Tag: General public
-
Oxygen collisions at the LHC show new indications of extreme state of matter
One year on from the first-ever collisions of oxygen at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the main LHC Collaborations – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – have each reported signs of the state of matter known as quark–gluon plasma (QGP) originating from these collisions. QGP is a state of matter that forms under intense pressure
-
HiLumi LHC: new magnets reach full power
The test bench for the High-Luminosity LHC, the IT (Inner Triplet) String facility, has reached a major milestone. On 8 July, its new quadrupole magnets – known as the inner triplet magnets – successfully reached their nominal operating current of 16 230 amperes. Designed to focus the beams more tightly than ever before, thereby increasing the
-
The puzzle of neutrinos, seventy years on
Seventy years ago today, Clyde Cowan, Frederick Reines and their colleagues closed a quarter-century hunt with a paper in Science, having caught neutrinos streaming out of a nuclear reactor in South Carolina. The search had begun in December 1930, when Wolfgang Pauli, in a letter to the “radioactive ladies and gentlemen” gathered at a meeting
-
CMS explores subtle matter–antimatter difference using beauty mesons
The CMS experiment uses its largest sample of beauty mesons to date to perform a high-precision test of subtle differences between matter and antimatter
-
The Science Gateway passes the million mark
At 11.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 1 July, the Science Gateway passed the symbolic mark of one million visitors thanks to Elna, Antoni and their 10-year-old twins, who were visiting from Barcelona. Since opening in October 2023, the Science Gateway has established itself as a beacon of science tourism. With its five exhibitions, lab workshops, science
-
CERN bids farewell to the LHC and enters Long Shutdown 3
Today, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, comes to the end of an extraordinary chapter in its scientific journey. Following its final physics run, the accelerator has been switched off to begin CERN’s Long Shutdown 3 (LS3), a major programme of maintenance, consolidation, upgrades and installation work that will prepare the
-
AMS releases new cosmic-ray measurements
Fixed to the International Space Station (ISS) as it speeds around Earth, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is constantly measuring high-energy particles that stream from across the Universe, known as cosmic rays. In a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, the AMS Collaboration reports its first measurements of five heavy elements found amongst these particles. Since it was installed on
-
CLOUD experiment uncovers a major new source of marine aerosol particles
In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the CLOUD Collaboration at CERN reports that natural emissions from phytoplankton are producing far more aerosol particles than previously thought, changing our understanding of aerosols and clouds in pristine climates from before the industrial era and after the fossil fuel era. Cloud droplets form on aerosol
-
New study highlights CERN’s socio-economic contributions as a global research hub
The newly published study Assessment of the socio-economic benefits of CERN activities reports on CERN’s activities over the past 25 years and highlights a range of socio-economic benefits generated by the Laboratory’s role as a global hub for science, technology and collaboration. The study examines how CERN contributes to scientific, technological, economic and societal outcomes
-
François Englert (1932 – 2026)
François Englert, a Belgian theoretical physicist, passed away on 18 June at the age of 93 in Uccle (Brussels, Belgium). With his associate, Robert Brout, he demonstrated that fundamental particles could acquire mass by interacting with a fundamental field that exists throughout the universe. At the same time, British physicist Peter Higgs had independently hypothesised the existence