When you plan to move and try to find helpers, they often ask: to which floor? If the DESY people working in the detector lab would depend on the help of friends, they would have difficulties to find volunteers because the answer would be: seventh floor! Everything has to be transported from the ground floor […]
One sheet to plot them all
DESY database becomes standard tool for cavity research
The new worldwide ILC cavity database features only nine-cell, no single-cell cavities like the one held by Camille Ginsburg in this picture. Image: Fermilab. The idea sounds simple enough: collect all the data that exist in the world on cavities – nine-cell TESLA-style cavities, to be precise – including all tests, manufacturers and achieved gradients […]
9 mA revisited
Machine experts run DESY’s FLASH accelerator under ILC parameters
The last two weeks were two of the most important (and intense) weeks for accelerator specialists working on the ILC. After a long period of preparation and a series of first tests, they have just finished a period of successfully running the superconducting linear accelerator FLASH at DESY under ILC-like conditions to demonstrate that a […]
From football field to field strengths
It takes vision to be able to image the transformation of one thing into another. Take a football field, for example. What are your associations – running, competition, goals, fun? And now imagine you want to build a new accelerator. What would you use the field for? The European XFEL team at DESY did not […]
A grand tuning voyage
Two cavity tuning machines on their way to Fermilab
When groups from different countries work together the usual procedure is to send the people to the machines they are working on. A team of engineers and technicians from DESY, Fermilab and KEK decided to do the exact opposite: they sent the machines to the people. On 3 August two machines constructed at DESY embarked […]
A user-friendly beam telescope for the ILC – Mission: possible
Ingrid Gregor and her team will have a very busy summer. As a particle physicist, she coordinates a successful device for test beam infrastructures, the EUDET telescope, which is fully booked at CERN during the next four months. In her rare spare time, she also experiences the joys of blogging as she just joined the […]
Polarimeter on the electron stretcher
Detector prototype proves itself in the testbeam
What is a polarimeter? A polarimeter measures the combined spins (polarisation) of particles in a particle bunch, by using the effect that photons from a laser beam can knock single electrons out of a particle bunch. These ‘Compton-scattered’ electrons are sent through a magnetic chicane where they are deflected. The degree of deflection depends on […]
FLASH – ILC-like beam tests at DESY
Director’s Corner 23 April 2009 Barry Barish FLASH – ILC-like beam tests at DESY Developing high-gradient superconducting radiofrequency (rf) cavities, cryomodules and rf systems for the ILC is at the heart of our R&D programme. An essential part of this programme will be systems tests, including tests with beams. Before we can develop our own […]
Under pressure
Large time projection chamber prototype is about to start its first test
TPC collaborators from across the globe fit the endcap onto the TPC field cage. Pressure gauge working? Check! The time projection chamber is part of the tracker system of a future ILD detector at the ILC and will one day reproduce highly precise tracks of the particles that passed through its gas. A plot of […]
FLASH under ILC charge – almost
Machine experts try to run DESY's free-electron laser under ILC-like conditions
More than 1034 times per second per square centimetre — that’s how often electrons and positrons are supposed to collide in the ILC. The project’s accelerator experts have no doubts that it can be done, but they have to demonstrate it, too. An important proof is to run ILC-like beam conditions through a radiofrequency (RF) […]