I n t e r n at I o n a l J o u r n a l o f H I g H - e n e r g y P H y s I c s CERN COURIERV o l u m e 47 n u m b e r 6 J u ly/a u g u s t 2 0 07 LHCb prepares for RICH physics NEUTRINOS LHC FOCUS InSIDE STORY Borexino starts On the trail of At the far side to take data p8 heavy flavour p30 of the world p58 CCJulAugCover1.indd 1 11/7/07 13:50:51 Project1 10/7/07 13:56 Page 1 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 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 Laboratory correspondents: COURIERo l u m e u m b e r u ly u g u s t V 47 N 6 J /A 20 07 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) Barbara Gallavotti Jefferson Laboratory (US) Steven Corneliussen JINR Dubna (Russia) B Starchenko KEK National Laboratory (Japan) Youhei Morita Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (US) Spencer Klein Los Alamos National Laboratory (US) C Hoffmann A closer look at antimatter p13 VERITAS seeks more truth p19 Cold physics at the Pole p58 NIKHEF Laboratory (Netherlands) Paul de Jong Novosibirsk Institute (Russia) S Eidelman News 5 NCSL (US) Geoff Koch Orsay Laboratory (France) Anne-Marie Lutz CERN announces new date for LHC start-up … and Council approves PSI Laboratory (Switzerland) P-R Kettle additional resources. DØ and CDF find same new baryon. VIRGO opens Saclay Laboratory (France) Elisabeth Locci Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK) Peter Barratt up new astronomy. Borexino begins data taking at Gran Sasso. AGILE Produced for CERN by IOP Publishing Ltd takes its place in orbit. German particle physics gets funding boost. IOP Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481; e-mail [email protected]; web iop.org Sciencewatch 10 Publisher Joseph Tennant Astrowatch 11 Art director Andrew Giaquinto Production editor Jesse Karjalainen 12 Technical illustrator Alison Tovey CERN Courier Archive Advertising manager Ed Jost Display sales North America Heather Harad Features Recruitment advertisement manager Moo Ali Keeping antihydrogen: the ALPHA trap 13 Recruitment and classified sales Adam Hylands and Sonia Nardo Recruitment and classified sales North America Mark Gaglione Jeffrey Hangst describes a new antihydrogen experiment at CERN. Advertisement production Jayne Boulton Marketing executive Chinh Dinh Carbon ions pack a punch 17 Advertising Oncologist Hirohiko Tsujii talks about his work to Carolyn Lee. Tel +44 (0)117 930 1026 (for UK/Europe display advertising), +1 215 627 0880 (for North American display advertising), or VERITAS telescopes celebrate first light 19 +44 (0)117 930 1196 (for recruitment advertising); e-mail [email protected]; fax +44 (0)117 930 1178 David Hanna looks at the VHE gamma-ray telescope array in Arizona. General distribution Courrier Adressage, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, DIS 2007: physics at HERA and beyond 23 Switzerland. E-mail [email protected] A report from the latest workshop on deep-inelastic scattering. In certain countries, to request copies or to make address changes, contact: China Keqing Ma, Library, Institute of High Energy Physics, Heavy-ion workshop looks to the future 27 PO Box 918, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China. Physicists meeting in Finland warm up for heavy-ion physics at the LHC. E-mail [email protected] Germany Veronika Werschner, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail [email protected] LHCb prepares for a RICH harvest of rare beauty 30 Italy Loredana Rum or Anna Pennacchietti, INFN, Casella Postale RICH detectors get ready for heavy-flavour physics at the LHC. 56, 00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy. E-mail loredana.rum@i nf.it UK Mark Swaisland, Chadwick Library, Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire WA4 4AD, UK. Faces and Places 35 E-mail [email protected] US/Canada Published by Cern Courier, 6N246 Willow Drive, Recruitment 42 St Charles, IL 60175, US. Periodical postage paid in St Charles, IL, US. Fax 630 377 1569. E-mail [email protected] Bookshelf 53 POSTMASTER: send address changes to: Creative Mailing Services, PO Box 1147, St Charles, IL 60174, US Inside Story 58 Published by European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. Tel +41 (0) 22 767 61 11 Telefax +41 (0) 22 767 65 55 Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK © 2007 CERN ISSN 0304-288X Cover: Ring imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detectors will play an important role in the LHCb experiment at CERN (p30). This photograph, taken from