acceleratingnews.web.cern.ch - ARIES

Building on the community’s collective experience on accelerator communication

Livia Lapadatescu — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:38:40 +0000

Sixteen representatives from different accelerator laboratories gathered at CERN on 27-28 February 2020 for a follow-up workshop on accelerator communication and outreach. Organised by the H2020 ARIES project consortium at CERN, in the context of the project’s training, communication and outreach activities, the workshop aimed at building up on the community’s collective experience to support a set of recommendations for future communication activities for the ARIES community.

Pedro Russo, an astrophysicist and science communicator from Leiden University, was the invited keynote speaker. In his talk, Russo presented a series of case studies, highlighting audiences, impact and constraints to the implementation of each project.

The workshop had three other defining moments for future ARIES communication activities: a brainstorming session on key topics and issues for future accelerator communication that should guide the new editorial plan for Accelerating News, facilitated by Anais Rassat, the Head of Media Relations at CERN; a brainstorming session for potential communication activities, facilitated by Daniela Antonio, the event organiser and the Communication Officer at the CERN EU Projects Office; and a group discussion on activities the community could develop together for the greater impact of accelerator communication.

The event’s agenda and minutes are publicly available on Indico.

The main takeaways from the workshop, besides a moment for reflection with like-minded colleagues, are the list of topics of interest for the community in the future and the set of actions the community will undertake together. Some of the topics our readers might see in future Accelerating News issues are accelerator upgrades, a thematic series featuring different accelerator facilities, the societal and economic impact of accelerators, the community’s contribution to the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDG), and the return of the interviews and opinion pieces from different experts.

On a second note, this year’s International Year of Light will mark the beginning of a social media/digital collaboration among the community, with Lightsources.org leading the way. In addition, Accelerating News will provide a platform for the community to share educational material, with the instructions to build a cardboard accelerator, coming soon to this repository.

A cardboard accelerator; the instruction to build it will be added to the future repository of educational material. (Image: STFC)

For now, the ARIES’ community building activities will come to a close with the production of a report detailing the conclusions of both workshops and providing a set of recommendations for accelerator communication and outreach based on the community’s feedback and participation. The report will be made available in the summer of 2020, through the ARIES website: http://aries.web.cern.ch/

Tags:

Accelerator Communication and Outreach

ARIES

Date published:

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Author:

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

Article Category:

ACO

ARI

Issue:

Issue 32

Teaser:

Members from the accelerator communication community gathered at CERN for the 2nd Accelerator Communication and Outreach workshop.

Specialized School on Novel Accelerators for Young Scientists

Sabrina El Yacoubi — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 13:39:01 +0000

A pre-requisite and necessary condition for the next step in high-energy particle acceleration is the development of new and more efficient acceleration techniques. Plasma wake fields, as well as dielectric structures, have shown very promising results in the recent past and provide acceleration gradients several orders of magnitude higher than any conventional accelerating structure. The study of these new acceleration techniques finds large interest in the community of theoretical and applied accelerator physics, and the field is very rapidly evolving, with new proposed projects with a large scope of applications being based on high gradient wake acceleration techniques.

In the context of ARIES, a European Commission co-funded project under the H2020 programme, an international school on “High Gradient Wakefield Acceleration” was organised in the Spring of 2019. “For this event, our goals were to disseminate the impressive know-how accumulated in the field over the past few years, summarise the state of the art, and provide a platform to train new students joining this field,” explains Berhard Holzer, head of the organising committee and chairperson of the event. “The school was organised under the umbrella of the CERN Accelerator School, in line with the ARIES EuroNNac3 Network’s recommendations, as well as those of an international program committee. In this way, we hoped to strengthen the collaboration between traditional accelerator physics and the new wake-based systems and bridge the gap between classical and novel acceleration techniques,” Holzer adds.

Organised in collaboration with the local host Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in Lisbon, this edition of the CERN Accelerator School (CAS) took form of a two-week, full-time lecture series. Following introductory lectures on plasma and laser physics, the courses covered the different components of a plasma wake accelerator and plasma-based, as well as dielectric, beam systems. Theoretical topics were covered, like the linear, non-linear and blow out regime in plasma wake physics, and they were interchanged with presentations of the experimental physics programme studied in different labs and recent results obtained in different experiments. An overview of the diagnostic tools and state-of-the-art wake acceleration facilities, both existing and planned, complemented the agenda of the School. As a special feature, typical of the CAS teaching style, several sessions were reserved for case studies.

