25 Mar 2020

Building on the community’s collective experience on accelerator communication

Sixteen representatives from different accelerator laboratories gathered at CERN on 27-28 February 2020 for a follow-up workshop on accelerator communication and outreach. Organised by the H2020 ARIES project consortium at CERN, in the context of the project’s training, communication and outreach activities, the workshop aimed at building up on the community’s collective experience to support a set of recommendations for future communication activities for the ARIES community.

Pedro Russo, an astrophysicist and science communicator from Leiden University, was the invited keynote speaker. In his talk, Russo presented a series of case studies, highlighting audiences, impact and constraints to the implementation of each project.

The workshop had three other defining moments for future ARIES communication activities: a brainstorming session on key topics and issues for future accelerator communication that should guide the new editorial plan for Accelerating News, facilitated by Anais Rassat, the Head of Media Relations at CERN; a brainstorming session for potential communication activities, facilitated by Daniela Antonio, the event organiser and the Communication Officer at the CERN EU Projects Office; and a group discussion on activities the community could develop together for the greater impact of accelerator communication.

The event’s agenda and minutes are publicly available on Indico.

The main takeaways from the workshop, besides a moment for reflection with like-minded colleagues, are the list of topics of interest for the community in the future and the set of actions the community will undertake together. Some of the topics our readers might see in future Accelerating News issues are accelerator upgrades, a thematic series featuring different accelerator facilities, the societal and economic impact of accelerators, the community’s contribution to the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDG), and the return of the interviews and opinion pieces from different experts.

On a second note, this year’s International Year of Light will mark the beginning of a social media/digital collaboration among the community, with Lightsources.org leading the way. In addition, Accelerating News will provide a platform for the community to share educational material, with the instructions to build a cardboard accelerator, coming soon to this repository.

A cardboard accelerator; the instruction to build it will be added to the future repository of educational material. (Image: STFC)

For now, the ARIES’ community building activities will come to a close with the production of a report detailing the conclusions of both workshops and providing a set of recommendations for accelerator communication and outreach based on the community’s feedback and participation. The report will be made available in the summer of 2020, through the ARIES website: http://aries.web.cern.ch/

ESI

Panagiotis Charitos

3 Dec 2019

EASISchool Grenoble

Cryogenics and its applications took central stage during the EASISchool 2 that was held from the 30th of September to the 4th of October in two CEA sites, Paris-Saclay and Grenoble, France.

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

A reverse hackathon with CERN

What if we selected a few CERN Technologies and put them in the hands of professionals that help create highly successful start-ups?

ACC

Interview by Romain Muller (CERN)

3 Jul 2018

Behind the scenes at the Big Science Business Forum (BSBF): New procurement practices can support large research organisations

An interview with Anders Unnervik, Head of the Procurement and Industrial Services Group at CERN

25 Mar 2020

Specialized School on Novel Accelerators for Young Scientists

A pre-requisite and necessary condition for the next step in high-energy particle acceleration is the development of new and more efficient acceleration techniques. Plasma wake fields, as well as dielectric structures, have shown very promising results in the recent past and provide acceleration gradients several orders of magnitude higher than any conventional accelerating structure. The study of these new acceleration techniques finds large interest in the community of theoretical and applied accelerator physics, and the field is very rapidly evolving, with new proposed projects with a large scope of applications being based on high gradient wake acceleration techniques.

In the context of ARIES, a European Commission co-funded project under the H2020 programme, an international school on “High Gradient Wakefield Acceleration” was organised in the Spring of 2019. “For this event, our goals were to disseminate the impressive know-how accumulated in the field over the past few years, summarise the state of the art, and provide a platform to train new students joining this field,” explains Berhard Holzer, head of the organising committee and chairperson of the event. “The school was organised under the umbrella of the CERN Accelerator School, in line with the ARIES EuroNNac3 Network’s recommendations, as well as those of an international program committee. In this way, we hoped to strengthen the collaboration between traditional accelerator physics and the new wake-based systems and bridge the gap between classical and novel acceleration techniques,” Holzer adds.

Organised in collaboration with the local host Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in Lisbon, this edition of the CERN Accelerator School (CAS) took form of a two-week, full-time lecture series. Following introductory lectures on plasma and laser physics, the courses covered the different components of a plasma wake accelerator and plasma-based, as well as dielectric, beam systems. Theoretical topics were covered, like the linear, non-linear and blow out regime in plasma wake physics, and they were interchanged with presentations of the experimental physics programme studied in different labs and recent results obtained in different experiments. An overview of the diagnostic tools and state-of-the-art wake acceleration facilities, both existing and planned, complemented the agenda of the School. As a special feature, typical of the CAS teaching style, several sessions were reserved for case studies.

A truly European and international event, the school welcomed 70 students from 25 different nationalities. Twenty-six lecturers from 11 countries facilitated the courses, seminar talks or acted as tutors for the more practical work, the so-called case studies, where the students were asked to apply what they had learned and to do actual design work under the leadership of experienced colleagues.

Image 1: Students and lecturers during the excursion day in Lisbon. (Image: ARIES/CAS)

The series of lectures on high gradient wake acceleration encompassed an impressive spectrum of topics currently being studied in this new field of research. Key players from many institutes came together to present – in a highly didactic manner – their field of research and to train the younger members of the community. As an integral part of the school, the organising committee has planned to present the topics covered during the School in written form, as a “CERN yellow report”. It will be an update and follow-up on the proceedings of a previous CAS on Plasma Wake Acceleration, available in printed and electronic form under the reference CERN-2016-001.

“The school represented a valuable contribution to the teaching activities within the wake acceleration community and the ARIES programme and filled a gap in training for this fast-developing field of novel acceleration techniques,” concludes Bernhard Holzer.

For more information on the CERN Accelerator School, please visit: cas.web.cern.ch/schools/sesimbra-2019

HIL

M. Sorbi, M. Statera

1 Oct 2019

The RCSM in MgB2 successfully tested at INFN-LASA

The Superconducting Magnet Team at INFN-LASA completed the assembly and test of the “Round Coil Superferric Magnet” corrector.

ACC

Corinne Pralavorio

20 Oct 2019

News from LS2: Dissipating the electron clouds

Two teams are treating the vacuum chambers of selected SPS magnets to limit the electron-cloud phenomenon, which can disrupt the beams.

ACC

Anaïs Schaeffer

4 Dec 2019

Aligning the HL-LHC magnets with interferometry

CERN surveyors have developed a procedure based on interferometry to determine the position of cold masses inside the cryostats of the future HL-LHC.

10 Dec 2019

A workshop on the energy-sustainable future for research infrastructures

Group photo from the 5th Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop. (Image: PSI)

On 28 and 29 November, CERN took part in the 5th Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop at the Paul Scherrer Institute – PSI, in Villigen, Switzerland.

The Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop series was established in 2011 by CERN, the European Spallation Source – ESS (Sweden), and the Association of European-Level Research Infrastructures Facilities – ERF. It brings delegates from research institutes together with policymakers from around the world to discuss energy sustainability.

The fifth edition was organised by PSI in collaboration with CERN, ERF, ESS and the H2020 project ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society). The goals of this year’s workshop were to discuss energy management, efficiency, storage and savings, to pinpoint and share good practice and identify potential future technological solutions. In addition to that, the workshop stimulates new initiatives and cooperation amongst institutes.

Among the highlights was a presentation from Stefan Oberholzer, Head of Photovoltaics and Central Solar Power at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy – SFOE. He spoke about the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050, explaining that the strategy’s priorities are efficiency, increasing energy from renewable sources, security of supply, and strengthening energy research. Oberholzer also discussed the opportunities and challenges with energy storage and renewable sources, such as photovoltaics. Large storage systems were also the subject of a presentation from Michel Düren, a Professor at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. He concluded that the scientific community could play a leading role in demonstrating best practice for the energy transition that we are now facing.

