I NTERNATIONAL J OURNAL OF H IGH -E NERGY P HYSICS CERNCOURIER V OLUME 5 1 N UMBER 4 M AY 2 0 1 1 Rutherford and the nuclear atom QED TECHNOLOGY PHYSICS IN Studying strong Unravelling a story fi elds in crystal of sparkling THE ALPS targets spin-off News from the Rencontres p15 p18 de Moriond 2011 p25 CCMay11-Cover.indd 1 12/04/2011 18:01 Instrumentation Technologies Libera Hadron Hadron beam position processor High-resolution measurements for circular You also benefit from: • Large playground for custom-written applications: hadron machines. 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Request the Promo unit and purchase your first Libera Hadron at a discounted price, including the money-back warranty option at [email protected]! www.i-tech.si Many instruments. Many people. Working together. Bleed full page template.indt 1 11/04/2011 13:12 product 2_219x288.indd 1 11.4.11 10:43 CERN Courier May 2 011 Contents Covering current developments in high-energy physics and related fi elds worldwide CERN Courier is distributed to member-state governments, institutes and laboratories affi liated 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 CERNCOURIER management. Editor Christine Sutton V OLUME 5 1 N UMBER 4 M AY 2 0 1 1 Editorial assistant Carolyn Lee CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland E-mail [email protected] EWS Fax +41 (0) 22 785 0247 5 N Web cerncourier.com • A world fi rst for EMMA • Earthquake in Japan • ALICE Advisory board Luis Álvarez-Gaumé, James Gillies, Horst Wenninger collaboration measures the size of the fi reball in heavy-ion Laboratory correspondents: collisions TOTEM construction complete CMS experiment Argonne National Laboratory (US) Cosmas Zachos • • Brookhaven National Laboratory (US) P Yamin makes use of the tau • New records at the LHC • CDF announces Cornell University (US) D G Cassel intriguing results ICARUS starts to fl y Experiments in Soudan DESY Laboratory (Germany) Ilka Flegel, Ute Wilhelmsen • • EMFCSC (Italy) Anna Cavallini mine seem fi ne after shaft fi re Enrico Fermi Centre (Italy) Guido Piragino Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US) Judy Jackson Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) Markus Buescher 11 S CIENCEWATCH GSI Darmstadt (Germany) I Peter IHEP, Beijing (China) Tongzhou Xu Yu Ryabov IHEP, Serpukhov (Russia) 12 A STROWATCH INFN (Italy) Romeo Bassoli Jefferson Laboratory (US) Steven Corneliussen JINR Dubna (Russia) B Starchenko 13 A RCHIVE KEK National Laboratory (Japan) Youhei Morita Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (US) Spencer Klein Los Alamos National Laboratory (US) Rajan Gupta NCSL (US) Ken Kingery F EATURES Nikhef (Netherlands) Paul de Jong 15 NA63’s enlightening experiments Novosibirsk Institute (Russia) S Eidelman Orsay Laboratory (France) Anne-Marie Lutz Strong electric fi elds in crystals provide PSI Laboratory (Switzerland) P-R Kettle Saclay Laboratory (France) Elisabeth Locci a laboratory to study QED. Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK) Peter Barratt TRIUMF Laboratory (Canada) Marcello Pavan Produced for CERN by IOP Publishing Ltd 18 A sparkling tale of spin-off IOP Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK How research on diamond detectors led to a hi-tech Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481 company in Austria. Publisher Susan Curtis Production editor Jesse Karjalainen Technical illustrator Alison Tovey 20 Rutherford – the road to the nuclear atom Group advertising manager Ed Jost John Campbell follows the trail to Rutherford’s famous Recruitment advertisement manager Chris Thomas Advertisement production Katie Graham paper of 1911. Marketing & Circulation Jo Pittam Head of B2B & Marketing Jo Allen 25 High-energy interactions in the Alps Art director Andrew Giaquinto The LHC experiments star at a major winter conference. Advertising Tel +44 (0)117 930 1026 (for UK/Europe display advertising) or +44 (0)117 930 1164 (for recruitment advertising); 29 F ACES &P LACES E-mail: [email protected]; fax +44 (0)117 930 1178 General distribution Courrier Adressage, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. 