The XFEL mock-up tunnel helps scientists practice for the real thing
It feels like the real accelerator tunnel, but it’s only building 71 at DESY in Hamburg. It’s basically a tube made of concrete, 51 metres long and 5.20 metres in diameter. One accelerator module hangs from the top of the tube, water pipes, cable trays and ventilation ducts are installed and other accelerator parts stand […]
An IEEE Conference satellite workshop starts at DESY
Faster, higher, farther! The motto of this year’s Olympic Games is also valid for the development of research opportunities. But unlike the Olympic athletes who struggle to beat world records by fractions of hundredths, the development of accelerator experiments is progressing in such extreme steps that researchers have to clear completely new hurdles – their […]
European ILC-HiGrade project officially launched
There are many official stages to a project financed by the European Commission – from call, proposal, negotiations, contract draft, start of work, annual reports to one of the most official events: the kick-off meeting. Europe’s new flagship project on cavity production and exploration of international governance structures, ILC-HiGrade took this step last week. Representatives form […]
Large TPC prototype field cage arrives for testing
When the TPC field cage arrived at DESY, all TPC collaboration members came to watch and help out. Photo: DESY The international time projection chamber (TPC) team that works on R&D for future ILC detectors used to have a bit of a running gag. Somebody would proclaim that “the field cage will arrive next week” […]
In their meeting a couple of days ago at DESY, ECFA, the European Committee for Future Accelerators, got a complete update on all present and future particle physics activities in Europe. They also discussed the ILC and its potential: “We think it is important to remember that particle physics in Europe is more than the LHC,” says […]
Particle physicists have the reputation that they need to smash things up in order to find out what they are about. Sometimes accelerator physicists get to smash stuff up, too: a group of engineers and technicians recently crash-tested a full cryomodule. They wanted to find out what the 12-metre piece of kit would look like […]
Controlling beam tests all over the world
Even if you don’t want to step through new control room’s swish sliding doors, you can have a look inside DESY’s new feature because of its doors made of glass: it is a medium-sized room with some technical interior and an ILC colour scheme. There are two computer working stations, each with four monitors and […]
Project Management office plans the future of the cost estimate
Hamburg isn’t exactly known for its good weather and hours of sunshine per year. So when the sun is out and nature is exploding with spring leaves and early summer blossoms, Hamburgers go to every length to spend those precious times outside. Spending a day in a conference room darkened for better presentations, hunched over […]
Polarisation and polarimetry experts meet for the first time
Theorists and experimentalists aren’t always of the same opinion. There is one thing on which opinions aren’t polarised though, and that is polarisation. Polarisation is a special characteristic of a particle bunch – a sort of measure of the particles’ combined spin – that, when studied in the right sort of detector at the ILC, […]
When your day job means measuring the F2 structure function of the proton or hunting for the Higgs boson, you don’t usually stop and wonder how exactly the ingredients of your events reached their collision point. Some 30 junior researchers have just learnt to do just this: at the recent ‘Terascale Accelerator School’, the first […]