A truly European and international event, the school welcomed 70 students from 25 different nationalities. Twenty-six lecturers from 11 countries facilitated the courses, seminar talks or acted as tutors for the more practical work, the so-called case studies, where the students were asked to apply what they had learned and to do actual design work under the leadership of experienced colleagues.

Image 1: Students and lecturers during the excursion day in Lisbon. (Image: ARIES/CAS)

The series of lectures on high gradient wake acceleration encompassed an impressive spectrum of topics currently being studied in this new field of research. Key players from many institutes came together to present – in a highly didactic manner – their field of research and to train the younger members of the community. As an integral part of the school, the organising committee has planned to present the topics covered during the School in written form, as a “CERN yellow report”. It will be an update and follow-up on the proceedings of a previous CAS on Plasma Wake Acceleration, available in printed and electronic form under the reference CERN-2016-001.

“The school represented a valuable contribution to the teaching activities within the wake acceleration community and the ARIES programme and filled a gap in training for this fast-developing field of novel acceleration techniques,” concludes Bernhard Holzer.

For more information on the CERN Accelerator School, please visit: cas.web.cern.ch/schools/sesimbra-2019

Tags:

Accelerator

CERN Accelerator School

High-Gradient Wakefield Acceleration

ARIES

Date published:

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Author:

Bernhard Holzer (CERN)

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

Issue 32

Teaser:

The Spring 2019 edition of the CERN Accelerator School took place in Tecnico Lisboa and focused on High-Gradient Wakefield Acceleration.

A workshop on the energy-sustainable future for research infrastructures

Daniela Antonio — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 11:41:37 +0000

Group photo from the 5th Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop. (Image: PSI)

On 28 and 29 November, CERN took part in the 5th Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop at the Paul Scherrer Institute – PSI, in Villigen, Switzerland.

The Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop series was established in 2011 by CERN, the European Spallation Source – ESS (Sweden), and the Association of European-Level Research Infrastructures Facilities – ERF. It brings delegates from research institutes together with policymakers from around the world to discuss energy sustainability.

The fifth edition was organised by PSI in collaboration with CERN, ERF, ESS and the H2020 project ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society). The goals of this year’s workshop were to discuss energy management, efficiency, storage and savings, to pinpoint and share good practice and identify potential future technological solutions. In addition to that, the workshop stimulates new initiatives and cooperation amongst institutes.

Among the highlights was a presentation from Stefan Oberholzer, Head of Photovoltaics and Central Solar Power at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy – SFOE. He spoke about the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050, explaining that the strategy’s priorities are efficiency, increasing energy from renewable sources, security of supply, and strengthening energy research. Oberholzer also discussed the opportunities and challenges with energy storage and renewable sources, such as photovoltaics. Large storage systems were also the subject of a presentation from Michel Düren, a Professor at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. He concluded that the scientific community could play a leading role in demonstrating best practice for the energy transition that we are now facing.

Among the presentations from CERN was one from Laurent Tavian, High-Luminosity Project Office Coordinator, who presented a project for energy efficient refrigeration for the Future Circular Collider (FCC). Instead of conventional cryoplants, where helium is the refrigerant, the project found that a mix of helium and neon makes a more energy efficient cooling system. Over 10 years, this could save up to 3 TWh of energy.

Amalia Ballarino, CERN’s Head of Superconducting Devices, presented a project on magnesium diboride (MgB2) based power transmission lines for powering the High-Luminosity LHC superconducting magnets. Magnesium diboride is superconducting at 39K, the highest temperature among conventional superconductors, making it interesting from an energy efficiency perspective both for accelerator applications and for potential electricity distribution systems in towns and cities.

Serge Deleval, Deputy Group Leader for cooling and ventilation at CERN, gave a talk on water consumption and its environmental impacts, a first for this workshop series. He presented recent studies on minimising the increase of water consumption and reducing the environmental impact of cooling tower effluents.

In summing up the workshop, Frédérick Bordry, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, concluded very succinctly that: “Research infrastructures don’t want to represent an energy issue for society. We wish to contribute to good practices and find solutions for the future”.

The next workshop on Energy for Sustainable Science will be held in 2021 in Grenoble, France.

All the presentations from this year’s workshop can be found here.

News item also published in the CERN Bulletin.