34 R ECRUITMENT E-mail: [email protected] In certain countries, to request copies or to make address changes, contact: China Keqing Ma, Library, Institute of High Energy Physics, 38 I NSIDE S TORY PO Box 918, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected] Germany Veronika Werschner, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Italy Loredana Rum or Anna Pennacchietti, INFN, Casella Postale 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. E-mail: [email protected] US/Canada Published by Cern Courier, 6N246 Willow Drive, St Charles, IL 60175, US. Periodical postage paid in St Charles, IL, US. Fax 630 377 1569. E-mail: [email protected] POSTMASTER: send address changes to: Creative Mailing Services, PO Box 1147, I NTERNATIONAL J OURNAL OF H IGH -E NERGY P HYSICS St Charles, IL 60174, US CERNCOURIER V OLUME 5 1 N UMBER 4 M AY 2 0 1 1 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 © 2011 CERN ISSN 0304-288X On the cover: May 1911 saw Ernest Rutherford’s publication of the paper that Rutherford and the contained his description of an atom with a tiny nucleus at its heart (p20). Originally nuclear atom from New Zealand, he became honoured around the world for his many discoveries. QED TECHNOLOGY PHYSICS IN Studying strong Unravelling a story This image is from a NZ$100 note. fi elds in crystal of sparkling THE ALPS targets spin-off News from the Rencontres p15 p18 de Moriond 2011 p25 (Image credit: Bank of New Zealand/John Campbell.) 3 CCMay11-Contents.indd 3 12/04/2011 17:37 “I need precise, detailed data with every measurement” Innovated for real-time and rare event-based applications From monitoring and controlling the world’s most powerful synchrotron, to measuring rare gamma-ray events in the atmosphere, Agilent U1056B Acqiris high speed cPCI digitizers enhance measurements at the extremes of science. Our proprietary bus U1056B precisely synchronizes up to 28 channels to create Up to 80 channels per system one instrument. Inordinate speed, extensive internal 8-, 10-, or 12-bit ADC resolution, memory, and excellent measurement fi delity, up to 8 GSa/s AS bus supports up to 28 channels deliver the data to defi ne the unknown. as one instrument That’s performance. That’s Agilent. Learn how to easily confi gure your own system www.agilent.com/find/u1056b © Agilent Technologies, Inc. 20120110 Synchrotron photo courtesy of CERN. © Copyright CERN Geneva. AgilentAcqirisAd-05-10.inddCCMay11AdAgilentPROOF.indd 1 1 05/04/20115/11/10 12:11 12:28 PM CERN Courier May 2 011 News A c c e l e r A t o r s A world first for EMMA At the end of March, an electron beam was steered round the ring of a new type of particle accelerator and successfully accelerated to 18 MeV for the first time. EMMA (Electron Model for Many Applications) is a proof-of-principle prototype built at the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Daresbury Laboratory to test the concept of the non-scaling fixed-field alternating gradient accelerator (FFAG). The technique should allow the construction of a new generation of more powerful, yet more compact and economical accelerators. The successful acceleration – a “world first” – confirms not only that the design of the most technically demanding aspects of EMMA is sound but it also demonstrates the feasibility of the technology used. The next steps will be to move towards The proof-of-principle prototype EMMA accelerator. (Image credit: STFC.) full acceleration, from 10 to 20 MeV, and commence the detailed characterization of strong magnetic focusing the displacement by offsetting it horizontally. The magnets are the accelerator. of the beam as it accelerates and spirals can short, so “end effects” become important, The basic concept underlying EMMA be kept much smaller than in other types of and pairs of magnets are closely spaced is that of the FFAG, in which a ring of accelerator. This makes the FFAG concept around the ring, so the interaction between fixed-field magnets simultaneously steers attractive for a range of applications, from magnets is non-trivial. and focuses the electron beam round the treating cancer to powering safer nuclear ● EMMA is a major part of the British machine (CERN Courier September 2008 reactors that produce less hazardous waste. Accelerator Science and Radiation Oncology p21). The focusing is as strong as in an The design of EMMA’s magnet ring Consortium CONFORM project and is alternating-gradient synchrotron but the presented several challenges.