Barbara Warmbein | 4 September 2014With more 200 linear accelerators around the world in operation for research, and more than 8000 linear accelerators serving industrial and medical application, future linear colliders played a small but important role at the LINAC14 conference this week in Geneva. It's R&D for future facilities that could make all linacs more efficient and reliable.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: European XFEL, linac, Nb3Sn, niobium, SCRF
Rika Takahashi | 24 July 2014Last month, LC NewsLine reported the achievement of the world’s smallest beam size of 55 nanometres at the ATF2 facility at KEK. At two international conferences held in June and July, the next record of 44 nanometres was reported by Kiyoshi Kubo and Shigeru Kuroda.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ATF, ATF2, beam size, final focus
3 July 2014The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world, has started to get ready for its second three-year run. Cool down of the vast machine has already begun in preparation for research to resume early in 2015 following a long technical stop to prepare the machine for running at almost double the energy of run 1. The last LHC magnet interconnection was closed on 18 June 2014 and one sector of 1/8 of the machine has already been cooled to operating temperature. The accelerator chain that supplies the LHC’s particle beams is currently starting up, with beam in the proton synchrotron accelerator last Wednesday for the first time since 2012.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: accelerator, CERN, LHC, LS1
Barbara Warmbein | 3 July 2014Cornell is working on a technology that could make superconducting cavities even more efficient: niobium alloyed with tin. Currently in single-cell research stage, tests show promising results, especially for the quality factor Q. Cornell university has always been a big player in the development of superconducting radio frequency technology SCRF, the technology chosen for the ILC. Even though research into Nb3Sn-cavities is not advanced enough to replace conventional cavities just yet, it might play a big role in future upgrades of the ILC – and in many other accelerators for all kinds of purposes the nearer future.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Cornell, Nb3Sn, Q, SCRF, superconducting cavity
YiLin Liu | 19 June 2014During a recent visit to IHEP in China, an LCC delegation discussed China’s role in the ILC project, including how China is going to participate, what China is going to contribute and who is going to join the project, with scientists from IHEP and Chinese universities. They also visited IHEP's ILC 1.3 GHz superconducting accelerator module.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: China, IHEP, ILC R&D, LCC, SCRF
Rika Takahashi | 5 June 2014The expert panel to discuss whether to invite the International Linear Collider to Japan held its first meeting in Tokyo last week. The 17 experts reviewed the challenges pointed out in the recommendation submitted by the committee under the Science Council of Japan last summer, which pointed out the issues to be clarified for a decision to host the ILC in Japan. Their final report to Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will be prepared in the fiscal year 2015.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ILC site, Japan, MEXT
5 June 2014Thanks to science, we get more for less. We get more features on a newer car model, more data and information stored on a computer, and all for the same or lowered cost. That same principle applies to accelerator R&D, where improving the performance and lowering the cost can help open doors to new ideas. The Department of Energy recently named Fermilab physicist and 2013 Peoples Fellow Anna Grassellino as a recipient of the prestigious Early Career Research Award for her work to develop particle accelerator cavities that have improved performance and are less expensive to operate.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: accelerator R&D, DOE, SCRF, superconducting cavity
Stephanie Hills, STFC's UK Communications and Innovation Officer | 1 May 2014The CLIC accelerator collaboration has elected a new spokesperson. Phil Burrows of the University of Oxford succeeds Roberto Corsini of CERN. Over the next three years, Burrows will be engaging with the institutes that are members of CLIC and helping to ensure that CLIC’s R&D programme pushes ahead during the critical phase ahead of the next update of the European strategy for particle physics. Corsini will continue his technical leadership of CLIC/CTF3.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: ATF2, CLIC, CTF3, fast feedback, feed forward, machine detector interface
Perrine Royole-Degieux | 3 April 2014The Linear Collider Board is the main decision body to promote and oversee the linear collider and its detectors as a worldwide collaborative project. In Europe, a new body, the European Linear Collider Forum, has just been launched to channel European discussions concerning the ILC and CLIC and to facilitate input for the international Linear Collider Board. Anyone interested to participate is invited to register to the mailing list. Will you take part?
Category: Around the World | Tagged: CLIC, Europe, ILC, Linear Collider Board