessary infrastruc- the life-cycle of the HIV virus, illustrate. to potential inhibitors. One of the main challenges for ous reorganisation. To understand the functioning, or in
ture for neutron-scattering experiments is provided to performing neutron crystallography is that larger crystals the case of a disease, the malfunctioning of a biological
the academic and industrial user communities by a global Treating and stopping COVID-19 are required than for comparable X-ray crystallography system, we therefore must get insight into the biological
network of advanced neutron sources. Leading European Proteases are like biological scissors that cleave polypep- studies, owing to the lower flux of neutron beams relative mechanism on all of these different length scales.
neutron facilities include the ILL in Grenoble, France, tide chains – the primary structure of proteins – at pre- to X-ray beam intensities. Nevertheless, given the ben- When it comes to studying the function of larger
MLZ in Garching, Germany, ISIS in Didcot, UK, and PSI in cise locations. If the cleavage is inhibited, for example, by efits provided by the visualisation of hydrogen-bonding biological complexes such as assembled viruses, SANS
Villigen, Switzerland. The new European flagship neutron appropriate anti-viral drugs, then so-called poly-proteins networks for understanding drug-binding, scientists have becomes an important analytical tool. The technique’s
source – the European Spallation Source (ESS) – is under remain in their original state and the machinery of virus been optimising crystallisation conditions for the growth capacity to distinguish specific regions (RNA, proteins
construction in Lund, Sweden. replication is blocked. For the treatment to be efficient this of larger crystals, in combination with the production of and lipids) of the virus – thanks to advanced deuteration
Neutrons can Neutrons are a particularly powerful tool for the study inhibition has to be robust—that is, the drug occupying the fully deuterated protein in preparation for neutron crys- methods – enables researchers to map out the arrange-
penetrate deep of biological macromolecules in solutions, crystals and active site should be strongly bound, ideally to atoms in the tallography experiments in the near future. Currently, ment of the various components, contributing invaluable
into matter partially ordered systems. Their neutrality means neutrons main chain of the protease. This will increase the likeli- teams at ORNL, ILL and the DEMAX facility in Sweden are information to structural studies of SARS-CoV-2. While
without can penetrate deep into matter without damaging the hood that treatments are effective in the long run, despite growing crystals for SARS-CoV-2 investigations. other analytical techniques provide the detailed atomic-
damaging the samples, so that experiments can be performed at room mutations of the enzyme, since mutations occur only within Proteases are, however, not the only proteins where resolution structure of small biological assemblies, neutron
samples temperature, much closer to physiological temperatures. the side chains of the enzyme. Neutron research, therefore, neutron crystallography can provide essential informa- scattering allows researchers to pan back to see the larger
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_NEUTRON_v5.indd 44 24/06/2020 12:45 CCJulAug20_NEUTRON_v5.indd 45 24/06/2020 12:46
www.
OPINION
FEATURE NEUTRON SCIENCE
picture of full molecular complexes, at lower resolution.

Neutron scattering is also uniquely suited to determining
the structure of functional membrane proteins in phys-
to be responsible for binding with the receptor of the host
cell. Defining this mechanism, which is decisive for the
infection, will be essential to controlling the virus and its
VIEWPOINT
iological conditions. Neutron scattering will therefore potential future mutations in the long term.
make it possible to map out the structure of the complex
formed by the S-protein and the hACE2 receptor. Tool of choice
A price worth paying

Last but not least, a full understanding of the virus’s life And we should not forget that viruses in their physiolog-
cycle requires the study of the interaction of the virus with ical environments are highly dynamic systems. Knowing
the cell membrane, and the mechanism it uses to penetrate how they move, deform and cluster is essential for opti-
the host cell. SARS-CoV-2 is a virus, like HIV, that possesses mising diagnostic and therapeutic treatments. Neutron
a viral envelope composed of lipids, proteins and sugars. spectroscopy, which is ideally suited to follow the motion
Large research infrastructures are
CERN-PHOTO-201906-179-2
By providing information on its molecular structure and of matter from small chemical groups to large macro-
composition, the technique of neutron reflectometry – molecular assemblies, is the tool of choice to provide
essential drivers of economic progress, and
whereby highly collimated neutrons are incident on a flat this information. particle physicists have a duty to make this
surface and the intensity of reflected radiation is measured The League of Advanced European Neutron Sources (CERN message loud and clear, argues Rolf Heuer.
as a function of angle or neutron wavelength – helps to Courier May/June 2020 p49) has rapidly mobilised to conduct
elucidate the precise mechanism the virus uses to penetrate all relevant experiments. We are equally in close contact Science, from the immutable logic of its
M Brice/CERN
Neutron
the cell. Like in the case of SANS, the strength of neutron with our international partners, some of whom have, or are mathematical underpinnings to the more
scattering is fluid realms of the social sciences, has
reflectometry relies on the fact that it provides a different just in the process of, reopening their facilities. Scientists
also uniquely contrast to X-rays, and that this contrast can be varied via have to make sure that each research subject is provided carried us from our humble origins to an
suited to deuteration allowing, for example, to distinguish a protein with the best-suited analytical tool – in other words, those understanding of such esoteric notions as
determining inserted into the membrane from the membrane itself. that have the samples will be given the necessary beam
gravitation and quantum mechanics. This
the structure knowledge has been applied to develop
Regarding SARS-CoV-2, this implies that neutron reflec- time. Neutron facilities are fast-adapting with special
devices such as GPS trackers and smart-
of functional tometry can in fact provide detailed structural information access channels to beam time having been implemented phones – a story repeated in countless Deep impact Projects such as the LHC deliver global visibility and impact.
membrane on the interaction of small protein fragments, so-called to allow the scientific community to respond without delay Rolf-Dieter Heuer domains for a century or more – and it
proteins peptides, that mimic the S-protein and that are believed to the challenge posed by COVID-19.  was CERN has delivered new tools for basic research The benefits of Big Science for economic turnover and 12% of overall employment
Director-General along the way in a virtuous circle. prosperity become more pertinent if we in Europe – representing a net annual
from 2009 to 2015. While it is undeniable that science has consider the cumulative contributions to contribution of at least €1.45 trillion, and
led us to a better world than that inhabited the 21st-century knowledge economy, topping contributions from the financial
by our ancestors, and that it will continue which relies heavily on research and services and retail sectors (CERN Courier
to deliver intellectual, utilitarian and innovation. In 2018, more than 40% of January/February 2020 p9).
economic progress, advancement is not the CERN budget was returned to industry Of course, there are some who feel that
Powering
Powering yyour
our A
Accelerator
ccelerra
ator R
Real
eal TTime
ime Control Systems
Tim always linear. Research has led us up blind
alleys, and taken wrong turnings, yet its
in its member-state countries through
the procurement of supplies and services,
limited resources for science should be
deployed in areas such as addressing
strength is its ability to process data, to generating corollary benefits such as climate change, rather than blue-sky
self-correct and to form choices based on opening new markets. Increasing efforts, research. These views can be persuasive,
RDC
R C_1470 the best available evidence. The current
coronavirus pandemic could prove to be a
great educator in the methods of science,
for example by the European Commis-
sion, to require research infrastructures
to estimate their socioeconomic impact
but are misleading. Fundamental research
is every bit as important as directed
research, and through the virtuous circle
MTCA.4 Downconverter demonstrating how the right course of

