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 4 6 n u m b e r 9 n o V e m b e r 2 0 0 6 OPERA makes its grand debut ACCELERATORS COMPUTING NEWS INTERVIEW Laser-wakefield device Business signs up to Stephen Hawking pays reaches 1 GeV p5 work with EGEE p12 a visit to CERN p28 CCENovCover1.indd 1 18/10/06 08:53:59 CERN & ProCurve Networking 15 petabytes of data And a network that can handle it “CERN uses ProCurve Switches because we generate a colossal amount of data, making dependability a top priority.” —David Foster, Communication Systems Group Leader, CERN CERN has joined with ProCurve to build their network based on high-performance security, reliability and flexibility, along with a lifetime warranty.* From the world’s largest applications, to a company-wide email, just think what ProCurve could do for your network. Get a closer look at CERN and the world’s biggest physics experiment. Visit www.hp.com/eur/procurvecern1 *For as long as you own the product, with next-business-day advance replacement (available in most countries). For details, refer to the ProCurve Software License, Warranty and Support booklet at www.hp.com/rnd/support/warranty/index.htm The ProCurve Routing Switch 9300m series, ProCurve Routing Switch 9408sl, ProCurve Switch 8100fl series, and the ProCurve Access Control Server 745wl have a one-year- warranty with extensions available. Part of the 12,000 ton CMS particle detector © 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Photo © CERN. at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. 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: COURIER Vo l u m e 4 6 N u m b e r 9 N o V e m b e r 20 0 6 Argonne National Laboratory (US): D Ayres 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 INFN (Italy): Barbara Gallavotti IHEP, Beijing (China): Tongzhou Xu 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 NIKHEF Laboratory (Netherlands): Paul de Jong The first big wheel for ATLAS p8 Supercomputing at DEISA p18 LBNL celebrates at 75 p31 Novosibirsk Institute (Russia): S Eidelman Orsay Laboratory (France): Anne-Marie Lutz News 5 PPARC (UK): Peter Barratt PSI Laboratory (Switzerland): P-R Kettle Wakefield device exceeds 1 GeV. Mather and Smoot share Nobel for Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK): Natalie Bealing precise observations of the CMB. Researchers unveil the PASER: a novel Saclay Laboratory (France): Elisabeth Locci IHEP, Serpukhov (Russia): Yu Ryabov acceleration scheme. LHC prepares for cooling while magnets pass the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (US): Neil Calder TRIUMF Laboratory (Canada): Marcello Pavan 1000 mark. LHCf: a tiny new experiment joins the LHC. ATLAS installs first of the big wheels. Produced for CERN by Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back, Sciencewatch 9 Bristol BS1 6BE, UK Tel: +44 (0)117 929 7481; e-mail: [email protected]; Web: iop.org Astrowatch 10 Publisher Jo Nicholas Art director Andrew Giaquinto CERN Courier Archive 11 Production editor Jonathan Cailes Technical illustrator Alison Tovey Computing News and Features 12 Display advertisement manager Ed Jost Display sales Europe Tom Houlden EGEE gets down to business. OSG receives $30 m for scientific Display sales North America Ed Jost computing collaboration. KnowARC project gets going. W3C to support Recruitment advertisement manager Jayne Orsborn Deputy recruitment advertisement manager Moo Ali more languages in voice applications. GRIDtoday honours CERN and Recruitment and classified sales Adam Hylands, Jayne Orsborn and Kathryn Zerboni e-Science. Jefferson Lab attracts record numbers to Geant4 workshop. Advertisement production Katie Graham CNL celebrates 40 years of news. LHC@home moves its base to the UK. Senior product manager Claire Webber Symposium focuses on scientific supercomputing. Advertising Tel: +44 (0)117 930 1026 (for UK/Europe display advertising), Features +1 215 627 0880 (for North American display advertising), or +44 (0)117 930 1196 (for recruitment advertising); Right on target: CNGS gets off to an excellent start 20 E-mail: [email protected]; Fax: +44 (0)117 930 1178 The new facility completes a very successful commissioning run. General distribution Courrier Adressage, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, OPERA makes its debut under the Gran Sasso 24 Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected] In certain countries, to request copies or to make address The detector sees first neutrinos as installation continues in full swing. changes, contact: China Keqing Ma, Library, Institute of High Energy Physics, Hawking brings the origins of the universe to CERN 28 PO Box 918, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected] Stephen Hawking returns to CERN to discuss his research. Germany Veronika Werschner, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] LBNL celebrates its 75th anniversary with style 31 Italy Loredana Rum or Anna Pennacchietti, INFN, Casella Postale 56, 00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] Spencer Klein looks at the lab’s achievements and the Founders Day party. UK Mark Swaisland, Chadwick Library, Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire WA4 4AD, UK. PHYSTAT tackles the significance problem 34 E-mail: [email protected] US/Canada Published by Cern Courier, 6N246 Willow Drive, A workshop in Banff brought together physicists and statisticians. St Charles, IL 60175, US. Periodical postage paid in St Charles, IL, US. Fax: 630 377 1569. E-mail: [email protected] POSIPOL 2006 lines up options for ILC and CLIC 37 POSTMASTER: send address changes to: Creative Mailing Experts discuss ways to make polarized positrons at future linear colliders. Services, PO Box 1147, St Charles, IL 60174, US Published by European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, Exotic atoms cast light on fundamental questions 39 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. Tel: +41 (0) 22 767 61 11 Low-energy hadrons address unresolved problems in particle physics. Telefax: +41 (0) 22 767 65 55 Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK Faces and Places 42 © 2006 CERN ISSN 0304-288X Recruitment 49 Bookshelf 54 Cover: The OPERA long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment (CNGS1) has seen its first neutrinos in Hall C at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (p24). CERN Courier November 2006 CCENovContents3.indd 3 17/10/06 14:01:07 CCNovAdSAES 13/10/06 14:43 Page 1 ADVERTISING FEATURE SAES® GETTERS TAKES PART INTO LISA, THE FIRST ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY FOR LOW FREQUENCY GRAVITATIONAL WAVES SAES Getters, world leader in getter The modelling phase of the inertial the shifting of the sensor inertial technology for high vacuum appli- sensor head of the interferometer has mass, which thing would alter the cations and in mercury dispensing been completed by SAES for Carlo experiment results and impair the solutions for LCD backlighting, con- Gavazzi Space. Results define the whole mission. cluded the pressure modeling of the pressure conditions in the vacuum The model realized for Carlo Gavazzi interferometer inertial sensor head, enclosure for mission’ success. Space at SAES Getters’ laboratories in commissioned by Carlo Gavazzi Lainate shows that pressure in the Space within the frame of the LISA vacuum chamber of the inertial sen- Pathfinder project. sor head needs to be at least as low as LISA (Laser Interferometer Space 10-7 mbar for two years. This vacuum Antenna) is the ESA-NASA mission level will ensure the sensor correct involving three spacecrafts in orbit operation also by avoiding that pos- around the Sun and flying approxi- sible pressure gradients in the vac- mately 5 million kilometres apart in uum chamber interfere with the an equilateral triangle formation. experiment. This spacecraft constellation acts as Data obtained from this modeling a Michelson interferometer to mea- also indicate that the mission vacuum sure the distortion of space caused requirements can be best addressed by passing gravitational waves. On by the zirconium non-evaporable get- board lasers will be used to measure ter (NEG) technology. Particularly, minimal changes in the separation SAES Getters’ porous NEGs, having distances of free-floating masses enhanced sorption capacity thanks within each spacecraft. LISA space- to their high porosity and large sur- based interferometer is planned for face area, are planned to be mounted launch in 2015 and, after a 13-month on the interferometer sensor. Their transfer to its operational orbit, it porous structures in fact allow the will stay in orbital phase for 2 years. gases to diffuse through the pores Ultimate target of the project is the inside the getter mass, thus involving detection of gravitational waves, the inner parts of the getter body in Modelling of the hydrogen pressure distribution whose existence was predicted in inside the inertail sensor head. In yellow-brown the sorption process and delivering a Einstein’s general relativity theory, colors the Au-Pt test mass.