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2nd report from the LHC performance workshop

Tuesday's sessions were spent looking ahead to the possibilities for 2012. The morning started with the experiments' desiderata for the year with the key requirement being either discovery of Higgs or exclusion at the 95% confidence level down to 115 GeV. To achieve this Atlas and CMS will need an integrated luminosity in the order of 15 fb^-1.

Potential improvements to performance and machine availability were then discussed with presentations on maximising the time the LHC is delivering collisions to the experiments, and the potential of the injectors to provide bunches with higher intensities and the smallest possible beam size (these fold directly into higher collision rates). Machine performance will also be improved in 2012 thanks to a number of mitigation measures taken during the Christmas stop aimed at reducing the effects of radiation on the electronics situated in the LHC tunnel.

The possibility for running at a beam energy of 4 TeV was put on the table. Discussions will continue and a final decision will be a clear outcome of the workshop. One of the big successes of 2011 was the squeeze - the reduction of the beam size at the interaction point - which was pushed in the latter part of the year. Squeezing further in 2012 might be possible in combination with the use of tighter collimator settings. This could give a peak luminosity of around 6x10³³ cm^-2s^-1 to be compared with a maximum of 3.6x10³³ cm^-2s^-1 in 2011.

With a bunch spacing of 50 ns, a total of 1380 bunches (as in 2011), 15 fb^-1 seems to be in reach if the tighter collimator settings prove to be operationally robust and the impressive performance of the LHC's many hardware systems continues.

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1st report from the LHC performance workshop

Yesterday, 6 February, the LHC Performance workshop 2012 kicked off in a very chilly Chamonix (-12 degrees C in town at midday, nearer -30 on the top of Les Grand Montets). The first day was devoted to a critical review of 2011.

2011 was a very good year for the machine and its experiments but the first day of the Workshop focused on examining the performance and identifying possible improvements to critical systems such as beam instrumentation and machine protection. The high-intensity beams that LHC managed to collide last year have sparked a number of issues around the ring including beam-induced heating of some hardware, and problematic vacuum spikes. Present understanding of these problems was presented and possible solutions discussed.

The immediate aim is to maximize the performance of the 2012 run with one eye on the more distant future. 

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Procedure for obtaining visas for Switzerland and France Signature rights

In accordance with the Status Agreements with CERN, Switzerland and France facilitate the entry of members of the Organization’s personnel on to their territories.  Where relevant, detailed procedures for obtaining visas apply.

Within the framework of those procedures, only the following individuals are authorised to initiate the note verbale procedure as well as to sign the Official Invitation Letters and the Conventions d’accueil.

1. Kirsti ASPOLA (PH – CMO)
2. Oliver BRÜNING (BE – ABP)
3. Michelle CONNOR (PH – AGS)
4. Patrick FASSNACHT (PH-ADO)
5. David FOSTER (IT – DI)
6. Nathalie GRÜB (PH – AGS)
7. Tjitske KEHRER (DG-DI)
8. Tadeusz KURTYKA (DG – PRJ)
9. Markus NORDBERG (PH – ADO)
10. Cécile NOELS (DG – PRJ)
11. Maria QUINTAS (HR – SPS)
12. Kate RICHARDSON (PH-AGS)
13. Jeanne ROSTANT (PH – AGS)
14. José SALICIO-DIEZ (PH – AGS)
15. Ulla TIHINEN (PH – AGS)
16. Emmanuel TSESMELIS (DG)
17. Rüdiger VOSS (PH – ADE

The French and Swiss Authorities will reject any request signed by a person who is not on this list.

We would like to remind you that in accordance with the memorandum of 7 December 2000 issued by the Director of the Administration, (ref. DG/DA/00-119), “the Organization shall not request any legitimisation document (or residence permit) or visa from the Host States for persons registered as EXTERNAL" (people who do not hold a contract of employment, association or apprenticeship with CERN).

We would also like to remind you that those coming to CERN should find out in good time about the conditions of entry to Switzerland and France applying to them and ensure that they obtain the requisite visas, where applicable, in the country in which they are habitually resident.

Useful information can be obtained from the Swiss and French diplomatic representations abroad, as well as from the following Web pages :

• http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/dokumentation/rechtsgrundlagen/weisungen_und_kreisschreiben/visa/liste1_staatsangehoerigkeit.html (Swiss Federal Office for Immigration) ;

• http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/france_159/coming-to-france_2045/getting-visa_2046/general-information-for-foreign-nationals-with-ordinary-passeports_1559.html (French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs).

The Authorities of the Host States have informed the Organization on a number of occasions that they insist upon scrupulous compliance with visa legislation.

Relations with the Host States Service
http://www.cern.ch/relations/
relations.secretariat@cern.ch

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LHC Report: Restart preparations continue

Maintenance and consolidation work has been progressing well in both the machine and the experiments in preparation for the March restart.

A sample material is attached to the LHC (the white bag taped to the green line), to measure the radiation doses.