action evolves as the evidence accumu-
are a welcome opportunity to quantify
and demonstrate our impact.
of science, they are mutually dependent.
The open questions and mind-bending
lates. We’ve seen all too clearly how badly CERN has been subject to economic concepts explored by particle physics and
things can go wrong when individuals and impact assessments since the 1970s, astronomy also serve to draw bright young
MTCA.4
M TCCA
A. 4 µ R
RTMM companion for IFC_1420 AMC governments fail to grasp the importance with one recent cost–benefit analysis of minds into science, even if individuals
of evidence-based decision making. the LHC, conducted by economists at the go on to work in other areas. Surveys of
4xR RFF SSMA
M A I n p u ts Fundamental science has to make its University of Milan, concluding with 92% the career paths taken by PhD students
Direct
Direct ttooA
ADC
ADDC (AC coupled): 10 dBm FS, 1 to 400 MHz case not only on the basis of cultural probability that benefits exceed costs, working on CERN experiments fully bear
High
H i gh d
dynami
ynamic range to ADC: -50 to 20 dBm FS, 10 to 400 MHz
dynam wealth, but also in terms of socioeconomic even when attaching the very conservative this out (CERN Courier April 2019 p55).
Down
Down cconver
onv rter: -50 to 20 dBm FS, 10 to 1500 MHz
conv benefit. In particle physics, we also have figure of zero to the value of the organisa- In April 2020, as a curtain-raiser to the
1xR
RFF SSMA
MA Output no shortage of examples. These go well tion’s scientific discoveries. More recent update of the European Strategy for Par-
Direct
D irect h
high-sp
igh- peed DAC output
high- beyond the web, although an economic studies (CERN Courier September 2018 ticle Physics, Nature Physics published a
Vector
Vector mmoduodulator output: -20 to 10 dBm FS, 10 to 1500 MHz impact assessment of that particular p51) by the Milan group, focusing on the series of articles about potential future
Ve mod
invention is one that I would be very inter- High-Luminosity LHC, revealed a quan- directions for CERN. An editorial pointed
3xM MMCX
MCCX Xddiigital triggers and 1 x MMCX GPIO ested in seeing. As of 2014, there were some tifiable return to society well in excess of out the strong scientific and utilitarian
Designed for 2 x sslow
low M MMC
MCX analog outputs 42,200 particle accelerators worldwide, the project’s costs, again, not including case for future colliders, concluding that:
64% of which were used in industry, a its scientific output. Extrapolating these “Even if the associated price tag may seem
LLRF & BPM Highly
H ighly cconfig
DESY
D ESY A
onf igurable (differential filter plug-ins)
confi
conf
A1-comp
1-cco mpliant µRTM for analog signals
A1-com
A1-co
Fundamental
research is
third for medical purposes and just 3%
in research – not bad for a technology
results, the authors show that future
colliders at CERN would bring similar
high – roughly as high as that of the Tokyo
Olympic Games – it is one worth paying.”
invented for fundamental exploration. It’s societal benefits on an even bigger scale. This is precisely the kind of argument that
every bit as
a similar story for techniques developed Across physics more broadly, a 2019 we as a community should be prepared
important for particle detection, which have found report commissioned by the European to make if we are to ensure continuing
TTo
o kknow
n ow m
more
orre
e aabout
bo u t o
our
ur M
MTCA.4
TCCA
A. 4 p
product
roduct lline,
ine, ccontact
onta t IO xOS Technologies (info@ioxos.ch)
conta as directed their way into numerous applications, Physical Society found that physics-based exploration of fundamental physics in the
research especially in medicine and biology. industries generate more than 16% of total 21st century and beyond.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Viewpoint_v3.indd 47 24/06/2020 11:56
www.
OPINION
OPINION INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW exchanges between the atmosphere,
M Brice, J Ordan/CERN
the oceans, the biosphere, the
cryosphere … and the influence of
human beings. The models involve
many parameters that are poorly
understood, so modellers have to
Lofty thinking
make plausible yet uncertain choices.
As a result, there is much more
flexibility in climate models, whereas
there is almost none in the SM.
Unfortunately, this flexibility means
CERN’s Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD) experiment has merged the best of that the predictive power of such
models is much weaker than it is in
particle physics and atmospheric science into a novel experimental approach. Spokesperson particle physics.
Jasper Kirkby argues that this interdisciplinarity could benefit climate modelling, too. There are skills such as the
handling of data, statistics and
software optimisation where
What, in a nutshell, is CLOUD? Do you consider yourself a particle particle physics is probably the
J Kirkby
It’s basically a cloud chamber, but not physicist or an atmospheric scientist? leading science in the world, so I
a conventional one as used in particle An experimental physicist! My would love to see CERN sponsor a
physics. We realistically simulate training and my love is particle workshop where the two communities
selected atmospheric environments physics, but judging by the papers could exchange ideas and perhaps
in an ultraclean chamber and study I write and review, I am now an even begin to collaborate. This is
the formation of aerosol particles atmospheric scientist. It was not what CLOUD has done. It’s politically On cloud nine Kirkby on the roof of the CLOUD detector in CERN’s East Hall back in 2018.
from trace vapours, and how they difficult to make this transition. correct to talk about the power of
grow to become the seeds for It was a case of going back to interdisciplinary research, but it’s of cosmic rays on the process under are capable of producing abundant
cloud droplets. We can precisely my undergraduate physics and very difficult in practical terms – study. A third major focus concerns particles and thus cloud seeds. Prior
control all the conditions found high-school chemistry and learning especially when it comes to funding the formation of smog under polluted to that it was thought that sulphuric
throughout the atmosphere such as on the job. It’s also very rewarding. We because experiments often fall into urban conditions. acid was essential to form aerosol
gas concentrations, temperature, do experiments, like we all do at CERN, the cracks between funding agencies. particles. Since sulphuric acid was
ultraviolet illumination and “cosmic on a 24/7 basis, but with CLOUD I can What have CLOUD’s biggest five times lower in the pre-industrial
ray” intensity with a beam from calculate things in my notebook and How has CLOUD’s focus evolved contributions been? atmosphere, climate models assumed
CERN’s Proton Synchrotron (PS). The see the science that we are doing, so we during a decade of running? We have made several major that clouds were fewer and thinner
aerosol processes we study in CLOUD know immediately what the new stuff CLOUD was designed to explore discoveries and it’s hard to rank them. back then. This is important because
are poorly known yet climatically is and we can adapt our experiments whether variations of cosmic rays Our latest result (p10) on the role of the pre-industrial era is the baseline
important because they create the continuously during our run. in the atmosphere affect clouds and ammonia and nitric acid in urban aerosol state from which we assess
seeds for more than 50% of global On the other hand, in particle climate, and that’s still a major environments is very important for anthropogenic impacts. The fact
cloud droplets. physics the detectors are running all goal. What I didn’t realise at the human health. We have found that that biogenic vapours make lots of
We have 22 institutes and the the time but we really don’t know what beginning is how important ammonia and nitric acid can drive the aerosols and cloud droplets reduces
crème de la crème of European and US is in the data without years of very aerosol–particle formation is for growth rates of newly formed particles the contrast in cloud coverage (and
atmospheric and aerosol scientists. Interdisciplinary Jasper Kirkby at his home in May 2020. careful analysis afterwards, so there climate and health, and just how up to more than 100 times faster thus the amount of cooling offset)
It’s a fabulous mixture of physicists is this decoupling of the result from much is not yet understood. The than seen before, but only in short between then and now. The formation
and chemists, and the skills we’ve ray–cloud link at CERN with an the actual measurement. Also, in largest uncertainty facing predictions spurts that have previously escaped rate of these pure biogenic particles
learned from particle physics in terms experiment I named CLOUD. I did not CLOUD we don’t need a separate of global warming is not due to a lack detection. This can explain the is enhanced by up to a factor 100 by
of cooperating and pooling resources want to ride into another field telling discipline to tell us about the of understanding about greenhouse puzzling observation of bursts of new galactic cosmic rays, so the pristine
have been incredibly important for those guys how to do their stuff, so I underlying theory or beauty of what we gases, but about how much aerosols particles that form and grow under pre-industrial atmosphere was more
the success of CLOUD. It’s the CERN wrote a note of my ideas and started are doing. In CLOUD you’re the theorist and clouds have increased since highly polluted urban conditions, sensitive to cosmic rays than today’s
model, the CERN culture that we’ve to make contact with the atmospheric and the experimentalist at the same pre-industrial times from human producing winter smog episodes. An polluted atmosphere.
conveyed to another discipline. We community in Europe and build time – like it was in the early days of activities. Aerosol changes have earlier CLOUD result, also in Nature, There was an important result the
implemented the best of CERN’s support from lab directors in particle particle physics. offset some of the warming from showed that a few parts-per-trillion of very first week we turned on CLOUD,
know-how in ultra-clean materials physics. I managed to assemble a greenhouse gases but we don’t amine vapours lead to extremely rapid when we saw that sulphuric acid does
and built the cleanest atmospheric dream team to propose the experiment How would you compare the know by how much – it could have formation of sulphuric acid particles, not nucleate on its own but requires
chamber in the world. to CERN. The hard part was convincing Standard Model to state-of-the-art offset almost nothing, or as much limited only by the kinetic collision ammonia. Before CLOUD started,
CERN that they should do this crazy climate models? as one half of the warming effect. rate. We had a huge fight with one of people were measuring particles
How did CLOUD get off the ground? experiment. We proposed it in 2000 It’s night and day. The Standard Consequently, when we project the referees of this paper, who claimed but they weren’t able to measure the
The idea came to me in 1997 during and it was finally approved in 2006,
In CLOUD Model (SM) is such a well formed forwards, we don’t know how much that it couldn’t be atmospherically molecular composition, so many
a lecture at CERN given by Nigel which I think is a record for CERN to you’re the theory and remarkably high-quality Earth will warm later this century to Many of our important because no-one had experiments were being fooled by
Calder, a former editor of New Scientist approve an experiment. There were theorist and the quantitatively that we can see better than a factor of three. experiments previously observed it. Finally, a paper unknown contaminants.
magazine, who pointed out a new some people in the climate community experimentalist incredibly subtle signals in detectors Many of our experiments are
are now aimed appeared in Science last year showing
result from satellite data about who were against the idea that cosmic at the same against a background of something now aimed at reducing the aerosol that sulphuric acid–amine nucleation Have CLOUD results impacted
at reducing
possible links between cosmic rays rays could influence clouds. But we that is extremely well understood. uncertainties in anthropogenic is the key process driving new particle climate policy?
time – like it the aerosol
and cloud formation. That Christmas, persevered and, once approved, things Climate models, on the other hand, climate change. Since all CLOUD formation in Chinese megacities. The global climate models that
while we visited relatives in Paris, I went very fast. We started taking data
was in the are trying to simulate a very complex experiments are performed under uncertainties in A big result from the point of view inform the Intergovernmental Panel
read a lot of related papers and came in 2009 and have been in discovery early days of system about what’s happening on different ionisation conditions, we anthropogenic of climate change came in 2016 on Climate Change (IPCC) have
up with the idea to test the cosmic mode ever since. particle physics Earth’s surface, involving energy are also able to quantify the effect climate change when we showed that trees alone begun to incorporate CLOUD aerosol
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Interview_v4.indd 48 24/06/2020 13:45 CCJulAug20_Interview_v4.indd 49 24/06/2020 13:46
www.
OPINION
OPINION INTERVIEW
parameterisations, and they are

