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The Global Community of Particle Physics

This account brings you hot items from public particle physics news sources, including CERN, SymmetryMagazine.org, and Interactions.org.

  • ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action

    2023-03-24T16:27:19Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action" ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action Today, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representatives from its Delegation for Cyberspace came to CERN for the first in a series of knowledge-sharing sessions on using free and open source technologies to support the vital humanitarian work they carry out across the globe. These technologies are being explored as a means to pursue neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian action in a digital environment. CERN and the ICRC have signed a cooperation agreement that will see members of CERN’s IT department provide training on selected technologies, as well as sharing their experience. Technologies to be covered include Indico, CERN’s popular platform for organising events; CERNBox, which is used to store and share data; Newdle, which was created at CERN to aid meeting scheduling; CERN’s Single-Sign On solution for authentication; and OpenStack, a popular open source cloud-computing tool to which CERN contributes and which is used at CERN to manage the computers in its data centre. The ICRC is an independent, neutral organisation that works to ensure humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. It takes action in response to emergencies and at the same time promotes respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation in national law. At today’s event, the ICRC was represented by six members of its Luxembourg-based Delegation for Cyberspace and of its Geneva-based Data Protection Office Tech Hub. They are responsible for carrying out research and development and exploring and testing the technology relevant for the deployment of services to populations affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence by digital means, in a neutral, impartial and independent manner. Their aim is also to explore how to adapt the ICRC’s way of working, as well as the work of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as a whole and the wider humanitarian community, for the benefit of people affected by humanitarian emergencies globally. “Through this collaboration, we aim to develop new research-and-development opportunities for cooperation related to the use of free and open source software development, as well as to cybersecurity,” says Enrica Porcari, Head of the CERN IT Department. “We will work to further the sharing of knowledge, experience and tools in this area.” “We will also identify new challenges as they emerge and develop guidance to help equip the humanitarian and academic sectors with the tools necessary to navigate them,” continues Porcari. “This is an important opportunity for us to further boost CERN’s positive impact upon society.” CERN is at the heart of the open science movement, which is underpinned by sharing open data and creating open tools. The ICRC and CERN share institutional features and interests, including neutrality, impartiality, independence, openness, data protection and cybersecurity. Both organisations recognise the importance of openness and building pillars of knowledge. They both value suitable, affordable, easy-to-use computing tools that enable them to pursue their respective mandates, from protecting vulnerable populations to advancing science. “This collaboration with CERN is an essential enabler for furthering our exploration in the area of neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian action in the digital space,” says Massimo Marelli, Head of the ICRC Delegation for Cyberspace in Luxembourg. “Specifically, to do this, we will work with CERN to set up their free and open source software tools in the Delegation for Cyberspace environment and test new functionalities and tools as well as operating modalities.” At today’s event, initial plans were made for more in-depth training sessions later in the year. Find out more about this important new cooperation, which will further boost the positive impact CERN technologies have on wider society, in an announcement published today on the ICRC website. CERN works closely with other international organisations in Geneva to boost its positive impact upon society. For example, CERN hosts UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Centre, and has an agreement with the United Nations Office at Geneva to collaborate on Indico, a popular open source platform for organising events. ndinmore Fri, 03/24/2023 - 11:27 Byline Andrew Purcell Publication Date Fri, 03/24/2023 - 11:19 https://home.cern/news/news/computing/icrc-and-cern-cooperate-rd-technologies-humanitarian-action ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks

    2023-03-24T16:27:19Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks" ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks Today, at the Moriond conference, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have both presented the observation of a very rare process: the simultaneous production of four top quarks. They were observed using data from collisions during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Both experiments’ results pass the required five-sigma statistical significance to count as an observation – ATLAS’s observation with 6.1 sigma, higher than the expected significance of 4.3 sigma, and CMS’s observation with 5.5 sigma, higher than the expected 4.9 sigma – making them the first observations of this process. The top quark is the heaviest particle in the Standard Model, meaning it is the particle with the strongest ties to the Higgs boson. This makes top quarks ideal for looking for signs of physics beyond the Standard Model. There are a variety of ways to produce a top quark. Most commonly, they are observed in quark and antiquark pairs, and occasionally on their own. According to Standard Model theory, four top quarks – consisting of two top quark–antiquark pairs – can be produced simultaneously. The rate of production is, however, predicted to be 70 thousand times lower than that of top quark–antiquark pairs, which makes four-top-quark production elusive. Evidence for this phenomenon has previously been found by ATLAS in 2020 and 2021, and by CMS in 2022. However, until today, there had never been an observation. As well as being rare, four-top-quark production is notoriously difficult to detect. When physicists search for a particular event, they look for its “signature”: the properties of the final particles of a decay. These provide clues to the short-lived events they are looking for. Every top quark decays into a W boson and a bottom quark. The W boson can then decay into either a charged lepton and a neutrino or a quark–antiquark pair. This means that the signature of four-top-quark events can be highly varied, containing from zero to four charged leptons and up to 12 jets produced by the quarks. This makes looking for the signature of four-top-quark production challenging. To help search for these events, both ATLAS and CMS used novel machine-learning techniques to build the algorithms that select four-top-quark candidate events. The analyses use the spectacular four-top-quark signature with multiple electrons, muons and (bottom-quark-tagged) jets to separate the events with four top quarks from the background due to other Standard Model processes with larger production rates. Both ATLAS and CMS searched for event signatures containing two or more leptons. The first direct observation of four-top-quark production is an exciting new step in learning more about this fascinating particle. Both experiments look forward to continuing to study this phenomenon during LHC Run 3.   Read more: ATLAS physics briefing CMS physics briefing ndinmore Fri, 03/24/2023 - 10:23 Byline Naomi Dinmore Publication Date Fri, 03/24/2023 - 09:36 https://home.cern/news/news/physics/atlas-and-cms-observe-simultaneous-production-four-top-quarks ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • LHC experiments see four top quarks

