CCEJanCover1 24/1/06 9:37 Page 1 COURIER - … · Python developers swap ideas. SC |05 showcases...

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A new life for Super-KamiokandeHEAVY IONSNew data presentedin Budapest p25

I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L O F H I G H - E N E R G Y P H Y S I C S

ACCELERATORSHERA achieves record luminosity p7

COMPUTING NEWSNew Globus toolkit aidsGrid community p23

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CONTENTS

3CERN Cour ier January/February 2006

CERNCOURIER

VOLUME 46 NUMBER 1 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006

Rebuild for neutrino detector p6 CERN facilities under review p32

News 5LHC’s installation makes progress. Open access moves ahead for physics.Super-Kamiokande gets full refit. Belle achieves new luminosity record.Superconducting RF technology forum unites research and industry. HERAhits record annual luminosity. Auger observatory celebrates progress.

Sciencewatch 9

Astrowatch 10

CERN Courier Archive 11

Computing News and Features 13ETICS assures quality on the Grid. Grid researchers get one online identity.Python developers swap ideas. SC|05 showcases high-energy computing.CNL is 40 years old. Meeting highlights Grid potential. Middleware has twoimportant additions. W3C improves features for transforming and queryingXML. Tackling the challenge of lattice QCD. Globus Toolkit upgrade aids theGrid community. Towards a read–write Web.

FeaturesQuarks matter in Budapest 25News from the Quark Matter 2005 conference on heavy-ion collisions.

Particles in Portugal: new high-energy physics results 28A report on the EPS HEP conference in Lisbon.

CERN’s low-energy frontier 32NuPAC meeting provides overview of research at ISOLDE and n_TOF.

PHYSTAT: making the most of statistical techniques 35A series of meetings connects physicists with statisticians.

The future looks bright for particle channelling 37Advances in the use of ordered structures to manipulate particle beams.

Tokyo meeting focuses on nuclear-spin problem 39Circum-pan-Pacific symposium brings spin experts together.

Faces and Places 41

Recruitment 46

Bookshelf 54

Cover: Installation of photomultiplier tubes in the Super-Kamiokande detector in October marked the start of the detector’sfull restoration following the destruction of thousands of tubes in 2001 (p6). (Photo courtesy Super-Kamiokande.).

Covering current developments in high-energy physics and related fields worldwide

CERN Courier is distributed to member-state governments,institutes and laboratories affiliated with CERN, and to theirpersonnel. It is published monthly, except for January andAugust. The views expressed are not necessarily those of theCERN management.

Editor Christine SuttonCERN, 1211 Geneva 23, SwitzerlandE-mail: [email protected]: +41 (0) 22 785 0247Web: cerncourier.com

Advisory board James Gillies, Rolf Landua and Maximilian Metzger

Laboratory correspondents:Argonne National Laboratory (US): D AyresBrookhaven National Laboratory (US): P YaminCornell University (US): D G CasselDESY Laboratory (Germany): Ilka Flegel, Petra FolkertsFermi National Accelerator Laboratory (US): Judy JacksonForschungszentrum Jülich (Germany): Markus BuescherGSI Darmstadt (Germany): G SiegertINFN (Italy): Barbara GallavottiIHEP, Beijing (China): Tongzhou XuJefferson Laboratory (US): Steven CorneliussenJINR Dubna (Russia): B StarchenkoKEK National Laboratory (Japan): Youhei MoritaLawrence Berkeley Laboratory (US): Spencer KleinLos Alamos National Laboratory (US): C HoffmannNIKHEF Laboratory (Netherlands): Paul de JongNovosibirsk Institute (Russia): S EidelmanOrsay Laboratory (France): Anne-Marie LutzPPARC (UK): Peter BarrattPSI Laboratory (Switzerland): P-R KettleRutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK): Jacky HutchinsonSaclay Laboratory (France): Elisabeth LocciIHEP, Serpukhov (Russia): Yu RyabovStanford Linear Accelerator Center (US): Neil CalderTRIUMF Laboratory (Canada): Marcello Pavan

Produced for CERN by Institute of Physics Publishing LtdInstitute of Physics Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back,Bristol BS1 6BE, UKTel: +44 (0)117 929 7481; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: iop.org

Publishing director Richard RoePublisher Jo NicholasArt director Andrew GiaquintoProduction editor Jonathan CailesTechnical illustrator Alison ToveyDisplay advertisement manager Jonathan BaronDeputy advertisement manager Ed JostDisplay sales North America John LambRecruitment and classified sales Kathryn Zerboni, Moo Ali and Adam HylandsAdvertisement production Katie GrahamProduct manager Claire Webber

Advertising Jonathan Baron, Ed Jost, John Lamb, Kathryn Zerboni,Moo Ali or Adam HylandsTel: +44 (0)117 930 1265 (for UK/Europe display advertising), +1 215 627 0880 (for North American display advertising), or +44 (0)117 930 1196 (for recruitment advertising); E-mail: [email protected]; Fax: +44 (0)117 930 1178

General distribution Jacques Dallemagne, CERN, 1211 Geneva23, Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected] certain countries, to request copies or to make addresschanges, contact:China Keqing Ma, Library, Institute of High Energy Physics, PO Box 918, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected] Veronika Werschner, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Loredana Rum or Anna Pennacchietti, INFN, Casella Postale56, 00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] Mark Swaisland, Chadwick Library, Daresbury Laboratory,Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire WA4 4AD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]/Canada Published by Cern Courier, 6N246 Willow Drive, St Charles, IL 60175, US. Periodical postage paid in St Charles, IL,US. Fax: 630 377 1569. E-mail: [email protected]: send address changes to: Creative MailingServices, PO Box 1147, St Charles, IL 60174, US

Published by European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN,1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. Tel: +41 (0) 22 767 61 11Telefax: +41 (0) 22 767 65 55

Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK

© 2006 CERN ISSN 0304-288X

Beetles’ shine explained p9

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“This award is granted to suppliers who have notonly met our stringent requirements, but have alsoexceeded them – in terms of technical performanceand cost efficiency – by exploring and implementingimprovements above their contractual obligations”

Lyndon R. Evans, CERN, LHC Project Leader

With the first joint CERN-ECFA study onthe feasibility of constructing the LHC in theLEP tunnel in the mid eighties of the lastcentury, CERN started an intensive de-velopment programme for the main com-ponents as they were not available in therequired performance. Even in this earlystage, this also included development pro-grammes together with industry in view ofan industrialization of the unique com-ponents.

One crucial step was the development ofdipole magnets, which were required in ahuge number and a unique quality con-cerning homogeneity and intensity of themagnetic field. In own laboratories CERNfirst manufactured 1m-long models ofthese dipole magnets. This programmewas accompanied by correspondingactivities launched by CERN in industry.

The activities started in 1990 at BabcockNoell Nuclear (BNN) with the manufactureof two 10m-long cold masses. Themagnets were straight, having a five blockstructure with aluminium collars and a

superconducting cable of a width of 17mmwith a fibreglass insulation. Test resultsshowed that the development has the rightdirection, but there was still a long way togo in terms of an optimization of themachine parameters.

The first magnets were followed by furtherprototypes of 10m in length and then finallyof 15m length which were bent. Additionalfeatures were optimized, like inventing asix-block structure, stainless steel collars,reduction of the cable width to 15 mm andthe use of an all polyimide insulation. Withthe background of the results of the coldtests the development was consistentlysupported by CERN in order to reach therequired magnet performance. Finally thefirst industrial magnet of the final design

was built by BNN.

With achieved results in 1999, a pre-seriesproduction of 30 magnets and in 2002 theseries production of 386 magnets werecontracted by CERN to three suppliers inGermany, France and Italy.

BNN commenced with a clear commitmentto produce 3.5 magnets a week and tofinalize the production end of 2005 insteadof the contractual schedule mid 2006. Ofcourse to achieve this goal CERN also hadto go to great efforts especially in the supplyof the necessary components. In goodspirit and in a very cooperative mannerboth partners succeeded. Finally BNNfinished the production of the dipoles in therequired quality as the first of the threesuppliers more than 7 months ahead of thecontractual schedule.

CERN has recognised this with the GoldenHadron Award for BNN. BNN would like tothank CERN for 15 years of successfulcooperation.