Additional work was required around Point 5 due to the discovery and repair of a problem with the RF fingers at the connection of two beam vacuum chambers in CMS. The repair has been completed successfully and the sector is now under vacuum. In order to avoid rushing the delicate final operations required for closing the detector, the restart of the machine has been postponed by one week, from 7 March to 14 March.

In the machine, the first cool-down to 1.9 K has started in several sectors ,and the cool-down of the whole machine is still planned to be finished by 21 February. The time window between 22 February and 14 March will be dedicated to powering and cryogenic tests.

Since 12 December, the Radiation Protection (RP) group has been deeply involved in the work in the accelerator complex to ensure the protection of people against ionising radiation. For this purpose, the RP group determines the hazards associated with prompt and residual radiation exposure and performs the radiological area classification, materials classification and risk analysis of work places.

“The radiation dose to carbon-based materials (cable and magnet coil insulation) used in the accelerator complex is recorded. Since last year, the LHC has been equipped with 550 radio-photoluminescent (RPL) dosimeters,” explains Julia Trummer from the Radiation Protection group. “RPL dosimeters are tiny glass cylinders of 6mm in length and 1mm in diameter. Radiation creates luminescence and colour centres in the glass. The luminescence centres are excited by a UV source and the intensity of the emitted light is related to the radiation dose. The doses that can be measured range from a few Gy up to MGy.”

“In order to prepare for future interventions – especially those during the next long shutdown – material samples are being placed in selected areas,” adds Cristina Adorisio, also an RP group member. “These samples contain materials used in the connections between the magnets. An activation measurement of these samples will help to estimate dose values to workers.”

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"I can’t wait to find out what Nature has in store for us"

Professor Guido Altarelli, a physicist at CERN and the University of Rome, has received two prizes since the beginning of the year: the Julius Wess prize awarded by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Sakurai prize awarded by the American Physical Society.

Guido Altarelli (left), receiving the Julius Wess prize in Karlsruhe on 16 January.

It's been a good start to the year for Guido Altarelli. After receiving two prestigious prizes in the space of a few weeks for achievements during his long career, all he's waiting for is the Higgs boson!

"I can't wait to find out what Nature has in store for us!", he smiles. Hardly surprising when you think that Altarelli has been looking for the answers since the very start of his career in particle physics. As a theorist at CERN for over twenty years, he has always worked closely with the experiments, first at the SPS, then at LEP and now at the LHC. Today, following the significant progress in 2011, he can hardly contain his excitement: "Whatever happens, there's going to be a big shake-up, that's for sure! Certain theories that have taken the back seat up to now will be thrown into the spotlight, while others will be relegated to the history books. It remains to be seen who's bet on the winning horse."

Although Guido is delighted by the constraints placed on the Higgs mass range in 2011, he is impatient for 2012's results to tell us, once and for all, whether or not the Standard Model Higgs exists in the narrow low-energy mass region indicated by the experiments. "On the other hand," he jokes, "if the experiments end up finding a Higgs with a mass of more than 600 GeV, it will be proof of a conspiracy  by new physics to make us think that the Higgs was a light Standard Model Higgs!" A joke that some physicists certainly wouldn't find very amusing…

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Is your Android running a temperature?

You might have heard about Botnets, i.e. networks of infected (Windows) computers which are unwittingly under control by a malicious party. Public examples of botnets-in-action are attacks against the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, or against Universal and Warner Music as a retaliation for the shutdown of Megaupload.com. But have you ever heard of a Botnet made of Android phones?

Some apps available from your favorite app store are malicious and try to steal your private data once installed or auto-dial expensive premium phone numbers.

Unfortunately, the open model for Android apps employs neither quality control nor an approval process. Several Android apps, e.g. wallpaper apps and sound clips, have already been identified as being malicious. Symantec recently reported at least 13 different malicious apps which are suspected to span up a Botnet of thousands of mobile phone. If you run apps from “iApps7 Inc.” (e.g. “Counter Elite Force” or “Heart Live Wallpaper”), from “Ogre Games” (e.g. “Balloon Game”, “Deal & Be Millionaire”, or “Wild Man”), or from “redmicapps”, then beware as your phone might have been compromised.
 
For further details and mitigations, please check the corresponding advice from Symantec. iPhones, iPads etc. are less affected since Apple tightly controls their app store. But the risk remains high for those who have jail-broken their iOS devices. Generally, be aware that mobile phones must be protected like normal computers: keep your system up-to-date, enable the regular automatic installation of updates/patches, and do not install untrusted software from untrusted sources. Check out our guidelines for protecting you PC here. There is lots which can be directly applied to your mobile phone, too.
 
For further information, please check our web site or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

Filed under: CERN,Ciencia,Cosmologia,Fisica,Fisica de alta energia,Fisica de Materiales,Fisica de particulas,LHC,Matematicas,Materia,Mecanica cuantica,Science,Sincrotrón | | |No Comments