Among the presentations from CERN was one from Laurent Tavian, High-Luminosity Project Office Coordinator, who presented a project for energy efficient refrigeration for the Future Circular Collider (FCC). Instead of conventional cryoplants, where helium is the refrigerant, the project found that a mix of helium and neon makes a more energy efficient cooling system. Over 10 years, this could save up to 3 TWh of energy.

Amalia Ballarino, CERN’s Head of Superconducting Devices, presented a project on magnesium diboride (MgB2) based power transmission lines for powering the High-Luminosity LHC superconducting magnets. Magnesium diboride is superconducting at 39K, the highest temperature among conventional superconductors, making it interesting from an energy efficiency perspective both for accelerator applications and for potential electricity distribution systems in towns and cities.

Serge Deleval, Deputy Group Leader for cooling and ventilation at CERN, gave a talk on water consumption and its environmental impacts, a first for this workshop series. He presented recent studies on minimising the increase of water consumption and reducing the environmental impact of cooling tower effluents.

In summing up the workshop, Frédérick Bordry, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, concluded very succinctly that: “Research infrastructures don’t want to represent an energy issue for society. We wish to contribute to good practices and find solutions for the future”.

The next workshop on Energy for Sustainable Science will be held in 2021 in Grenoble, France.

All the presentations from this year’s workshop can be found here.

News item also published in the CERN Bulletin.

ACC

Athena Papageorgiou Koufidou, Livia Lapadatescu (CERN)

15 Dec 2017

HIE-ISOLDE: challenges and future plans

HIE-ISOLDE advances the high energy frontier of the facility.

ACO, ARI

Yiota Foka (CERN)

11 Jul 2019

Master Class captivates the next generation of scientists

CERN, DKFZ Heidelberg and GSI Darmstadt engage the next generation of scientists through a hands-on experience on particle therapy.

ARI

L Marco Zanetti (INFN), Frank Zimmermann (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

Discussing a future strategy for muon colliders

Discussing status and ongoing efforts in light of the upcoming European Strategy update.

16 Jul 2019

Bringing particle accelerators on ships

The captain of the Orkāns on the bridge

The captain of the Latvian tugboat Orkāns (“storm” in Latvian) could not believe his eyes when he saw a dozen physicists, engineers and technicians from four different European countries hastily working on the funnel of his vessel moored at the Riga Shipyard on the Baltic Sea. They were connecting a long pipe to a strange truck installed on shore. The reason for this turmoil is the choice of old and rusty Orkāns as a test-bed for the first futuristic experiment of cleaning the exhaust gas of a ship diesel engine, using a particle accelerator, with the goal of reducing the content of harmful pollutants.

The tugboat Orkāns. (Image: ARIES)

Maritime traffic is the largest contributor to air pollution at planetary level – a single cruise ship emits as much particulates as one million cars. To reduce its impact on the environment, stringent regulations will be implemented in the near future. Several technologies are being explored to reduce the content of sulphur and nitrogen oxides and of particulate matter in the exhausts of maritime diesel engines.

The solution proposed by accelerator scientists consists in a hybrid technology combining irradiation by an electron beam accelerator of a few hundred kilovolts, and subsequent purification in a “wet scrubber”. The electrons induce molecular excitation, ionization and dissociation, thus breaking the larger NOx and SOx molecules, and easing their removal in a small scrubber placed after the accelerator. The scrubber washes out the polluting molecules using water.

The test area, with the tugboat on the right, the accelerator truck in the center and the scrubber on the left. (Image: ARIES)

The Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (INCT) of Warsaw (Poland) is at the origin of this technology, which was immediately adopted by the ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society) Horizon 2020 Integrating Activity Project for Research Infrastructures. It is a remarkable example of how society could profit from particle accelerator technologies. A collaboration was formed within the Project, aiming at the real-scale test of the technology, profiting from the different competences of the ARIES partners and of the collaborative ecosystem created by the Project.

The Riga Technical University (Latvia) organized the experiment and secured the ship, the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (Poland) designed and procured the scrubber and the closed water system and performed the tests, the Fraunhofer FEP of Dresden (Germany) made available a movable electron beam accelerator on truck routinely used to sterilize crops and contributed to the tests and to the integration. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva (Switzerland), provided support and consultancy.

The old and rusty Orkāns, built in Soviet times, turned out to be the perfect test bench. It is a small tugboat with a powerful, but old engine that could easily be made available for the duration of the tests. A long pipe, equipped with several detectors, connected the tugboat – moored at the Riga Shipyard – to the accelerator on-a-truck, where a specially built chamber allowed the treatment of the exhausts, which then passed through the small scrubber, before being finally released into air.

The connecting pipe and the accelerator on truck. (Image: ARIES)

The first measurements confirmed the expected reduction in pollutants. The final results will be made available only after a full analysis of the measurements done at different engine powers and operating conditions. The data collected by this experiment will be used to finalize the proposal for the next step in the progress of this technology. A dedicated project will be submitted to a Horizon 2020 call for Societal Challenges, with the goal of installing and testing a specially designed accelerator on a real cargo ship, to be made available by the Italian Grimaldi shipping company.

Measurement of exhaust composition. (Image: ARIES)

Toms Torims of the Riga Technical University, who supervised the test, declared, “We have to consider that this long rusty pipe actually connects two worlds, the world of shipping and the world of scientific particle accelerators. Their technologies and their languages are entirely different, but if we succeed in having them working together, we have the potential for a great advance in this technology”.

Maurizio Vretenar of CERN, coordinator of the ARIES project, added, “Technological leaps always appear at the boundary between technologies. Here, thanks to the ARIES project, we join accelerator physics, chemistry and engineering. All the conditions are there for a substantial progress towards the preservation of our environment. On top of that, we have seen people from four different European countries working together for a common goal, showing that Europeans, when united, can make great achievements”.

CLIC

D. Gamba, A. Curcio, R. Corsini (CERN)

3 Jul 2018

First experimental results from the CLEAR facility at CERN

Flexibility and versatility, together with a dynamic and experienced team of researchers, are key ingredients for the growing success of the new CLEAR facility, exploring novel accelerator concepts at CERN.

HIL

Rama Calaga (CERN)

26 Jun 2018

World’s first crabbing of a proton beam

The first test of the HL-LHC crab cavities to rotate a beam of protons was performed last month at CERN.

ACC

Ruben Garcia Alia, Pablo Fernandez Martinez ‎and Maria Kastriotou (CERN)

12 Dec 2018

Ultra-high energy heavy ion testing

The ultra-high energy heavy ions at accelerators allows to test electronic components.

16 Jul 2019

Budapest welcomes the 2nd ARIES Annual Meeting

The ARIES 2^nd Annual Meeting brought 128 of the project’s participants to Budapest to discuss the main accomplishments of the project’s second year. The event’s programme encompassed eight specialised sessions on topics that range between reports from the networks, joint research activities, transnational access and proof-of-concept, the future of European projects on accelerators, with future prospects on medical applications for accelerators bringing the plenary session to a close.

ARIES, a H2020 Integrating Activity with an EC contribution of 10 million euros, is a project coordinated by CERN that aims to improve the performance, accessibility, and sustainability of particle accelerators, while transferring the benefits and applications of its technologies to science and society. The 45 beneficiaries, from 18 countries, bring the necessary expertise from laboratories, universities and industries. They gather yearly for a status update and strategic planning for the upcoming year.

Two workshops preceded and followed the main event, on the topics of Additive Manufacturing and Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS), respectively. These highly targeted and advanced workshops, organised by the Work Package 14 – Promoting Innovation, brought together over one hundred participants to discuss challenges and applications of these technologies.

Maurizio Vretenar, ARIES project coordinator, introducing the workshop Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Technologies for Accelerator Application. (Image: ARIES)

The workshop Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Technologies for Accelerator Application was the first academia-meets-industry event of the project. The workshop’s aim was to bring together researchers from academia, laboratories and industry, providing a platform for a useful exchange of technical information. The day was organized around a series of presentations about the current and future opportunities in additive manufacturing with particular reference to accelerator applications. A final panel discussion focused on the field of materials for superconductors and on commonalities between accelerators technologies and other areas like aerospace and construction engineering.