NEWS


CERN’s director-general, Robert Aymarpraised the immense progress made towardsthe Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project whenhe addressed the 135th session of the CERNCouncil on 16 December 2005. “In one year,we have made great progress,” he said. “Thechallenge is not over, of course, but we havegreat confidence of maintaining the schedulefor start-up in 2007.”

The LHC is the leading project for theworld’s particle-physics community.Experiments performed there will investigateperplexing questions including whyfundamental particles have the masses theyhave, and focus on understanding the missingmass and dark energy of the universe; visiblematter seems to make up just 5% of whatmust exist. Physicists will also explore thereason for nature’s inclination for matter overantimatter, and probe matter as it existedimmediately after the Big Bang.

Aymar’s congratulations come after achallenging year with delays imposed byrepairing defects in the LHC’s cryogenic-fluiddistribution system. These delays are nowlargely recovered. The cryogenic system is nowwell advanced and installation of the LHC’s

magnets is progressing rapidly. Almost 1000of the 1232 dipole magnets have beendelivered to CERN and more than 200magnets are already installed in the LHC’sunderground tunnel. An average of 20 magnetsa week are currently being installed, but thisneeds to increase to 25 a week in 2006 toreach the 2007 start-up deadline. A review of

this schedule is planned for Spring 2006. Aymar also informed delegates that CERN’s

new visitor and networking centre, the Globe ofScience and Innovation, opened its doors tothe public in September 2005. The Globe isscheduled to host a permanent exhibitionabout scientific works at CERN, coinciding withthe LHC start-up in 2007.

Eighty representatives from several majorphysics publishers, European particle-physicslaboratories, learned societies, fundingagencies and authors from Europe and the USmet at CERN on 7–8 December 2005 for thefirst discussions on promoting open-accesspublishing. One of the results was theformation of a task-force mandated to bringaction by 2007.

Open access is currently a hot topic atuniversities, publishing houses andgovernments, as digitized documentation andelectronic networking become moremainstream. The particle-physics communityhas already implemented one of the possibleways for open access to work, wherebyinstitutional libraries, such as CERN’s, maketheir own information available on theInternet. The other approach is to workdirectly with scientific publishers to developopen access to the journals.

The aim of open access is to bring greaterbenefit to society by allowing electronic accessto journals to be free to the public, while being

paid for by the authors. The time-honouredpractice consisted of publishers financingjournals through reader subscriptions andensuring quality by peer review; however, thismodel favours the wealthier universities andinstitutions as they can afford the expensivecosts of the journals. The challenge for openaccess is to maintain the quality guaranteedby academic publishers, while broadeningaccess to the information.

The creation of an open-access task-forcecomes at a crucial time for the world particle-physics community as 2007 brings the launchof a new major facility, the Large HadronCollider at CERN.

LHC’s installation makes progressC E R N

The first section of the LHC cryogenic distribution line, corresponding to an eighth of theaccelerator, has been tested at a temperature of 10 K since the end of November 2005.

Réalisation du LHC: le CERN a bien avancé! 5La publication en libre accès va de l’avant 5Super-Kamiokande bientôt entièrement rénové 6Belle atteint une luminosité intégrée record 6

Le forum sur la technologie radiofréquence supraconductrice unit recherche et industrie 7HERA atteint une luminosité sans précédent 7L’Observatoire Pierre Auger en fête 8

Sommaire

Open-access movesahead for physics

P U B L I S H I N G

CCEJanNews5-8 23/1/06 16:20

NEWS

6 CERN Cour ier January/February 2006

Operation of the Super-Kamiokande (SK) IIdetector in Japan was terminated last Octoberafter three years of running to begin a fullrestoration of the detector. Precise studies onneutrinos will resume next June.

The SK detector consists of a cylindrical tankcontaining 50 000 tonnes of pure water viewedby about 11 000 photomultipliers (PMTs) of50 cm diameter. The water tank is 40 m inheight and 40 m in diameter, and located1000 m underground. Neutrinos interact withthe water and give rise to Cherenkov light,which provides information about the neutrinoenergy, direction and type or flavour. In 1998,the collaboration announced that neutrinoschange flavour – oscillate – which is possibleonly if the particles have mass. The evidencecame from observing neutrinos created bycosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. Thiswas followed in 2001 by evidence for theoscillations of solar neutrinos in the combineddata from SK and the Sudbury NeutrinoObservatory. More recently, the KEK-to-Kamioka (K2K) experiment, using a man-madeneutrino beam from KEK to the SK detector hasconfirmed the oscillations observed in theatmospheric neutrinos.

Several thousands of PMTs in the detectorwere destroyed in November 2001, when theshock wave from the implosion of one PMT atthe bottom of the tank triggered a chainreaction of implosions in more than half thePMTs (CERN Courier January/February 2002p6). In 2002, the detector was partiallyreconstructed using about 5000 PMTs encasedin plastic covers to avoid a similar accident.This partial reconstruction was done quickly inonly a year in order to continue the K2Kexperiment. After three years of operation as

SK-II, with half the original density of PMTs, thelong awaited full reconstruction of the detectorhas now begun. Next June, the detector’s thirdphase, SK-III, will start to take data again.

The discovery of neutrino oscillations hasopened up a new window of research with avariety of subjects for SK to tackle. Anexperiment using an intense neutrino beamfrom Tokai – Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) – isexpected to start in 2009. The beam will beproduced by a 50 GeV proton synchrotronbeing constructed at the Japan ProtonAccelerator Research Complex in Tokai (CERNCourier November 2004 p41). SK-III will be the

far detector at a distance of 295 km from thebeam-production point. The T2K experimentwill determine neutrino oscillation parametersprecisely and search for effects of the neutrinomixing angle, θ13, which is so far unobserved.

A longer exposure to atmospheric neutrinoswill be important in searching for a resonantmatter effect in the Earth and may help toresolve the octant ambiguity in the mixing angleθ23. At the lower energies of solar neutrinos, anup-turn in the spectrum is expected as directevidence for large-mixing-angle solutions andwill provide precise oscillation parameters. Thehigher statistics from several years of exposureshould allow this measurement.

SK could also detect several thousandneutrino interactions from a galacticsupernova. Such a large number of eventswould reveal details of the supernovaexplosion mechanism, as well as informationon the properties of neutrinos. The positiveidentification of electron-antineutrinos in SKcould also be possible in future. Neutronsemitted in antineutrino interactions could bedetected through the 2.2 MeV gamma-raysemitted by neutron capture on protons andthrough interactions with gadoliniumdissolved in the pure water.

Lastly, the detection of nucleon decay aspredicted by grand unified theories hasalways been one of the primary topics for SK.Sensitivity to the decay mode p → e+ + p0 willsoon reach the level corresponding to alifetime of 1034 years. Decay modes favouredby supersymmetry, which include K mesons inthe final state, will become interesting with alonger exposure in SK-III, and thecollaboration hopes to observe the firstindication of nucleon decay in the near future.

The 50 cm diameter PMTs are encased in afibre-reinforced plastic cover to prevent ashock wave even if a PMT implodes again.

By mid-afternoon on 22 November, the Belleexperiment at KEK had accumulated anintegrated luminosity of 500 fb–1 ofelectron–positron collision data. Thisintegrated luminosity marks a landmark in the

progress of the KEKB accelerator and the Belleexperiment, which began operation in 1999. Itis equivalent to achieving 5 × 1041 crossings ofelectrons and positrons a square centimetre.More than 500 million pairs of B and B–

mesons have been generated in the collisions.The original challenge for KEKB was to

achieve 100 fb–1 in 3 years. The total of500 fb–1 in 6.5 years surpasses this goal. Thegroup now aims to achieve even higherrecords with various upgrades to the machine.

Belle achieves newluminosity record

Jubilant team-members at KEK celebrateBelle’s new luminosity record of 500 fb–1.

K E K

Super-Kamiokande gets full refitN E U T R I N O S

CCEJanNews5-8 26/1/06 12:02

NEWS


Representatives from European research andindustry have established the European IndustryForum for Accelerators with Superconducting RFTechnology, EIFast. More than 30 companiesand institutes from nine countries sent a total of64 participants to a meeting to found the forumat DESY on 27 October. They agreed on theforum’s statutes and elected the members ofthe coordination board.

