The New Lhc Protectors Elsen
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Issue No. 9-10/2018-Wednesday 28 February 2018 CERN Bulletin More articles at http:/ / home.cern/ cern-people A WORD FROM ECKHARD THE NEW LHC PROTECTORS ELSEN A FEAST OF PHYSICS TO TIDE New collimators are being installed and tested in the LHC. They will im- US OVER UNTIL MORIOND. prove its protection and prepare it for higher luminosity in the HL-LHC While awaiting the annual tartiflette of physics that is the Moriond conference, at the forefront of which will be the results of the LHC's 13-TeV runs, it's refreshing to take a look at some of the other research that has been going on around the Laboratory. We have a very rich and diverse programme and there have been some very interesting developments over recent months. (Continued on page 2) In this issue News 1 The new LHC protectors1 A word from Eckhard Elsen2 Two wire collimators have been installed in the LHC tunnel on both sides of the ATLAS experiment. (Image: Max What's YETS for the experiments?3 Brice, Julien Ordan/CERN) High-level visits to CERN4 Collimators are the brave protectors of the has a wire integrated into its jaws, vacuum- New chairs for the Antiproton LHC. They absorb all the particles that brazed into its tungsten-alloy absorbers. A Decelerator Users Community5 stray from the beam trajectory. These un- current passing through the wire creates an Female physicists and engineers go ruly particles may cause damage in sen- electromagnetic field, which can be used back to school5 sitive areas of the accelerator, thereby to compensate the effect of the opposite Computer security: curiosity clicks the endangering operational stability and ma- beam. chine safety, or quench the LHC's su- link6 perconducting magnets. During the cur- “We can look at it as half collimator, half rent year-end technical stop (YETS), two magnet. In addition to cleaning the beam Official communications 7 kinds of recently developed collimators and protecting the downstream equipment, have been installed in the LHC. it also acts electromagnetically on the Announcements 9 beam to compensate for long-range beam- The first kind is called TCTW (Target beam effects.” Ombud’s corner 11 Collimator Tertiary Wire) and will serve a double function. As its name suggests, it (Continued on page 2) Published by: CERN-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland tel. +41 22 767 35 86 Printed by: CERN Printshop ©2018 CERN-ISSN: Printed version: 2011-950X Electronic Version: 2077-9518 A WORD FROM ECKHARD ELSEN A FEAST OF PHYSICS TO TIDE US OVER UNTIL MORIOND. The LHC is becoming a dab hand ify the behaviour of the cross-section ble nuclei, in particular their outer skin. at resolving decades-old enigmas. observed by TOTEM that leads to the It's a sign of the maturity of antimat- Following on from the Higgs boson and putative odderon. The crème fraîche on ter research at CERN that antiprotons pentaquarks, we may soon be able to the tartiflette remains, however, that of have evolved from being a subject for welcome the odderon to the collection a resonant enhancement, which has yet research in their own right to a tool en- of LHC physics results. The TOTEM ex- to be observed. abling other forms of research to be car- periment studies what happens when ried out. If a mobile antiproton trap does LHC protons glance off each other and Meanwhile, the AD is enjoying a par- indeed prove to be feasible, combined remain intact, rather than breaking up ticularly productive and engaging pe- AD-ISOLDE experiments could be shed- in the collision. In this so-called elas- riod. The ALPHA experiment recently ding light on astrophysical processes tic scattering, there is nevertheless an performed its first precision spectro- by 2022. interaction between the two protons, scopic measurements on antihydrogen, and it's here that the odderon comes in. launching a new era of precision anti- The final thing I'd like to mention Back in the 1970s, Isaak Pomeranchuk matter physics. BASE has vastly im- is the activities at the CERN neu- proposed that elastic proton-proton proved the precision of the measure- trino platform, where work is progress- scattering was mediated by a kind of ment of the antiproton's magnetic mo- ing well on two prototype detectors quasi-particle carrying the strong in- ment. ALPHA-g and GBAR are prepar- that we are building to establish the teraction. This was duly named the ing to measure the influence of gravity technology for the Deep Underground pomeron in his honour. The pomeron on antimatter. And the ELENA ring will Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), hosted by has even CP quantum numbers, but it soon come