“Topical meetings among academia and industry experts are key to create vital networks for the commercial feasibility of novel concepts within accelerator science,” explained Marcello Losasso, Knowledge Transfer Office at CERN and member of the organising committee. Almost 50 participants attended and contributed to the discussion during the workshop, in a balanced representation of industry, funding institutions, large research facilities, and universities. Participants and speakers made a positive balance of the day, reporting on the new and interesting contacts they made.

The main event started the following day with the parallel Work Packages meetings at the event’s venue, the Korona Mercure Hotel, where teams had the opportunity to discuss in detail their main achievements and challenges. Tuesday morning allowed for the meeting of the ARIES Ship Exhaust Project, the Sustainability Working Group, and the Governing Board and Steering Committee Meeting. The ARIES plenary sessions took place from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning, focusing on highlights from the project’s networks, transnational access and joint research activities, and innovation projects. These highlights include the first tests of materials, parts and systems performed in the context of the Transnational Access programme, updates from projects that received proof-of-concept funding, and a special session on the application of future accelerator technology to medicine.

Networking activities reported developments in topics such as the use of electron beams for sludge treatment; energy efficiency in radiofrequency cavities, in beam acceleration and neutron sources. Other developments include beam tests and commissioning of 4^th generation ultra-low emittance rings, advanced diagnostics at accelerators, as well as developments in accelerator performance and concepts, and experimental tests of CLIC damping rings at ALBA. Besides technical developments, the networks also reported on the communication and outreach workshop for communication officers across Europe; the community input to the new European Strategy for Particle Physics; and the development of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) directed towards students at the end of their first cycle of higher education.

Proof-of-Concept Fund: supporting the application of novel concepts in accelerator science

Year 2 of the ARIES project saw the start of the projects selected for Proof-of-Concept (PoC) funding.

PoC funding was granted to projects involving the development of a hybrid electron-accelerator system for the treatment of marine diesel exhaust gases (a wide collaboration coordinated by RTU, Riga Technical university); preparing innovative composite materials, with tailored thermo-physical properties (RHP and GSI); testing a novel technology for developing Superconducting Radio Frequency Cavities (CEA and Zanon); and developing an advanced optical imaging system (University of Liverpool and D-Beam).

At this stage, the first tests of the marine diesel treatment system are foreseen during June and July 2019, having previously performed intense consultations, calculations, simulations and drawings of the system designed and partially installed. RHP is currently tackling several challenges related to the physical and electrical properties of diamonds with copper and aluminium. CEA’s work, if proved successful, could dramatically affect the construction and operational cost of large accelerator projects, such as FCC and CLIC. The University of Liverpool expects applications in beam diagnostic for light sources and synchrotrons.

“The four projects funded by ARIES Proof-of-Concept were approved by the Evaluation Committee, according to a well prepared and managed process,” explains Marcello Losasso. “They have been able to mobilize budget amounts 10 times larger than the small PoC funding of fifty thousand euros originally released. All the projects are progressing well and according to the agreed work plan.”

With the goal of triggering other collaborations and promoting innovation through specific actions developed in partnership with industry – such as these projects and collaborations supported by Proof-of-Concept funding – the second academia-industry gathering will be organized in UK in 2020.

Future accelerators for medicine: the medical applications of accelerator science

The talents of accelerators go beyond fundamental research, providing crucial technology for areas such as material sciences, medical imaging and treatment, energy research, and cultural heritage. One of the special sessions in the plenary of the ARIES 2^nd Annual Meeting focused on one of this areas and featured a series of presentations on the applications of future accelerator technology in medicine.

Among the highlights from this session are:

the launching of a new design study for a carbon ion facility, with the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) as the main beneficiary;
the advancements made by the Helmholtz Association on laser plasma proton accelerators for therapy, including the study for pulsed gantry, which has just made the pulsed beam transport operational, its first volumetric irradiation, putting small-animal image-guided radiobiology within reach;
developments in addressing the challenges, primarily related to their cost/complexity, of superconducting magnets for medical cyclotrons, synchrocyclotrons, and gantries;
and new electron LINAC therapies and accelerator designs, that might exploit the simple design and high current capability of electron linacs to treat tumours minimising the dose to normal tissue. Some of these approaches use direct treatment with high-energy electrons, such as Very High Energy Electrons (VHEE); or different dose-delivery methods, such as FLASH RT.

After an update from the transnational access programme, the proof-of-concept updates, and the special session on the future of accelerators for medicine, the plenary session ended with a word from the project coordinator Maurizio Vretenar on the topic of a new programme that is just entering the preparation phase, the Innovation Pilot “Innovation in Accelerator Technologies”. The collaborative work reported by the project’s networking activities comes through as especially significant in supporting and building up the community’s proposal.

Group photo of participants of the workshop Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS). (Image: ARIES)

The workshop Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) closed the event, bringing together 66 participants and speakers from various institutes for two days of a highly focused programme on HTS superconductivity. “There is a lot of initiative on HTS in various sectors – fusions, accelerators, laboratory magnets, NMR, energy and power, medical, etc. – but the community is scattered, so the workshop provided a platform for experts to meet and focus in a few critical points of knowledge sharing,” said Lucio Rossi, a member of the workshop’s Organising Committee.

The workshop focused on current redistribution in tapes, cable and coils with a REBCO conductor, quench protection, and NI (non-insulated) coils. On the latter, Lucio Rossi explained: “The “directive” of magnet builders has always been to provide perfectly insulated coils. Crazy as it seems, we have now realised that NI technology might have a chance for application in accelerators, which will make HTS technology much easier to use in future hadron colliders.”

Participants made a positive assessment of the workshop, especially on the highly focused programme and all the time left for discussion across a broad range of expertise. “The unique capability of the high-energy physics community to put together material scientists, magnet designers, magnet engineers, and specialists of various support disciplines was highly appreciated, especially by participants coming from other communities, such as fusion, medical, and industry,” adds Rossi.

Activities will continue in year 3 of ARIES and the community will come together again in April 2020, in Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal, for the third assessment of the projects’ results and impact.

ACC

Achintya Rao (CERN)

26 Mar 2020

Proton Synchrotron prepared for higher injection energies

CERN’s oldest working accelerator has a new injection kicker magnet and will soon receive a new septum as well.

ACO

Ricardo Torres (University of Liverpool)

10 Dec 2018

The Tale of Two Tunnels

Liverpool will be turned into a particle accelerator exhibition.

ARI

L Marco Zanetti (INFN), Frank Zimmermann (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

Discussing a future strategy for muon colliders

Discussing status and ongoing efforts in light of the upcoming European Strategy update.

24 Mar 2019

Simon van der Meer Award

The Simon van der Meer Award, established in 2019, aims to recognize outstanding early career contributions (theoretical, experimental, computational or technical) in novel accelerator science. It is sponsored by the European Network for Novel Accelerators (EuroNNAc), which is part of the ARIES project. EuroNNAc is coordinated by DESY, CERN, Ecole Polytechnique, University of Oxford, INFN Frascati and CEA. The Simon van der Meer Award will be awarded every two years at the European Advanced Accelerator Concepts workshop (EAAC).

Eligible candidates must be within 12 years of the completion of their first university degree or equivalent, excluding career breaks (e.g. maternity or paternity leave, adoption). There is no restriction as to nationality. The research recognized could be either a single piece of work, or the sum of contributions.

The award recognizes one individual researcher and consists of a stipend of € 3.000 and a certificate citing the contributions of the recipient. During the award ceremony there will be a short laudatio to the selected candidate followed by a presentation given by the laureate

Application

Applications should be sent to this email address by 27 May 2019 (the whole file cannot exceed 20 MB), and should include:

1. Name and email address of the nominee.

2. Proposed award citation (no more than 35 words).

3. A one-page narrative/introductory statement describing the nominee's novel, pioneering, or leading edge accomplishments, with an emphasis on how their work has been recognised as especially promising.