impacting estimates of Earth’s climate
sensitivity. The IPCC assessments
chamber itself is pretty much the
only item that is untouched. When the
East Area is rebuilt there will be a new
Oceans cover two thirds of Earth’s
surface and their latent heat of
vaporisation is a huge stabiliser of
REVIEWS
are hugely impressive works of the beamline and a new experimental climate – they have never evaporated
highest scientific quality. Yet, there zone for CLOUD. We think we have a nor completely frozen over. Also,
is something of a disconnect between 10-year programme ahead to address only around 2% of CO 2 is in the
Fiction, in theory
what climate modellers do and the questions we want to and to atmosphere and most of the rest is
what we do in the experimental and settle the cosmic ray–cloud–climate dissolved in the oceans, so eventually,
observational world. The modellers question. That will take me up to just over the course of several centuries,
tend to work in national centres and over 80 years old! CO 2 in the atmosphere will equilibrate
connect with experiments through at near pre-industrial levels. The
the latter’s publications, at the end Will humanity succeed in preventing current warming is an important human. Highs and lows, loves and laughs,
SJ Hert zog/CERN-PHOTO-202002-036-2
of the chain. I would like to see much catastrophic climate change? change – and some argue it could Big Bang kindnesses and hurts, even tragedies, all
closer linkage between the models I am an optimist, so I believe there produce a climate tipping point – By Irène Jacob play a part. Irène Jacob’s fictionalised
and the measurements, as we do is always a way out of everything. but Earth has gone through larger family suffers much, yet although Irène
Éditions Albin Michel (in French)
in particle physics where there is a It’s very understandable that people changes in the past and life has holds nothing back, Big Bang is essentially
fluid connection between theory, want to freeze the exact temperature continued. So we should not be too an optimistic, life-affirming tale.
experiment and modelling. We do of Earth as it is now because we don’t pessimistic about Earth’s future. French actor Irène Jacob rose to inter- S c ie nc e m a ke s re p e ate d c a me o
this already in CLOUD, where we have want to see a flood or desert in our And we shouldn’t conflate pollution national acclaim for her role in the 1991 appearances. There’s a passage in which
several institutes who are primarily back garden. But I’m afraid that’s and climate change. Reducing film The Double Life of Véronique. She is the René is driving home from hospital after
working on regional and global not how Earth is, even without the pollution is an absolute no brainer, but daughter of Maurice Jacob (1933–2007), welcoming his first child into the world.
aerosol-cloud models. anthropogenic influence. Earth has environmental pollution is a separate a French theoretical physicist and head Distracted by emotion, he’s struck by a
gone through much larger natural issue from climate change and should of CERN’s theory division from 1982 to great insight and has to pull over and
What’s next on CLOUD’s horizon? climate oscillations, even on the be treated as such. 1988. Her new novel, Big Bang, is a fic- tell someone. How often does that hap-
The East Hall at the PS is being recent timescale of homo sapiens. tionalised account of the daughter of a pen in the creative process? Biochemist
completely rebuilt during CERN’s That being said, I think Earth’s Interview by Paola Catapano and renowned physicist coming to terms with Kary Mullis tells a similar story in his
current long shutdown, but the CLOUD climate is fundamentally stable. Matthew Chalmers CERN. the death of her father and the arrival of memoirs. In his case, the idea for pol-
her second child. Keen to demonstrate ymerase chain reaction came to him at
the artistic beauty of science, she is also the end of hot May day on Highway 128
a patron of the Physics of the Universe with his girlfriend asleep next to him
Endowment Fund established in Paris in the passenger seat of his little silver
by George Smoot. Honda. Mullis got the Nobel prize. Both
When Irène Jacob recites from her had a profound impact on their fields
book, it is more than a reading, it’s a Alice in Wonderland is a charmingly
performance. That much is not sur- recurrent theme, particularly the Chesh-
prising: she is after all the much-feted ire cat. Very often, a passage ends with
actor in the subtly reflective 1990s films nothing left but an enigmatic smile, a
PROVIDING of Krzysztof Kieślowski. What did come

as a surprise to this reader is just how
metaphor for life in the quantum world,
where believing in six impossible things
CUTTING-EDGE SOLUTIONS beautifully she writes. With an easy grace

and fluidity, she weaves together threads
before breakfast is almost a prerequisite.
Big Bang is not a page turner. Instead,
FOR A PRECISELY KNOWN, of her life, of life in general, and of the

vast mysteries of the universe
each chapter is a beautifully formed
vignette of family life. Take, for exam-
STABLE AND RELIABLE BEAM.

Billed as a novel, Big Bang comes across Double life Irène Jacob reads an excerpt from Big Bang. ple, the passage that begins with a quote
more as a memoir, and that’s no acci- from Niels Bohr taken from René’s man-
dent. The author’s aim was to use her this together, seen from the point in uscript, Des Quarks et des Hommes (pub-
entourage, somewhat disguised, to tell a space–time at which Irène has to rec- lished as Au Coeur de la Matière). Bohr can
universal story of the human condition. oncile her father’s passing with her own be paraphrased as saying: the opposite
Names are changed, Irène’s well-known impending motherhood. of a profound truth is another profound
physicist father becoming René, for For those who remember the CERN truth. As the passage moves on, it plays
BEAM DIAGNOSTICS example, one of his middle names. The of the 1980s, the story begins with an with this theme, ending with the con-
true chronology of events is not strictly opportunity to rediscover old friends clusion: if my story does not stand up, it’s
LLRF CONTROLS observed, and maybe there’s some inven- and places. For those not familiar with because reality is very small. And if my
tion, but behind the storytelling there particle physics, it offers a glimpse into story is very small, it is because reality
RF GENERATION & DISTRIBUTION is nevertheless a touching portrait of the field, to those who devote their lives does not stand up.
a very real family. The backdrop to the to it, and to those who share their lives Whatever the author’s wish, Big Bang
RF DIGITIZERS & CURRENT METERS opening scenes is CERN, more specifically with them. The initial chapters open the comes across as an admirably honest
the corridors of the theory division in door to Irène Jacob’s world, just a crack. family portrait, at times uncomfortably
the 1970s and 1980s, a regular stomping The atmosphere soon changes, though, so. It’s a portrait that goes much deeper
ground for the young Irène. The reader as she flings the door wide open. More than the silver screen or the hallowed
discovers the wonders of physics through than once I found myself wondering halls of academia. The cast of Big Bang
the wide-open eyes of a seven-year-old whether I had the right to be there: is a very human family, and one that this
child. Later on, that child-become-adult inside Irène Jacob’s life, dreams and reader came to like very much.
Instrumentation Technologies, d.o.o. / Velika pot 22, SI-5250 Solkan, Slovenia / e: sales@i-tech.si / w: www.i-tech.si reflects on other wonders – those related nightmares. It is a remarkably intimate
to the circle of life. The book ties all account, looking deep into what it is to be James Gillies CERN.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Interview_v4.indd 50 24/06/2020 13:48 CCJulAug20_Reviews_v3.indd 51 24/06/2020 14:28
www.
PEOPLE
OPINION REVIEWS
New Perspectives on Einstein’s E = mc2
Young Suh Kim and Marilyn E Noz

new perspectives on an equation such as
E = mc2. The book’s true aim is to convey
to a broader audience the formal work
chapters, which are more mathemati-
cal and draw heavily on publications by
the authors – a well-established writing
CAREERS
World Scientific done by the authors on group theory. team who have co-authored many papers
Therefore, a better-suited title may have relating to group theory. The initial part
New Perspectives on Einstein’s E = mc2 mixes been “Group theoretical perspectives is easy to read and includes entertaining
Surveying the surveyors

