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UK news from CERN Issue 26: 30 July 2013

In this 1st birthday issue:  Almost AWAKE – a new CERN experiment that could revolutionise accelerator technology  Summer of fun(damental physics) – the summer students have arrived  Ideas to inspire – register now for the STFC Public Engagement symposium  Dates for the diary

Over the last twelve months we have brought you a flavour of UK activity at CERN with articles about people, projects and places. The original goal was to feature every UK university, each project with UK involvement, opportunities for industry and some of the UK-focused outreach activities. That mission continues as there are still lots of stories to tell.

Your feedback and ideas for stories are always welcome – please get in touch!

Stephanie Hills Editor

Almost AWAKE gradients over short distances that makes plasma wakefield research interesting. The A new R&D project that has the potential to accelerator gradient upper limit for existing revolutionise the size, cost and of future accelerators is around 100 MeV per metre; the particle accelerators is gaining as it baseline AWAKE experiment aims to prove that moves through CERN’s project approval it is possible to achieve peak gradients of 1200 process. MeV per metre.

The Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment (AWAKE) is a proof-of- principle experiment which will inject a beam of from CERN’s SPS accelerator into a plasma column. As the particles travel through the plasma, they will generate a type of wave called a wakefield that rapidly picks up energy. A second beam of would then be accelerated by the wakefield, gaining up to 2GeV in six metres.

A quick reminder - accelerator are Schematic of AWAKE © CERN

measured in Volts: In these times of austerity, the implications are clear; we could create ‘same size’ particle 1 MeV = 1 million electron Volts 1 GeV = 1 billion electron Volts with much higher energies, or much 1 TeV = 1 trillion electron Volts smaller (and cheaper) colliders with the same energy that we have today. It is this capacity to reach high accelerator To put this into context, with existing technology a linear generating TeV energies would Page 1

Written and edited by Stephanie Hills, UK Communications and Innovation Officer @ CERN [email protected] or Stephanie.hills@.ch be 30-50km long. Using plasma wakefield There are still plenty of challenges including technology, the length would be just a few developing the plasma cell and electron source kilometres. for the experiment, but the collaboration is ready. “There are obvious economic advantages,” says Matthew Wing (UCL), Deputy Spokesperson for “There are a number of small groups at different the AWAKE collaboration. “It is not just the civil institutes working on wakefield acceleration and engineering costs of building a linear collider the great thing about having the AWAKE experiment, but the reduced amount of experiment at CERN is that it will bring the instrumentation that would be required.” community together.”

The technology could also be used to create The UK is represented in the AWAKE table-top accelerators for medical applications, collaboration by the Cockcroft and John Adams but this is very much in the future - the first Institutes, Imperial College, the universities of stage is to demonstrate that it works. Oxford, Strathclyde and UCL, and STFC.

Getting approval for a new experiment at CERN Summer of fun(damental physics) is a complex process. The collaboration first presented a letter of intent outlining the Each year, hundreds of young , proposed experiment in 2011. The members engineers, computer scientists and (including six UK institutes) then spent the next mathematicians apply to spend up to 13 weeks 18 months working on the technical design at CERN, attending lectures by world-leading report. This was presented to CERN’s SPS subject specialists and working on projects that Committee and to the CERN management in will give them a practical insight into careers in March this year and since then the collaboration research. has been busy responding to the Committee’s follow-up questions. At the June meeting of This year 275 students from 80 countries will be CERN Council, the project was included in spending the summer at CERN and taking part CERN’s mid-term plan; two weeks later the SPS in this unique programme. Committee recommended AWAKE for approval. The majority of the students will return to their All this is good news, but Matthew and his universities in September to finish their colleagues are still waiting for the official ‘green undergraduate degrees. For many, taking part light’ and he has yet to visit the area where in the summer student programme will help AWAKE will be located - the CERN end of the them decide whether to pursue post-graduate experiment that made international headlines study, and if so, in what area of research. when it seemed to have observed travelling faster than the .

“No-one has ever achieved wakefield acceleration using a proton beam into plasma James Doherty (r) sorts out the before,” says Matthew. “We’ve done a number subtleties of the of simulations, including one using the beam with CERN theorist, James Wells. from the LHC and the results are impressive. Of © Quantum Diaries/J Doherty course, we won’t be using protons from the LHC, but if we did, we could achieve 5TeV over

6 km - the ILC is aiming for 500GeV over 15km!”

Despite his obvious enthusiasm for the project, and the potential for the technology, Matthew is James Doherty has been at CERN for three keen to point out that AWAKE is very much an weeks. Having worked as a commercial accelerator R&D demonstration experiment. property lawyer for a major London law firm, Page 2

Written and edited by Stephanie Hills, UK Communications and Innovation Officer @ CERN [email protected] or [email protected]

James has taken the decision to change James has joined the Quantum Diaries team careers. He’s midway through his degree with and is blogging about his summer at CERN. the Open University and considering a post- graduate degree. “I’m working in the Beam Ideas to inspire Instrumentation group and my summer project is to build a beam position monitor using optics. If Engaging with school students and the general it all goes to plan, it will be used on the LHC – public is an increasingly important part of any what an honour!” researcher’s job. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone and STFC’s 2013 Public Engagement “I’m really enjoying the international element of Symposium aims to share best practice, discuss the summer student programme but the new trends as well as profiling some tried and highlight so far has been the ‘Beyond the tested ideas for exciting more people about Standard Model’ lecture series.” science.

For Rebecca Carney (University of Edinburgh) The symposium will take place at the University the people that she is working with are the of Birmingham on 25 November 2013. It is highlight of her time at CERN. Her group is aimed at UK researchers in any STFC-related producing and testing a new tracking layer for field including members of the CERN user the ATLAS detector. Unusually, this is not community. £100 bursaries are available to Rebecca’s first experience of working on the encourage early career researchers to attend. ATLAS experiment – she spent last year as a ‘year abroad’ student at Berkeley (University of Alongside the keynote talks there will be a California) where she also worked on a project programme of break-out sessions focused on for the next big detector upgrade. practical training as well as information about delivering targeted activities that fit within the Rebecca is already sure about doing a PhD in wider STEM agenda. experimental physics – the question is where? “I really enjoyed my time at Berkeley and the year STFC’s partners including the Institute of abroad gave me time to appreciate the different Physics, Royal Society and the National Co- style of learning in the US. Whilst I would be ordinating Centre for Public Engagement will be delighted to continue my studies in the US, present, along with STFC’s Public Engagement CERN seems more and more like a viable Fellows and other science communicators from option and I need to decide what my next step across STFC’s research programme. will be. The group that I’m working in at the moment are all under 40 – they’re incredibly How to subscribe focussed on the project, but they also know how to have fun. There’s a great atmosphere and To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) UK News I’m testing my knowledge of physics all the from CERN, please contact Jill Little. time.”

Back issues of UK News from CERN are There is no doubt that by the end of the available from the archive. summer, both James and Rebecca will have a clearer idea of where their future lies. Diary dates Francesca Day took part in the 2012 summer student programme, “Shortly after returning to CERN Council – 16-20 September the UK, I decided I wanted to go for a PhD in CERN public open days – 28 and 29 September theoretical , and have now CERN Council – 9-13 December accepted an offer from Oxford. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my time at CERN was critical in this decision.”

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Written and edited by Stephanie Hills, UK Communications and Innovation Officer @ CERN [email protected] or [email protected]