Tags:

Sustainability

research infrastructures

FCC

HL-LHC

ARIES

Date published:

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Author:

Ebba Jakobsson

Article Category:

Issue:

Teaser:

On 28 and 29 November, CERN took part in the 5th Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures workshop at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Pinned:

Pinned on Issue page

Bringing particle accelerators on ships

Daniela Antonio — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 14:49:09 +0000

The captain of the Orkāns on the bridge

The captain of the Latvian tugboat Orkāns (“storm” in Latvian) could not believe his eyes when he saw a dozen physicists, engineers and technicians from four different European countries hastily working on the funnel of his vessel moored at the Riga Shipyard on the Baltic Sea. They were connecting a long pipe to a strange truck installed on shore. The reason for this turmoil is the choice of old and rusty Orkāns as a test-bed for the first futuristic experiment of cleaning the exhaust gas of a ship diesel engine, using a particle accelerator, with the goal of reducing the content of harmful pollutants.

The tugboat Orkāns. (Image: ARIES)

Maritime traffic is the largest contributor to air pollution at planetary level – a single cruise ship emits as much particulates as one million cars. To reduce its impact on the environment, stringent regulations will be implemented in the near future. Several technologies are being explored to reduce the content of sulphur and nitrogen oxides and of particulate matter in the exhausts of maritime diesel engines.

The solution proposed by accelerator scientists consists in a hybrid technology combining irradiation by an electron beam accelerator of a few hundred kilovolts, and subsequent purification in a “wet scrubber”. The electrons induce molecular excitation, ionization and dissociation, thus breaking the larger NOx and SOx molecules, and easing their removal in a small scrubber placed after the accelerator. The scrubber washes out the polluting molecules using water.

The test area, with the tugboat on the right, the accelerator truck in the center and the scrubber on the left. (Image: ARIES)

The Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (INCT) of Warsaw (Poland) is at the origin of this technology, which was immediately adopted by the ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society) Horizon 2020 Integrating Activity Project for Research Infrastructures. It is a remarkable example of how society could profit from particle accelerator technologies. A collaboration was formed within the Project, aiming at the real-scale test of the technology, profiting from the different competences of the ARIES partners and of the collaborative ecosystem created by the Project.

The Riga Technical University (Latvia) organized the experiment and secured the ship, the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (Poland) designed and procured the scrubber and the closed water system and performed the tests, the Fraunhofer FEP of Dresden (Germany) made available a movable electron beam accelerator on truck routinely used to sterilize crops and contributed to the tests and to the integration. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva (Switzerland), provided support and consultancy.

The old and rusty Orkāns, built in Soviet times, turned out to be the perfect test bench. It is a small tugboat with a powerful, but old engine that could easily be made available for the duration of the tests. A long pipe, equipped with several detectors, connected the tugboat – moored at the Riga Shipyard – to the accelerator on-a-truck, where a specially built chamber allowed the treatment of the exhausts, which then passed through the small scrubber, before being finally released into air.

The connecting pipe and the accelerator on truck. (Image: ARIES)

The first measurements confirmed the expected reduction in pollutants. The final results will be made available only after a full analysis of the measurements done at different engine powers and operating conditions. The data collected by this experiment will be used to finalize the proposal for the next step in the progress of this technology. A dedicated project will be submitted to a Horizon 2020 call for Societal Challenges, with the goal of installing and testing a specially designed accelerator on a real cargo ship, to be made available by the Italian Grimaldi shipping company.

Measurement of exhaust composition. (Image: ARIES)

Toms Torims of the Riga Technical University, who supervised the test, declared, “We have to consider that this long rusty pipe actually connects two worlds, the world of shipping and the world of scientific particle accelerators. Their technologies and their languages are entirely different, but if we succeed in having them working together, we have the potential for a great advance in this technology”.

Maurizio Vretenar of CERN, coordinator of the ARIES project, added, “Technological leaps always appear at the boundary between technologies. Here, thanks to the ARIES project, we join accelerator physics, chemistry and engineering. All the conditions are there for a substantial progress towards the preservation of our environment. On top of that, we have seen people from four different European countries working together for a common goal, showing that Europeans, when united, can make great achievements”.

Tags:

accelerators

ARIES

Environmental Protection

Date published:

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Author:

Maurizio Vretenar (CERN)

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

Issue 29

Teaser:

The first test to use a particle accelerator to clean the exhaust gases of a ship took place in Riga in July 2019. The first results are encouraging.

Pinned:

Pinned on Issue page

Budapest welcomes the 2nd ARIES Annual Meeting

Daniela Antonio — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:16:19 +0000

The ARIES 2nd Annual Meeting brought 128 of the project’s participants to Budapest to discuss the main accomplishments of the project’s second year. The event’s programme encompassed eight specialised sessions on topics that range between reports from the networks, joint research activities, transnational access and proof-of-concept, the future of European projects on accelerators, with future prospects on medical applications for accelerators bringing the plenary session to a close.