historical notes with theoretical aspects on relativity”, or even, more poetically, stories, such as Einstein’s mistakes when
of the Lorentz group that impact rela- “When Wigner met Einstein”. filing his US tax declaration. Einstein,
tivity and quantum mechanics. The title The first third of the book is an essay according to this story, was calculating
is a little perplexing, however, as one on Einstein’s life, with historical notes his taxes erroneously, but the US tax-
can hardly expect nowadays to discover on topics discussed in the subsequent payer agency was kind enough not to raise
The need at CERN to align
J-F Fuchs
the issue. The reader has to be warned,
however, that the authors, professors at components within a fraction
the University of Maryland and New York
University, have a tendency to make ques-
of a millimetre demands
tionable statements about certain aspects skills and tools beyond the
of the development of physics that may scope of normal surveyor jobs.
not be backed up by the relevant liter-
ature, and may even contradict known
facts. They have a repeated tendency to A career as a surveyor offers the best of two
interpret the development of physical worlds, thinks Dominique Missiaen, a senior
theories in terms of a Hegelian synthesis member of CERN’s survey, mechatronics and
of a thesis and an antithesis, without any measurements (SMM) group: “I wanted to be a
cited sources in support, which seems, in surveyor because I felt I would like to be inside
most cases, to be a somewhat arbitrary part of the time and outside the other, though
a posteriori assessment. being at CERN is the opposite because the field
There is a sharp distinction in the style is in the tunnels!” After qualifying as a sur-
of the second part of the book, which veyor and spending time doing metrology for a
requires training in physics or maths at cement plant in Burma and for the Sorbonne in
advanced undergraduate level. These Paris, Missiaen arrived at CERN as a stagier in
chapters begin with a discussion of the 1986. He never left, starting in a staff position
Lorentz group. The interest then quickly working on the alignment of the pre-injector
shifts to Wigner’s “little groups”, which for LEP, then of LEP itself, and then leading the
are subgroups of the Lorentz group with internal metrology of the magnets for the LHC.
the property of leaving the momentum From 2009–2018 he was in charge of the whole
of a system invariant. Armed with this survey section, and since last year has a new role
mathematical machinery, the authors as a coordinator for special projects, such as the
proceed to Dirac spinors and give a development of a train to remotely survey the Fieldwork Alban Vieille of the accelerators, survey and geodesy section aligning a LHC collimator.
Lorentz-invariant formulation of the magnets in the arcs of the LHC.
harmonic oscillator that is eventually
applied to the parton model. The last
“Being a surveyor at CERN is completely dif-
ferent to other surveying jobs,” explains Missi-
We see the physics meeting an obstacle.
The specialised nature of surveying at CERN
chapter is devoted to a short discussion aen. “We are asked to align components within results as a success means the team has to spend a lot of time finding
on optical applications of the concepts a couple of tenths of a millimetre, whereas in the right people and training newcomers. “It’s
advanced previously. Unfortunately, the normal world they tend to work with an that we share in too hard to measure at this level and to maintain
the book finishes abruptly at this point, accuracy of 1–2 cm, so we have to develop new the accuracy over long distances, so when we
without a much-needed final chapter and special techniques.” recruit we look for people who have a feeling for
to summarise the material and discuss this level of precision,” says Missiaen, adding
future work, which, the previous chapters A history of precision The AC line is realised by a nylon wire, while the that a constant feed of students is important.
imply, should be plentiful. When building the Proton Synchrotron in the distance is measured using a device invented at “Every year I go back to my engineering school
Young Suh Kim and Marilyn Noz’s 1950s, engineers needed an instrument to align CERN called the “ecartometer”. and give a talk about metrology, geodesy and
book may struggle to find its audience. components to 50 microns in the horizontal Invention and innovation haven’t stopped. topometry at CERN so that the students under-
The contrast between the lay and expert plane. A device to measure such distances did The SMM group recently adapted a metrology stand there is something special they can do
parts of this short book, and the very not exist on the market, so the early CERN team technique called frequency sweeping interfer- in their career. Some are not interested at all,
specialised topics it explores, do not invented the “distinvar” – an instrument to ometry for use in a cryogenic environment to while others are very interested – I never find
make it suitable for a university course, ensure the nominal tension of an invar wire align components inside the sealed cryostats students in between!”
though sections could be incorporated while measuring the small length to be added of the future High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), CERN’s SMM group has more than 120 peo-
as additional material. It may well serve, to obtain the distance between two points. It which contract by up to 12 mm when cooled ple, with around 35 staff members. Contractors
however, as an interesting pastime was still used as recently as 10 years ago, says to operational temperatures. Another recent push the numbers up further during peri-
for mathematically inclined audiences Missiaen. Another “stretched wire” technique innovation, in collaboration with the Institute ods such as the current long-shutdown two
who will certainly appreciate the for- developed for the ISR in the 1960s and still in of Plasma Physics in Prague that came about (LS2), during which the group is tasked with
malism and clarity of the presentation use today replaces small-angle measurements while developing the challenging alignment measuring all the components of the LHC in
of the mathematics. by a short-distance measurement: instead of system for HIE-ISOLDE, is a non-diffractive the radial and vertical direction. “It takes
measuring the angle between two directions, laser beam with a central axis that diverges by two years,” says Jean-Frederic Fuchs, who
Nikolaos Rompotis University AB and AC, using a theodolite, it measures the just a few mm over distances of several hundred is section leader for accelerators, survey and
of Liverpool. distance between the point B and the line AC. metres and which can “reconstruct” itself after geodesy. “During a technical stop, we are in
52 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 C E R N C O U R I E R J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 53
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Reviews_v3.indd 52 24/06/2020 14:29 CCJulAug20_Careers_v2.indd 53 24/06/2020 12:03
www.
RECRUITMENT
PEOPLE CAREERS
charge of the 3D-position determination of a surveyor’s job – post-treatment of the data The new beam-dump tunnels in the LHC and
the components in the tunnels and their align- and planning for measurement campaigns is the freshly excavated HL-LHC tunnels in points
ment at the level of a few tenths of a millimetre. also a big part of what we do.” 1 and 5 are also moving slightly compared to
There is a huge number of various accelera- With experience in both experiment and the main LHC tunnel. “Today we almost know For advertising enquiries, contact CERN Courier recruitment/classified, IOP Publishing, Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol BS1 6HG, UK.
tor elements along the 63 km of beam lines accelerator alignment, Fuchs knows all too well all the places where it moves,” says Fuchs. “For Tel +44 (0)117 930 1264 E-mail sales@cerncourier.com.
at CERN.” the importance of surveying at CERN. Some sure, if you want to run the LHC for another
Please contact us for information about rates, colour options, publication dates and deadlines.
Fuchs did his master’s thesis at CERN in the areas of the LHC tunnel are moving by about 18 years there will be a lot of measurement
domain of photogrammetry and then left to 1 mm per year due to underground movement and realignment work to be done.” His team
work in Portugal, where he was in charge of inside the rock. The tunnel is rising at point also works closely with machine physicists to
guiding a tunnel-boring machine for a railway 5 (where CMS is located) and falling between compare its measurements to those performed
project. He returned to CERN in the early 2000s P7 and P8, near ATLAS, while the huge mass with the beams themselves.
as a fellow, followed by a position as a project of the LHC experiments largely keeps them at It is clear that CERN’s accelerator infra-
associate working on the assembly and align- the same vertical position, therefore requiring structure could not function at the level it does
ment of the CMS experiment. He then left to significant realignment of the LHC magnets. without the field and office work of surveyors.
join EDF where he worked on metrology inside During LS2, the SMM group plans to lower the “We see the physics results as a success that we
nuclear power plants, finally returning to CERN LHC at point 5 by 3 mm to better match the CMS share in too,” says Missiaen. “When the LHC
as a staff member in 2011 working on accelerator interaction point by adjusting jacks that allow turned on you couldn’t know if a mistake had
alignment. “I too sought a career in which I the LHC to be raised or lowered by around 20 mm been made somewhere, so in seeing the beam
didn’t have to spend too much time in the office. in each direction. For newer installations, the go from one point to another, we take pride that
I also liked the balance between measurements movement can be much greater. For example, we have made that possible.”
and calculations. Using theodolites and other LINAC4 has moved up by 5 mm in the source
equipment to get the data is just one aspect of area, leading to a slope that must be corrected. Matthew Chalmers editor.
Appointments and awards