    2023-03-24T15:27:19Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "LHC experiments see four top quarks" The ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a process 4,000 times rarer than the production of Higgs bosons. The ATLAS and CMS experiments have successfully detected the production of a quartet of top quarks during high-energy proton collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider. Four-top production is 4,000 times less common than even the production of Higgs bosons. “It’s just incredible that we’re able to observe this process,” says Nedaa Alexandra Asbah, a postdoc at Harvard. Top quarks are the most massive fundamental particles, weighing in at the same mass as a caffeine molecule. Scientists hope that by studying these chart-topping particles, they can learn more about the Higgs field, which gives quarks and other fundamental particles their masses. “Studying the four-top-quark production is a great way to look for new physics,” says Melissa Quinnan, a postdoc at the University of California, San Diego.  The Standard Model of particle physics, the best model scientists have to describe the behavior of subatomic particles, predicts how often four-top production should occur. Scientists look for and study rare processes like this to test whether experimental measurements match what the Standard Model tells them to expect. “Undiscovered heavy particles could influence the rate at which we see this process,” says Meng-ju Tsai, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. “For instance, the LHC could be producing two top quarks and a heavy cousin of the Higgs boson that then decays into an additional two top quarks. This would increase the rate at which we see four top quarks beyond the value predicted by the Standard Model.” The LHC uses Albert Einstein’s equation E=mc2 to transform the energy stored inside protons into massive fundamental particles. Protons themselves are not fundamental but made up of point-like particles called quarks which are held together by other fundamental particles called gluons. As the protons accelerate, their gluons gain energy. When two gluons collide, their energy can transform into a host of other particles, including top quarks. According to Tsai, the production of four top quarks is one of the rarest and heaviest processes ever observed at the LHC. If the Standard Model is correct, then only around one in 4 trillion LHC collisions should generate four top quarks at once. If there had been no improvements to the LHC research program since its first run, it would have taken physicists around 1,000 years of operation to see this process. Luckily, there’s been significant progress, thanks to upgrades to both the accelerator and detectors. Since 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments have increased their experimental data sets sixfold.  Physicists have also improved their analysis techniques. Top quarks are so short-lived that scientists will never see them directly. Instead, scientists look for the particles top quarks produce as they decay. The problem is that the decay patterns produced by top quarks are almost identical to the patterns left by many other subatomic processes. “Everything we do is to try to disentangle the signal from background,” Asbah says. Scientists use theoretical models and computer simulations to predict what their signal will look like: the kinds of particles their detectors should see and their trajectories and momenta. Because these signatures are so similar to background events, scientists often use machine-learning algorithms to help them sort signal from background. Quinnan compares this work to isolating a person in a photograph. “With machine learning, applications like Photoshop can map the background of a digital photograph in a much more complex way,” she says. “Our analysis is similar.” But in this case, the signal and background can look so similar that it’s less like removing an unsightly parking lot from a selfie, and more like isolating a specific person in a grainy picture taken during a massive concert. “We had such a large and complicated background that we couldn’t simulate it; we had to use the data,” Quinnan says. “This was the first time CMS used machine learning to estimate a data-driven background.” While a photographer can visually check an image to make sure the background has been cleanly removed, physicists don’t have the same luxury. Until they are ready to analyze their data, they won’t even check the signal region, as a safeguard against biasing themselves.  For these kinds of physics analyses, scientists identify all the relevant features of their signal and develop a sketch of what the signal event should look like in the experimental data. They also create sketches of similar-looking background events, in which only one or two of the features are tweaked. Physicists then feed these imitation signal events and imitation backgrounds into their machine-learning algorithms and see how well they perform. “We had long discussions and validations to cross-check that the modeling for the machine-learning output is decent,” Tsai says. Only after the algorithms have been verified on imitation data do the scientists apply the same techniques to the signal region of their real data.  The new results from ATLAS and CMS are consistent with the Standard Model, given the systematic and statistical uncertainties. ATLAS’s measured statistical significance is 6.1 sigma, which means there is only a one-in-a-billion chance that the findings are the result of signal-like background variations and not of a previously undiscovered process. Likewise, CMS’s statistical significance is 5.5 sigma, which is also beyond the 5-sigma threshold physicists need to claim the discovery of a previously unseen particle or process. Even though the results are still consistent with the Standard Model, both experiments are seeing more signal events than they would normally expect based on the Standard Model’s predictions. “It can be either data fluctuation or actually new physics playing a role here,” Tsai says. “Although we cannot conclude that we have observed new physics beyond the Standard Model, this analysis provides some hints and direction that we can continue looking into.” If the excess grows over time, it could be evidence of a heavy fundamental particle producing four top quarks and thus boosting the rate. “By the end of Run 3, we will have tripled our data set,” Asbah says. “We will be able to pin this process down.” Even if the analysis doesn’t lead to new physics, for Tsai, getting to work on this kind of research has been a dream come true. “When I was a high school student in Taiwan, I was attracted by the discovery of the Higgs boson,” Tsai says. “Even though I didn’t know what exactly a Higgs boson was, I was thrilled and wished that I would be able to come to Geneva and join the collaboration in CERN one day, working with physicists there to discover new physics. And now, everything has come true.” https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/lhc-experiments-see-four-top-quarks?utm_source=main_feed_click&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=main_feed&utm_content=click ( Feed URL: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/feed )
  • ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action