The proposal to create the forum resultedfrom the considerable industrial interesttriggered by several large accelerator projectsbased on superconducting RF (SCRF)technology, in particular the approved X-rayfree-electron laser, XFEL, and the plannedInternational Linear Collider. Both projects useSCRF technology, which has been substantiallyadvanced during the past decade by the TESLATechnology Collaboration. In addition, theTESLA test facility at DESY, built withinvolvement from European companies, hasadded to the solid base of expertise in SCRFaccelerators in European industry.

Against this background, it was concludedthat a forum would further strengthen theexcellent position of European science andindustry in SCRF technology. Moreover,similar bodies have been established in both

the US and Japan. Members of European research centres and

industrial companies decided to found EIFastat a meeting at DESY in April 2005. Its scopeincludes all systems and components neededfor an SCRF accelerator, including suppliesand services. Acting as a common voice forEuropean research and industry, the forumwill now try to promote the realization of SCRFprojects in a coherent way.

The forum aims to bring research instituteseither working in the field of SCRF technologyor interested in becoming involved together

with industrial companies interested insupplying products to projects based on thetechnology. The main tasks of the foruminclude generating support for projects at thepolitical level in Europe, ensuring a flow of up-to-date information about projects betweeninstitutes and companies, promotinginvolvement of industry in projects at an earlystage, and supporting the members in gainingaccess to information channels and decisionmakers otherwise difficult to obtain. For more information and contacts forEIFast see https://trac.lal.in2p3.fr/SCRF.

Superconducting RF technologyforum unites research and industry

I N D U S T R Y

Members of the EIFast coordination board, elected at the forum’s founding meeting at DESY.

In its 2005 run, DESY’s HERA colliderachieved the largest integrated luminosity ithas ever produced in one year. Colliding27.5 GeV electrons with 920 GeV protons,HERA delivered a total of 213 pb–1 to theexperiments H1 and ZEUS in 318 days ofrunning. Compared with the positron–protonluminosity production of 2004, the integratedluminosity and the average luminosity wereincreased by factors of 2.2 and 1.5,respectively. The peak luminosity reached5.1 × 1031 cm–2s–1 – the design luminosity for

the upgraded HERA collider. This success is particularly remarkable

since, compared with running with positrons,additional complications were expected forelectron–proton collisions, due to increasedsynchrotron radiation in the interaction regionsand degradations in the lifetime of the electronbeam. The synchrotron radiation problemswere successfully avoided by improved beamcontrol. Problems with the electron-beamlifetime proved rare and were not relevant forproduction of luminosity. Nevertheless theelectron-beam current reached only 90% ofthe positron currents in 2004.

The proton intensity improved slightly in2005 due to improved beam transfer from theinjector, while the specific luminosity(luminosity/current) increased considerably

beyond the design value owing to theadditional focusing of the electron beam bythe beam–beam force. The large beam–beamforces made longitudinal electron-spinpolarization more difficult: the average peakpolarization decreased from 50% in 2004 to45% in 2005. All in all, however, theoperating efficiency improved noticeablycompared with the previous running.

Operation at HERA is scheduled to resumeat the end of January 2006. Variousimprovements that have been added duringthe shutdown – such as refurbished normalconducting magnet coils, enhanced RFinterlocks, active damper and feedbacksystems – will further improve the availability,peak luminosity and background conditionsfor the run during 2006.

HERA hits recordannual luminosity

D E S Y

CCEJanNews5-8 23/1/06 16:21

NEWS


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On 10 November, the Pierre Auger Observatory(PAO) began a major two-day celebration at itsheadquarters in Malargüe, Argentina, to markthe progress of the observatory and thepresentation of the first physics results at theInternational Cosmic Ray Conference in thesummer 2005. One of several experimentsconnecting particle astrophysics andaccelerator-based physics, the PAO studiesextensive air showers created by primarycosmic rays with energies greater than 1018 eV.With more than 1000 of the 1600 surfacedetectors and 18 of the 24 fluorescencedetectors currently installed and operating, theobservatory will eventually cover 3000 km2 ofthe expansive Pampa Amarilla.

Over 175 visitors from the 15 collaboratingcountries attended the celebration, with guests

including heads of collaborating institutions,representatives from supporting fundingagencies, delegates from Argentinianembassies, local and provincial authorities,plus press and media teams. On the first day,experiment heads Jim Cronin, Alan Watson andPaul Mantsch presented the history and statusof the observatory to the assembled visitors inMalargüe’s Convention Center. This wasfollowed by a ceremony on the Auger campusto unveil a commemorative monument made

of glass and stone. Ceremony speakersincluded Malargüe’s mayor and the governor ofMendoza Province. Guests then retired to atraditional asado that featured local cuisineand entertainment by folk musicians and tangodancers. On the second day, attendees touredthe vast observatory site, including surfacedetectors on the pampa and one of the remotefluorescence detector buildings.

As part of the celebration, the collaborationsponsored a science fair in the observatory’sAssembly Building, organized by four localscience teachers for teachers and studentsfrom high schools in Mendoza Province.Twenty-nine school groups, many travellinglong distances to reach Malargüe, presentedresearch projects on topics in physics,chemistry or technology. A team of PAOphysicists judged the displays and awardedprizes to the most outstanding young scientists.In March 2006, the opening of a new highschool in Malargüe is anticipated, partialfunding for which was secured by Cronin fromthe Grainger Foundation in the US.

Experiment head Jim Cronin addressingcelebration attendees in Malargüe.

Auger observatorycelebrates progress

C O S M I C R A Y S

CCEJanNews5-8 23/1/06 16:21

SCIENCEWATCH


Compiled by Steve Reucroft and John Swain, Northeastern University

The magnetic mysteryThe origin of galactic magnetic fields is a long-standing puzzle. The fields are very weak – onthe order of a microtesla – and could havebeen generated from much weaker “seed”fields, although there have been few viablecandidates. Now Kiyotomo Ichiki andcolleagues at the National AstronomicalObservatory of Japan have demonstrated thatthese weak fields could be a signature of theearly history of the universe before protonsand electrons combined to form atoms.

The idea is that density fluctuations inplasma could produce “winds” of photonsfrom high-density regions to low-density ones.This wind would push electrons more than the

heavier protons, and give rise to chargeseparations and rotating electric currents thatcould have seeded the magnetic fields we seetoday. The theory is even testable, as it wouldlead to magnetic fields in regions of spacethat are very empty of matter (free of starsand galaxies) – something that experimentscould conceivably try to detect.

Further readingKiyotomo Ichiki et al ScienceDOI:10.1126/science.1120690, to appearin Science; online at Science Express:www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1120690.

Photonic crystals make male beetle shinePhotonic crystals have been found to play asignificant role in many biological systems,but perhaps none as beautiful as in the malebeetle Hoplia coerulea, which is found insouthern Europe. Jean Pol Vigneron andcolleagues of the University of Namur inBelgium have shown that this little fellowowes his striking blue coloration to a 3Dphotonic crystal structure made of multiplelayers of dielectric biological material.

In detail, the structure discovered involveslayers of thin plates alternating with rows ofparallel rods. This results in a change in thereflected light from blue to violet as the angleof incidence becomes larger. The structurecould lend itself to commercial fabrication,

albeit not without some effort.

Further reading Jean Pol Vigneron et al. 2005 Phys. Rev. E 72061904.

Photonic crystals underlie the iridescentblue–violet colour of this male beetle.

Skunk cabbage generates plenty of heatSymplocarpus foetidus, the plant known inEnglish as skunk cabbage and whoseJapanese name, Zazen-sou, means Zenmeditation plant, has a property of which aZen master would be proud: it can maintainits temperature as high as 20°C, even on afreezing cold day. Unlike animals, whichgenerate heat throughout their bodies, theskunk cabbage makes most of its heatthrough metabolic processes in the spadix,the plant’s central spike-like flowering stalk.

Takanori Ito and Kikukatsu Ito at Iwate

University in Japan have monitored thetemperatures of the spadix in wild skunkcabbages to understand the dynamics of thistemperature control. They found that a phasespace plot of temperature at separated timesis a strange attractor, which they refer to as aZazen attractor. This is the first demonstrationof deterministic chaos in a higher plant.

