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SLAC P2 Marx ramps up reliability

by Leah Hesla

The newest incarnation of the SLAC P2 Marx modulator is designed to be more versatile and robust than its predecessor. Having prepped it for reliability, scientists will soon put the modulator's mettle to the test.

Research Director's Report

Towards a single directorate for ILC and CLIC physics and detectors studies

by Sakue Yamada

The ILC Steering Committee is now considering a new organisation for a linear collider project that includes both the ILC and CLIC programmes, in view of their individual progress and the cooperation between them, and it envisions a merger of physics and detector activities. It is a challenge to create a new mechanism that will satisfy all parties, but we should try hard to find one.

Director's Corner

ILC Project Implementation Planning: the prequel / the draft

by Barry Barish

How should we approach questions on siting and funding the ILC? How should the construction project be governed and managed? What will be the responsibilities of the host country? How can in-kind contributions be managed most effectively? The Global Design Effort has addressed these and other such implementation issues in a new draft document submitted to the International Linear Collider Steering Committee. We make the draft available today and welcome your comments.

Image of the week

Students hunt Higgs too

Image: CERN/M. Lapka

Young researchers analysing real high-energy collisions from the LHC at CERN.

From 27 February to 24 March, about 8000 high school students in 31 countries come to one of about 120 nearby universities or research centres for one day in order to unravel the mysteries of particle physics. Lectures from active scientists give insight in topics and methods of basic research at the fundaments of matter and forces, enabling the students to perform measurements on real data from particle physics experiments themselves. At the end of each day, as in an international research collaboration, the participants join in a video conference for discussion and combination of their results.

View more photos from CERN | Read more about the masterclasses in ILC NewsLine

In the News

  • from BBC News
    13 March 2012
    Not just the Higgs boson

    Such a fuss has been made about finally nailing down the Higgs you could be forgiven for thinking that – once the champagne had been quaffed and the Nobel Prizes handed out – we could all pack up and go home.

    Not a bit of it. Only two of the four main experimental detectors straddling the 27km ring of the LHC are even looking for the Higgs and both are interested in much, much more.

  • from Discovery News
    13 March 2012
    Neutrino ‘Costume Change’ Mystery Solved?

    Another piece of the neutrino puzzle has fallen into place, thanks to new results announced last week by the Daya Bay collaboration in China.

    The experiment has only been up and running for a couple of months, but the international collaboration’s latest measurement might explain how neutrinos change “flavors” — akin to a costume change — as they move through space.

  • from Physics World
    9 March 2012
    Daya Bay nails neutrino oscillation
    Physicists working at the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in China have made the best measurement so far of a key property of neutrinos – the “mixing angle” θ13, which describes the relationship between certain flavour and mass states of neutrinos.
  • from symmetry breaking
    9 March 2012
    Scientists continue to see puzzling behavior in top quarks, reaffirm strength of Tevatron experiments
    The Tevatron may be shut down for good, but – as evidenced by the catalogue of results presented at this week’s Rencontres de Moriond conference – the collider’s experiments still have plenty to say.