New director at PSI from the UK’s national First Olga Igonkina travel
Ox ford Universit y
Christian Rüegg, a solid-state laboratories and CERN being grant awarded

physicist with a research focus affiliated with its research and Viacheslav Matiunin, a PhD
on quantum phenomena in teaching programmes. student in experimental physics
magnetism, took up the position at ITEP Moscow, has received the
of director of the Paul Scherrer Turok takes up Higgs chair first Olga Igonkina travel grant
Institute (PSI) in Switzerland on Theorist Neil Turok, previously for Russian talent in physics.
1 April, succeeding Joël Mesot. In director of the Perimeter Institute The €2000 award was established
addition to its advanced X-ray and in Canada, has taken up the in memory of the late Russian–
spallation–neutron sources, PSI inaugural Higgs Chair at the Dutch particle physicist Olga
is host to rare-decay experiments Higgs Centre for Theoretical “Olya” Igonkina, a member of the
such as MEG II (CERN Courier May/ Physics (HCTP) at the University ATLAS experiment and Nikhef
Jun 2019 p45) and Mu3e, and has a staff who passed away last year
Perimeter Institute
strong programme of searches for at the age of 45. Announced in

new physics using high-intensity, May, Nikhef has also established,
low-momentum pion and muon in Igonkina’s memory, a new
beams and ultracold neutrons.
Nik hef
Earlier this year, a team used pion Burrows heads JAI
beams at PSI to make the first Philip Burrows of the University
of Oxford has been appointed
Scanderbeg Sauer Photography
director of the John Adams

Institute for Accelerator
Science (JAI), a three-institute
centre of excellence for Can you imagine working in a place like nowhere else on earth?
advanced accelerator science
and technology based at: the
University of Oxford; Royal
of Edinburgh. Building on the
scientific legacy of Peter Higgs,
CERN seeks to recruit the next ISOLDE Physics Group Leader
Holloway, University of the HCTP was established in 2012
London; and Imperial College. with a vision to create bridges The on-line isotope mass separator ISOLDE is a facility dedicated to the production of a large variety of radioactive ion
JAI’s core R&D programme between disciplines and combine beams for many different experiments in the fields of nuclear and atomic physics, solid-state physics, materials science
covers beam dynamics, beam graduate-school education with and life sciences. The facility is located at the Proton-Synchrotron Booster (PSB) at CERN, the European Organization for
instrumentation, feedback and research. Turok plans to promote
control, RF systems, metrology new research directions including
Nuclear Research. It is operated by the ISOLDE collaboration.
and alignment systems, lasers the application of real-time path
and plasmas, and medical integrals in general relativity, and three-year fellowship for a Full details of the position can be found on: http://cern.ch/go/Sc7X
beamlines. The institute to lead a considerable expansion female post-doc researcher
spectroscopic measurements currently comprises 20 faculty, of the centre’s activities, intended to encourage talented
Deadline for applications: 30.09.2020
of exotic pionic-helium atoms 29 staff and 39 PhD students, including new faculty positions female physicists to pursue a
(see p15). with an additional 33 staff and fellowships. career in science.
CERN. Take part!
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Careers_v2.indd 54 24/06/2020 12:06
www.
ELI Beamlines research centre in Dolní Břežany is part We offer:

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY of pan-European Extreme Light Infrastructure supporting
A Research Centre of the Helmholtz Association • the opportunity to participate in this unique scientific
scientific excellence in Europe by making available its
capacities to the best scientific teams across the world. project
The ELI Beamlines is part of the Institute of Physics of • competitive and motivating salary
the Czech Academy of Sciences. The High Field Initiative • flexible working hours
For our location in Hamburg we are seeking: Faculty Position in the Medical Physics group at project at the ELI-BL is established to be the leading • career growth
the Institute of Physics, • lunch vouchers, pension contribution and 5 sick days
DESY-Fellowships - Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
project in the high field science.
• support of leisure time activities
Experimental Particle Physics
The Institute of Physics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Interviews will begin immediately and the position will stay
DESY. Chile invites applications for a tenure-track full time faculty The HiFI-ERT (Excellence Research Team) recruits
open until filled.
DESY is one of the world’s leading research centres for photon science, position at the Assistant Professor level in Medical Physics
a scientist for developing theory and computer
particle and astroparticle physics as well as accelerator physics. More or a closely related field. We are looking for candidates with Applications, containing CV, cover letter, contacts of
than 2700 employees work at our two locations Hamburg and Zeuthen in simulations on the following activities:
a strong background and research expertise in any subfield references, and any other material the candidate considers
science, technology and administration.
of physics applied to medical diagnosis and treatment and • theory of charged particle acceleration and hard relevant, should be sent to
Particle physics and the investigation of the fundamental building blocks open to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams. A Ph.D. degree Mrs. Jana Ženíšková, HR specialist
electromagnetic radiation in relativistic laser plasma
of nature and their interactions are at the core of the DESY mission. We
in Physics or a closely related field is required. Postdoctoral • development and use of various computer codes for (jana.zeniskova@eli-beams.eu, +420 - 601560322).
take significant responsibility in internationally leading projects, e.g.
at CERN and at KEK, and on our campus. We develop detectors and experience is desirable. simulation of nonlinear processes in laser plasmas
Information regarding the personal data processing and
technologies relevant for our experimental activities, and we engage in The successful candidate is expected to be able to teach in Further questions on scientific project can be addressed to access to the personal data at the IoP CAS can be found
scientific computing and in the development of future accelerators for Spanish after one year. Applications must include curriculum Sergei Bulanov (sergei.bulanov@eli-beams.eu) on: https://www.fzu.cz/en/processing-of-personal-data.
particle physics. vitae, list of publications, statements of proposed research and
The position teaching interests, and two recommendation letters. Requirements:
You are invited to take an active role in one or more of the following areas The recommendation letters must be sent directly by the • PhD in Physics or Mathematics with the focus on
at Hamburg: referees to the e-mail provided below. theoretical and computation physics related to
l Our involvements at CERN (ATLAS, CMS) and at KEK (Belle II)
l Experimental activities on-site (ALPS II and future on-site experiments) The successful candidate is expected to establish independent nonlinear waves, charged particle acceleration,
l Preparations for future particle physics experiments, in particular research. The complete application should be sent by quantum electrodynamics, numerical modeling of
e-mail by July 31st, 2020 to the Search Committee at relativistic plasmas
detector and technology development
l Scientific computing
submit2020@fis.puc.cl.
l Accelerator development
Requirements
M TOB
Department of Space and Climate Physics
OC
AR E
Ph.D. in physics completed within the last four years
CH R 2
l
AN 020
Interest in particle physics
Graduate Careers
D
l
l Expertise relevant for at least one of the areas listed above

Now accepting applications for: Image: NASA astronauts
DESY-Fellowships are awarded for a duration of 2 years with the repair the Hubble Space
possibility of prolongation by one additional year. MSc Space Science and Engineering Telescope
Target the best candidates for your graduate vacancy
Futher informations and a link to the submission system for your The space industry is a multi-billion pound industry in the UK
application and the references can be found here: Contact Natasha Clarke today to find out
and is growing world-wide. In a programme taught by the UK’s
http://www.desy.de/FellowFH how to get your vacancy noticed. largest university space science department, learn how to design
Please note that it is the applicants responsibility that all material, a space mission from payload selection to launch and operation.
E-mail natasha.clarke@ioppublishing.org
including letter of references, reach DESY before the deadline for the Taking the Space Technology pathway, you will learn cutting
Tel +44 (0)117 930 1864
application to be considered. edge space applications for science and technology including mechanical
Salary and benefits are commensurate with those of public service Powered by and electrical design of satellites.
organisations in Germany. Classification is based upon qualifications and The Space Science pathway prepares you for a career in the exciting fields
assigned duties. Handicapped persons will be given preference to other of experimental solar-, planetary-, or astro- physics. Learn how to design and
equally qualified applicants. DESY operates flexible work schemes. DESY operate scientific instrument in space from scientists and engineers that work
is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and encourages on ESA and NASA missions.
applications from women. Vacant positions at DESY are in general open
Find more information and apply at: bit.ly/MSSL_MSc
to part-time work. During each application procedure DESY will assess
whether the post can be filled with part-time employees.
MSc Space Risk and Disaster Reduction
Deadline for applications: 2020/09/30 In an increasingly technological and globally connected world,
We are looking forward to your application via our application system: risks to space-based communications systems and critical
www.desy.de/onlineapplication infrastructure are emerging threats to national security and
businesses.
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
This unique programme unites emergency response, disaster risk reduction
Human Resources Department | Code: FHFE003/2020
and space technology, you will learn about satellite technology, mission
Notkestraße 85 | 22607 Hamburg Germany
design, hazards and vulnerabilities unique to outer space, and the monitoring
Phone: +49 40 8998-3392 http://www.desy.de/career
of hazards on Earth from outer space. Taught jointly with the Institute of Risk
and Disaster Reduction, this programme is a blend of disaster science and
space technology.
Find more information and apply at: bit.ly/MSSL_MSc
CERNCOURIER www.
M TOB
OC
AR E
CH R 2
AN 020
D
PEOPLE
PEOPLE OBITUARIES
OBITUARIES a programme of high-mass dimuon production collaboration, making sure that they were visible
CERN
with π+, π-, K+, K–, p and –
p beams, enabling the at collaboration meetings and conferences. He
first observation of upsilon production by pions. also imbued them and the whole collaboration
It also probed the structure of the incoming with a culture of never publishing even prelim-
particles via the Drell–Yan process. The spec- inary results before being absolutely certain of
trometer carried out a string of valuable experi- them. As a result, OPAL’s scientists built a strong
P ier r e L a zey r a s 1931–2020 ments under Aldo’s guidance until 1981, when he reputation, with many conference conversations
Talent, tenacity and warmth