Further readingTakanori Ito and Kikukatsu Ito 2005 Phys.Rev. E 72 051909.

Photon pairs gethyperentangledMost of the time entangled states are thoughtof in terms of a nonfactorizable wavefunctionof two objects – photons, say – with thespins, or another attribute correlated so thatwhat you do to one affects the state of theother no matter where it may be. Now PaulKwiat and colleagues at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, US, and theUniversity of Brisbane, Australia, havedemonstrated for the first time that more thanone characteristic – indeed, every degree offreedom – can be entangled, leading to whatis known as “hyperentanglement”.

For example, with photons, not onlypolarizations but also orbital angularmomentum and energy can be entangled, asthe team has demonstrated experimentally.Possible applications to quantum computingand other quantum technologies areinteresting because the discovery means thatmore than one “qubit” of information can beassociated with a single physical particle.

Further readingJulio Barreiro et al. 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95260501.

5 mm

Bacteria slow lightThe group velocity of light can be madeamazingly slow in the right material, but oftenthe apparatus required is rather exotic andrequires significant cooling. Pengfei Wu andD V G L N Rao at the University of Massachu-setts have made the remarkable discoverythat light can go as slowly as 0.091 mm/s ina thin film of bacteriorhodopsin (a bacterialpigment) at room temperature.

More than that, it turns out that this speedcan be optically controlled to be anything in abroad range from “snail’s pace” to normallight speed, c. The process takes place at highefficiency, being effective for light levels downto microwatts. Bacteriorhodopsin is stableand inexpensive so this could lead to manyinteresting technologies.

Further readingPengfei Wu and D V G L N Rao 2005 Phys.Rev. Lett. 95 253601.

CCEJan/FebSciencewatch9 23/1/06 5:00 pm

ASTROWATCH


Compiled by Marc Türler, INTEGRAL Science Data Centre and Geneva Observatory

One supernova explosion every 50 years inour galaxy: that is the rate that a Europeanteam has determined from the observationsof ESA’s INTEGRAL gamma-ray satellite. Thisfigure is based on the amount of gamma-rayradiation emitted by radioactive aluminiumproduced in core-collapse supernovae.

With a lifetime of about a million years,radioactive aluminium (26Al) is an ideal tracerof ongoing nucleosynthesis in the galaxy. Thedecay of 26Al emits a gamma-ray line at anenergy of 1.809 MeV. NASA’s ComptonGamma-Ray Observatory found in the 1990sthat this characteristic emission is distributedalong the plane of the Milky Way, as expectedif 26Al is mainly produced by massive starsthroughout the galaxy. It remained unclear,however, whether the dominant emissiontowards the centre of the galaxy was due torelatively nearby star-forming regions on theline-of-sight or to the central region itself.

It is this uncertainty that has now been liftedthanks to INTEGRAL’s very high spectralresolution. The peak of the emission from 26Alwas found to be shifted towards higher energieseast of the galactic centre and towards lowerenergies on the west side. These observationsare consistent with the expected Doppler shiftdue to the rotation of the galaxy. They show thatthe 26Al emission does follow the global galacticrotation and hence comes from the inner part ofthe galaxy rather than from foreground regions.

The team, led by Roland Diehl of the MaxPlanck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics inGarching, Germany, used these line-shiftmeasurements to constrain the best model forthe spatial distribution of 26Al in the galaxy.

This distribution was then used to convert theobserved gamma-ray flux into the total massof 26Al in the Milky Way, which was found to beabout three times the mass of the sun. Finally,using results from theoretical nucleosynthesismodels for a typical stellar population, theteam could estimate the current star-formationrate in the galaxy to be about 7.5 stars a year,corresponding to a rate of core-collapsesupernovae of 1.9 (+–1.1) events a century.

The rate of two supernovae a century in theMilky Way is consistent with the rate derivedfrom supernovae detected in other galaxies,but exceeds several times the rate deducedfrom the historic observations of supernovaexplosions during the past 2000 years. Onlyeight such events have been recorded – in185, 386, 393, 1006, 1054, 1181, 1572

and 1604 – mainly by Chinese astronomers.The two last events have been observed moreprecisely by the famous European astronomersTycho Brahe (1546–1601) and JohannesKepler (1571–1630). If we exclude thesupernova of 1987 in the Large MagellanicCloud, no supernova has been seen in thegalaxy during the past 400 years. Some eventsmay have gone unnoticed because they weredistant and heavily obscured by interstellardust, but the next supernova in the galaxy willcertainly not remain hidden now we canobserve the sky as never before throughout thewhole electromagnetic spectrum, and evenwith neutrinos (CERN Courier May 2005 p17).

Further readingR Diehl et al. 2006 Nature 439 45.

INTEGRAL reveals Milky Ways’ supernova rate

Shifts in the gamma-ray line from 26Al caused by the Doppler effect along the plane of thegalaxy, owing to galactic rotation. The broad distribution is from a three-dimensional modelof the spatial distribution of 26Al – based on free electrons in the interstellar medium – thatmatches the line shifts measured by INTEGRAL (error bars). (Courtesy MPE.)

This new Hubble Space Telescope image gives the most detailed view so far of the entireCrab Nebula in visible light. It was assembled from 24 individual exposures of Hubble’sWide Field Planetary Camera 2. The Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus holds thenumber one place in Messier’s catalogue of the 18th century, which contains approximately100 diffuse objects. The nebula is now known to be the expanding remnant of the supernovaof 1054 reported by Chinese astronomers to be visible in daylight for 23 days and for almosttwo years in the night sky.

The radio pulsation of the rapidly spinning neutron star at the heart of the nebula wasdetected in 1968. Being the brightest steady source of X-rays and gamma-rays, the CrabNebula has become the calibration reference for all high-energy missions. (Courtesy NASA,ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester, Arizona State University.)

Picture of the month

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CCEJan/FebAstrowatch10 23/1/06 5:33 pm

CERN COURIER ARCHIVE: 1963


A look back to CERN Courier vol. 3, January 1963

The 23rd session of CERN Council was heldon 19 December 1962, under the presidencyof Mr Jean Willems (Belgium). The presidentopened the session by a tribute to thememory of Prof. Niels Bohr, one of thefounders of CERN, who died on 18 November.

Commenting on the progress report of theOrganization, Prof. V F Weisskopf, the Director-general, stated that “1962 was a decisive yearfor CERN…which now has a healthy scientificprogramme exploiting reasonably well theopportunities of the two accelerators, withinthe limits of our present state of development”.

In a statement concerning the programmeand budget, however, Prof. Weisskopf issueda warning, pointing out that the success of ourlaboratory does not mean that its facilities arefully exploited. Because of insufficientspending in the last few years, much morefinancial support than is even now proposedwould be needed to make the fullest use of allthe research possibilities offered at present.

The Member States which brought CERNinto being and encouraged it to build theaccelerators that are now working, hesuggested, should support the exploitation ofCERN in the same spirit as they fully supportedits construction. Our laboratory, which is at thecentre of Europe in the field of high-energyphysics, must not fall behind similarlaboratories elsewhere in the world, and itscapacity of exploitation must not be restrainedif it is not to become a second-rate institution.

The Director-general also stated that asCERN is part of this situation it must fulfil thedemands for more and better opportunities ofwork, and more scientific material for studyand exploitation, by the rapidly growingnumber of European scientists entering thefield and anxious to contribute to it. As nowforeseen, a full exploitation of CERN wouldrequire 2200 or more personnel (staff, fellowsand visitors) against the 1450 it has now.

Voting the budget for 1963, the Councilauthorized CERN to spend 94.2 million Swissfrancs in 1963 to pursue its basic research innuclear physics. The sum corresponds to anincrease of 13% over the budget voted for1962, together with an allowance of 3.6% forprice increases. From this should be deducted

1.7 million from miscellaneous receipts.Contributions from Member States amounttherefore to 92.5 million Swiss francs.

Another important development was theCouncil’s approval in principle of an extensionof the CERN site into French territory. “CERNcould be the first international organizationwith a site extending on either side of aninternational frontier”, declared Mr. Françoisde Rose, Ministre plénipotentiaire of France.