4. Nominee's resume or CV, listing educational background, positions held, and highlighting key: publications, patents, awards, honours, activities, reports or product releases.

5. Four letters of recommendation; diversity of support is preferred; not all letters of recommendation should come from the nominee's institution. The name and email address is required for each reference.

6. If the candidate has taken a career break, a brief explanation for the nature of the break is requested.

7. The nominee’s agreement that their data is stored and processed for the purpose of the whole award procedure.

Header image: Picture of a plasma cell (Credit: DESY, Heiner Müller-Elsner)

ACC

Panagiotis Charitos (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

Interview with Robert-Jan Smits

A sit down with Robert-Jan Smits one of the architects of the European research area and a firm supporter of scientific knowledge and technology as means to address today’s greatest challenges.

ARI

Livia Lapadatescu

24 Mar 2019

Simon van der Meer Award

Apply now to Simon van der Meer Early Career Award in Novel Accelerators! Deadline: 27 May 2019

ACC

Tessa Charles (University of Melbourne)

26 Mar 2020

Synchrotrons on the frontline

Tessa Charles describes the impressive progress being made by synchrotron X-ray facilities to solve the structure of SARS-CoV-2 — a first step towards the development of drugs and vaccines.

10 Dec 2018

The future of communication and outreach for accelerators

The ARIES consortium organized a workshop for communication officers of the European accelerator infrastructures and Physics centres. Under the name Accelerator Communication and Outreach (ACO) Workshop, the event took place on 5-6 November, at CERN.

“We wanted to engage communication officers in defining how to increase the effectiveness of outreach activities for particle physics’ and light sources' accelerators,” said Phil Burrows, leader of WP2 – Training, Communication and Outreach for Accelerator Science for ARIES.

The group of sixteen representatives from the accelerator communication community had a specific task: to fill nine flipcharts with communication challenges, specific actions the community might take to answer them and the necessary resources to implement such an action plan for accelerators.

Challenges, best practices and actions during the two working days

After a brief welcome from Phil Burrows, Sarah Davies, from PCST – Public Communication of Science and Technology, was the Keynote Speaker, providing a short talk about science communication and communication networks. "From my experience, networks and associated events are one way for science communicators to avoid constantly reinventing the wheel," said Sarah on the topic of knowledge-sharing.

James Gillies, Advisor for Strategic Planning and Evaluation at CERN, continued with a talk about communication strategy, thus setting the context and guidelines for the following discussion. In the end, participants shared, during the two hourly sessions, a recent communication challenge or solution, in the form 5-minute presentations.

From the importance of keeping good relations with your neighbours and engaging policy-makers, to having someone actively coordinate an organization or network’s activities full-time, to initiatives like Accelerate! and Mísion ALBA, and the importance of matching the right platform to the right audience, the ARIES team and the participants had the opportunity to listen to the learnings and challenges of the several sides of a good communications strategy.

For the second day, participants reflected on the challenges and solutions from the previous day. Do accelerator infrastructures share common goals? Would a network be useful, in parallel to others like lightsources.org and interactions.org? How to engage different audiences of research infrastructures – politicians, the public, funding agencies, industry – with a limited amount of resources?

“The ARIES ACO workshop highlighted the common challenges our community faces when communicating about accelerators and science,” said Anais Rassat, who acted as facilitator for the challenge and brainstorm sessions of the workshop.

By the end of the second day of activities, in answering these questions, participants had agreed on specific steps the community should undertake to promote accelerator communication and outreach, considering limitations such as resources and different short-term agendas.

One of the activities for the next year is create a channel to share best practices.

The ARIES consortium thus invites researchers and science communicators in the accelerator community to share their initiatives and other communication resources in Accelerating News. The editors are looking to share initiatives, methods in evaluation and monitoring, and impact surveys and studies.

Please send your contributions at: acceleratingnews.eu/contact

ACO, FCC, ESI

Ricardo Torres (University of Liverpool)

27 Mar 2019

How fundamental science is changing our world

Global FCC study discussed benefits of discovery science to society and industry at Symposium “Particle Colliders – Accelerating Innovation”

Filipe Ramos (CERN)

26 Mar 2020

From laser alignment to laser communication

How a technology developed at CERN for ultra-precise measurement purposes may help Aircision connect our future telecommunications.

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

11 Dec 2019

Power converters specially designed for CERN can now be used by the wider accelerator community

CERN has developed new software layers to allow the wider particle accelerator community to use the CERN-specific power converters controls.

08 Oct 2018

High thermal performance materials

Figure 1. (CERN)

CERN, GSI, POLITO and POLIMI carry out an extensive characterization campaign of a broad range of advanced materials for applications in future particle accelerators, as well as high-technology industrial domains. The collaboration characterized both novel materials, currently under development, as well as commercially available carbon-based materials, including thin-film coatings. This work has been developed in the context of the H2020 project ARIES.

The development and use of high thermal performance materials, with low mass density and excellent resistance to thermal shocks, is increasingly becoming an enabling technology in a broad range of industrial and research applications.

In industry, these materials are appealing in a number of fields, such as high power electronics, avionics, energy production, aerospace, nuclear engineering, and luxury sports automotive. Researchers and engineers working in these domains require materials with efficient thermal management, high temperature resistance and mechanical robustness. In the field of fundamental research, some components of the high-energy particle accelerators largely share these requirements. In fact, beam-intercepting devices (BID), such as collimators, beam absorbers, catchers, dumps and targets, are routinely exposed to the impact of highly energetic and intense particle beams, making the selection of key materials extremely important.

This is especially true for the next-generation of accelerator facilities like the High-Luminosity upgrade of LHC (HL-LHC) at CERN, the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI, or the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC). They will exhibit increased beam intensities (in some cases by orders of magnitude). In combination with the shorter pulse lengths and greater particle densities requested by physics experiments, this leads to significantly higher transient thermo-mechanical loads in all beam-intercepting devices. Additionally, materials for some of these components must possess high electric conductivity to limit the destabilizing effects they may induce on particle beams circulating in their close vicinity.

Unfortunately, no existing material possesses the combination of physical, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties, imposed by such extreme working conditions. For instance, the material currently employed for the absorbers of LHC Collimator jaws (a two-dimensional carbon-fibre-reinforced carbon composite – CFC – ) is predicted not to satisfy the full set of requirements imposed by the severe working conditions expected in the HL-LHC from 2026. In particular, numerical simulations indicate that the limited electrical conductivity of CFC may induce electro-magnetic instabilities in the particle beam.

In recent years, CERN has collaborated with international laboratories, universities and industries to address these issues. After having commenced in the framework of EuCARD and EuCARD-2 projects, this partnership is continuing within H2020 ARIES collaboration, Work Package 17 (PowerMat), a Joint Research Activity, in cooperation with Work Package 14 (Promoting Innovation).

Carbon-based materials have a long history of applications in beam intercepting devices and their harsh radiation environments, thanks to their low activation, high radiation-hardness, thermal stability in combination with improved strength at high temperatures and low density. PowerMat focuses on the exploration of advanced types of carbons, such as various grades of isotropic graphite, thermal pyrolytic graphite, CFC and carbon foams. It has also targeted the development of novel composite materials based on the combination of graphite and diamond with metals or high performance ceramics.

In this context, a family of new graphite-matrix composites, reinforced with molybdenum carbides (Molybdenum Carbide – Graphite, MoGr) has been co-developed by CERN and Brevetti Bizz, an Italian SME, with the goal of increasing the electrical conductivity of the materials for the primary and secondary collimator jaws, while maintaining or improving the beam impact robustness of CFC. To further enhance the electrical conductivity of the jaw surface exposed to the beam, a thin film of electrically conductive metals or ceramics can be applied to the MoGr bulk material. Solutions under development are, for example, molybdenum, copper and titanium nitride coatings.