became spokesperson of the OPAL experiment including the words, “let’s wait and see what OPAL
being planned for LEP. Aldo remained at the has to say”. Aldo’s faith in the younger generation
helm of OPAL right up to his retirement in 1995. was rewarded by some 300 successful PhD theses
OPAL was built around tried and tested technol- from OPAL, while more than 100 CERN fellows
Pierre Lazeyras, who played leading roles in the with the superconducting magnet cryostat. ogy, including a paradoxical novelty for Morpurgo: passed through the collaboration over its lifetime.
U Schlatter
ALEPH experiment, neutrino beams and silicon Under Pierre’s supervision, a vacuum leak was a warm magnet. Huge for its time, with a collabo- Aldo was a great leader, commanding respect
detectors during a 35-year-long career at CERN, located, close to the edge of the magnet, and ration of some 300 people, OPAL was nevertheless and affection in equal measure. That the collab-
passed away on 4 April aged 88. the cryostat then underwent “surgery” using the smallest of the four LEP experiments. It was Aldo Michelini during the LEPfest in October 2000. oration was still able to gather more than 100
Pierre graduated from the École supérieure de a milling machine suspended from a crane. It a scale that lent itself well to Aldo’s unique style members in 2019 to celebrate the 30th anni-
physique et chimie industrielle (ESPCI) in Paris was a wonderful exercise in imagination and, to of management – leading through example and making tough choices, and winning over those versary of that first Z decay is testimony to the
in 1954 and, after working in Anatole Abragam’s the relief of all, a complete success. Pierre had consensus. Colleagues remember him smiling who might initially have disagreed with him. kind of person Aldo was, and to the spirit that he
group at CEA Saclay, he joined CERN as a staff always insisted that such a huge superconduct- and looking very worried, or more often than not, When OPAL detected the first Z boson at LEP on engendered. Although he was unable to attend
member in October 1961. He was one of the early ing magnet and cryostat inherently constituted the other way around. This was strangely moti- 13 August 1989, Aldo was heard to remark that the that gathering, he sent a message, and was loudly
collaborators in the Track Chamber (TC) division, a fragile device, and had objected to the idea of vational, with team members striving to make young people had taken over. The average age of cheered. He will be sorely missed.
which built the two-metre bubble chamber and warming up the magnet during annual shut- him smile more and worry less. His personality those in the control room that day was well under
the Big European Bubble Chamber (BEBC). In downs, citing the mechanical stress resulting shaped the unique OPAL team spirit. Despite his 30, and that youthfulness was no accident. Aldo Rolf Heuer, David Plane and Mette Stuwe
parallel, he headed the team that developed one from this procedure. He was absolutely right. gentle nature, Aldo was more than capable of actively supported the young members of the CERN (retired) and James Gillies CERN.
of the first superconducting bending magnets Pierre was also involved in the design of the
for BEBC’s “beam s3”. large stabilised superconductors for the LHC- A dolf M in ten 1931–2020
A scientific and technical authority

Pierre directed the TC SPS neutrino beam experiment magnets and served as a member of
group from 1972, which included the construc- the magnet advisory group of the LHC into his
tion of the horns, the 185 m-long iron muon retirement, his wisdom being highly appreci-
shielding and the beam monitoring, for which Pierre at his retirement party in 1996. ated. He was also an active member of the CERN
silicon-diode particle detectors were employed. Staff Association. Following his retirement in Distinguished CERN physicist Adolf Minten tion as EF division leader and joined the ALEPH
CERN
After some initial teething troubles, the SPS those of us coming from smaller experiments. 1996, he joined the Groupement des Anciens and passed away on 21 March at the age of 88. experiment at LEP. The LEP experiments were a
neutrino beams operated for nearly 20 years Pierre made sure we were realistic in our ambi- was a representative on the CERN health insur- After graduating from the University of Bonn, quantum leap in size and complexity when com-
without major problems. The silicon monitors tions and our estimates of the difficulties and ance supervisory committee, where his advice where he worked in the team of Wolfgang Paul on pared to previous experiments, and demanded
were found to be more precise than the early gas- planning constraints, and we owe it mainly and opinions were always wise and measured. the 500 MeV electron synchrotron, Adolf joined new organisational structures. As head of the
filled ion chambers, and this was the beginning to him that the various parts of ALEPH were Pierre was not only highly talented and used the CERN Track Chamber division in 1962. Work- ALEPH steering committee, Adolf was instru-
of the era of silicon micro-strip detectors. Pierre assembled without major problems. He was his experience most effectively, he was also ing under Charles Peyrou, he set up beamlines mental in setting up an organisation whose role
encouraged the microelectronics developments always available for advice even if, in his care- a warm person, someone on whom one could for the two-metre bubble chamber and actively he compared to an “orchestra, where it is not
for this new technology and its integrated read- ful and reserved style, he did not try to direct always rely. He would always tell you straight participated in its broad physics programme. sufficient that all the instruments be properly
out circuits. These advances also came just in or micro-manage everything. how things were and then suggest how any Another important milestone of his career was tuned, they must also harmonise”. However,
time for the UA2 experiment at the SPS and for In addition to being responsible for gen- problems could be tackled. A typical remark by his time as a visiting scientist at SLAC from 1966 his true role of an “elder statesman” went far
wider applications in the LEP experiments. eral safety in the experiment (which had no Pierre would be: “Ask me to approve or reject to 1967, where he took part in the early experi- beyond organisational responsibilities; equally
Pierre was instrumental in the formation major incidents during its 11 years of opera- your ideas, do not ask me what work I have for ments on hadron electro-production and electron important were his human qualities, which
and success of ALEPH. From the conception tion), Pierre ensured that the construction of you.” We will remember him as a very dear friend scattering at the new two-mile accelerator. were remarkable indeed and for which he was
of the experiment in 1982 right through to the ALEPH was completed within budget. He also and colleague. Adolf returned to CERN at a time of deci- Adolf Minten addressing the crowd at one of the respected by both young and old.
LEP2 phase in 1996, he was ALEPH techni- played an essential role at a crucial moment for sive developments in accelerator and detector famous EF division parties. Adolf maintained a constant interest in DESY,
cal coordinator – a role that was quite new to the experiment in the early 1990s: the problem His friends and colleagues at CERN. technologies. In parallel to his continued par- where he was highly appreciated. In 1981 Bjorn
ticipation in bubble-chamber experiments, he electronics channels. Major detector, electronics Wiik’s study group had finished the HERA design
a Ldo M icheLin i 1930–2020 became interested in the physics programme of and software developments were needed to bring report, and DESY set up an international evalua-
A respected leader
the Intersecting Storage Rings, the world’s first this project into operation in 1974. tion committee to analyse it in detail. Adolf was
proton–proton collider, which started operation In 1975, to prepare for the next generation of invited to chair this committee. Its positive rec-
in 1971. To cope with the high interaction rates experiments at the new SPS machine, the CERN ommendation was a significant step towards the
expected at this new machine, the development management proposed the creation of a new approval of the HERA project. He chaired the DESY
Aldo Michelini, who led OPAL and other impor- ber magnet with spark chambers, which he then superconducting magnet that could be arranged of track detectors focused on the multi-wire Experimental Facilities (EF) division. Adolf was scientific council from 1987 until 1990, during
tant experiments at CERN, passed away at Easter used as part of a CERN/ETH/Imperial College/ and configured according to the physics to be proportional chamber (MWPC) developed by elected to lead the new EF division, a position that the main construction phase of the storage rings
at the age of 89. He was known as much for his Saclay collaboration to measure properties of studied. Omega was initially equipped with Georges Charpak. One of the designs was a large required a combination of strong scientific and and the H1 and ZEUS multi-purpose detectors.
kindness and care for his colleagues, particu- the K20 meson and p –
p and K-p charge-exchange spark chambers and installed on a PS beamline, multi-purpose spectrometer called the split-field technical authority, and in which he commanded Adolf retired from CERN in 1996. We remember
larly those embarking on their careers, as for interactions using a polarised target. receiving its first beam in 1972, and moved to magnet (SFM). At that time, a large-scale appli- the unreserved respect of his collaborators. Fol- him as a supremely well-organised scientist of
the physics at which he excelled. As the 1960s advanced, Aldo formed a partner- the SPS in 1976 where it became the backbone of cation of the revolutionary MWPC technology, lowing support provided to the major facilities for deep and incisive intelligence, unafraid to chal-
Aldo first came to CERN in 1960, bringing ship and life-long friendship with his compa- the fixed-target programme there for 20 years. hitherto available only in single-wire devices or the SPS fixed-target programme, such as BEBC, lenge and question preconceived ideas, and always
experience from several tracking-chamber triot, Mario Morpurgo, who was an early pioneer In 1973, Aldo headed a similar project to build small-surface detectors, presented a formidable the Omega spectrometer and the neutrino, muon inspiring others to do the same. At the same time,
experiments, including a stint with Jack Stein- of superconducting magnet technology. The a general-purpose spectrometer for the North challenge. In 1969, Adolf became responsible for and other experiments, his new division soon he was a modest person who cared profoundly
berger at Columbia University, and he lost no two were part of the small team spearheading Area. This became NA3, which was the first the construction of the SFM facility, which cov- became involved in the successful experiments for all the people around him, and their families.
time in making an impact. One of his earliest the development of the Omega spectrometer, experiment to receive beam in the new SPS had- ered the full solid angle with an unprecedented at the SPS proton–antiproton collider.
contributions was to equip CERN’s Wilson cham- a general-purpose device built around a large ron hall, EHN1, in May 1978. NA3 embarked on 300 m 2 detector surface, and 70,000 wires and In 1984 Adolf stepped down from his posi- His friends and colleagues.
s
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Obits_v2.indd 58 24/06/2020 09:24 CCJulAug20_Obits_v2.indd 59 24/06/2020 09:25
www.
PEOPLE OBITUARIES PEOPLE OBITUARIES
A n t on ino P ulli A 1935–2020 policy committees, including the European
CERN
From neutral currents to dark matter
Physical Society HEPP board (2006–2013) and
the CERN scientific policy committee (2012–
2017). Outside academia, she was a member of
several Spanish ministerial scientific panels
Antonino Pullia, who passed away in April aged out that the predicted background was far and of the technical and research panel of the
Pullia family
84, was a student of Giuseppe Occhialini at the too small to explain the observed number of Princesa de Asturias awards. She also held an
University of Milan and obtained his laurea in neutral-current candidates and thus, at the honorary doctorate from the Menéndez Pelayo
1959. For the next 60 years he devoted himself end of July 1973, the collaboration was able to International University, received the silver
to teaching, administration and the rich physics announce the great discovery of neutral cur- medal of the University of Cantabria and the
research programmes at the INFN and the uni- rents. The Italian Physical Society awarded the first Julio Peláez award for female pioneers in
versities of Milan and Milano-Bicocca, playing 2011 Fermi prize to Pullia in recognition of his science, among other recognitions.
a major role in establishing the new physics important contribution. Teresa’s influence on the Santander HEP
department at the latter. He had a great passion At the beginning of the 1980s Tonino, as he group and the IFCA institute that she directed
for teaching undergraduates, continuing well was known, joined the DELPHI collaboration until a few months before her death remains
into retirement. at LEP where he worked with his group on the very visible. During her tenure, the group grew
Pullia’s research ranged over many topics construction of the electromagnetic calorime- considerably and greatly expanded its activ-
including neutrino physics, proton decay, ter, along with the reconstruction and analysis ities. The institute was awarded the greatest
double-beta decay, DELPHI at LEP, CMS at LHC software. The Milan group, under his constant distinction of excellence of the Spanish science
and dark-matter searches. He also played a support, was extremely active in DELPHI, pro- system, the Maria de Maeztu grant, and the Teresa Anoro in the CMS control room.
prom inent role in t he discover y of neu- posing many original analyses, as well as many gender-equality prize awarded by the Spanish
tral currents at CERN using the Gargamelle PhD and master theses, contributing to the National Research Council. approachable, righteous and sy mpathetic vision and her ability to mentor rising col-
bubble chamber. exceptionally rich LEP physics results. Those of us who were fortunate enough she was, though with a strong character that leagues. She will be sorely missed.
In Marc h 1972 he presented t he ver te x In 2012 Tonino became interested in the to know Teresa and to share some of her came from her deep honesty. Teresa’s legacy
distribution of possible neutral-current events detection of dark matter, deciding to resurrect scientific passions, are aware of how kind, stands as a testament to her leadership, her Her colleagues and friends.
that had no lepton candidate but one or more a special type of bubble chamber developed
pions. The distribution was seen to be uni- Tonino Pullia played a prominent role in the 50 years ago – called “the Geyser” – which is D a n il a T lisov 1983–2020
A unique mix of strengths