ARIES, a H2020 Integrating Activity with an EC contribution of 10 million euros, is a project coordinated by CERN that aims to improve the performance, accessibility, and sustainability of particle accelerators, while transferring the benefits and applications of its technologies to science and society. The 45 beneficiaries, from 18 countries, bring the necessary expertise from laboratories, universities and industries. They gather yearly for a status update and strategic planning for the upcoming year.

Two workshops preceded and followed the main event, on the topics of Additive Manufacturing and Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS), respectively. These highly targeted and advanced workshops, organised by the Work Package 14 – Promoting Innovation, brought together over one hundred participants to discuss challenges and applications of these technologies.

Maurizio Vretenar, ARIES project coordinator, introducing the workshop Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Technologies for Accelerator Application. (Image: ARIES)

The workshop Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Technologies for Accelerator Application was the first academia-meets-industry event of the project. The workshop’s aim was to bring together researchers from academia, laboratories and industry, providing a platform for a useful exchange of technical information. The day was organized around a series of presentations about the current and future opportunities in additive manufacturing with particular reference to accelerator applications. A final panel discussion focused on the field of materials for superconductors and on commonalities between accelerators technologies and other areas like aerospace and construction engineering.

“Topical meetings among academia and industry experts are key to create vital networks for the commercial feasibility of novel concepts within accelerator science,” explained Marcello Losasso, Knowledge Transfer Office at CERN and member of the organising committee. Almost 50 participants attended and contributed to the discussion during the workshop, in a balanced representation of industry, funding institutions, large research facilities, and universities. Participants and speakers made a positive balance of the day, reporting on the new and interesting contacts they made.

The main event started the following day with the parallel Work Packages meetings at the event’s venue, the Korona Mercure Hotel, where teams had the opportunity to discuss in detail their main achievements and challenges. Tuesday morning allowed for the meeting of the ARIES Ship Exhaust Project, the Sustainability Working Group, and the Governing Board and Steering Committee Meeting. The ARIES plenary sessions took place from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning, focusing on highlights from the project’s networks, transnational access and joint research activities, and innovation projects. These highlights include the first tests of materials, parts and systems performed in the context of the Transnational Access programme, updates from projects that received proof-of-concept funding, and a special session on the application of future accelerator technology to medicine.

Networking activities reported developments in topics such as the use of electron beams for sludge treatment; energy efficiency in radiofrequency cavities, in beam acceleration and neutron sources. Other developments include beam tests and commissioning of 4th generation ultra-low emittance rings, advanced diagnostics at accelerators, as well as developments in accelerator performance and concepts, and experimental tests of CLIC damping rings at ALBA. Besides technical developments, the networks also reported on the communication and outreach workshop for communication officers across Europe; the community input to the new European Strategy for Particle Physics; and the development of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) directed towards students at the end of their first cycle of higher education.

Proof-of-Concept Fund: supporting the application of novel concepts in accelerator science

Year 2 of the ARIES project saw the start of the projects selected for Proof-of-Concept (PoC) funding.

PoC funding was granted to projects involving the development of a hybrid electron-accelerator system for the treatment of marine diesel exhaust gases (a wide collaboration coordinated by RTU, Riga Technical university); preparing innovative composite materials, with tailored thermo-physical properties (RHP and GSI); testing a novel technology for developing Superconducting Radio Frequency Cavities (CEA and Zanon); and developing an advanced optical imaging system (University of Liverpool and D-Beam).

At this stage, the first tests of the marine diesel treatment system are foreseen during June and July 2019, having previously performed intense consultations, calculations, simulations and drawings of the system designed and partially installed. RHP is currently tackling several challenges related to the physical and electrical properties of diamonds with copper and aluminium. CEA’s work, if proved successful, could dramatically affect the construction and operational cost of large accelerator projects, such as FCC and CLIC. The University of Liverpool expects applications in beam diagnostic for light sources and synchrotrons.

“The four projects funded by ARIES Proof-of-Concept were approved by the Evaluation Committee, according to a well prepared and managed process,” explains Marcello Losasso. “They have been able to mobilize budget amounts 10 times larger than the small PoC funding of fifty thousand euros originally released. All the projects are progressing well and according to the agreed work plan.”

With the goal of triggering other collaborations and promoting innovation through specific actions developed in partnership with industry – such as these projects and collaborations supported by Proof-of-Concept funding – the second academia-industry gathering will be organized in UK in 2020.