In order to assess the performance of these materials and gain a deeper understanding of their response to beam-induced dynamic thermal shocks, dedicated experiments are carried out at facilities like CERN’s High-Radiation to Materials (HiRadMat), GSI’s UNILAC and SIS 18 accelerators, with short-pulse, high-intensity beams.

Figure 2. (CERN)

WP17 partners have performed an extensive characterization of both commercially available advanced materials and newly developed composites. The characterization performed included the study of materials morphology and microstructure, the measurement of their thermal, electrical and mechanical properties, as well as their behaviour in ultra-high vacuum, and the study of application of thin films on the surfaces of the bulk materials. This campaign has allowed quantifying the advantages of novel composites, compared to commercial materials and has laid the ground for further optimizations and improvements in the development of advanced thermal management materials. It will be complemented in the course of the projects by additional characterization campaigns, including examination after long-term irradiation and experiments under high intensity particle pulses.

During the course of this work, the ARIES Consortium also plans to engage experts from space, aviation, car and electronic industry to exchange ideas on the latest developments in design, manufacture, testing and applications of novel thermal management materials. These industries could consider the novel materials developed in this WP for advanced engineering solutions, efficient energy solutions and thermal management, given their excellent thermal conductivity and high mechanical and shock resistance.

ACC

Matthew Streeter (Imperial College London)

10 Dec 2018

Ultrafast heating of atomic clusters

New technique opens exciting opportunities for complete control over spatio-temporal properties of intense laser focus.

ARI

Panagiotis Charitos (CERN)

11 Dec 2017

Taking accelerators on board: Exploring unchartered waters with ARIES

ARIES-Industry event brings together experts on accelerator applications for ship exhaust gas treatment.

ACC

Theun Van Veen (University of Liverpool)

13 Jul 2020

International School on Precision Studies for the AVA Network

The latest training, a week-long School on Precision Studies, was organised to take place in Prague (Czech Republic) at the end of March 2020.

03 Jul 2018

How to access free of charge state-of-the-art accelerator testing facilities across Europe?

ARIES offers the opportunity to conduct testing at 14 European research facilities to project members through its Transnational Access programme at no cost to the user. The facilities from 5 different countries, provide equipment and administrative support in 5 separate domains: magnet testing, material testing, electron and proton beam testing, radiofrequency testing and plasma beam testing.

Who can apply? Access can be provided to selected teams composed of one or more researchers led by a User Group Leader. Leaders and the majority of users in the group must work in a country other than where the selected installation is located, except when accessing an international organisation or remotely accessing a facility.

Wondering which kind of equipment and infrastructures are available? All the details are on the ARIES website for you to find the best suited option for your research. You will be then invited to contact the facility coordinator of the chosen installation prior to completing a formal application and submit it to ARIES-TA@cern.ch. CERN, University of Uppsala, GSI, KIT, CEA, DESY, STFC, CNRS and University of Lund will provide you with further information on the feasibility of your project.

All the projects carried on through the programme must disseminate the results acknowledging the ARIES project.

FCC

Panagiotis Charitos (CERN)

12 Dec 2017

Discussing the next step for circular colliders

The 2018 Future Circular Collider collaboration meeting will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (9-13 April 2018).

FCC, ESI

Constantinos Astreos (University of Liverpool)

27 Mar 2019

Academia-industry collaboration drives innovation

Co-innovation workshop focused on strategic R&D programme of future collider and the benefits for industry in terms of project involvement and product commercialisation.

ACC

Anaïs Schaeffer

4 Dec 2019

Aligning the HL-LHC magnets with interferometry

CERN surveyors have developed a procedure based on interferometry to determine the position of cold masses inside the cryostats of the future HL-LHC.

03 Jul 2018

ARIES first annual meeting in Riga

Participants to the ARIES 1^st Annual Meeting met at RTU in Riga (Image: CERN)

From the 22^nd to 25^th of May, 2018, 112 participants joined the first Annual Meeting of the ARIES project hosted by Riga Technical University (RTU) in Riga, Latvia. 41 Beneficiaries from 18 EU Countries were represented to celebrate the first year of the project, which coincided with the 100 years of the creation of the State of Latvia at the end of World War I.

Professor Tālis Juhna, as Vice-Rector for Research at RTU, welcomed the participants and expressed his happiness to see the first Annual Meeting taking place in Riga, the first gathering of this kind for the project, after the Kick-Off held at CERN in 2017. He noted that, from the Project’s Governing Board he attended just before the opening session, more milestones than scheduled had already been reached, setting a promising pace for ARIES. He also touched upon the added-value for RTU to be part of the ARIES cooperation and the expertise that RTU, as an engineering powerhouse, can bring to the project and beyond.

Professor Toms Torims, Director of RTU Center of High Energy Physics and Accelerator Technologies, took the floor and shared, in an emotional stance: “It is difficult to talk when your dreams come true. Thank you for being here and for celebrating, beyond science, the 100 years of Latvia. If you like Latvia, we will like you!” Latvia is actively promoting the opportunities offered by its ecosystem to create great value for investments, in particular in the field of Research and Innovation (R&I). It took on board the challenge to position itself at a cross-road, in order to link its activities with major European R&I powerhouses.

Maurizio Vretenar, as ARIES Project Coordinator, welcomed the participants as well, and thanked RTU for hosting the event. He placed this Annual Meeting under the auspices of science, inviting all the attendees to focus on delivering value beyond generating deliverables. He reminded the audience of the level of ambition of the project:

4 Pillars: Excellence, Access, Innovation and Sustainability
18 Work Packages
8 Networks
5 Transnational Access facilities
5 Joint Research Activities

2018 is an important year for particle physics as the deadline for the Call for input to the European Strategy Update is set for December. “This represents a great opportunity for creativity and vision development for particle accelerator science,” says Maurizio. “And ARIES has a particular role to play in exploring new ideas, besides the major programmes of FCC, ILC and CLIC. We can do it through disruptive thinking more than just extrapolation.” This is also why part of the programme was dedicated to novel ideas such as the gamma factory, the muon collider and innovative colliders based on laser and plasma technologies.

Already in EuCARD-2, a strong focus was put on accelerators’ applications. This is at the heart of ARIES, with initiatives such as the workshop on co-innovation held with industry in February 2018, to find new ways to work closer together. A Proof of Concept Fund is also available for small projects, in order to test the commercial viability of a research concept. 10 very good proposals were received and the evaluation process was just completed with the selection of four extremely promising innovative ideas. Read more about the winners of the ARIES Proof-of-Concept fund...

The project has gained visibility with the ARIES presentation video posted in February 2018, reaching more than 10 000 views on social media.

A tribute was also paid to Professor Enzo Palmieri of INFN Legnaro, who passed away this year and whose contributions were recognised by the community.

The Project Coordinator closed his introductory speech by highlighting that the most frequent word in the ARIES Description of Work is the verb WILL. And before the Annual Meeting went on with presentations from the Work Packages engaging the community all together, he invited the participants to reflect on how their work will open to the future of accelerators.

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

11 Dec 2019

Power converters specially designed for CERN can now be used by the wider accelerator community

CERN has developed new software layers to allow the wider particle accelerator community to use the CERN-specific power converters controls.

HIL

Panos Charitos

26 Jun 2018

Groundbreaking for the HL-LHC civil engineering work

Civil works have begun on the ATLAS and CMS sites to build new underground structures for the High-Luminosity LHC.

CLIC

Rickard Ström (CERN)

20 Mar 2019

Highlights from CLIC Week 2019

The physics opportunities brought by of a high-luminosity linear electron-positron collider

03 Jul 2018

And the winners of the ARIES Proof-of-Concept fund are…

ARIES Proof-of-Concept fund was open from December 2017 to April 2018 (Image: CERN)

On the 14^th of December 2017, the ARIES project launched a call for proposals to its Proof-of-Concept (PoC) fund, aiming at fostering innovation and enhancing the impact of accelerator technology in society. How? By offering a total funding of €200,000 for up to four projects based on accelerator science with clear potential to go beyond the realm of scientific research with particle accelerators. This funding program is designed to bridge the gap between the seed stages of research and full commercial application, therefore reducing the financial risks associated with early-stage innovation.