    2023-03-24T15:27:19Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action" ICRC and CERN cooperate on R&D in technologies for humanitarian action Today, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representatives from its Delegation for Cyberspace came to CERN for the first in a series of knowledge-sharing sessions on using free and open source technologies to support the vital humanitarian work they carry out across the globe. These technologies are being explored as a means to pursue neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian action in a digital environment. CERN and the ICRC have signed a cooperation agreement that will see members of CERN’s IT department provide training on selected technologies, as well as sharing their experience. Technologies to be covered include Indico, CERN’s popular platform for organising events; CERNBox, which is used to store and share data; Newdle, which was created at CERN to aid meeting scheduling; CERN’s Single-Sign On solution for authentication; and OpenStack, a popular open source cloud-computing tool to which CERN contributes and which is used at CERN to manage the computers in its data centre. The ICRC is an independent, neutral organisation that works to ensure humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. It takes action in response to emergencies and at the same time promotes respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation in national law. At today’s event, the ICRC was represented by six members of its Luxembourg-based Delegation for Cyberspace and of its Geneva-based Data Protection Office Tech Hub. They are responsible for carrying out research and development and exploring and testing the technology relevant for the deployment of services to populations affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence by digital means, in a neutral, impartial and independent manner. Their aim is also to explore how to adapt the ICRC’s way of working, as well as the work of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as a whole and the wider humanitarian community, for the benefit of people affected by humanitarian emergencies globally. “Through this collaboration, we aim to develop new research-and-development opportunities for cooperation related to the use of free and open source software development, as well as to cybersecurity,” says Enrica Porcari, Head of the CERN IT Department. “We will work to further the sharing of knowledge, experience and tools in this area.” “We will also identify new challenges as they emerge and develop guidance to help equip the humanitarian and academic sectors with the tools necessary to navigate them,” continues Porcari. “This is an important opportunity for us to further boost CERN’s positive impact upon society.” CERN is at the heart of the open science movement, which is underpinned by sharing open data and creating open tools. The ICRC and CERN share institutional features and interests, including neutrality, impartiality, independence, openness, data protection and cybersecurity. Both organisations recognise the importance of openness and building pillars of knowledge. They both value suitable, affordable, easy-to-use computing tools that enable them to pursue their respective mandates, from protecting vulnerable populations to advancing science. “This collaboration with CERN is an essential enabler for furthering our exploration in the area of neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian action in the digital space,” says Massimo Marelli, Head of the ICRC Delegation for Cyberspace in Luxembourg. “Specifically, to do this, we will work with CERN to set up their free and open source software tools in the Delegation for Cyberspace environment and test new functionalities and tools as well as operating modalities.” At today’s event, initial plans were made for more in-depth training sessions later in the year. Find out more about this important new cooperation, which will further boost the positive impact CERN technologies have on wider society, in an announcement published today on the ICRC website. CERN works closely with other international organisations in Geneva to boost its positive impact upon society. For example, CERN hosts UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Centre, and has an agreement with the United Nations Office at Geneva to collaborate on Indico, a popular open source platform for organising events. ndinmore Fri, 03/24/2023 - 11:27 Byline Andrew Purcell Publication Date Fri, 03/24/2023 - 11:19 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/computing/icrc-and-cern-cooperate-rd-technologies-humanitarian-action ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks

    2023-03-24T11:27:20Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks" ATLAS and CMS observe simultaneous production of four top quarks Today, at the Moriond conference, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have both presented the observation of a very rare process: the simultaneous production of four top quarks. They were observed using data from collisions during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Both experiments’ results pass the required five-sigma statistical significance to count as an observation – ATLAS’s observation with 6.1 sigma, higher than the expected significance of 4.3 sigma, and CMS’s observation with 5.5 sigma, higher than the expected 4.9 sigma – making them the first observations of this process. The top quark is the heaviest particle in the Standard Model, meaning it is the particle with the strongest ties to the Higgs boson. This makes top quarks ideal for looking for signs of physics beyond the Standard Model. There are a variety of ways to produce a top quark. Most commonly, they are observed in quark and antiquark pairs, and occasionally on their own. According to Standard Model theory, four top quarks – consisting of two top quark–antiquark pairs – can be produced simultaneously. The rate of production is, however, predicted to be 70 thousand times lower than that of top quark–antiquark pairs, which makes four-top-quark production elusive. Evidence for this phenomenon has previously been found by ATLAS in 2020 and 2021, and by CMS in 2022. However, until today, there had never been an observation. As well as being rare, four-top-quark production is notoriously difficult to detect. When physicists search for a particular event, they look for its “signature”: the properties of the final particles of a decay. These provide clues to the short-lived events they are looking for. Every top quark decays into a W boson and a bottom quark. The W boson can then decay into either a charged lepton and a neutrino or a quark–antiquark pair. This means that the signature of four-top-quark events can be highly varied, containing from zero to four charged leptons and up to 12 jets produced by the quarks. This makes looking for the signature of four-top-quark production challenging. To help search for these events, both ATLAS and CMS used novel machine-learning techniques to build the algorithms that select four-top-quark candidate events. The analyses use the spectacular four-top-quark signature with multiple electrons, muons and (bottom-quark-tagged) jets to separate the events with four top quarks from the background due to other Standard Model processes with larger production rates. Both ATLAS and CMS searched for event signatures containing two or more leptons. The first direct observation of four-top-quark production is an exciting new step in learning more about this fascinating particle. Both experiments look forward to continuing to study this phenomenon during LHC Run 3.   ndinmore Fri, 03/24/2023 - 10:23 Byline Naomi Dinmore Publication Date Fri, 03/24/2023 - 09:36 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/physics/atlas-and-cms-observe-simultaneous-production-four-top-quarks ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • New worries about Earth’s asteroid risk, and harnessing plants’ chemical factories

    2023-03-23T18:27:18Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New worries about Earth’s asteroid risk, and harnessing plants’ chemical factories" On this week’s show: Earth’s youngest impact craters could be vastly underestimated in size, and remaking a plant’s process for a creating a complex compound   First up this week, have we been measuring asteroid impact craters wrong? Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about new approaches to measuring the diameter of impact craters. They discuss the new measurements which, if confirmed, might require us to rethink just how often Earth gets hit with large asteroids. Paul also shares more news from the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.   Next up, pulling together all the enzymes used by a plant to make a vaccine adjuvant—a compound used to boost the efficacy of vaccines—in the lab. Anne Osbourn, a group leader and professor of biology at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England, talks about why plants are so much better at making complex molecules, and an approach that allows scientists to copy their methods.   This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   [Image: NASA/JPL; Music: Jeffrey Cook]   [alt: Itturalde crater in Bolivia with podcast overlay]   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Paul Voosen   Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh9195See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. https://omny.fm/shows/science-magazine-podcast-2/new-worries-about-earth-s-asteroid-risk-and-harnes ( Feed URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/rss/podcast.xml )
  • New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory

    2023-03-23T17:27:17Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory" New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd. In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements. FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, SND@LHC, also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds SND@LHC spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The SND@LHC detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3. Until now, neutrino experiments have only studied neutrinos coming from space, Earth, nuclear reactors or fixed-target experiments. While astrophysical neutrinos are highly energetic, such as those that can be detected by the IceCube experiment at the South Pole, solar and reactor neutrinos generally have lower energies. Neutrinos at fixed-target experiments, such as those from the CERN North and former West Areas, are in the energy region of up to a few hundred gigaelectronvolts (GeV). FASER and SND@LHC will narrow the gap between fixed-target neutrinos and astrophysical neutrinos, covering a much higher energy range ­– between a few hundred GeV and several TeV. One of the unexplored physics topics to which they will contribute is the study of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Indeed, the production mechanism of the neutrinos at the LHC, as well as their centre-of-mass energy, is the same as for the very-high-energy neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. Those “atmospheric” neutrinos constitute a background for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos: the measurements by FASER and SND@LHC can be used to precisely estimate that background, thus paving the way for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos. Another application of these searches is measuring the production rate of all three types of neutrinos. The experiments will test the universality of their interaction mechanism by measuring the ratio of different neutrino species produced by the same type of parent particle. This will be an important test of the Standard Model in the neutrino sector. ckrishna Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:42 Byline Kristiane Bernhard-Novotny Chetna Krishna Publication Date Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:25 https://home.cern/news/news/physics/new-lhc-experiments-enter-uncharted-territory ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award

    2023-03-23T17:27:17Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award" Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award Today, we are pleased to announce a three-year partnership between CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary through Collide, Arts at CERN’s flagship international residency programme. Arts at CERN is designed to generate creative connections between science and the arts through a broad programme of artistic residencies, art commissions and exhibitions. Over the past decade, Arts at CERN has brought arts and science together in new configurations, in collaboration with leading cultural institutions around the globe. The Collide residency programme was established in 2012 to foster networks with international organisations, creating new links between art and fundamental science worldwide. Copenhagen Contemporary is Copenhagen’s international art centre, displaying installation art created by world-renowned artists and new emerging talents. Located in the former B&W welding building and offering 7000 m2 of industrial halls, Copenhagen Contemporary displays large-scale installation art and creates collaborative partnerships and events across cultural genres, locally and internationally. Since 2016, Copenhagen Contemporary has hosted exhibitions featuring, among others, James Turrell, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Anselm Kiefer, Wu Tsang, and Larissa Sansour. “For over 10 years, the Collide programme has allowed us to forge bonds of a new kind with different cities across our Member States,” explains Charlotte Warakaulle, CERN’s Director for International Relations. “We are delighted to see this international network expand with Copenhagen, which has such important traditions in particle physics, technology development, innovation and artistic expression. Bringing these dimensions together in Copenhagen will enable us to take these vital, creative encounters across communities even further.” “At Copenhagen Contemporary we are excited and proud to bring the prestigious Collide programme to Scandinavia and offer artists a unique opportunity to develop their work in dialogue with world-leading scientists and researchers. Art and science share a deep curiosity to understand the world and our place in it. But their methods and end goals are different. Through art, the great conversation about the human condition is constantly renewed. We want to make this programme an opportunity to investigate how technology affects our life and might change our destiny,” says Marie Laurberg, Director of Copenhagen Contemporary. The first edition of Collide Copenhagen has now been officially launched. Artists from any country in the world are invited to submit their proposals for a fully-funded two-month residency, split between CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary. The selected artist or artistic collective will devote this period to artistic research and artistic exploration, working side-by-side with physicists, engineers, laboratory staff and the Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary teams. For the first edition and the following annual calls, in 2024 and 2025, Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary will invite artists to reflect on the impact of science and research in contemporary culture. Proposals that consider the role of advanced technologies and novel scientific models as major topics in contemporary culture are welcome. Collide Copenhagen is especially aiming for artistic proposals that reflect on themes such as artificial intelligence, the modelling and analysis of vast datasets, the emergence of quantum technologies, and the interpretation of these themes from philosophical and ethical standpoints. The artists selected for the 2023–2025 editions will become part of an ambitious exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary in 2025, investigating technology’s impact on humanity. The application deadline is 8 May 2023. Conditions and guidelines for the call are on the Arts at CERN website. An international jury of experts will review the proposals and the decision will be announced in late June 2023. angerard Fri, 03/17/2023 - 11:17 Publication Date Thu, 03/23/2023 - 14:00 https://home.cern/news/news/cern/arts-cern-and-copenhagen-contemporary-collaborate-through-collide-international ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • New Call for GSSI PhD Applications 2023/24 now open

    2023-03-23T15:27:17Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New Call for GSSI PhD Applications 2023/24 now open" The GSSI - Gran Sasso Science Institute offers 41 PhD fellowships for the academic year 2023/24 and invites applications for fellowships for the PhD Programmes in “Astroparticle Physics” (10), “Mathematics in Natural, Social and Life Sciences” (11), “Computer Science” (10), “Regional Science & Economic Geography”(10). Read More ... https://www.lngs.infn.it/en/news/bando-gssi-23-24-eng ( Feed URL: http://www.lngs.infn.it/en/news/rss )
  • New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory

    2023-03-23T14:27:16Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory" New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd. In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements. FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, SND@LHC, also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds SND@LHC spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The SND@LHC detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3. Until now, neutrino experiments have only studied neutrinos coming from space, Earth, nuclear reactors or fixed-target experiments. While astrophysical neutrinos are highly energetic, such as those that can be detected by the IceCube experiment at the South Pole, solar and reactor neutrinos generally have lower energies. Neutrinos at fixed-target experiments, such as those from the CERN North and former West Areas, are in the energy region of up to a few hundred gigaelectronvolts (GeV). FASER and SND@LHC will narrow the gap between fixed-target neutrinos and astrophysical neutrinos, covering a much higher energy range ­– between a few hundred GeV and several TeV. One of the unexplored physics topics to which they will contribute is the study of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Indeed, the production mechanism of the neutrinos at the LHC, as well as their centre-of-mass energy, is the same as for the very-high-energy neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. Those “atmospheric” neutrinos constitute a background for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos: the measurements by FASER and SND@LHC can be used to precisely estimate that background, thus paving the way for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos. Another application of these searches is measuring the production rate of all three types of neutrinos. The experiments will test the universality of their interaction mechanism by measuring the ratio of different neutrino species produced by the same type of parent particle. This will be an important test of the Standard Model in the neutrino sector. ckrishna Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:42 Byline Kristiane Bernhard-Novotny Chetna Krishna Publication Date Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:25 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/physics/new-lhc-experiments-enter-uncharted-territory ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award