Future accelerators for medicine: the medical applications of accelerator science

The talents of accelerators go beyond fundamental research, providing crucial technology for areas such as material sciences, medical imaging and treatment, energy research, and cultural heritage. One of the special sessions in the plenary of the ARIES 2nd Annual Meeting focused on one of this areas and featured a series of presentations on the applications of future accelerator technology in medicine.

Among the highlights from this session are:

the launching of a new design study for a carbon ion facility, with the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST) as the main beneficiary;
the advancements made by the Helmholtz Association on laser plasma proton accelerators for therapy, including the study for pulsed gantry, which has just made the pulsed beam transport operational, its first volumetric irradiation, putting small-animal image-guided radiobiology within reach;
developments in addressing the challenges, primarily related to their cost/complexity, of superconducting magnets for medical cyclotrons, synchrocyclotrons, and gantries;
and new electron LINAC therapies and accelerator designs, that might exploit the simple design and high current capability of electron linacs to treat tumours minimising the dose to normal tissue. Some of these approaches use direct treatment with high-energy electrons, such as Very High Energy Electrons (VHEE); or different dose-delivery methods, such as FLASH RT.

After an update from the transnational access programme, the proof-of-concept updates, and the special session on the future of accelerators for medicine, the plenary session ended with a word from the project coordinator Maurizio Vretenar on the topic of a new programme that is just entering the preparation phase, the Innovation Pilot “Innovation in Accelerator Technologies”. The collaborative work reported by the project’s networking activities comes through as especially significant in supporting and building up the community’s proposal.

Group photo of participants of the workshop Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS). (Image: ARIES)

The workshop Accelerator Magnets in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) closed the event, bringing together 66 participants and speakers from various institutes for two days of a highly focused programme on HTS superconductivity. “There is a lot of initiative on HTS in various sectors – fusions, accelerators, laboratory magnets, NMR, energy and power, medical, etc. – but the community is scattered, so the workshop provided a platform for experts to meet and focus in a few critical points of knowledge sharing,” said Lucio Rossi, a member of the workshop’s Organising Committee.

The workshop focused on current redistribution in tapes, cable and coils with a REBCO conductor, quench protection, and NI (non-insulated) coils. On the latter, Lucio Rossi explained: “The “directive” of magnet builders has always been to provide perfectly insulated coils. Crazy as it seems, we have now realised that NI technology might have a chance for application in accelerators, which will make HTS technology much easier to use in future hadron colliders.”

Participants made a positive assessment of the workshop, especially on the highly focused programme and all the time left for discussion across a broad range of expertise. “The unique capability of the high-energy physics community to put together material scientists, magnet designers, magnet engineers, and specialists of various support disciplines was highly appreciated, especially by participants coming from other communities, such as fusion, medical, and industry,” adds Rossi.

Activities will continue in year 3 of ARIES and the community will come together again in April 2020, in Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal, for the third assessment of the projects’ results and impact.

Tags:

ARIES

Annual Meeting

Date published:

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Author:

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

Issue 29

Teaser:

ARIES Annual Meeting highlights reports from networks, transnational access, proof-of-concept projects, workshops and a special session on accelerator science applied to medicine.

Simon van der Meer Award

Livia Lapadatescu — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:34:43 +0000

The Simon van der Meer Award, established in 2019, aims to recognize outstanding early career contributions (theoretical, experimental, computational or technical) in novel accelerator science. It is sponsored by the European Network for Novel Accelerators (EuroNNAc), which is part of the ARIES project. EuroNNAc is coordinated by DESY, CERN, Ecole Polytechnique, University of Oxford, INFN Frascati and CEA. The Simon van der Meer Award will be awarded every two years at the European Advanced Accelerator Concepts workshop (EAAC).

Eligible candidates must be within 12 years of the completion of their first university degree or equivalent, excluding career breaks (e.g. maternity or paternity leave, adoption). There is no restriction as to nationality. The research recognized could be either a single piece of work, or the sum of contributions.

The award recognizes one individual researcher and consists of a stipend of € 3.000 and a certificate citing the contributions of the recipient. During the award ceremony there will be a short laudatio to the selected candidate followed by a presentation given by the laureate

Application

Applications should be sent to this email address by 27 May 2019 (the whole file cannot exceed 20 MB), and should include:

1. Name and email address of the nominee.

2. Proposed award citation (no more than 35 words).

3. A one-page narrative/introductory statement describing the nominee's novel, pioneering, or leading edge accomplishments, with an emphasis on how their work has been recognised as especially promising.

4. Nominee's resume or CV, listing educational background, positions held, and highlighting key: publications, patents, awards, honours, activities, reports or product releases.

