accelerating-news-arc.web.cern.ch - issue 13

Applications of Particle Accelerators in Europe

Livia Lapadatescu — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:43:16 +0000

Applications of Particle Accelerators in Europe
by Angeles Faus-Golfe (UV), Rob Edgecock (HUD/STFC)

APAE poster

We are pleased to announce the kick-off meeting of “The Applications of Particle Accelerators in Europe” project that will be held on 18-19 June 2015 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.

Organised by the EuCARD‐2 project, this meeting marks the beginning of a process to document the uses and importance of accelerators in Europe. It will study applications which are new or currently under development, and for which technology developed for research can have an impact. The aim will be to demonstrate the potential of particle accelerators and the importance of continuing their development, and deliver a report that can be presented to European policy makers.

This kick‐off meeting brings together people who are willing to contribute to this document and will focus on several topics including Industry and Environment (Ion and Electron beams), Security, Health, Photonics and Energy. If you are working in one of these fields, are interested in this activity and willing to contribute, we invite you to attend, be part of the project and have your say.

For more information on the programme and registration please consult the website.

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issue 13

The LHC is back in business

Livia Lapadatescu — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:12:59 +0000

The LHC is back in business
by Margarita Synanidi (CERN), Agnes Szeberenyi (CERN)

Reactions in the CERN control centre on the 5th of April
Image credit: CERN

After two years of crucial upgrade work, the world’s largest and most powerful atom smasher is back in operation. On the 5^th April, at 10.41am, a proton beam was back in the 27-kilometer ring, followed at 12.27pm by a second beam rotating in the opposite direction. These beams circulated at their injection energy of 450 GeV. The Director General of CERN mentioned “the beam went smoothly through the whole machine. It’s fantastic to see it going so well after two years and such a major overhaul of the LHC”. On 9^th April the operations team successfully circulated a beam at 6.5 TeV.

Start-up was delayed for two weeks after a piece of metal caused a short circuit in the safety system around one of the LHC’s superconducting magnets. Engineers cleared the debris on 30 March by vaporizing it with a discharge of current. A similar problem occurred before, at the start of the LHC’s first run, and it was also solved without causing major delays.

On Sunday the protons injected at a relatively low energy to begin with. They will keep working nonstop 24hours per day until they will establish the first stable collision, as explained by the LHC coordinator of operation, Jorg Wenninger.

Over the coming months, engineers hope to gradually increase the beams' energy to 13 trillion electronvolts (double speed what it was during first operating run). They scientists estimate that the particle collisions at an energy of 13 TeV could start as early as June. With that beam energy level raised, it is conceivable that the LHC will capture dark matter, marking a leap forward in our understanding of the universe.

Now starts a new phase of the study of physics, it remains to be seen what the results will be.

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Bending magnet for SESAME storage ring

Livia Lapadatescu — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:27:03 +0000

Bending magnet for SESAME storage ring
by Attilio Milanese (CERN)

The first SESAME dipole on the magnetic measurement bench at ALBA
Image credit: CERN

The CESSAMag project has reached an important milestone with the first unit tests of the bending magnets.

The bending units (dipoles) are the largest magnets of the SESAME storage ring – each dipole weighs 6.5 tons and is 2.5 m long. These massive components need precise mechanical construction – down to a few tens of microns – to meet the requirements on magnetic field quality and alignment. In addition, the design involves a superposition of dipolar and quadrupolar fields, and an excitation range going into a saturated nonlinear regime. All this made the characterization of the first magnet a critical milestone in the overall project.

CERN is responsible for the design, procurement and test of these 17 dipoles, within the CESSAMag project, largely funded by the EU. Within this framework, CERN has placed a contract with TESLA (UK) for manufacturing the magnets, and is collaborating with ALBA synchrotron (Spain) who provides in kind contribution for carrying out the magnetic measurements.

The test campaign on the first dipole last December fully confirmed the design: the measured magnetic field was in all cases very consistent with the simulations, and in particular the field in the aperture – where eventually the electron beam will circulate - was uniform down to 1∙10^-4. This challenging target could only be met with both careful design and proper mechanical assembly by the manufacturer.

The production of the rest of the series is now progressing well in the UK, and 4 more magnets are already in Spain for measurements. In the meantime, the first dipole has been shipped to CERN, where it was used for a full integration check of a SESAME cell, including quadrupoles, sextupoles, the girder support structure and the vacuum chamber.

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Highlights from the FCC week

Livia Lapadatescu — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:18:44 +0000

Highlights from the FCC week
by Cristina Martin Perez (CERN), Charlotte Houghton (STFC)

Opening session by US congressman Bill Foster
Image credit: FCC

The FCC Week 2015 took place in Washington DC (USA) from 23 to 27 march 2015 and drew the attention of 340 participants from science and industry. The first annual meeting of this visionary study marked a milestone of the first exploratory study phase. 290 contributions from all domains of the study give impressive evidence of the progress achieved and the challenges ahead.

The FCC-hh and FCC-ee machine studies are progressing in all units and are preparing to make the critical choices to achieve the performance and availability goals. The teams are now focusing on baseline parameters and a preliminary layout. First integrated lattices have been shown. It became clear that designing machines that can meet the required parameters calls for considerable R&D efforts far beyond the current state-of-science. Consensus between scientists, engineers and industry is that significant advances in superconducting magnets, in SRF technologies and RF power sources and other key technologies are needed; and that these need to be launched now to be ready for new machines by the mid 2030ies. The EuroCirCol EU Horizon 2020 project targets the core aspects of the hadron collider design, such as the arc & IR optics and the feasibility studies of key technologies like a 16 T accelerator magnet.

Industry participation - exhibitor stand
Image credit: FCC

With the current developments in accelerator design and technology there has been substantial progress on the geology studies for a tunnel in the Geneva area. These studies have been linked to the CERN accelerator complex, based on 93 km and 100 km scenarios, which fit well the geographical conditions. First ideas discussed are on installation aspects, global computing infrastructures beyond the Grid, controls and machine protection, as well as operational aspects such as energy consumption and safety, were addressed.

Looking forward to an intense year 2015 aiming at substantial progress for the study to be reported during the FCC Week 2016, unique physics capabilities and discovery potentials will be documented in the near future. FCC working groups have scanned the physics panorama both beyond and within the Standard Model and have identified the main areas where new methods for theoretical calculations or experimental inputs are needed. The implementation of a common environment for physics and detector simulations has progressed. This allows performing detailed event simulations to help match and understand better requirements of the detectors.

An inspiring talk by US congressman Bill Foster reminded the audience how high-energy physicists should “never be shy for standing up for the unique nature of their field, and never be afraid of big numbers”. The FCC the week witnessed significant eagerness from the US particle and accelerator community to collaborate in the global R&D effort, focusing on studies of superconducting materials and designs for high-field magnets suitable for a 100 TeV c.m. proton-proton collider. Technological and manufacturing breakthroughs are needed here to meet both, performance and cost goals.

Michael Benedikt, FCC Study leader, pointed out that 2015 should be the year in which the world-wide collaboration reaches consensus agreement on the baseline parameters and concepts and fleshes out the collider layout, injector and infrastructure concepts. “It is time to put a Nb₃Sn 16 Tesla magnet program on solid feet, to define and launch other selected technology R&D programs”, says Benedikt. The FCC community will reinforce physics and detector simulations, and will pursue MDI and experiment studies. The 2016 annual FCC Week will take place in Rome, Italy.

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Accelerators celebrating the International Year of Light

Livia Lapadatescu — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 07:59:07 +0000

Accelerators celebrating the International Year of Light
by Agnes Szeberenyi (CERN)

Luminous collisions at CERN to promote the year of light
Image credit: CERN

The year 2015, a century after the publication of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity in 1915, has been proclaimed the International Year of Light and light-based technologies by the UN General Assembly.

‘Light as luminosity’ is the theme of the CERN celebrations on the occasion of the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015). CERN is organizing a series of public events that are broadcasted online, and archived. Follow the webcasts for upcoming and past events here.

Read the viewpoint of prof. Lucio Rossi, the Leader of the High Luminosity LHC on the “luminous” celebrations.

Also visit the International Year of Light blog for more inspirational stories, not only on accelerators.

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Laser-driven beamlines: a novel approach towards particle acceleration

Livia Lapadatescu — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:44:14 +0000

Laser-driven beamlines: a novel approach towards particle acceleration
by Livia Lapadatescu (CERN)

ELI-Beamlines Facility in the Czech Republic
Image credit: ELI

The CRISP project (Cluster of Research Infrastructures for Synergies in Physics), brought together a group of eleven Research Infrastructures with the goal of creating synergies and developing common solutions in four R&D fields: Accelerators, Instruments & Experiments, Detectors & Data Acquisition and IT & Data Management.

In the Accelerators field, one of the activities focused on studying novel compact particle sources including the design of radio-frequency X-band electron sources and of laser-induced secondary particle sources.

Conventional accelerators rely on the use of radio-frequency longitudinal electric fields, which limit the energy gain per unit length, therefore increasing the size of accelerator infrastructures in order to reach higher beam energies.

Laser-plasma accelerators have proven the possibility of producing beams of 1 GeV over 3 cm of acceleration length with unique properties such as ultra-short pulse duration and high peak currents. The uniqueness of laser-driven beamlines will represent an advantage for future accelerator infrastructures, allowing them to reduce their size and cost.

The CRISP Lasers activity has analysed two kinds of laser-driven beamlines at high energy and at low energy, as well as diagnostic issue for the implementation stage, showing that:

Capturing and transporting laser generated electrons with high energy (~8 GeV) has proven to be a challenge since they require strong magnetic fields to handle the beam;
By reducing the energy down to 0.5 GeV, an optimized beam line can be produced with a normalized transverse emittance under control.

Moreover for the diagnostics of laser accelerated electron beams, experiments were conducted at the SPARC-LAB facility and constitute a basis for the implementation stage of laser-driven beamlines.

The study conducted by CRISP on laser-driven beamlines will have an impact on the implementation of the ELI-beamlines project (Extreme Light Infrastructure), by proposing solutions for the next generation of particle accelerators.

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