Date Time
TOTEM and DØ collaborations announce odderon discovery Part of the TOTEM installation in the LHC tunnel 220 m downstream from the CMS experiment (Image: CERN)
The TOTEM collaboration at the LHC, together with the DØ collaboration at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab, have announced the discovery of the odderon – an elusive state of three fundamental particles called gluons that was predicted almost 50 years ago. The result was presented on Friday 5 March during a meeting at CERN, and follows the joint submission in December 2020 of a CERN/Fermilab preprint by TOTEM and DØ reporting the observation. “This result probes the deepest features of the theory of quantum chromodynamics, notably that gluons interact between themselves and that an odd number of gluons are able to be “colourless”, thus shielding the strong interaction,” says TOTEM spokesperson Simone Giani of CERN. “A notable feature of this work is that the results ar
The COMPASS experiment. (Image: CERN)
Protons are one of the main building blocks of the visible universe. Together with neutrons, they make up the nuclei of every atom. Yet, several questions loom about some of the proton’s most fundamental properties, such as its size, internal structure and intrinsic spin. In December 2020, the CERN Research Board approved the first phase (“phase-1”) of a new experiment that will help settle some of these questions. AMBER, or Apparatus for Meson and Baryon Experimental Research, will be the next-generation successor of the Laboratory’s COMPASS experiment.
COMPASS receives particle beams from CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron and directs them onto various targets to study how quarks and gluons form hadrons (such as protons, pions and kaons) and give these composite particles their distinctive properties. Using this approach, COMPASS has obtained many important results, including several results linked to the proton
CERN s oldest accelerator awakens: Bring on the beam! home.cern - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from home.cern Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The assembled BGI Beam profile monitor before its installation in the Proton Synchrotron (Image: CERN)
To answer the thorny question of how to monitor a particle beam that threatens to destroy any device that dares cross its path, scientists and engineers from the 1960s came up with a brilliantly simple solution. To collect information about the beam’s size and position, they built a device that detected traces of the few particles that are left in the vacuum of the beam pipe and ionised by the accelerated beam. 60 years later, a team led by James Storey (leader of the Experimental Areas, Electron Beam, Ionisation and Inelastic Collision Profile Monitors section in the Beam Instrumentation group) revived this concept and boosted it with cutting-edge CERN technology. The installation of this new high-resolution beam monitor in the Proton Synchrotron (PS) last month further prepares this venerable LHC injector for future runs and the High-Luminosity LHC
Date Time
CLOUD at CERN reveals role of iodine acids in atmospheric aerosol formation Simulation of the marine atmosphere in the CLOUD chamber. Iodine emitted from the sea and ice is converted by ozone and sunlight into iodic acid and other compounds. These form new particles and increase clouds, warming the polar climate. Cosmic rays strongly enhance the particle formation rates. (Image: Helen Cawley)
In a paper published today in the journal Science, the CLOUD collaboration at CERN shows that aerosol particles made of iodic acid can form extremely rapidly in the marine boundary layer – the portion of the atmosphere that is in direct contact with the ocean. Aerosol particles in the atmosphere affect the climate, both directly and indirectly, but how new aerosol particles form and influence clouds and climate remains relatively poorly understood. This is particularly true of particles that form over the vast ocean.