This new move had its origin as early as1958, when the then Director-general,Prof. C J Bakker, expressed the fear that CERNmight lack space on its present site. A surveyof the surrounding area subsequently showedthat the most favourable direction forexpansion would be on to French territory. Anapproach was made through the Frenchdelegation, and at this meeting of Council thedelegates of France gave the news that theirGovernment is willing to put at CERN’sdisposal an area of land in the Commune ofSt. Genis (Department of Ain), immediatelyadjoining the present site. This land,alongside the main road from Geneva to Lyon,would have an area of about 40 hectares(100 acres), that is, about the same as that ofthe present CERN site, which was placed atthe disposal of the Organization by the Swiss

in 1953. The Swiss authorities have alreadybeen approached by the French and havereacted favourably to this proposal to extendCERN across the frontier.

CERN’s use of the area that has been offeredposes some problems of a practical, diplomaticand administrative nature, both between CERNand France and between France andSwitzerland. It is estimated that it will be aboutone year before CERN can take possession ofthe new ground. Building work could then bestarted on the section nearest to Switzerland; itwill be some time, however, before the wholearea can be used for buildings of any size. Extracted from a two-page article.

CERN to cross border into FranceLOOKING AHEAD

CERN in a nutshell

The European Organization for NuclearResearch (CERN) came into being in 1954as a cooperative enterprise amongEuropean governments in order to regain afirst-rank position in nuclear science. Atpresent it is supported by 13 MemberStates, with contributions according to theirnational revenues: Austria (1.92 %),Belgium (3.78), Denmark (2.05), FederalRepublic of Germany (22.47), France(18.34), Greece (0.60), Italy (10.65),Netherlands (3.87), Norway (1.46), Spain(3.36), Sweden (4.18), Switzerland (3.15),United Kingdom (24.17). Contributions for1963 total 92.5 million Swiss francs.

The character and aims of theOrganization are defined in its Conventionas follows: The Organization shall providefor collaboration among European States innuclear research of a pure scientific andfundamental character, and in researchessentially related thereto. TheOrganization shall have no concern withwork for military requirements and theresults of its experimental and theoreticalwork shall be published or otherwise madegenerally available. This information appeared at the front ofeach issue of CERN Courier in the 1960s.

THE ORGANIZATION

The size of the new experimental hall in theEast area of the PS can be seen in this aerialview of a snow-covered CERN. The area ofland offered by the French governmentstretches towards the top of the picture.

CCEJan/FebArchive11 23/1/06 16:45

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A new Grid federation is helping scientistsaround the world to access computers andinformation in more than 50 countries andregions simply, securely and easily. The

International Grid Trust Federation (IGTF) wasestablished at the 15th Global Grid Forummeeting held in Boston in October 2005, andwill bring together organizations representingAsia, the Americas and Europe – from Canadato China and from Portugal to Pakistan.Members provide systems allowing scientiststo identify themselves to any Grid resource inthe world with just a single online identity inthe form of a digital certificate.

“Reliably identifying Grid users and theirwork is critical to the success of Gridcomputing across the world,” explained NeilGeddes, director of e-science at the CCLRCRutherford Appleton Laboratory. “Theformation of the IGTF is a huge step forward inagreeing mechanisms whereby users of oneGrid can seamlessly become users of allGrids, thereby unlocking the full potential ofGrid computing worldwide.”

COMPUTING NEWS


On 1 January 2006, an EU-funded project waslaunched that will improve the coherence andquality of Grid software. The e-Infrastructurefor Testing, Integration and Configuration ofSoftware project (ETICS) will integrate existingprocedures, tools and resources to create afacility where distributed research projectscan integrate their code, libraries andapplications; validate the code againststandard guidelines; run extensive automatedtests and benchmarks; produce reports; andimprove the overall quality and interoperabilityof the software.

Scientific software today is often theproduct of large distributed collaborationsand increasingly uses new technologies likethe Grid to solve complex, computer-intensiveproblems. Owing to a large variety of availabletools, programming languages, platforms andso on, these software stacks risk sufferingfrom a lack of coherence and quality. Limitedtimescales, manpower and funding oftenprohibit the creation of a dedicated build andtest infrastructure for each new project.

ETICS will provide such a capability forsoftware configuration, integration, testingand benchmarking for the scientificcommunity, including software engineeringtools and support infrastructures developedby other projects (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE

[EGEE], the LHC Computing Grid, the NSFMiddleware Initiative) and open-source orindustrial entities. To promote internationalcollaboration and facilitate interoperability ofanalysis already at early stages ofdevelopment and implementation, ETICS willcollect, organize and publish middleware andapplication configuration information as wellas common quality guidelines and principles.

The ETICS project is a spin-off from EGEE.

That project’s Grid middleware, gLite, is basedon middleware from many projects worldwideand inherits code from various sources andlanguages (CERN Courier September 2005p21). EGEE’s software quality assurance hasdeveloped ways to monitor code developmentand adherence to standards. ETICS will makethese available to developers of middlewareand application software worldwide, as wellas a dedicated testing infrastructure.

ETICS assures quality on the Grid

Grid researchers getone online identity

S O F T W A R E

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pre-release quality indexpost-release quality index

The defect/kSLOC chart is used to monitor the general quality of the code. The pre-releasequality index tends to settle on a constant value that can be taken as measure of thequality of the software development process, whereas the post-release quality index tendsto zero as the software reaches maturity. ETICS launched on the first day of 2006.

ETICS veille à la qualité de la Grille 13Les utilisateurs de la grille seront identifiables 13Les développeurs de Python échangent leurs idées 14SC|05 : une conférence sur l’informatique haute performance 15Le bulletin CNL du CERN a 40 ans 15

Une réunion sur le potentiel des grilles 16Deux nouveaux intergiciels pour le programme NMI 16Le W3C publie ses recommandations pour XML 17Produits 17Evénements 17

Les gros titres de l’actualité informatique

Compiled by Hannelore Hämmerle and Nicole Crémel

CCEJanCompNews13-17 24/1/06 8:39

COMPUTING NEWS


IGTF is a federation of three “policymanagement authorities”, one covering theEU and beyond (www.eugridpma.org), one forthe Americas (www.tagpma.org) and one forAsia–Pacific (www.apgridpma.org). Individualmembers are national certification authorities

which issue digital certificates to scientists toenable them to use the Grid, internationalGrid collaborations which rely on theauthorities for authenticating their scientists,and major infrastructure providers which relyon certificates for protecting their resources.

These resources include more than 40 000computer processors and several petabytes ofstorage – equivalent to millions of DVDs. Thefederation today has 61 members and covers50 countries and regions. For more on authentication see p21.

The European Python community cametogether in 2005 for the annual EuroPythonconference, held as in 2004 at the campus ofthe School of Architecture at the ChalmersUniversity of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden.EuroPython brings together developers,designers and business people from thePython and Zope communities, where Zope isa Python-based open-source applicationserver for building content-managementsystems, intranets, portals and customapplications. The conference attracts a goodmix of people, from those who have juststarted to learn about Python to moreexperienced users. Also, the “benevolentdictator” and inventor of Python, Guido vanRossum, was again present at the conferenceand, as usual, always available for a chat.

The 100 talks presented during the threedays were categorized into 12 “tracks” andcovered a wide range of activities, includingsuccess stories of using Python in companiesas well as educational talks and tutorials.Frameworks written in Python that help toease the life both of developers and userswere also presented to the attendees, whonumbered around 270.