    2023-03-23T14:27:16Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award" Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary to collaborate through Collide International award Today, we are pleased to announce a three-year partnership between CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary through Collide, Arts at CERN’s flagship international residency programme. Arts at CERN is designed to generate creative connections between science and the arts through a broad programme of artistic residencies, art commissions and exhibitions. Over the past decade, Arts at CERN has brought arts and science together in new configurations, in collaboration with leading cultural institutions around the globe. The Collide residency programme was established in 2012 to foster networks with international organisations, creating new links between art and fundamental science worldwide. Copenhagen Contemporary is Copenhagen’s international art centre, displaying installation art created by world-renowned artists and new emerging talents. Located in the former B&W welding building and offering 7000 m2 of industrial halls, Copenhagen Contemporary displays large-scale installation art and creates collaborative partnerships and events across cultural genres, locally and internationally. Since 2016, Copenhagen Contemporary has hosted exhibitions featuring, among others, James Turrell, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Anselm Kiefer, Wu Tsang, and Larissa Sansour. “For over 10 years, the Collide programme has allowed us to forge bonds of a new kind with different cities across our Member States,” explains Charlotte Warakaulle, CERN’s Director for International Relations. “We are delighted to see this international network expand with Copenhagen, which has such important traditions in particle physics, technology development, innovation and artistic expression. Bringing these dimensions together in Copenhagen will enable us to take these vital, creative encounters across communities even further.” “At Copenhagen Contemporary we are excited and proud to bring the prestigious Collide programme to Scandinavia and offer artists a unique opportunity to develop their work in dialogue with world-leading scientists and researchers. Art and science share a deep curiosity to understand the world and our place in it. But their methods and end goals are different. Through art, the great conversation about the human condition is constantly renewed. We want to make this programme an opportunity to investigate how technology affects our life and might change our destiny,” says Marie Laurberg, Director of Copenhagen Contemporary. The first edition of Collide Copenhagen has now been officially launched. Artists from any country in the world are invited to submit their proposals for a fully-funded two-month residency, split between CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary. The selected artist or artistic collective will devote this period to artistic research and artistic exploration, working side-by-side with physicists, engineers, laboratory staff and the Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary teams. For the first edition and the following annual calls, in 2024 and 2025, Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary will invite artists to reflect on the impact of science and research in contemporary culture. Proposals that consider the role of advanced technologies and novel scientific models as major topics in contemporary culture are welcome. Collide Copenhagen is especially aiming for artistic proposals that reflect on themes such as artificial intelligence, the modelling and analysis of vast datasets, the emergence of quantum technologies, and the interpretation of these themes from philosophical and ethical standpoints. The artists selected for the 2023–2025 editions will become part of an ambitious exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary in 2025, investigating technology’s impact on humanity. The application deadline is 8 May 2023. Conditions and guidelines for the call are on the Arts at CERN website. An international jury of experts will review the proposals and the decision will be announced in late June 2023. angerard Fri, 03/17/2023 - 11:17 Publication Date Thu, 03/23/2023 - 14:00 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/cern/arts-cern-and-copenhagen-contemporary-collaborate-through-collide-international ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson

    2023-03-23T13:27:15Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson" Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson Geneva, 23 March 2023. The W boson, a fundamental particle that carries the charged weak force, is the subject of a new precision measurement of its mass by the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The preliminary result, reported in a new conference note presented today at the Rencontres de Moriond conference, is based on a reanalysis of a sample of 14 million W boson candidates produced in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN’s flagship particle accelerator. The new ATLAS measurement concurs with, and is more precise than, all previous W mass measurements except one – the latest measurement from the CDF experiment at the Tevatron, a former accelerator at Fermilab. Together with its electrically neutral counterpart, the Z boson, the electrically charged W boson mediates the weak force, a fundamental force that is responsible for a form of radioactivity and initiates the nuclear fusion reaction that powers the Sun. The particle’s discovery at CERN 40 years ago helped to confirm the theory of the electroweak interaction that unifies the electromagnetic and weak forces. This theory is now a cornerstone of the Standard Model of particle physics. CERN researchers who enabled the discovery were awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics. Since then, experiments at particle colliders at CERN and elsewhere have measured the W boson mass ever more precisely. In the Standard Model, the W boson mass is closely related to the strength of the electroweak interactions and the masses of the heaviest fundamental particles, including the Z boson, the top quark and the Higgs boson. In this theory, the particle is constrained to weigh 80354 million electronvolts (MeV), within an uncertainty of 7 MeV. Any deviation of the measured mass from the Standard Model prediction would be an indicator of new physics phenomena, such as new particles or interactions. To be sensitive to such deviations, mass measurements need to be extremely precise. In 2017, ATLAS released its first measurement of the W boson mass, which was determined using a sample of W bosons recorded by ATLAS in 2011, when the LHC was running at a collision energy of 7 TeV. The W boson mass came out at 80370 MeV, with an uncertainty of 19 MeV. At the time, this result represented the most precise W boson mass value ever obtained by a single experiment, and was in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction and all previous experimental results, including those from experiments at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), the LHC’s predecessor at CERN. Last year, the CDF collaboration at Fermilab announced an even more precise measurement, based on an analysis of its full dataset collected at the Tevatron. The result, 80434 MeV with an uncertainty of 9 MeV, differed significantly from the Standard Model prediction and from the other experimental results, calling for more measurements to try to identify the cause of the difference. In its new study, ATLAS reanalysed its 2011 sample of W bosons, improving the precision of its previous measurement. The new W boson mass, 80360 MeV with an uncertainty of 16 MeV, is 10 MeV lower than the previous ATLAS result and 16% more precise. The result is in agreement with the Standard Model. Comparison of the measured value of the W boson mass with other published results. The vertical bands show the Standard Model prediction, and the horizontal bands and lines show the statistical and total uncertainties of the results (Image: CERN)To attain this result, ATLAS used an advanced data-fitting technique to determine the mass, as well as more recent, improved versions of what are known as the parton distribution functions of the proton. These functions describe the sharing of the proton’s momentum amongst its constituent quarks and gluons. In addition, ATLAS verified the theoretical description of the W boson production process using dedicated LHC proton–proton runs. “Due to an undetected neutrino in the particle’s decay, the W mass measurement is among the most challenging precision measurements performed at hadron colliders. It requires extremely accurate calibration of the measured particle energies and momenta, and a careful assessment and excellent control of modelling uncertainties,” says ATLAS spokesperson Andreas Hoecker. “This updated result from ATLAS provides a stringent test, and confirms the consistency of our theoretical understanding of electroweak interactions.” Further measurements of the W boson mass are expected from ATLAS and CMS and from LHCb, which has also recently weighed the boson.   Further information Video news release : https://videos.cern.ch/record/2297560 ATLAS images gallery : https://home.cern/resources/image/experiments/atlas-images-gallery     gfabre Tue, 03/21/2023 - 14:38 Publication Date Thu, 03/23/2023 - 12:00 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/press-release/physics/improved-atlas-result-weighs-w-boson ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson

    2023-03-23T11:27:17Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson" Improved ATLAS result weighs in on the W boson Geneva, 23 March 2023. The W boson, a fundamental particle that carries the charged weak force, is the subject of a new precision measurement of its mass by the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The preliminary result, reported in a new conference note presented today at the Rencontres de Moriond conference, is based on a reanalysis of a sample of 14 million W boson candidates produced in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN’s flagship particle accelerator. The new ATLAS measurement concurs with, and is more precise than, all previous W mass measurements except one – the latest measurement from the CDF experiment at the Tevatron, a former accelerator at Fermilab. Together with its electrically neutral counterpart, the Z boson, the electrically charged W boson mediates the weak force, a fundamental force that is responsible for a form of radioactivity and initiates the nuclear fusion reaction that powers the Sun. The particle’s discovery at CERN 40 years ago helped to confirm the theory of the electroweak interaction that unifies the electromagnetic and weak forces. This theory is now a cornerstone of the Standard Model of particle physics. CERN researchers who enabled the discovery were awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics. Since then, experiments at particle colliders at CERN and elsewhere have measured the W boson mass ever more precisely. In the Standard Model, the W boson mass is closely related to the strength of the electroweak interactions and the masses of the heaviest fundamental particles, including the Z boson, the top quark and the Higgs boson. In this theory, the particle is constrained to weigh 80354 million electronvolts (MeV), within an uncertainty of 7 MeV. Any deviation of the measured mass from the Standard Model prediction would be an indicator of new physics phenomena, such as new particles or interactions. To be sensitive to such deviations, mass measurements need to be extremely precise. In 2017, ATLAS released its first measurement of the W boson mass, which was determined using a sample of W bosons recorded by ATLAS in 2011, when the LHC was running at a collision energy of 7 TeV. The W boson mass came out at 80370 MeV, with an uncertainty of 19 MeV. At the time, this result represented the most precise W boson mass value ever obtained by a single experiment, and was in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction and all previous experimental results, including those from experiments at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), the LHC’s predecessor at CERN. Last year, the CDF collaboration at Fermilab announced an even more precise measurement, based on an analysis of its full dataset collected at the Tevatron. The result, 80434 MeV with an uncertainty of 9 MeV, differed significantly from the Standard Model prediction and from the other experimental results, calling for more measurements to try to identify the cause of the difference. In its new study, ATLAS reanalysed its 2011 sample of W bosons, improving the precision of its previous measurement. The new W boson mass, 80360 MeV with an uncertainty of 16 MeV, is 10 MeV lower than the previous ATLAS result and 16% more precise. The result is in agreement with the Standard Model. Comparison of the measured value of the W boson mass with other published results. The vertical bands show the Standard Model prediction, and the horizontal bands and lines show the statistical and total uncertainties of the results (Image: CERN)To attain this result, ATLAS used an advanced data-fitting technique to determine the mass, as well as more recent, improved versions of what are known as the parton distribution functions of the proton. These functions describe the sharing of the proton’s momentum amongst its constituent quarks and gluons. In addition, ATLAS verified the theoretical description of the W boson production process using dedicated LHC proton–proton runs. “Due to an undetected neutrino in the particle’s decay, the W mass measurement is among the most challenging precision measurements performed at hadron colliders. It requires extremely accurate calibration of the measured particle energies and momenta, and a careful assessment and excellent control of modelling uncertainties,” says ATLAS spokesperson Andreas Hoecker. “This updated result from ATLAS provides a stringent test, and confirms the consistency of our theoretical understanding of electroweak interactions.” Further measurements of the W boson mass are expected from ATLAS and CMS and from LHCb, which has also recently weighed the boson.   Further information Video news release : https://videos.cern.ch/record/2297560 ATLAS images gallery : https://home.cern/resources/image/experiments/atlas-images-gallery     gfabre Tue, 03/21/2023 - 14:38 Publication Date Thu, 03/23/2023 - 12:00 https://home.cern/news/press-release/physics/improved-atlas-result-weighs-w-boson ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory

    2023-03-22T21:27:16Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory" New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd. In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements. FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, SND@LHC, also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds SND@LHC spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The SND@LHC detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3. Until now, neutrino experiments have only studied neutrinos coming from space, Earth, nuclear reactors or fixed-target experiments. While astrophysical neutrinos are highly energetic, such as those that can be detected by the IceCube experiment at the South Pole, solar and reactor neutrinos generally have lower energies. Neutrinos at fixed-target experiments, such as those from the CERN North and former West Areas, are in the energy region of up to a few hundred gigaelectronvolts (GeV). FASER and SND@LHC will narrow the gap between fixed-target neutrinos and astrophysical neutrinos, covering a much higher energy range ­– between a few hundred GeV and several TeV. One of the unexplored physics topics to which they will contribute is the study of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Indeed, the production mechanism of the neutrinos at the LHC, as well as their centre-of-mass energy, is the same as for the very-high-energy neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. Those “atmospheric” neutrinos constitute a background for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos: the measurements by FASER and SND@LHC can be used to precisely estimate that background, thus paving the way for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos. Another application of these searches is measuring the production rate of all three types of neutrinos. The experiments will test the universality of their interaction mechanism by measuring the ratio of different neutrino species produced by the same type of parent particle. This will be an important test of the Standard Model in the neutrino sector. ckrishna Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:42 Byline Kristiane Bernhard-Novotny Chetna Krishna Publication Date Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:25 https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/new-lhc-experiments-enter-uncharted-territory ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • First WIMP Search Results from the XENONnT Experiment

    2023-03-22T16:27:15Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "First WIMP Search Results from the XENONnT Experiment" First WIMP Search Results from the XENONnT ExperimentPress ReleaseLauren Wed, 03/22/2023 - 09:28823The XENON collaboration presented today results from XENONnT, the latest-generation experiment of the XENON Dark Matter project dedicated to the direct search for Dark Matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). With an initial exposure slightly larger than 1 tonne x year, a blind analysis shows that the data is consistent with the expectations from the background-only hypothesis. XENONnT thus sets new limits on interaction of WIMPs with ordinary matter. Thanks to the five times lower background, XENONnT improved on the results from the former XENON1T experiment obtained with a similar exposure. An article has been submitted to Physical Review Letters, and its preprint is available at the XENON website (https://xenonexperiment.org/).The XENONnT experiment was designed to search for dark matter particles with an order of magnitude higher sensitivity than its predecessor. The detector at the core of the experiment is a cylindrical Dual-Phase Xenon Time Projection Chamber (TPC), of approximately 1.5-meter height and diameter, filled with ultra-pure liquid xenon kept at -95°C. A mass of 5900 kg of xenon out of the 8600 kg total required to operate the detector constitutes the active target for particle interactions. It is installed inside a water Cherenkov active muon and neutron veto, deep underground at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. XENONnT was constructed and subsequently commissioned between spring 2020 and spring 2021 and took this first science data over 97.1 days, from July 6 to November 10, 2021.The signature of a WIMP interaction with a xenon atom is a tiny flash of scintillation light together with a handful of ionization electrons that are drifted by an applied electric field towards the top of the TPC, where they are extracted by a stronger electric field into the gas xenon above the liquid, producing a second scintillation signal. Both light signals are detected with ultra-sensitive photodetectors, providing energy and 3D position information on an event-by-event basis.Experiments searching for dark matter require the lowest possible level of natural radioactivity, both from sources intrinsically present in the liquid xenon target and from construction materials and the environment. The former is dominated by radon atoms that are constantly emitted from detector materials and which are extremely difficult to reduce. The XENON collaboration has pioneered the technologies to lower radon to an unprecedented low level, from extensive material selection campaigns to an online cryogenic distillation system that actively removes radon from the xenon. Another important radioactive background comes from neutrons that are generated by the radioactivity of detector materials. In XENONnT, its impact has been reduced by a novel neutron veto detector installed inside the water tank around the xenon cryostat, which allows for recognition and removal of those neutron events that can otherwise mimic the WIMP signature. The XENONnT detector is so sensitive to rare interactions that even neutrinos, the most elusive particles known so far, have to be considered in the background model.With this result, XENONnT strengthens previous constraints already with a first short exposure.XENONnT is collecting more data, with improved detector conditions and an even lower background level due to a further improvement of the radon control and online removal system, aiming for an increased WIMP sensitivity over the following years.More information on the XENON project can be found at https://xenonexperiment.org/XENON Spokesperson: Elena Aprile Columbia University - New Yorkea1254@gmail.comXENON Co-Spokesperson: Manfred Lindner MPIK - Heidelberglindner@mpi-hd.mpg.deLNGS-INFN Public Affairs | Roberta Antoliniroberta.antolini@lngs.infn.it +39 0862 437216 Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso - INFN INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory. (Courtesy: INFN)Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) is one of the four national laboratories of INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics).The other laboratories of INFN are based in Catania, Frascati (Rome) and Legnaro (Padua); the whole network of laboratories house large equipment and infrastructures available for use by the national and international scientific community.The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) is the Italian research agency dedicated to the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the laws that govern them, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR). It conducts theoretical and experimental research in the fields of subnuclear, nuclear and astroparticle physics.AddressVia G. Acitelli, 2267100Assergi AQItaly + 39 0862 4371 http://www.lngs.infn.it/enContact InfoLNGS-INFN Public Affairs | Roberta Antoliniroberta.antolini@lngs.infn.it +39 0862 437216 LinksLinkedInFunding - INFN https://www.interactions.org/press-release/first-wimp-search-results-xenonnt-experiment ( Feed URL: http://www.interactions.org/index.rss )
  • XENONnT: first results on WIMP research presented

    2023-03-22T15:27:15Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "XENONnT: first results on WIMP research presented" New results of XENONnT, the latest detector of the XENON project dedicated to the direct search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), particles that could make up dark matter, were presented in a seminar held today, Wednesday, March 22, at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories. Read More ... https://www.lngs.infn.it/en/news/xenon-wimp-eng ( Feed URL: http://www.lngs.infn.it/en/news/rss )
  • New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory

    2023-03-22T11:27:18Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory" New LHC experiments enter uncharted territory Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd. In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements. FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, SND@LHC, also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds SND@LHC spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The SND@LHC detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3. Until now, neutrino experiments have only studied neutrinos coming from space, Earth, nuclear reactors or fixed-target experiments. While astrophysical neutrinos are highly energetic, such as those that can be detected by the IceCube experiment at the South Pole, solar and reactor neutrinos generally have lower energies. Neutrinos at fixed-target experiments, such as those from the CERN North and former West Areas, are in the energy region of up to a few hundred gigaelectronvolts (GeV). FASER and SND@LHC will narrow the gap between fixed-target neutrinos and astrophysical neutrinos, covering a much higher energy range ­– between a few hundred GeV and several TeV. One of the unexplored physics topics to which they will contribute is the study of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Indeed, the production mechanism of the neutrinos at the LHC, as well as their centre-of-mass energy, is the same as for the very-high-energy neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. Those “atmospheric” neutrinos constitute a background for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos: the measurements by FASER and SND@LHC can be used to precisely estimate that background, thus paving the way for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos. Another application of these searches is measuring the production rate of all three types of neutrinos. The experiments will test the universality of their interaction mechanism by measuring the ratio of different neutrino species produced by the same type of parent particle. This will be an important test of the Standard Model in the neutrino sector. ckrishna Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:42 Byline Kristiane Bernhard-Novotny Chetna Krishna Publication Date Wed, 03/22/2023 - 10:25 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/experiments/new-lhc-experiments-enter-uncharted-territory ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3

    2023-03-21T14:27:16Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3" Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be restarted on 27 March 2023 following its year-end technical stop. During this stop, new instruments were installed in the LHC tunnel, including the Beam Gas Curtain (BGC). After ten years of development, the BGC will start taking data on the LHC’s proton beam this year during Run 3. It will provide precise 2D images of the alignment of the proton beams, making data taking more precise. The BGC instrument was designed for the high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC as part of a collaboration between CERN’s Beam Instrumentation group, Liverpool University, the Cockcroft Institute and GSI. Watch an animation of how the BGC works below:   ckrishna Tue, 03/21/2023 - 11:54 Byline Chetna Krishna Publication Date Tue, 03/21/2023 - 13:00 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/accelerators/beam-gas-curtain-new-instrument-lhc-run-3 ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3

    2023-03-21T13:27:15Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3" Beam Gas Curtain: a new instrument for LHC Run 3 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be restarted on 27 March 2023 following its year-end technical stop. During this stop, new instruments were installed in the LHC tunnel, including the Beam Gas Curtain (BGC). After ten years of development, the BGC will start taking data on the LHC’s proton beam this year during Run 3. It will provide precise 2D images of the alignment of the proton beams, making data taking more precise. The BGC instrument was designed for the high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC as part of a collaboration between CERN’s Beam Instrumentation group, Liverpool University, the Cockcroft Institute and GSI. Watch an animation of how the BGC works below:   ckrishna Tue, 03/21/2023 - 11:54 Byline Chetna Krishna Publication Date Tue, 03/21/2023 - 13:00 https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/beam-gas-curtain-new-instrument-lhc-run-3 ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )
  • CERN openlab holds annual technical workshop and announces new leader

    2023-03-20T16:27:14Z via NavierStokesApp To: Public

    "CERN openlab holds annual technical workshop and announces new leader" CERN openlab holds annual technical workshop and announces new leader Last week, CERN openlab held its annual technical workshop at CERN. CERN openlab is a unique public–private partnership between CERN and leading tech companies, which works to drive innovation in the computing technologies needed by CERN’s research community. The ambitious upgrade programme for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) poses significant computing challenges. When the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) comes online in 2029, around ten times the computing capacity of today will be required. Simply spending more money to buy more equipment isn’t an option; instead, IT experts across CERN are finding ways to work smarter. CERN openlab is central to this work. Today, 30 R&D projects are carried out through this collaboration, addressing challenges related to the next generation of supercomputers, known as “exascale”; artificial intelligence (AI); and quantum computing. CERN openlab also runs projects aimed at sharing knowledge and expertise with research communities beyond particle physics. All these projects were presented at the two-day technical workshop, which was held in the CERN Council Chamber. The event was attended by 145 people (in person and online), including representatives of member companies Intel, Oracle, Siemens, Micron, Google, IBM, Roche and Comtrade. As well as discussing ongoing projects, the workshop provided an excellent opportunity for considering emerging challenges and identifying opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration. At the event, Maria Girone was announced as the new head of CERN openlab. Girone, who has served as CERN openlab’s Chief Technology Officer since 2016, recently received a prestigious Italian award and founded the Swiss chapter of the Women in High-Performance Computing advocacy group. Alberto Di Meglio, who has served as the head of CERN openlab since 2013, is now responsible for running CERN IT’s new Innovation section. This section, created as part of the CERN IT department’s new strategy, includes CERN openlab, the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative, and IT-related projects funded by the European Commission. At the workshop, Di Meglio presented the CERN IT department’s new Innovation Roadmap, which will be published in June. This roadmap addresses five main objectives: Introduce heterogeneous computing infrastructures and software-engineering services/tools; Scale up data management, data storage and databases towards the requirements of the HL-LHC; Support the introduction of AI technologies in the community; Keep the CERN IT department at the forefront of R&D; Enable open science and boost CERN’s positive impact on society. “CERN openlab has played an important role in making sure CERN’s computing infrastructure is ready to meet the challenges of LHC Run 3,” says Di Meglio. “This roadmap will set out how the CERN IT department will help drive the innovation needed to meet the massive computing challenges posed by the HL-LHC.” “I would like to thank Alberto for his excellent stewardship of CERN openlab over the past decade,” says Enrica Porcari, head of the CERN IT department. “During his time, the collaboration has roughly trebled in size, with CERN openlab also growing to include collaborations involving other research organisations. There has also been significant growth in the popular CERN openlab Summer Student programme.” “I am looking forward to establishing new collaborations and exploring new, emerging technologies through CERN openlab,” says Girone. “This workshop, the first we have held in person at CERN since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, was an excellent way to get this work started.” abelchio Mon, 03/20/2023 - 14:33 Byline Andrew Purcell Publication Date Mon, 03/20/2023 - 14:29 https://home.cern/news/news/computing/cern-openlab-holds-annual-technical-workshop-and-announces-new-leader ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )