CERN Courier Celebrates 50 Years
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I n t e r n at I o n a l Jo u r n a l o f HI g H -en e r g y PH y s I c s CERN COURIERV o l u m e 49 nu m b e r 6 Ju ly/au g u s t 2009 CERN Courier celebrates 50 years COSMOLOGY ANNIVERSARY INTERVIEW Planck mission gets A look at the very Introducing the off to good start p6 first issue p31 particle-zoo keeper p66 CCJul09Cover.indd 1 30/6/09 10:08:59 CONTENTS Covering current developments in high- energy physics and related fields worldwide CERN Courier is distributed to member-state governments, institutes and laboratories affiliated with CERN, and to their personnel. It is published monthly, except for January and August. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the CERN management. Editor Christine Sutton Editorial assistant Carolyn Lee CERN CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland E-mail [email protected] Fax +41 (0) 22 785 0247 Web cerncourier.com Advisory board James Gillies, Rolf Landua and Maximilian Metzger COURIERo l u m e u m b e r u ly u g u s t Laboratory correspondents: V 49 N 6 J /A 2009 Argonne National Laboratory (US) Cosmas Zachos Brookhaven National Laboratory (US) P Yamin Cornell University (US) D G Cassel DESY Laboratory (Germany) Ilka Flegel, Ute Wilhelmsen EMFCSC (Italy) Anna Cavallini Enrico Fermi Centre (Italy) Guido Piragino Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US) Judy Jackson Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) Markus Buescher GSI Darmstadt (Germany) I Peter IHEP, Beijing (China) Tongzhou Xu IHEP, Serpukhov (Russia) Yu Ryabov INFN (Italy) Romeo Bassoli Jefferson Laboratory (US) Steven Corneliussen JINR Dubna (Russia) B Starchenko KEK National Laboratory (Japan) Youhei Morita Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (US) Spencer Klein 3...2...1... perfect! p6 Seek and thou shalt findp19 New particles galore p66 Los Alamos National Laboratory (US) C Hoffmann NIKHEF Laboratory (Netherlands) Paul de Jong Novosibirsk Institute (Russia) S Eidelman News 5 NCSL (US) Geoff Koch Orsay Laboratory (France) Anne-Marie Lutz Superconducting RF separator emerges from its long sleep. The ESA PSI Laboratory (Switzerland) P-R Kettle Planck spacecraft heads off to its final destination after successful Saclay Laboratory (France) Elisabeth Locci Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK) Peter Barratt launch. Element 112 receives official recognition. LHC restart remains on TRIUMF Laboratory (Canada) Marcello Pavan schedule. GSI reveals new magic numbers in nuclei. CERN openlab enters Produced for CERN by IOP Publishing Ltd phase three. IOP Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK Sciencewatch 11 Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481 Publisher Jo Nicholas Astrowatch 12 Art director Andrew Giaquinto Production editor Jesse Karjalainen CERN Courier Archive 13 Technical illustrator Alison Tovey Advertising manager Ed Jost Features Recruitment advertisement manager Moo Ali Advertisement production Katie Graham Those were the days: discovering the gluon 15 Marketing & Circulation Anastasia Ireland John Ellis recalls how theorists and experimentalist friends worked Advertising together to find the second gauge boson. Tel +44 (0)117 930 1026 (for UK/Europe display advertising), +1 215 627 0880 (for North American display advertising), or Giuseppe Cocconi and his love of the cosmos 19 +44 (0)117 930 1027 (for recruitment advertising); E-mail: [email protected]; fax +44 (0)117 930 1178 Friends and colleagues reminisce on a remarkably perceptive physicist. General distribution Courrier Adressage, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, 1959: the birth of the CERN Courier 23 Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected] In certain countries, to request copies or to make address changes, Roger Anthoine, the first editor, looks back at how it all started. contact: China Keqing Ma, Library, Institute of High Energy Physics, CERN Courier Archives: 1959–2009 25 PO Box 918, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China. A selection of highlights from the past 50 years. E-mail: [email protected] Germany Veronika Werschner, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Happy 50th, CERN Courier 30 Italy Loredana Rum or Anna Pennacchietti, INFN, Casella Postale The first issue, reproduced in its entirety. 56, 00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] UK Mark Wells, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, Wiltshire SN2 1SZ. CHEP ’09: clouds, data, Grids and the LHC 41 E-mail: [email protected] Alan Silverman reports from the international conference held in Prague. US/Canada Published by Cern Courier, 6N246 Willow Drive, St Charles, IL 60175, US. Periodical postage paid in St Charles, IL, 45 US. Fax 630 377 1569. E-mail: [email protected] Faces and Places POSTMASTER: send address changes to: Creative Mailing Services, PO Box 1147, St Charles, IL 60174, US Recruitment 53 Published by European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, Bookshelf 61 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. Tel +41 (0) 22 767 61 11 Telefax +41 (0) 22 767 65 55 Inside Story 66 Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK © 2009 CERN ISSN 0304-288X Cover: A collection of covers, including all eight designs used over the 50 years of CERN Courier’s existence. From left to right, row one (page numbers refer to current issue): first issue August 1959 (p31); PS inauguration January/February 1960 (p24); g-2 experiment April 1962 (p19); bubble chamber notice July 1963; excavations for the ISR September 1969; ISR first collisions February 1971 (p20). Row two: ESO sky atlas June 1973; SPS at 400 GeV (p21); new particle papers April 1975; first colour cover, Cherenkov light in aerogel May 1981; Tevatron first collisions January/February 1986 (p21); cabling H1 for HERA May 1991; RHIC gets ready November/December 1996; LHC civil engineering begins May 1998 (p22); at the South Pole with AMANDA June 2001; CERN’s 50th anniversary October 2004; LHC inauguration December 2008 (p22); CERN Courier’s 50th July/August 2009. CERN Courier July/August 2009 3 CCJul09Contents.indd 3 29/6/09 16:00:25 00-041 General KJLC Ad.qxp 4/14/2009 9:28 AM Page 1 www.lesker.com 09-041 CCJul09_p04.indd 1 30/6/09 14:30:44 NEWS IHEP PROTVINO Superconducting RF separator emerges from its long sleep The first superconducting high-frequency device made for particle physics has begun a new life at the U-70 proton synchrotron at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP) at Protvino. It forms a key part of the new 200 m long high-intensity beam line for 12.5 GeV/c positively charged secondary particles, which was commissioned last December. With a content of 25% kaons the beam will be used in the OKA project, which will search for new physics in rare kaon decays. The high fraction of kaons in the beam is provided by the superconducting RF separator, the two niobium deflectors of which are cooled by liquid helium at a temperature of 1.8 K. The separator was originally designed and constructed in 1970–1977 at the Institute für Kernphysik of the Kernforschungszentrum The cryostat for deflector RFI of the superconducting RF separator in place at IHEP. (Courtesy IHEP.) Karlsruhe, under the leadership of Herbert Lengeler of CERN. Until 1981 it was apart on the beam line and connected to the some equipment for the preparation of successfully used to provide a beam enriched cryogenic system, which has a refrigerating the separator. Successful commissioning in kaons and antiprotons for the Omega power of 250 W for superfluid helium at a of the superconducting device was also spectrometer at CERN. On completion of the temperature of 1.8 K. At the same time as the substantially aided by the use of equipment experimental programme with the separated tests the group led by Boris Prosin designed remaining from a “warm” RF separator, which beam at Omega, the deflectors were stored at and implemented an RF-feed and phasing was developed at CERN 40 years ago for CERN under high vacuum for 17 years. Then, system for the deflectors, based on modern joint IHEP–CERN experiments at U-70 with after vacuum-leak tests and other necessary microwave elements and the rubidium the French bubble chamber “Mirabelle”. This preparations, the deflectors were transported frequency-standard as a source of the signal. separator had then been preserved in a very from CERN to IHEP in 1998 (CERN Courier A set of power amplifiers and the common DC good condition at IHEP. April 1998 p12). power supply, previously used in the antiproton Stable working of the cryogenic system Preparations for a new life for the deflectors cooling system at CERN, were connected to and the RF separator during the April run at began in 2006. First, comprehensive tests the output of the microwave system and a U-70 provided the start of the data-taking at took place, together with the restoration of completely oil-free high-vacuum system was the OKA experimental facility for the study nominal working parameters of deflector designed and arranged for each deflector. of rare kaon decays. Future efforts will aim RF2, which was damaged at CERN during Fridhelm Caspers from CERN and Axel to increase the intensity and quality of the preparation for the shipment to Russia. Matheisen from DESY have provided separated beam and thereby ensure the Then the two deflectors were placed 76.3 m important advice and practical help with success of the OKA experiment. Sommaire Le séparateur RF supraconducteur sort d’un long sommeil 5 GSI trouve de nouveaux nombres magiques pour certains noyaux 8 Lancement du satellite Planck 6 Le CERN openlab passe à la phase 3 8 Le redémarrage du LHC reste prévu pour l’automne 6 La protéine fluorescente passe dans l’infrarouge 11 L’élément 112 officiellement reconnu 7 XMM-Newton observe une émission au bord d’un trou noir 12 CERN Courier July/August 2009 5 CCJul09News.indd 5 29/6/09 16:04:16 NEWS COSMOLOGY The ESA Planck spacecraft heads off to its final destination after successful launch Planck, ESA’s new spacecraft to map the sequences on board, including switch-on cosmic microwave background, successfully of the high-frequency radio transmitters.