A common theme in the tracks was themethodology used for the development ofprojects. The clear favourite here was the“agile process”, used in virtually all largeprojects. The main feature of the agile processis that it is a lightweight yet disciplinedprocess aimed at making softwaredevelopment more predictable and efficient.Some, like the Zope and PyPy projects, haveeven established special teams to analyseand improve the development process. Agilemethods emphasize real-timecommunication, preferably face-to-face, overwritten documents, and they attempt tominimize risk by developing software in shortslices of time, called iterations, which

typically last one to four weeks.One such suggestion is “sprint-driven”

development, which makes the distributeddevelopment effort more efficient,significantly increasing productivity. A “sprint”is a two- or three-day focused developmentsession, where a maximum of 10 developersget together in a room and focus on building aparticular subsystem. Sprints are lively burstsof development activity and have proven to bevery effective and successful. A paneldiscussion on methodologies wrapped up thistheme, addressing how tools and artefactscan be used in various types of “sprints”(coding, design, requirements, tutorial sprints

and so on) to improve the overall product.In one user example a team of only three

people from the R&D department of apharmaceutical company developed a flexibletool (with around 35 000 lines of Pythoncode) in less than three years. This is nowdeployed and used by the 1000 targetedusers. The success of the project wasattributed to good communication, frequentand intensive testing, an excellentarchitecture and the use of Python as thelanguage of choice for the implementation.The importance of the close interactionbetween the scientists who use the tool andthe software developers who wrote it wasemphasized, especially the fact that thedevelopers often had to follow frequentlychanging requirements.

A definite highlight in the tutorial track fornewcomers was the “batteries included” tourof the standard modules library that comeswith Python. Also very well received was thetutorial on “Acceptance Testing UsingTextTest”, a tool that can help developers invarious ways. TextTest can, for example,measure CPU time and other systeminformation, and notifies the developer if oneof the values is outside a tolerance margin setby the user. In addition, this tool can be usedto test a graphical user interface (GUI) byrecording which methods and functions theGUI software layer calls then “playing themback” in a later testing session andcomparing the results. These tests can be runin batch mode (ideal for test runs during thenight) or in parallel mode using various Gridengines (SunGridEngine, LSF, etc).

As every year, one of the two keynote talkswas given by van Rossum, from the PythonSoftware Foundation, who presented newfeatures that will be included in future Pythonreleases, as well as giving reasons forrejecting other requests. The second keynote

Python developers swap ideasC O N F E R E N C E

EuroPython delegates at the pub event.

Guido van Rossum (far right), “benevolentdictator” and inventor of Python, was at theconference and chatted with delegates.


COMPUTING NEWS


talk was by Steven Pemberton of CWIAmsterdam, who is best known for his effortsin the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),and is the chair of the working groupsresponsible for the XHTML and XFormsstandards. He was once involved in thedevelopment of the ABC language, theforerunner of Python, where he workedtogether with van Rossum. Pemberton gavean inspiring talk entitled “Hypothesis:Programmers are Humans Too!”, arguing thatcomputing languages – the interfaces that theprogrammers see – have not evolvedsignificantly over the past 30 years. Heconcluded that it is better (and easier) tochange programs than programmers.

The conference concluded as usual with the“lightning talks” session of short talks – atime limit of five minutes was strictlycontrolled, but in a humorous way. Thesewere in general very illuminating and ranged

from specific technical issues to a very livelydemonstration on how to give a presentationas well as a call to collect sonnets from thePython community. Other “lightnings” coverednew developments of tools and modules for apersonal financial management system, formanaging WiFi cards under Linux, for animplementation of the XPath 1.0 subset forElementTree in pure Python, and a library formorphing splines.

Some of the short demos showed how touse Python on a Nokia phone to communicatewith a GPS personal digital assistant (PDA)via bluetooth. A short demo from van Rossumshowed what you can do with the newgenerators, which are Python’s mechanism forlazy evaluation of a function that wouldotherwise return a space-prohibitive orcomputationally intensive list. The next conference will take place at CERNon 3–7 July 2006.

SC|05 showcases high-energy computingS U P E R C O M P U T I N G

As Grid computing projects gear up to servedata from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tothousands of physicists worldwide, scientistsand engineers developing the LHC ComputingGrid (LCG), the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE(EGEE) and the Open Science Grid travelledto SC|05, the 2005 International Conferencefor High Performance Computing, Networking,Storage and Analysis held in Seattle on12–18 November. Members of the Gridcollaborations presented talks and posters atthe Grid 2005 Workshop and the SC|05technical programme, and particle-physicsapplications demonstrating interoperabilityacross multiple Grid infrastructures featuredin several SC|05 exhibits.

For the third consecutive year, the high-energy physics team captured first prize in theSC|05 Bandwidth Challenge. Led by theCalifornia Institute of Technology, Fermilab,SLAC and the University of Michigan, withparticipation from CERN and 10 otherinstitutions, the team of physicists, computerscientists and network engineers transferredphysics data at a rate of over 150 Gbit/s. Theentry provided a showcase for the worldwideGrid system being built for the LHCexperiments, using production storagesystems and file servers to transfer 475 TB ofhigh-energy physics data in 24 h.

CERN’s commitment to educating thepublic about high-performance computingwas recognized during SC|05 by HPCWire,the online magazine of high-performancecomputing. The laboratory was awarded theHPC Public Awareness Editor’s Choice Award.

“This is a significant honour for CERN,” saidDavid Foster, head of CERN’s Network andCommunications Group. “All our institutionaland industrial partners in LCG, EGEE andCERN openlab deserve to share in the credit.The Grid technology that is being deployed forthe LHC is inevitably something that spansmany institutions, all of whom arecontributing to the broader public awarenessconcerning this new approach to high-performance computing.”

David Foster, left, accepts the HPC PublicAwareness Award on behalf of CERN.

After CERN’s 50th anniversary in 2004, thisyear there is another (admittedly smaller)anniversary: the first CERN ComputerNewsletter (CNL) was circulated in 1966. AsCNL celebrates its 40th year, we will take alook back at some of the highlights – andhistorical curiosities – of the early years ofcomputing at CERN, seen through its pages.You will find a brief look at previous issues ofCNL here; for an extended retrospection readthe January–March 2006 issue of CNL,available online at www.cerncourier.com.

Why CNL?“As computing becomes a more and morewidespread and complex activity in thelaboratory, the need will increase for a meansto have a wider general circulation ofbackground information about differentaspects of computing activities than ispossible with the present system of ComputerNotices.” (February 1966, from theintroduction to the first issue by G R Macleod,the leader of the Data Handling division from1964 to 1975)

CERN’s first computer expires“The Ferranti Mercury, installed at CERN in1957, has now been dismantled […] The

computer was the first to be installed at CERNand remained as the only machine until thearrival of the IBM 709 in 1961.” (April 1966)

The end of Fortran?“FORTRAN: FORmula TRANslating. The mostcommonly used program language exists inmany versions e.g. CERN Fortran. ALGOL: fromAlgorithm. A more advanced language nowavailable on many computers but rarelyefficient for production work. PL1: The newprogramming language specified by the IBMusers’ organization (SHARE) and IBM tosupplant Fortran.” (April 1966)

CNL is 40 years oldC N L A R C H I V E

The Ferranti Mercury in building 2 in 1958.


COMPUTING NEWS


At the end of September 2005, the UNESCORegional Bureau for Science in Europe(ROSTE) and CERN organized a joint event onGrid computing, which was sponsored byHewlett-Packard (HP). Current and future Gridparticipants, universities, and researchinstitutions – with a special focus on south-eastern European countries – were invited toCERN to learn about the capabilities andopportunities of the Grid. The event includedtalks by representatives of existing Grids suchas the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE project,but best practices were also presented byregional research institutions and universitieson establishing new – and connecting toexisting – e-infrastructures.

“Grid computing is as important a shift asthe Web has been,” said Howard Moore,director of UNESCO-ROSTE. “It will changethe face of how science resources are sharedand management of results will be handled.”The more tangible benefits of Grid computing– access to computing resources and cutting-edge technologies outside the local region –help universities and small research groupsto attract students, thus maintaining talent inthe area and alleviating the brain drain.Bringing people together to talk about Gridcomputing can increase researchers’motivation, by giving them the feeling ofbeing part of a bigger whole.

Over the past decade, countries in south-

east Europe suffered emigration of up to 70%of skilled professionals. In 2003, UNESCOlaunched the Alleviating Brain Drain projectwith HP to provide Grid computing technologyto universities and financial support toencourage young scientists to remain in theregion and cooperate with their fellow-nationals living abroad.

The event at CERN was an important step,but the road does not end there, as Bernard

Meric from HP pointed out: “Grids will movefrom scientific research to the citizen. It is justa question of time. A meeting like this canaccelerate this movement from scientificresearch to beyond.”