form, just like the events with muon candidates, discovery of neutral currents at CERN. remarkable in its simplicity. With no moving
leading immediately to the formation of work- parts, and the ability to reset itself a few seconds
ing groups concentrating on neutral-current
searches in both hadronic and purely leptonic
He was always after a bubble is formed, the device was ideal
for underground experiments. He also formed
modes. After a remarkable scanning and meas-
extremely kind the MOSCAB collaboration, which successfully Danila Tlisov, a member of the CMS collabora-
C Smith/CMS
urement effort many candidates for neutral produced a small detector with the required tion at CERN, passed away on 14 April in Russia
currents had been found, but the burning issue
was the size of the background due to neutron
and open to superheat needed for dark-matter searches.
Each of us who had the privilege to work with,
due to complications associated with COVID-19.
He was just 36 years old.
interactions. Pullia recognised the importance
of a special class of events, namely genuine
alternative views or simply to talk to, Tonino has been enlight-
ened in some way in our efforts to have a deeper
Danila joined the INR Moscow group in 2010 as
a young researcher after graduating with honours
neutrino events with a detected final-state understanding of fundamental physics. He was from Moscow State University and defending his
muon and a neutron emitted at the interac- always extremely kind and open to alternative dissertation. Following his contributions to early
tion vertex and detected downstream in the a neutron. It was clear that the major source views. We will sadly miss him for his human heavy-neutrino searches, he started to work on
visible part of the bubble chamber. Such events of background neutrons was coming from qualities, and as a physicist. the CMS hadron calorimeter (HCAL) subsystem
were rare, but very valuable, since in this case neutrino events in the material surrounding in 2012. Danila served as the hub of the multi-
the downstream event was surely induced by Gargamelle. With this knowledge, it turned His friends and colleagues. national CMS HCAL upgrade effort, leading
the CERN-based team that received individual
t er es A r odr ig o A noro 1956–2020 components from India, Russia, Turkey and the
Shaping Spanish particle physics

US, and assembling them into a working detec-
tor. Danila recently brought his unique mix of
strengths to the CMS HCAL management team
as deputy project manager and a member of the
Teresa Rodrigo Anoro, professor of atomic and the Uranium–TMP calorimeter for the upgrade More recently, moving away from hadron CMS management.
nuclear physics at the University of Cantabria, of the UA1 experiment, where she started beams for the first time, Teresa promoted new In the physics analysis realm, Danila worked
passed away at her home on 20 April after a her personal journey towards finding the approaches to the search for light dark-matter with the University of Rochester group on a
long illness. She was a leading figure within top quark. This eventually brought her to the at the DAMIC experiment. She was well aware measurement of t he electrowea k mi x ing
the particle-physics community and played a CDF experiment at Fermilab, where she car- of the importance of technology development angle using the forward–backward asym-
key role in shaping Spanish particle-physics ried out the detailed modelling of the W+jet and detector building in high-energy physics metry in Drell–Yan events, where he focused
policy, with an emphasis on promoting the background, a crucial input to the top’s dis- and orchestrated her group’s contribution to the on critical improvements to the calibration
participation of women in science. covery. In 1994 she took up a faculty position construction of the CMS muon spectrometer, in of t he electron-energ y measurements in Danila Tlisov was instrumental in the CMS HCAL upgrade.
After her bachelor’s degree in physics from at the Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA) particular its muon alignment system, and to challenging regions of Drell–Yan kinematic
the Universit y of Zaragoza, Teresa joined in Santander, incorporating the IFCA group the building of CDF’s time-of-flight detector. phase space. Danila was an accomplished backcountry tion, even during times of intense pressure. He
the high-energy physics group of La Junta into both the CDF experiment and the newly Teresa’s scientific insight and strong com- CMS friends and colleag ues remember touring skier. Because of his great physical challenged us with his brilliant ideas, guided
de Energ ía Nuclear in Madr id (cur rent ly formed CMS collaboration at CERN. Under her mitment to whatever endeavour she was fondly the warm smile and incredibly effective strength and focus on climbing, it was often students with patience and grace, and inspired
CIEMAT), earning a PhD in 1985 with a thesis direction, the group continued her study of engaged in were recognised by the interna- leadership of Danila. His practical know-how said that he may have been faster going uphill us all. He will be sorely missed.
on the production of strange particles at the the properties of the top quark and opened up tional community: she was elected chair of and excellent judgement were critical as we than downhill, and that is saying a lot.
NA23 experiment at CERN. She then moved a new line of research towards the discovery the CMS collaboration board (2011–2012) and worked together through the tough challenges Among his many colleagues, Danila will be His colleagues and friends from the
to CERN to participate in the development of of the Higgs boson. served as a member of several scientific of a major detector upgrade. remembered for his pleasant, cheerful disposi- CMS collaboration.
s
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Obits_v2.indd 60 24/06/2020 09:27 CCJulAug20_Obits_v2.indd 61 24/06/2020 09:28
www.
BACKGROUND
Notes and observations from the high-energy physics community
Particle of doubt From the archive: July/August 1980