The goal is clear: the accelerator community should propose ideas and early-phase projects focusing on the possible societal and commercial applications of these ideas within fields such as medicine, energy, security, and any others of relevance where accelerator technology has great potential to deliver value.

ARIES manages this fund through a dedicated Work Package, WP14 Promoting Innovation, led by Marcello Losasso from the CERN Knowledge Transfer Group. WP14 is dedicated to foster technology development in key areas, strengthen relationships with commercial partners, and provide advice to ARIES members on intellectual property (IP), management, and licensing. The PoC funding has the vocation to investigate the commercial feasibility of a new concept, as well as identifying opportunities for partnerships, licences and IP positions, in a holistic approach to innovation.

Through a competitive two-step selection process, projects were shortlisted for interview based on the quality and potential impact, as described in their proposal. All 10 projects submitted to ARIES PoC were extremely interesting, well prepared and would have deserved proper support. However, in consideration of the available budget, only the four projects that scored highest were invited to present their proposal. This presentation took place on the 15^th of June, in front of a specially appointed Project Evaluation Committee (EvCo). The EvCo, chaired by the WP14 Leader, Mr Losasso, was keen to assess not only the technical aspects of the proposals, but also the potential of turning the research outputs into spill-overs with commercial impact for other sectors. Special focus was given to the possibility of involving Business Incubators to create more exploitation opportunities for the projects and to engage with already established supply chains, including industrial partners.

The four projects presented to the EvCo were evaluated as extremely interesting given their potential applications.

Riga Technical University presented a wide collaborative project involving academic partners (Universities of Warsaw and Huddersfield), scientific laboratories (Fraunhofer and CERN), a commercial company (e-Beam) and two shipyards (Gdansk and Riga) and aimed to tackle the challenge of pollution generated by marine diesel exhaust gas, using electron beam accelerators.

The RHP company from Austria presented a project in collaboration with GSI, supported by 2 industrial partners from Malta (IMA Engineering) and Austria (ASMAG), aimed at preparing innovative composite materials, containing diamonds, with tailored thermophysical properties. In this case, applications are expected in the area of power electronic, laser and collimators for future accelerators.

Another project was presented by CEA, France, supported by an industrial partner (Zanon, Italy), focusing on the development of a novel technology for producing Superconducting Radio Frequency Cavity. The method, Atomic Layer Deposition, if proved successful, could dramatically impact the construction and operational cost of large accelerator projects, such as FCC and CLIC.

The University of Liverpool, together with D-Beam Ltd., industrial partner from UK, presented an innovative project aimed to develop an advanced optical imaging system. Applications are expected not only for beam diagnostic in light sources and synchrotrons, but also for video projectors and displays.

These four projects, given their outstanding quality and application potential, have eventually been proposed for award to the ARIES Steering Committee and to the Governing Board. The award is expected very soon and, within a few weeks, the projects can start their planned activities.

“We are delighted that the PoC fund generated so much interest and that 10 very good proposals were submitted” says Maurizio Vretenar, ARIES Project Scientific Coordinator, based at CERN in Switzerland. “It showcases the maturity of the accelerators ecosystem, to look beyond particle physics and explore a larger field of applications that can benefit society at an even bigger scale. We are all very excited to see how the four projects we selected will develop and deliver the expected impact they have been designed for.”

To be continued!

Linn Tvede, Giovanni Porcellana (CERN)

10 Dec 2018

Using CERN magnet technology in innovative cancer treatment

The enormous size of today’s gantries poses constraints on future hadron-therapy facilities.

FCC

Cristian Pira, Oscar Azzolini, Giorgio Keppel, Silvia Martin, Fabrizio Stivanello (INFN)

20 Mar 2019

Seamless accelerating cavities

Superconducting radiofrequency accelerating cavities are the heart of modern particle accelerators and one of the key challenges for the FCC study.

Amy Bilton (CERN)

10 Dec 2018

ATS-KT Innovation Days

The Accelerator and Technology sector (ATS) and the Knowledge Transfer (KT) group jointly hosted the first ATS-KT Innovation Day.

11 Dec 2017

Taking accelerators on board: Exploring unchartered waters with ARIES

Emission control has turned into the most important driving force for developments in the ship industry in line with the sustainable development goals that the UN set for the 21st century. In the past, extensive R&D effort has been allocated to control harmful emissions from ships given that approximately 90% of all goods traded worldwide travel on commercial ships that mainly burn low-quality heavy oil. ARIES aims at extending the accelerator reach to societal applications, and it brought together regulating authorities, shipping companies and industries, universities and research laboratories to explore a new avenue to reduce exhaust gas emissions from maritime trade.

The aim is to develop new accelerator-based gas treatment technologies laying at the border between physics and chemistry, which are applicable and practical for ship operators while they guarantee a high level of safety and reliability.

The combustion of gases inside the diesel engines emits harmful gasses in the atmosphere, a fact that raises concerns especially close to highly populated areas and closed seas. As a result, restrictive regulations apply in many areas as is the case of the Baltic sea and soon in many of the US coastal areas. Moreover, pollutant gases can often spread within 400 km from the coastline, influencing the air quality within several hundreds of kilometers. To cope with continuously increasing environmental demands, gas emissions from existing ships’ engines have to be reduced and a new world-wide regulations will be implemented as of 2021. Combination of cleaner fuels, engine modifications, add-on retrofits and other measures can be used to reduce exhaust gases emissions.

The main harmful gasses emitted from commercial ships are nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx). Primary methods aim at reducing the formation of these gases by using costly low-sulphur fuels and improving the engine design and maintenance, or by adopting proper retrofitting devices, such as scrubbers and selective catalytic reactors. These technologies allow a reliable reduction of SO2 or of NOx, while no system allows eliminating both, and all suffer the drawbacks of high cost, large footprints, an impact in the efficiency of the engine and additional fuel consumption.

To reduce further possible emissions, we need to develop innovative approaches for treating the exhaust gases after the engine. Accelerators could produce beams of electrons at an energy of 300-500 keV that would interact with the emission gases and induce molecular excitation, ionization and dissociation breaking the larger NOx and SOx molecules making easier the suppression of the remaining gases in a small “scrubber” placed after the accelerator in the exhaust pipe, which washes out using seawater the polluting molecules.

The electron-beam treatment technology was first developed in Japan in the 1970s and was recently revived in Poland to reduce carbon emissions from its power plants. The developments took place at the Warsaw Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (INCT), which is a member of ARIES and holds a patent on this technology. As 90% of electricity in Poland is produced from coal combustion and hence reducing gases that contribute to air pollution has been a key issue. A full-scale electron beam accelerator facility allowed to treat flue gases from coal-driven power plants, leading to a significant reduction in emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The same technique could also help us reduce emission gases from ships.

In this process, the gases are cooled to between 70°C and 90°C with a spray of water and then diverted into a reaction chamber. There the wet gases are exposed to low energy electron radiation from an accelerator, not much different apart the higher energy from the tubes found in old television sets. Ammonia is then added to neutralize the SO2 and NOx, causing them to change chemical form and become solid aerosols. A high efficiency machine gathers and filters these sticky particles, converting them into high-quality fertilizer with the remaining “clean” gases leaving through the chimney. Ship exhausts are different from power plant fumes, but an experiment at INCT treated with an electron beam fumes with the same composition as the exhausts of a ship engine. The results indicate that similar high-level cleaning efficiencies can be reached.

During the workshop, participants shared their experience from engine designing, gave feedback from research conducted on test facilities, and discussed results from measurements on ships in operation. Moreover, they discussed how one could achieve in an economical fashion the required emission levels that could meet new international regulations. There was a wide consensus that this technology is very promising, but it still requires testing first on real ship engines onshore and later in a marine environment aboard a ship. Additional R&D is required to fit the accelerator in the challenging environment of an engine room (or of a ship funnel!) as well as an economic analysis to highlight the financial advantages with respect to other solutions.