5. Four letters of recommendation; diversity of support is preferred; not all letters of recommendation should come from the nominee's institution. The name and email address is required for each reference.

6. If the candidate has taken a career break, a brief explanation for the nature of the break is requested.

7. The nominee’s agreement that their data is stored and processed for the purpose of the whole award procedure.

Header image: Picture of a plasma cell (Credit: DESY, Heiner Müller-Elsner)

Tags:

ARIES

euronnac

novel accelerators

Date published:

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Author:

Livia Lapadatescu

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

Issue 28

Teaser:

Apply now to Simon van der Meer Early Career Award in Novel Accelerators! Deadline: 27 May 2019

Pinned:

Pinned on Issue page

The future of communication and outreach for accelerators

Daniela Antonio — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 14:37:43 +0000

The ARIES consortium organized a workshop for communication officers of the European accelerator infrastructures and Physics centres. Under the name Accelerator Communication and Outreach (ACO) Workshop, the event took place on 5-6 November, at CERN.

“We wanted to engage communication officers in defining how to increase the effectiveness of outreach activities for particle physics’ and light sources' accelerators,” said Phil Burrows, leader of WP2 – Training, Communication and Outreach for Accelerator Science for ARIES.

The group of sixteen representatives from the accelerator communication community had a specific task: to fill nine flipcharts with communication challenges, specific actions the community might take to answer them and the necessary resources to implement such an action plan for accelerators.

Challenges, best practices and actions during the two working days

After a brief welcome from Phil Burrows, Sarah Davies, from PCST – Public Communication of Science and Technology, was the Keynote Speaker, providing a short talk about science communication and communication networks. "From my experience, networks and associated events are one way for science communicators to avoid constantly reinventing the wheel," said Sarah on the topic of knowledge-sharing.

James Gillies, Advisor for Strategic Planning and Evaluation at CERN, continued with a talk about communication strategy, thus setting the context and guidelines for the following discussion. In the end, participants shared, during the two hourly sessions, a recent communication challenge or solution, in the form 5-minute presentations.

From the importance of keeping good relations with your neighbours and engaging policy-makers, to having someone actively coordinate an organization or network’s activities full-time, to initiatives like Accelerate! and Mísion ALBA, and the importance of matching the right platform to the right audience, the ARIES team and the participants had the opportunity to listen to the learnings and challenges of the several sides of a good communications strategy.

For the second day, participants reflected on the challenges and solutions from the previous day. Do accelerator infrastructures share common goals? Would a network be useful, in parallel to others like lightsources.org and interactions.org? How to engage different audiences of research infrastructures – politicians, the public, funding agencies, industry – with a limited amount of resources?

“The ARIES ACO workshop highlighted the common challenges our community faces when communicating about accelerators and science,” said Anais Rassat, who acted as facilitator for the challenge and brainstorm sessions of the workshop.

By the end of the second day of activities, in answering these questions, participants had agreed on specific steps the community should undertake to promote accelerator communication and outreach, considering limitations such as resources and different short-term agendas.

One of the activities for the next year is create a channel to share best practices.

The ARIES consortium thus invites researchers and science communicators in the accelerator community to share their initiatives and other communication resources in Accelerating News. The editors are looking to share initiatives, methods in evaluation and monitoring, and impact surveys and studies.

Please send your contributions at: acceleratingnews.eu/contact

Tags:

Accelerator Communication and Outreach

ARIES

Date published:

Monday, December 10, 2018

Author:

Daniela Antonio (CERN)

Article Category:

ACO

ARI

Issue:

Issue 27

Teaser:

Members from the accelerator communication community gathered at CERN for a workshop.

High thermal performance materials

Daniela Antonio — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 08:15:35 +0000

Figure 1. (CERN)

CERN, GSI, POLITO and POLIMI carry out an extensive characterization campaign of a broad range of advanced materials for applications in future particle accelerators, as well as high-technology industrial domains. The collaboration characterized both novel materials, currently under development, as well as commercially available carbon-based materials, including thin-film coatings. This work has been developed in the context of the H2020 project ARIES.

The development and use of high thermal performance materials, with low mass density and excellent resistance to thermal shocks, is increasingly becoming an enabling technology in a broad range of industrial and research applications.

In industry, these materials are appealing in a number of fields, such as high power electronics, avionics, energy production, aerospace, nuclear engineering, and luxury sports automotive. Researchers and engineers working in these domains require materials with efficient thermal management, high temperature resistance and mechanical robustness. In the field of fundamental research, some components of the high-energy particle accelerators largely share these requirements. In fact, beam-intercepting devices (BID), such as collimators, beam absorbers, catchers, dumps and targets, are routinely exposed to the impact of highly energetic and intense particle beams, making the selection of key materials extremely important.

This is especially true for the next-generation of accelerator facilities like the High-Luminosity upgrade of LHC (HL-LHC) at CERN, the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI, or the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC). They will exhibit increased beam intensities (in some cases by orders of magnitude). In combination with the shorter pulse lengths and greater particle densities requested by physics experiments, this leads to significantly higher transient thermo-mechanical loads in all beam-intercepting devices. Additionally, materials for some of these components must possess high electric conductivity to limit the destabilizing effects they may induce on particle beams circulating in their close vicinity.

Unfortunately, no existing material possesses the combination of physical, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties, imposed by such extreme working conditions. For instance, the material currently employed for the absorbers of LHC Collimator jaws (a two-dimensional carbon-fibre-reinforced carbon composite – CFC – ) is predicted not to satisfy the full set of requirements imposed by the severe working conditions expected in the HL-LHC from 2026. In particular, numerical simulations indicate that the limited electrical conductivity of CFC may induce electro-magnetic instabilities in the particle beam.

In recent years, CERN has collaborated with international laboratories, universities and industries to address these issues. After having commenced in the framework of EuCARD and EuCARD-2 projects, this partnership is continuing within H2020 ARIES collaboration, Work Package 17 (PowerMat), a Joint Research Activity, in cooperation with Work Package 14 (Promoting Innovation).

Carbon-based materials have a long history of applications in beam intercepting devices and their harsh radiation environments, thanks to their low activation, high radiation-hardness, thermal stability in combination with improved strength at high temperatures and low density. PowerMat focuses on the exploration of advanced types of carbons, such as various grades of isotropic graphite, thermal pyrolytic graphite, CFC and carbon foams. It has also targeted the development of novel composite materials based on the combination of graphite and diamond with metals or high performance ceramics.

In this context, a family of new graphite-matrix composites, reinforced with molybdenum carbides (Molybdenum Carbide – Graphite, MoGr) has been co-developed by CERN and Brevetti Bizz, an Italian SME, with the goal of increasing the electrical conductivity of the materials for the primary and secondary collimator jaws, while maintaining or improving the beam impact robustness of CFC. To further enhance the electrical conductivity of the jaw surface exposed to the beam, a thin film of electrically conductive metals or ceramics can be applied to the MoGr bulk material. Solutions under development are, for example, molybdenum, copper and titanium nitride coatings.

In order to assess the performance of these materials and gain a deeper understanding of their response to beam-induced dynamic thermal shocks, dedicated experiments are carried out at facilities like CERN’s High-Radiation to Materials (HiRadMat), GSI’s UNILAC and SIS 18 accelerators, with short-pulse, high-intensity beams.

Figure 2. (CERN)

WP17 partners have performed an extensive characterization of both commercially available advanced materials and newly developed composites. The characterization performed included the study of materials morphology and microstructure, the measurement of their thermal, electrical and mechanical properties, as well as their behaviour in ultra-high vacuum, and the study of application of thin films on the surfaces of the bulk materials. This campaign has allowed quantifying the advantages of novel composites, compared to commercial materials and has laid the ground for further optimizations and improvements in the development of advanced thermal management materials. It will be complemented in the course of the projects by additional characterization campaigns, including examination after long-term irradiation and experiments under high intensity particle pulses.

During the course of this work, the ARIES Consortium also plans to engage experts from space, aviation, car and electronic industry to exchange ideas on the latest developments in design, manufacture, testing and applications of novel thermal management materials. These industries could consider the novel materials developed in this WP for advanced engineering solutions, efficient energy solutions and thermal management, given their excellent thermal conductivity and high mechanical and shock resistance.

Tags:

Material Characterization

Date published:

Monday, October 8, 2018

Author:

Alessandro Bertarelli (CERN)

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

Issue 26

Teaser:

ARIES has launched an extensive characterization campaign of a broad range of high thermal performance materials for applications in future particle accelerators and the industry.

Pinned:

Pinned on Issue page

How to access free of charge state-of-the-art accelerator testing facilities across Europe?

Sabrina El Yacoubi — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 14:15:41 +0000

ARIES offers the opportunity to conduct testing at 14 European research facilities to project members through its Transnational Access programme at no cost to the user. The facilities from 5 different countries, provide equipment and administrative support in 5 separate domains: magnet testing, material testing, electron and proton beam testing, radiofrequency testing and plasma beam testing.