the front of the detector, shows hexagonal elements of the spherical mirrors of RICH2, with reflections of the flat mirrors and the photon-detector enclosures. It also shows Michael Hoch, who took the photograph. CERN Courier July/August 2007 CCJulAugContents3.indd 3 11/7/07 13:55:28 CCJul07p04 10/7/07 11:39 Page 1 PO Box 870 / 300 Crane Street Sweetwater, Texas 79556 (USA) Ph: 325-235-4276 or 888-800-8771 Fax: 325-235-2872 e-mail: [email protected] NEWS L H C N E W S CERN announces new date for LHC start-up… Speaking at the 142nd session of the CERN Council on 22 June, CERN’s director-general, Robert Aymar, announced that the LHC will start up in May 2008, taking the first steps towards studying physics at a new high- energy frontier. A low-energy run originally scheduled for 2007 has been dropped as the result of a number of minor delays accumulated over the final months of LHC installation and commissioning, including the failure in March of a pressure test in an inner-triplet magnet assembly. The first cool-down of an eighth of the machine (sector 7-8) to the operating temperature of 1.9 K began earlier this year (CERN Courier May 2007 p). While this took longer than scheduled, it provided important lessons, allowing the LHC’s A welder at work on LHC sector 1-2. This is the last sector to be interconnected. operations team to iron out teething troubles and gain experience that will The new schedule foresees successive and low intensity to give the operations team be applied to the other seven sectors. cooling and powering of each of the experience in driving the new machine, before Now tests on powering up sector 7-8 are LHC’s sectors in turn this year. Hardware the intensity and energy are slowly increased. underway, and the cool-down of sector 4- commissioning will continue throughout Installation of the large and equally has begun. At the same time, physicists the winter, allowing the LHC to be ready innovative apparatus for experiments at this and engineers are making modifications to for high-energy running by the time CERN’s new and unique facility will continue at the the inner-triplet magnet assemblies (CERN accelerators are switched on in the spring. same time, to be completed on a schedule Courier June 2007 p). Beams will be first injected at low energy consistent with that of the accelerator. …and Council approves additional resources In another major development, Council amount to an extra SwFr240 million for the LHC at its nominal luminosity; renovation approved a programme of additional 2008–2011. The host states, France and of the injector complex; a minimum R&D activities together with the associated Switzerland, have committed to providing programme on detector components and budget resources. This decision follows half of these additional funds. focusing magnets in preparation for an the definition of the European Strategy for The extra resources are essential to ensure increase in the LHC luminosity and for Particle Physics adopted by Council last full exploitation of the discovery potential of enhancement of the qualifying programme year (CERN Courier September 2006 p29). It the LHC and to prepare CERN’s future. The for the Compact Linear Collider study; makes it possible to start implementing the programme consists of four priority themes: and activities of scientific importance for strategy as presented by CERN management an increase in the resources dedicated to which contributions from other European last autumn. The approved resources the experiments and to reliable operation of organizations will be essential. Sommaire Le CERN annonce un nouveau calendrier de démarrage pour Début de l’acquisition de données pour Borexino 8 le LHC… 5 Lancement du satellite AGILE 8 …et le Conseil approuve des ressources supplémentaires 5 La physique des particules allemande reçoit un appui bienvenu 9 DØ et CDF découvrent le même baryon 6 Des diamants pour les ordinateurs quantiques 10 VIRGO ouvre la voie à une astronomie nouvelle 7 Hubble détecte un anneau de matière noire 11 CERN Courier July/August 2007 CCJulAugNews5-9.indd 5 11/7/07 14:26:12 NEWS FERMILAB DØ and CDF find same new baryon 8 DØ,1.3 fb–1 –1 CDF Run II Preliminary L~1.9 fb 7 8 6 yield = 17.5 ± 4.3 ) 2 data c 2 5 M = (5792.9 ± 2.5) MeV/c 6 fit 4 3 4 2 candidates / (15 MeV/ 1 2 events/(0.05 GeV) 0 5.4 5.6 5.8 6.0 6.2 6.4 M(J/ΨΞ–) (GeV/c2) 0 5.5 6 6.5 7 – – Invariant mass distributions for Ξb candidate events found in the D0 (left) and CDF (right) M(Ξb) (GeV) – experiments at Fermilab.