online to slow down antipro- Fermilab in South Dakota. A smaller de- later became clear that a CP-odd ex- tons even further and vastly increase vice has already provided nice tracks. change could also be at work, and the the trapping efficiency. ProtoDUNE-SP is being prepared for term odderon was duly coined. In mod- beam before the long shutdown at the ern physics language, we associate One of the more intriguing proposals to end of the year, and both protoDUNEs these exchange processes with an even come to both the SPSC and INTC at their will continue recording data with cos- or odd number of gluons. What TOTEM last meetings also involves the AD. We mic rays. With such a variety of work has seen is not a direct observation, but received a letter of intent to load an- going on across CERN's diverse range a hint that the odderon might be there. tiprotons onto a truck and drive them of facilities, there's plenty to feast on at A dedicated 900-GeV LHC run later this to ISOLDE, where they could be used any time of the year, tiding us over un- year, during which ATLAS's ALFA de- to study the exotic behaviour of unsta- til the next round of conferences. Bon tector will join the search, should clar- appétit. Eckhard Elsen Director for Research and Computing THE NEW LHC PROTECTORS These disturbances are considered to be of collimator has been developed for the HL-LHC project by EN-STI, together with one of the limitations of the performance High-Luminosity LHC project, in collabo- the UA9 collaboration, this jewel of the col- of the LHC and the HL-LHC, explains ration with the Beam Instrumentation and limation system offers an alternative way to Iñigo Lamas Garcia from the Sources, Accelerator Physics groups of the Beams clean the beam – it uses silicium bent crys- Targets and Interactions (STI) group of the department, as part of the HL-LHC WP5 tals to deflect the halo particles. Engineering department, who is in charge that is responsible of future collimation up- of the installation of the collimators. grades. “We are installing them in the “We still have to capture the particles, but, LHC way in advance as proof of concept, in theory, with the use of crystals we do it Two of these collimators are now in place to validate their expected performance and in a cleaner and more efficient way, further at Point 1, one on each side of the ATLAS benchmark the simulations,” adds Lamas away from the beam line,” explains Lamas experiment. This is the second time that Garcia. Garcia. wire collimators have been installed in the LHC, following a similar operation at Another type of collimator – a TCPC This is a very promising technology for the Point 5 during last year's extended year- (Target Collimator Primary Crystal) – has high-luminosity era of the LHC. Previously, end technical stop (EYETS). This new kind been installed at Point 7. Developed for the 2 crystal collimators have been installed in tromagnetic disturbances while delivering will be installed at point 7 during Long the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and an equivalent or even improved cleaning Shutdown 2 (LS2). in the LHC, where they have been tested performance. A first prototype of this de- during the machine development periods. vice, build in-house by EN-MME, was in- All these innovations in the collimator tech- In 2017, this new system proved to be very stalled at Point 7 during the EYETS and nology stem from the need for a bet- effective for Xenon ion beams and this year successfully tested with beam in 2017 ter cleaning performance for the High- it will also be tested with lead ions. by the accelerator physics and collimation Luminosity LHC, when the intensity of the teams of the Beams department, demon- beam will be much higher. These collima- A third kind of collimator, a prototype made strating the expected improvements. tion upgrade studies are carried out in a out of a coated novel material (molyb- collaborative effort across the Accelerator denum graphite), is the TCSPM (Target For the HL-LHC collimation upgrade, a se- and Technology sector. Collimator Secondary Pick-up Metallic). It ries production of ten new TCSPM colli- has also been developed by EN-MME and mators is being launched by EN-STI. They Iva Raynova EN-STI. Its purpose is to reduce the elec- WHAT'S YETS FOR THE EXPERIMENTS? What repairs have been made at the experiments during the year-end technical stop sides of the TPC were explored and the was brought to a clean room on the sur- presence of filaments of dust was detected. face at Point 5 to begin consolidation works These were removed using small extrac- in preparation for the 2018 data-collection tor tubes that acted like tiny vacuum clean- run.