Contemporary classical music
CERN unlocked
CERN 81-6-80
CERN 68-6-80
CERN 99-6-80
is the latest addition to
Fermilab’s rich cultural life
in physics. Inaugural guest-
composer David Ibbett’s latest
oeuvre, Particle of Doubt, is a
sonification of the evolving
flavour fractions in the neutrino Left: Research DG Léon Van Hove fires the starting pistol; middle: the runners
beam of the lab’s flagship In DUNE David Ibbett (left), alongside get under way; right: Executive DG John Adams presents the Challenge Trophy.
long-baseline neutrino facility, fellow artists in residence Patrick
First collisions in the Berkeley/Stanford PEP electron–positron
which is preparing to send a Gallagher and Chris Klapper, in front of
storage ring on 4 May were celebrated on the cover of CERN Courier
beam 810 km from Chicago to part of DUNE’s short-baseline detector.
July/August 1980. Also reported was a world record in
the DUNE detector in South
centre-of-mass energies on 21 May, when CERN’s Intersecting
Dakota (see p32). Violin, viola and cello parts map the fractions of the
electron, muon and tau eigenstates to the pitch of the melody, while Storage Rings collided two beams of 62 GeV alpha particles.
flutes play rhythms taken from an estimate of the three neutrino Then, June saw an event we can only dream of during these
masses – assuming normal ordering. “You should be massless like locked-down days. Not a first but a 10th – CERN’s annual relay race.
rays of light,” sings soprano Beth Sterling, as the wavefunction Were you there? Did you run? Did you drop the baton? To paraphrase
evolves. “You should be changeless, but the change gives us hope Baron Pierre de Coubertin: “The most important thing in the CERN
that we’ll know where we came from,” she continues, referring to the race is not winning but taking part …”
potential of the DUNE experiment to quantify leptonic CP violation. Pictured above are some reminders of that sunny
“I don’t often write lyrics,” explains Ibbett, “but was so moved by day when the Laboratory, with double Directors-
what I’ve learned about neutrinos, the infinitesimally small particles General and staff physically distanced across two
that raise such huge questions, that the song found its way into sites, indulged in some social gathering. The race
existence.” The piece will premiere in full in a live concert 2021. would have had its Golden Jubilee in 2020 but … here’s
to taking part in the renormalised 50th in 2021.
 Based on CERN Courier July/August 1980,

The predicted muon
pp187–188, p194 and p206.
anomalous magnetic
moment based on a
116 591 810 new consensus from
the theory community
Media corner have been caused by reflections
of Askaryan-effect radio waves at
(43) × 10–11 (arXiv:2006.04822), which “Maiman’s letter consists of two

density interfaces between layers
of compressed snow, or firn.
is lower than the current simple figures and fewer than
experimental value by 300 words, and – unlike many “I think we’re seeing a real change
modern submissions – there is no here in what particle physics is
3.7 standard deviations
concluding paragraph announcing about. It’s not about adding more
the many scientific and technological particles to a long list of particles;
Les Horribles advances the finding may lead to.” it’s about how does the universe
Cernettes From an editorial in Nature Reviews really operate in a fundamental

way to produce what we see today?”
Physics (vol 2, p221) celebrating
reunite online 60 years of the laser, proposed Fermilab’s Joe Lykken quoted in an
by Theodore Maiman in a paper article about neutrino physics in
Dedicated in solidarity titled “Stimulated optical Gizmodo (20 May).
to everyone in lockdown radiation in ruby”.
around the world due “It wasn’t a hard decision for arXiv
to COVID-19, CERN’s “We think sub-surface firn is to join the strike.”
infamous musical spinout the culprit.” Astroparticle physicist Eleonora
Les Horribles Cernettes Ian Shoemaker of Virginia Tech, Presani, executive director of
– famous for such earworms as “Collider”, “Strong Interactions” quoted in New Atlas (11 June), the arXiv e-print repository,
and “Microwave Love” – have released “The Lockdown Song” on proposing that two bizarre, but quoted in Nature (9 June) on the
YouTube. “I’m running out of protons now the synchrotron’s shut,” apparently neutrino-like, high- decision by many academics and
sing the self-styled world’s only high-energy rock band energy events recorded at the organisations to cease research
(clockwise from top left: Colette Marx-Neilsen, Angela Higney, South Pole by the ANITA balloon activities on 10 June to reflect on
Michele de Gennaro and Lynn Veronneau). experiment in 2016 and 2018, may systemic inequalities in science.
CERNCOURIER
CCJulAug20_Background_v3.indd 62 24/06/2020 09:15
www.
POWER
SUPPLIES CAEN Electronic Instrumentation
ONE call answers ALL your questions
any
is t h e only comp ny
N to a
CAE
a ble o f r esponding our
cap fy
uirement o
power req hether they are
t: w
experimen d High Voltages
te
sophistica ious detectors or
rec
for your p Voltages for thirsty
ow for
powerful L or Powered Crates
s
electronic ular systems.
mod for
g offer s solutions
lo
Our cata ery needs!
ev
ed for per formance
Design ity!
and usabil
High Voltage & Low Voltage Power Supplies Products
Universal Multichannel NIM High VME High Desktop and Rack PCB High High Power Low Power Supply
HV/LV Systems Voltage PS Voltage PS High Voltage PS Voltage PS Voltage System Control Software
CERNCOURIER
IFC_July_2020_OK3.indd 1 19/06/20 13:11
www.

CERN Courier - Digital Edition

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

CERN Courier - Digital Edition

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

CERN Courier - Digital Edition

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

WELCOME

CERN Courier – digital edition

Elsewhere in this issue: a global network of ultra-sensitive magnetometers called

To sign up to the new-issue alert, please visit:

To subscribe to the magazine, please visit:

IN THIS ISSUE Volume 60 Number 4 July/August 2020

A new high density and flexible digital solution

User Firmware Generator and Compiler for CAEN magnetometers has

• Block diagram based user firmware generator and compiler

HIGH VOLTAGE. EXACTLY.

THOUSANDS OF APPLICATIONS POSSIBLE Reporting on international high-energy physics

CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 5

European strategy update released

NEWS ANALYSIS NEWS ANALYSIS

ATLAS and CMS

Neutrino oscillations constrain leptonic CP violation Higgs–boson interactions. Were CPV to

8 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 9

NEWS ANALYSIS NEWS ANALYSIS

CLOUD clarifies cause of urban smog

10 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 11

100 TeV photons test Lorentz invariance

Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 021102

from a single source

UNDER ALL fluoride-rich gas surrounding

CONDITIONS. spectroscopy (CRIS) setup,

www.vatvalve.com CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 15

Vector-boson scattering probes quartic coupling

• Accelerator and Neutron Instrumentation

CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 17

ENERGY FRONTIERS ENERGY FRONTIERS

LHCb interrogates X(3872) line shape

LEP-era universality discrepancy unravelled

18 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 19

3F Series RGA IPAC goes virtual

W www.HidenAnalytical.com E info@hiden..co.uk CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 21

FIELD NOTES FIELD NOTES

LHC physics shines amid COVID-19 crisis

Untitled-1 1 20/04/2020 12:50

A Modern Introduction to EDITOR’S

CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 25

FEATURE GNOME FEATURE GNOME

Hefei, China polarisation rotation 4. Daejeon, US

Canberra, Australia spin precession 6. Hefei, China

26 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 27

Particle and SUPERCON, Inc.

nuclear Superconducting Wire and Cable

A fach et al. 2018

28 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0

32 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 33

FEATURE NEUTRINOS FEATURE NEUTRINOS

from Fermilab to northern Minnesota from 2005 to 2012, Not super

34 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 35

FEATURE NEUTRINOS FEATURE NEUTRINOS

thousands of events per MeV

36 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0 37

TPCs – a bespoke new short-baseline detector (SBND), the

existing MicroBooNE detector, and the refurbished ICARUS

38 CER N COURIER J U LY/AUG US T 2 02 0

FEATURE LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION FEATURE LEPTONIC CP VIOLATION