A key challenge for engineer designers is to ensure the highest level of safety and reliability of the equipment installed on ships, while taking into consideration the different types of applications on vessels operating around the world and emission control regulations between different regions.

All in all, this novel technique has the potential to reduce the marine diesel exhaust gas; a challenge that becomes particularly topical given the increasing need for transportation of goods and the tighter rules towards a greener environment. The meeting exemplified that the design and advancement of accelerators goes beyond fundamental physics and genuinely contributes to the goals of sustainable developments for the 21st century.

You can find more information about the meeting and a full list of the participants in the Indico page of the event.

ACC

Volodymyr Rodin (University of Liverpool)

11 Jul 2019

3D mapping of electrostatic fields

MEMS sensor successfully used for precise measurement of 3D electrostatic field. A precise field measurement technique such as this offers an interesting opportunity.

ACC

Joseph Piergrossi (European XFEL)

8 Oct 2018

New solutions for challenges among complementary light sources

EUCALL developed strategies for laser-based and accelerator-based sources of UV/X-ray light.

HIL

Massimo Sorbi (CERN, INFN), Marco Statera (INFN) and Ezio Todesco (CERN)

12 Mar 2018

A new step towards successful MgB2 superconducting coils

MgB2 coil successfully tested at LASA for the round coil superferric magnet correctors

08 Dec 2017

Workshop for extreme thermal management materials

The ARIES project organised its first workshop for Work Package 17 (WP17) “PowerMat” in Turin, Italy over 27-28 October 2017. The event hosted 30 participants from several Laboratories, Universities, and small companies.

The main objective of WP17 is the development and investigation (through both simulations and experiments) of novel materials for extreme thermal management related to particle accelerators and other challenging applications.

Many lively discussions and fruitful exchanges took place during the five sessions of the workshop. Each session was dedicated to a specific task of WP17, with special input regarding ARIES WP14 “Promoting Innovation”, which operates synergistically with PowerMat to provide material specimens and samples to be characterized and tested.

The main goal of the workshop was the presentation and discussion of results related to the latest developments of novel and advanced materials based on carbon and diamond. Besides excellent thermomechanical properties, these materials are required to resist the long-term effects of radiation, in the harsh accelerator environment. In this respect, material characterization campaigns are performed both on pristine and irradiated samples.

The first session of talks considered the investigation of metal carbide-reinforced graphite and fibre-reinforced graphite, with specific regard to their thermomechanical, microstructural and ultra-high vacuum characteristics. These materials are used in Collimators and Beam Intercepting Devices (BID), and must be optimized for the challenges of future high-energy particle accelerators.

The workshop also dedicated talks to the discussion of dynamic tests of advanced materials, with specific attention to experiments performed at the CERN HiRadMat facility. Several experiments were presented, including preliminary results from the MultiMat experiment, which took place in October 2017. The reusable, rotatable barrel hosted in the test bench allowed the testing of 18 different materials, ranging from very low-density carbon foams to high-density tungsten alloy, and three thin-film coatings under the most intense and energetic proton pulses available from CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS).

The target stations were equipped with strain gauges, pressure sensors and thermal probes in order to acquire the dynamic response of the materials and benchmark the numerical results of the simulations. The experiment was concluded with more than 2·10¹⁵protons delivered on target. All the carbon-based materials survived the maximum intensities, with energy densities exceeding those expected in the HL-LHC. The online instrumentations worked very reliably, providing a wealth of data for post-processing. The first analyses indicate a good agreement with the numerical and analytical predictions.

Workshop attendees also reviewed recent results of radiation damage studies from GSI, CERN and Polimi; and to agree on a plan for future simulations and experiments at various facilities in Europe and USA.

Importantly, PowerMat aims to explore the possible societal applications of novel materials in challenging domains, such as advanced engineering, medical imaging, quantum computing, energy efficiency, aerospace, and thermal management. In this context, researchers discussed the development of diamond-reinforced composites for luminescence screens, as well as optimization paths and experiments.

The visit of the DYNLab in Politecnico of Turin (Image: M. Scapin/Polito)

Attendees were also able to visit Polito’s DYNLab, a comprehensive facility for material testing in quasi-static and dynamic conditions, which will characterize materials for PowerMat. In addition, the programme featured a visit to Polito’s Additive Manufacturing facilities and invited talks on several inspiring topics, including Advanced Joining Technologies.

The presentations and interaction during these two days allowed participants to plan a large number of future activities as well as strengthen or launch new collaborations. Partners will report on the progress of their activities at the next WP17 meeting, to be held at the ARIES 2018 Annual Meeting in Riga, Latvia.

Special thanks go to Lorenzo Peroni and Martina Scapin at Polito, for their organisation of an inspiring venue with a unique context and atmosphere.

***

Header image: Participants of the Workshop of ARIES WP17 PowerMat, 27-28^th November 2017, Politecnico of Turin, Italy (Image: M. Scapin/Polito)

FCC

Panagiotis Charitos (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

Advancing superconductivity for future magnets

Collaboration between researchers and industry is key for unlocking the potential of this technology.

FCC

L. Bottura, A. Devred, S. Izquierdo Bermudez, J.C. Perez and D. Tommasini (CERN)

25 Mar 2020

Demonstrator racetrack dipole magnet produces record peak field

A magnetic field record has been broken at CERN by the first racetrack demonstrator magnet developed in the framework of the FCC Study.

ACC

Panos Charitos (CERN)

13 Mar 2018

Charting impact pathways of Research Infrastructures

Kick-off meeting of the H2020 “RI-PATHS” project in Brussels.

07 Dec 2017

HiRadMat: testing materials under high radiation

What happens to materials when they are subjected to high-energy, high-density, proton beams? How do materials, detectors and accelerator devices behave when they experience extreme conditions of temperature, compressive-to-tensile stresses and internal damage induced by high powered accelerator beams? What are the damage thresholds for superconducting materials after impact with LHC-type beams? HiRadMat, a facility designed for high-energy beam experiments for accelerator components, at CERN, helps experimenters answer these questions, and more.

The effects of high-energy proton beams on the properties of materials can potentially be catastrophic. Metal objects, for example, can experience structural and mechanical defects when exposed to such beams, which, if used as a selected material for nuclear reactors or high energy physics experiments, could result in significant operational complications and malfunctions. Having the capability to investigate such materials, devices or components in a safe and controlled environment is needed to ensure no unexpected problems arise during the final use of a selected material.

HiRadMat, an acronym for High Radiation to Materials, provides exactly this environment to researchers. At the facility, different materials can be exposed to high-energy, high-density, pulsed proton and ion beams to investigate the behavioural and damage limits of, for example, accelerator components and electronics for the LHC, or evaluate different material options for R&D prototypes. Since its commissioning in 2011, HiRadMat has remained a facility in high demand, providing a wide range of experiments access to its unique capabilities.

In the spirit of international collaboration and an open exchange of ideas, HiRadMat supports researchers from around the globe for a range of scientific purposes. It is part of the ARIES project, which aims to develop European particle accelerator infrastructures and also provides support for researchers to travel to and use the facility, via transnational access procedures.

An experimental set-up in HiRadMat Tunnel (Image: CERN)

HiRadMat uses a proton beam extracted directly from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), from the TI2 injection line to the LHC [1,2]. A proton beam with a momentum of 440 GeV/c, providing a maximum pulsed energy of 2.4 MJ, is provided and comparable to those extracted to the LHC. At HiRadMat pulsed proton beams from 1 bunch to 288 bunches per pulse, at a maximum intensity of 1.2x10¹¹ protons per bunch (equivalent ion beams available), are provided.