Who can apply? Access can be provided to selected teams composed of one or more researchers led by a User Group Leader. Leaders and the majority of users in the group must work in a country other than where the selected installation is located, except when accessing an international organisation or remotely accessing a facility.

Wondering which kind of equipment and infrastructures are available? All the details are on the ARIES website for you to find the best suited option for your research. You will be then invited to contact the facility coordinator of the chosen installation prior to completing a formal application and submit it to ARIES-TA@cern.ch. CERN, University of Uppsala, GSI, KIT, CEA, DESY, STFC, CNRS and University of Lund will provide you with further information on the feasibility of your project.

All the projects carried on through the programme must disseminate the results acknowledging the ARIES project.

Tags:

Date published:

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Author:

Sabrina El yacoubi

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

issue 25

Author description:

CERN

Teaser:

Apply for the Transnational Access Programme

Pinned:

Pinned on Issue page

ARIES first annual meeting in Riga

Romain Muller — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 12:46:35 +0000

Participants to the ARIES 1st Annual Meeting met at RTU in Riga (Image: CERN)

From the 22nd to 25th of May, 2018, 112 participants joined the first Annual Meeting of the ARIES project hosted by Riga Technical University (RTU) in Riga, Latvia. 41 Beneficiaries from 18 EU Countries were represented to celebrate the first year of the project, which coincided with the 100 years of the creation of the State of Latvia at the end of World War I.

Professor Tālis Juhna, as Vice-Rector for Research at RTU, welcomed the participants and expressed his happiness to see the first Annual Meeting taking place in Riga, the first gathering of this kind for the project, after the Kick-Off held at CERN in 2017. He noted that, from the Project’s Governing Board he attended just before the opening session, more milestones than scheduled had already been reached, setting a promising pace for ARIES. He also touched upon the added-value for RTU to be part of the ARIES cooperation and the expertise that RTU, as an engineering powerhouse, can bring to the project and beyond.

Professor Toms Torims, Director of RTU Center of High Energy Physics and Accelerator Technologies, took the floor and shared, in an emotional stance: “It is difficult to talk when your dreams come true. Thank you for being here and for celebrating, beyond science, the 100 years of Latvia. If you like Latvia, we will like you!” Latvia is actively promoting the opportunities offered by its ecosystem to create great value for investments, in particular in the field of Research and Innovation (R&I). It took on board the challenge to position itself at a cross-road, in order to link its activities with major European R&I powerhouses.

Maurizio Vretenar, as ARIES Project Coordinator, welcomed the participants as well, and thanked RTU for hosting the event. He placed this Annual Meeting under the auspices of science, inviting all the attendees to focus on delivering value beyond generating deliverables. He reminded the audience of the level of ambition of the project:

4 Pillars: Excellence, Access, Innovation and Sustainability
18 Work Packages
8 Networks
5 Transnational Access facilities
5 Joint Research Activities

2018 is an important year for particle physics as the deadline for the Call for input to the European Strategy Update is set for December. “This represents a great opportunity for creativity and vision development for particle accelerator science,” says Maurizio. “And ARIES has a particular role to play in exploring new ideas, besides the major programmes of FCC, ILC and CLIC. We can do it through disruptive thinking more than just extrapolation.” This is also why part of the programme was dedicated to novel ideas such as the gamma factory, the muon collider and innovative colliders based on laser and plasma technologies.

Already in EuCARD-2, a strong focus was put on accelerators’ applications. This is at the heart of ARIES, with initiatives such as the workshop on co-innovation held with industry in February 2018, to find new ways to work closer together. A Proof of Concept Fund is also available for small projects, in order to test the commercial viability of a research concept. 10 very good proposals were received and the evaluation process was just completed with the selection of four extremely promising innovative ideas. Read more about the winners of the ARIES Proof-of-Concept fund...

The project has gained visibility with the ARIES presentation video posted in February 2018, reaching more than 10 000 views on social media.

A tribute was also paid to Professor Enzo Palmieri of INFN Legnaro, who passed away this year and whose contributions were recognised by the community.

The Project Coordinator closed his introductory speech by highlighting that the most frequent word in the ARIES Description of Work is the verb WILL. And before the Annual Meeting went on with presentations from the Work Packages engaging the community all together, he invited the participants to reflect on how their work will open to the future of accelerators.

Tags:

ARIES

Annual Meeting

Project

Date published:

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Author:

Romain Muller (CERN)

Article Category:

ARI

Issue:

issue 25

Teaser:

One year after the Kick-off, where does the project stand?