The facility contains three experimental tables. A Beam Observation TV Monitor (BTV) has been installed upstream of the experimental set-ups and provides all users with reliable and comparable beam information in real-time, i.e. beam position, beam stability and beam spot size during beam operation. Different optics are available depending on the location of the experiment, but a standard 1σ r.m.s. beam radius of 0.5 – 2 mm is offered, with others available upon discussion. Further details on the beam operation of HiRadMat can be found in the literature by Charitonidis et al. [3]

Since HiRadMat took its first proton beam in 2012, it has continued to provide beam to a variety of projects, including studies into novel materials for collimators, superconducting materials and detector devices. It has continued to develop as a facility with improvements to equipment available for all users as well as an increase of monitoring systems to ensure smooth operation during beam-time. HiRadMat also contains an additional area providing improved shielding for electronics required for experiments, a surface laboratory and a dedicated control room.

If HiRadMat sounds like the perfect facility to test your materials, devices and products, please contact the HiRadMat team directly.

[1] I. Efthymiopoulos et al. “HiRadMat: A New Irradiation Facility for Material Testing at CERN”, Proceedings IPAC, 2011: 1665-1667.

[2] C. Hessler et al. “Beam Line Design for the CERN HiRadMat Test Facility”, Proceedings PAC, 2009: 3796-3798.

[3] N. Charitonidis et al. “HiRadMat: A high-energy, pulsed beam, material irradiation facility”, 4th International Conference on Advancements in Nuclear Instrumentation Measurement Methods and their Applications, Lisbon, 2015: 1-3.

ACC

Mike Barnes (CERN)

28 Jun 2018

First workshop on Pulse Power for Kicker Systems held at CERN

The PULPOKS 2018 workshop brought more than 40 participants to discuss the latest developments in the field of pulsed power for particle accelerators

ACC

Panagiotis Charitos (CERN)

8 Oct 2018

Interview with Robert-Jan Smits

A sit down with Robert-Jan Smits one of the architects of the European research area and a firm supporter of scientific knowledge and technology as means to address today’s greatest challenges.

ACC

Fiona Harden, Yacine Kadi, Nikolaos Charitonidis, Aymeric Bouvard

30 Sep 2019

International HiRadMat Workshop

The much-antecipated event took place in the summer of 2019 at CERN, with great success.

07 Dec 2017

Workshop shines Light on Photon-Beam Interactions

Over 27-28 November 2017, 41 experts in gamma-gamma colliders, Compton sources, and Gamma factories came together for the 2017 Photon Beams Workshop, held at the University of Padua’s Botanical Garden.

The event makes the first topical workshop of the ARIES project’s Task 6.6 “Far Future Concepts & Feasibility”, which aims to study the options and practicality of next and future-generation particle accelerators. The technical agenda included presentations on accelerator design, beam commissioning, laser technology, Free Electron Lasers (FELs), experimental programmes, and fundamental physics questions, with reports on studies and experiences from across the globe.

The first big theme of the workshop was Compton sources. Pierre Favier (LAL Orsay) kicked off the event with a comprehensive overview of warm and SC linac-based and ring-based Compton backscattering sources from around the world, covering almost 10 orders of magnitude in photon rates, and photon energies between a few 10s of keV and a few GeV. At present, the ThomX and ELI-NP facilities are under construction in France and Romania, respectively.

Alessandro Variola, Cristina Vaccarezza, and Antonio Falone (INFN Frascati) reported in greater detail on the design and status of ELI-NP, including its remarkable 32-pass laser-pulse recirculator and its luminosity monitor.

Secondly, speakers focused on the theme of photon colliders: recalling the history of gamma-gamma colliders, Valery Telnov (BINP Novosibirsk) discussed the gamma-gamma collider options for linear colliders, highlighting the removal of the spent electron beam as one of the key problems, mitigated by crab crossing. Following this, Telnov proposed the extension the European XFEL at DESY, Hamburg to a photon collider using the spent beams.

Illya Drebot (INFN) presented machine designs and Monte-Carlo simulations for an even lower-energy (MeV class) Gamma-Gamma Collider. Physics motivations for such a collider were discussed by Edoardo Milotti (University of Trieste), who also pointed out the existence of narrow resonances with extremely high cross-section.

Chuang Zhang (IHEP) set out the plan for a 200x200 MeV gamma-gamma collider based on the BEPC injector, in Beijing. The IHEP photon collider could be operational already in four years from now.

Considering secondary/tertiary beam generation, Luca Serafini (INFN Milano) discussed collisions between photons and massive high-energy particles, and made a proposal to use the CERN SPS, LHC or FCC as a gamma source.

Going back up in energy, Frank Zimmermann (CERN) reviewed the conversion of the recirculating linac of the LHeC into a gamma-gamma Higgs Factory, SAPPHiRE. Recent innovations from Atoosa Meseck (HZB) include the occasional bypassing of one linac section, using fast kicker magnets, to avoid the need to a counter-rotating beam, and the use of a low-energy FELs for generating 350 nm photons at 20k kHz repetition rate.

For photon collisions at even higher energy, Eduardo Marin (CERN) presented the photon collider options and associated simulation results for the CLIC linear collider project.

On the third theme of the workshop, two full workshop sessions were devoted to discussing the Gamma Factory. Indeed, Witek Krasny (LPNHE Paris) presented an innovative proposal to convert the LHC into an extremely bright source of Gamma rays, with energies of up to 400 MeV, by exploiting the interaction of laser pulses and partially stripped ion beams. In addition, Krasny pointed out that a low-energy photon collider providing would be a powerful tool for axion searches in a promising range of energy.

Reyes Alemany (CERN) presented the experimental programme at the CERN SPS and LHC, which defines the path towards realizing the Gamma Factory.

Considering FELs, Vittoria Petrillo (University of Milano) analysed their use and possible advantages over standard lasers for the Gamma Factory, with particular reference to the impact of the characteristics of FELs on PSI excitation.

Luca Serafini then delivered two “messages in the bottle” for the Gamma Factory, concerning the loss in efficiency due to the laser and ion wave fronts and due to their respective energy spread.

Representing the atomic physics community, Dima Budker (University of Mainz) discussed the basics of the electronic excitation and decay of partially stripped heavy ions, referring to his and Max Zolotorev‘s study 20 years earlier.

Key elements for all three types of facility are lasers and high-finesse optical cavities, such as Fabry-Perot resonators, or FELs.

Discussing the state-of-the-art in Fabry-Perot resonators, Fabian Zomer (LAL) presented activities at the KEK ATF in Japan, with reference to Compton-based positron source for linear colliders. Indeed, LAL’s next project, ThomX , will use a Fabry-Perot resonator with 100-400 kW power level from the start.

Antoine Courjaud (Amplitude Systems) presented the state of the art in ultrafast lasers for accelerators, touching on custom solutions for science, burst laser setups, and cryogenic amplifiers. Commercial lasers providing pulse energies of 1 J at 100 Hz will be available in 2-3 years from now. Similarly, Igor Pogorelsky (BNL) expanded on CO₂ lasers, detailing the construction of a 25 TW laser with chirped pulse amplification at the BNL ATF. The CO₂ laser system will eventually reach 100 TW with 10 J per pulse and 100 fs pulse duration, thanks to nonlinear compression, self-chirping and self-focusing.

All participants unanimously voted for the repetition of such a topical workshop in Padua in the future.

HIL

Massimo Sorbi (CERN, INFN), Marco Statera (INFN) and Ezio Todesco (CERN)

12 Mar 2018

A new step towards successful MgB2 superconducting coils

MgB2 coil successfully tested at LASA for the round coil superferric magnet correctors

Linn Tvede, Giovanni Porcellana (CERN)

10 Dec 2018

Using CERN magnet technology in innovative cancer treatment

The enormous size of today’s gantries poses constraints on future hadron-therapy facilities.

ACC

Athena Papageorgiou Koufidou, Livia Lapadatescu (CERN)

15 Dec 2017

HIE-ISOLDE: challenges and future plans

HIE-ISOLDE advances the high energy frontier of the facility.