The event led to the decision to hold atraining event in Split, Croatia, later this year.This training, to be organized by CERN andSEE-GRID, will act as a pilot event for a CERNSchool of Computing in Croatia in 2007.

Meeting highlights Grid potentialG R I D E V E N T S

Current and future Grid participants attended the meeting held by CERN and UNESCO.

Working with research communities to providedevelopment and access management toolsfor Grid and other research environments, theeighth release of the National ScienceFoundation Middleware Initiative (NMI-R8)helps to facilitate the complex resourcemanagement and security required in ashared cyber-infrastructure.

NMI-R8 marks two important “firsts” for theNMI programme: the addition and integrationof Ninf-G, the first non-US developed

component included in the GRIDS Centersoftware suite; and GridShib, the first softwareenabling interoperability between the GlobusToolkit and Shibboleth federating software.

Ninf-G is a GridRPC referenceimplementation developed at the NationalInstitute of Advanced Industrial Science andTechnology in Japan. “With the integration ofNinf-G into the GRIDS Center stack, we’relearning about the practical issues of sharingand supporting software across borders andlanguages, and see this activity as animportant pilot study,” said PhilipPapadopoulos, program director, Grid andCluster Computing at San DiegoSupercomputer Center.

GridShib enables interoperability between

the Globus Toolkit and Shibboleth federatingsoftware. Researchers who are members ofboth brick-and-mortar institutions and Globus-enabled virtual organizations can use theirlocal campus credentials to access theirdistributed Grid-based resources.

NMI-R8 comprises several updated tools,software packages, practice documents, andschema that support institutional andfederated identity managementenvironments. The stack is flexible becausethe components are bundled together as oneeasy-to-deploy package. Once installed, onlythe parts of interest need to be configured.NMI-R8 is available to the public fordownloading under open-source licences atwww.nsf-middleware.org.

Middleware has twoimportant additions

G R I D M I D D L E W A R E


COMPUTING NEWS

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) haspublished eight documents in the XML familyas Candidate Recommendations, sending asignal to the developer community thatpowerful new features for transforming andquerying XML are ready for implementation.

XSLT 2.0 is a major revision to the verysuccessful XSL Transformations language,which transforms XML content into otherformats. XSLT 2.0 standardizes many featuresand includes stronger support forinternationalization and richer tools for theprogrammer. In addition to new functionality,

XSLT 2.0 introduces strong typing andsupports the optional use of W3C XMLschema. Strong typing is a feature ofenterprise-strength programming languagessuch as Java, C++ and C#, and is designed toreduce errors in programs, slashing the costof developing and maintaining large systems.

XML Query brings the power of databasesearch and select to XML. With XML Query,one can run cross-vendor cross-databasejoins between multiple forms of data,including XML documents, XML-native stores,relational database tables and more.

Connections between large applications,databases, operating systems, Web servicesand Web servers have traditionally usedspecial software that, on demand, convertsand manipulates data between the formatsused by applications. With a standard way tointegrate tools, a standard set of data formatsand standard ways to query and manipulatethose formats, users will be able to focus ontheir higher-level business logic and integratenew sources of data much more quickly. For a list of all recommendations seewww.w3.org/TR/.

W3C improves features for transforming and querying XMLW 3 C R E C O M M E N D A T I O N

The latest version of COMSOL Multiphysics,a software package for scientific simulationsand formerly called FEMLAB, has been madepublic. The name change reflects the growingfunctionality of the product, which started offas software for finite-element modeling (FEM).The new software can include the wholespectrum of basic CAD formats, and has anew independent script language, COMSOL

Script, which allows simulations via thecommand line. The graphical user interfacesupports physical units and the softwareprovides new algorithms for the simulation ofmoving particles and geometricalparameterization. For documentation seewww.femlab.ch and www.comsol.com.

Stylus Studio, a provider of XML developmenttools and components for advanced dataintegration, has announced the availability of

Stylus Studio 2006 XML EnterpriseEdition and Stylus Studio 2006 XMLDeployment Adapters. The new release ofXML IDE provides a significant upgrade inusability and XML standards compliance, andmany new features further simplify XML dataintegration. The adapters provide high-performance Java components that offerbidirectional, programmatic access to virtuallyany data source as XML. For more informationsee www.stylusstudio.com.

P R O D U C T I N F O R M A T I O N

February 13–17 15th International Conference onComputing in High Energy and NuclearPhysics (CHEP06) Mumbai, India,www.tifr.res.in/chep06/

13–16 GGF16 Athens, Greece, www.ggf.org/GGF16/ggf_events_ggf16.htm

March1–3 TridentCom 2006 Barcelona, Spain,www.tridentcom.org

1–3 EGEE User Forum Geneva, Switzerland,

http://egee-intranet.web.cern.ch/egee-intranet/User-Forum/index.html

April2–6 High Performance ComputingSymposium (HPC 2006) Huntsville,Alabama, www.caip.rutgers.edu/hpc2006/

3–7 HEPiX meeting CASPUR in Rome, Italy,www.hepix.org/

25–29 20th IEEE International Parallel &Distributed Processing SymposiumRhodes Island, Greece, www.ipdps.org

June27–30 ISC2006 Dresden, Germany,www.supercomp.de/, paper deadline 20 February

August29 – 1 September Euro-Par 2006Dresden, Germany, www.europar2006.de/,paper deadline 31 January

September13–15 HPCC-06 Munich, Germany,http://hpcc06.lrr.in.tum.de/, paper deadline13 March

Calendar of events


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In December 2005, Fermilab brought a new cluster online devotedto lattice quantum chromodynamics (lattice QCD) calculations.“Pion” consists of 520 single-processor Intel Pentium computersconnected with Infiniband, and is the latest lattice QCD clusterfunded by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Lattice QCD is the numerical technique used to study QCD, thetheory that describes the strong force. Because lattice QCD calcula-tions require such enormous computing power, simplifying assump-tions (such as the quenched approximation) have been required inthe past to make progress on the supercomputers available (CERNCourier June 2004 p23). In recent years, improvements in algo-rithms and a steady increase in the capabilities of computers haveled to more complete lattice QCD simulations. This has enabled lat-tice theorists to make a number of predictions of physical quantitiesthat were matched by new experimental results with equal precision(Aubin et al. 2005a and 2005b, Allison et al. 2005, Kronfeld et al.2005 and CERN Courier July/August 2005 p13).

In lattice QCD computations, a finite volume of the space–timecontinuum is represented within a supercomputer by a four-dimen-sional lattice of sites. At each site, one or more SU(3) vectors, i.e.1 × 3 arrays of complex numbers, represent the field strengths ofquarks on the lattice. SU(3) matrices, i.e. 3 × 3 complex arrays,reside on the links between sites and represent the gluon fields thatinteract with the quark fields. Performing a Monte Carlo calculationto generate representative configurations of the QCD vacuuminvolves repeated sweeps through all sites, multiplying the linkmatrices by neighbouring site vectors and updating their values.

In current lattice QCD problems, the representation of the latticerequires around 10 GB of memory and calculation rates of around1 Tflops (1012 floating-point operations per second) to make rea-sonable progress. A typical desktop PC is capable of about 1 Gflops.

In recent years, two approaches have been taken in the design ofdedicated supercomputers for lattice QCD. The first uses custom

processors that include on-chip connections to the neighbouringprocessors in three or more dimensions. Each processor chip alsoincludes several megabytes or more of on-chip memory. TheQCDOC (CERN Courier September 2005 p17) and apeNEXT (CERNCourier September 2005 p18) machines are examples of this sys-tem-on-a-chip approach. The second approach, used on Pion, relieson commodity computers connected via a high-performance net-work. Although similar to the large Linux farms used for reconstruc-tion processing for experiments at Fermilab and CERN, it is thehigh-performance network that distinguishes the computer-clusterapproach. Also, while the computers in reconstruction farms oper-ate independently, those on a lattice QCD cluster are tightly cou-pled, constantly exchanging data during the computation.

Purpose-built systems like QCDOC and apeNEXT require severalyears of design, development and fabrication before they are readyfor production. When new, these supercomputers provide the largestcapability, with the fastest calculation for a single problem. By con-trast, commodity clusters take advantage of each year’s newestprocessors, memory technologies and networks; lattice QCD super-computers based on clusters can be built relatively quickly and fre-quently at a lower cost. In terms of performance, the purpose-builtUS QCDOC machine sustains 5 Tflops, compared with about 1 Tflopsfor Fermilab’s Pion cluster. By the end of next summer, the succes-sor to Pion at Fermilab will sustain about 2.25 Tflops.

The design of lattice QCD clusters requires careful attention to thebalance between calculation speed, memory bandwidth and net-work performance to achieve the most cost-effective designs. LatticeQCD codes require high memory bandwidth and strong floating-pointperformance. A double-precision SU(3) matrix-vector multiplication,for example, consumes 192 B of operands, produces 48 B of resultsand uses 66 floating-point operations. This bytes-to-flops ratio ofmore than 3.6 stresses memory subsystems. Typical Intel and AMDmicroprocessors, for example, are capable of more than 10 Gflops

PHYSICS COMPUTING


Tackling thechallenge oflattice QCDDon Holmgren describes Pion, Fermilab’snew commodity solution for latticequantum chromodynamics computing,which went online at the end of last year. The Pion cluster at Fermilab consists of 520 Intel Pentium PCs.

CCEJanLATTICE19,20 24/1/06 8:35

when their parallel floating-point instructions (Streaming SIMDExtensions, or SSEs) are used. However, the typical peak memorybandwidths of these processors of about 6 GB/s fall far short of the40 GB/s that would be required to feed and consume the data forSU(3) matrix-vector multiplications at the peak speed of the SSEfloating-point unit. The calculations also stress the networks used tocommunicate data between the nodes of a cluster, requiring band-widths and latencies superior to those provided by TCP/IP runningover Gigabit Ethernet.

The networking requirements of lattice QCD on clusters have beenmet by using high-performance switched networks, such as Myrinet,Quadrics or recently Infiniband, or by using multiple Gigabit Ethernetnetworks running a specialized non-TCP/IP communications stack.The latter approach was used on two clusters built at the DOE’sJefferson Lab. The 2003 machine, “3G”, uses six Gigabit Ethernetinterfaces connected as a 3D toroidal mesh in which each computercan communicate directly only with neighbours in the positive andnegative x, y and z directions. The 2004 machine, “4G”, uses a 5Dtoroidal mesh.The toroidal Gigabit Ethernet mesh machines, pio-neered by Zoltan Fodor of Eötvös University, Budapest, and col-leagues were very cost-effective because of their use of commoditynetwork interfaces (Z Fodor et al. 2003). However, in the past yearthe newer Infiniband network technology has become morefavourable, offering greater performance and flexibility at a low cost.These factors led Fermilab to choose Infiniband for the Pion cluster.One advantage the switched Infiniband network provides for Pion isthat any computer in the cluster may communicate directly with anyother computer on the network.

Pion uses Intel Pentium 640 processors, each running at 3.2 GHz.With 800 MHz memory buses, these machines have one of the high-est memory bandwidths per processor available. Pion was built intwo halves, with the first 260 nodes last May and the second 260 inNovember, and the price per node dropped from $1970 in the springto $1550 in autumn, with approximately $840 for the computer and$650 for the Infiniband. Pion exceeds 1.7 Gflops per processor onlattice QCD codes, or roughly $0.90/Mflops on the second half.

On 1 October 2005 the DOE launched a four-year project to sup-port lattice QCD. This follows five years of support for lattice QCD bythe DOE Office of Science via the SciDAC Lattice Gauge TheoryComputational Infrastructure project, as well as grants used to pur-chase the US QCDOC in 2004 and 2005. The project will operate the5 Tflops US QCDOC machine, which resides at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory, as well as the clusters at Jefferson Lab (3G and 4G,which total 0.55 Tflops) and Fermilab (“QCD”, a 0.15 Tflops, 128-node Myrinet cluster built in 2004, and the 1 Tflops Pion).

The project will also support the construction of new machines. Inthe first year, two clusters will be constructed: a 0.5 Tflops Infinibandcluster based on 256 dual-core Intel processors at Jefferson Lab willcome online at the end of March, and a 2.25 Tflops Infiniband clus-ter based on 1000 dual-core Intel processors at Fermilab will comeonline by the end of September. Other systems planned for2007–2009 will provide an additional 11Tflops of computing power.

Further readingC Aubin et al. 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 011601.C Aubin et al. 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 122002. I F Allison et al. 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 172001. A S Kronfeld et al. 2005 Proc. Sci. LAT2005 206.Z Fodor et al. 2003 Comput. Phys. Commun. 152 121.

RésuméDes grappes d’ordinateurs pour la CDQ sur réseau

En décembre 2005, le Laboratoire Fermi a mis en service lanouvelle grappe d’ordinateurs “Pion” pour les calculs dechromodynamique quantique (CDQ) sur réseau. Cette grappe, quicomprend 520 ordinateurs Intel Pentium à processeur uniqueinterconnectés par un réseau haute performance, Infiniband, tireparti des processeurs, technologies de mémoire et réseaux lesplus récents. Les superordinateurs de CDQ sur réseau s’appuyantsur cette technologie peuvent être produits relativementrapidement et à moindre coût que les systèmes spécialisés, dontla conception, le développement et la fabrication s’étendent surdes années.

Don Holmgren, Fermilab.

PHYSICS COMPUTING


The Jefferson Laboratory’s 3G cluster dates from 2003 anduses six Gigabit Ethernet interfaces connected in a 3D mesh.

The lattice QCD prediction of the mass of the Bc meson is nowapproaching the precision of the value measured by the CDFcollaboration at Fermilab (Allison et al. 2005).

m

(MeV

/c2 )

6500

6400

6300

6200

lattice QCD, February 1999lattice QCD, November 2004CDF, December 2004

Bc

CCEJanLATTICE19,20 24/1/06 8:35

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web 15 years ago atCERN, he always intended that it should be easy for people to writeto it, not just read from it. But if websites are opened up to additionsfrom everyone, they often get vandalized or “spammed”. As well asdirect disruption, this can lead to bad publicity, as shown by recentmainstream press coverage of a hoax story about US politician JohnSeigenthaler in the collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Theseproblems have put security centre-stage in the development of atrue read–write Web. Fortunately, solutions are emerging from largehigh-energy physics Grid projects.

“Wikis” like Wikipedia are websites where users can add, edit andcross-reference content without learning mark-up languages likeHTML. Along with diary-like weblogs and the reader comments theyoften allow, wikis are a major part of the current trend away from apure publishing model (“the Web as an electronic book”) to a morecollaborative model in which users also produce content.

High-profile wikis have been plagued with problems of trust andidentity. Although some wikis require a username and password,people running the sites still have no idea who their contributorsreally are, and the better known wikis have to be constantly on thelook-out for offensive or simply irrelevant additions.

Stronger methods of authenticating users are needed, so thatthey can be held accountable for the additions they make by theirpeers, the website owners or the authorities, and so that sensitivesections can have restricted access. However, if each website con-tinued to maintain a database of usernames and passwords, theneach site would have to bear greater administrative costs comparedwith giving accounts freely to everyone.

Furthermore, the existing username and password systems alsoput an increasing burden on the users, who have to maintain moreand more accounts. When account details change, such as theuser’s preferred e-mail address for password reminders, the user is

forced to spend time updating this information on all the sites theycan remember – or risk losing access when their old e-mail addressis no longer active. Users are therefore tempted to use the samepasswords at multiple sites, and to store passwords in their Webbrowser, where they can readily be stolen by computer viruses andTrojans. What is really needed are ways of reusing the same authen-tication procedure for multiple websites.

Large Grid projects, such as the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) led byCERN, have faced a similar problem: how to give thousands of usersaccess to hundreds of computing facilities while ensuring propercontrol and logging, without users having to arrange access at eachsite one by one.

The LCG, the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) and the OpenScience Grid (OSG) projects, which have been prominent in high-energy physics, have all settled on using X.509 digital certificates foruser and service authentication. X.509 specifies how to store anddistribute public and private cryptographic key pairs (which take theform of large numbers), and how to associate them with uniquenames for users and services. X.509 was originally a standard ofthe International Telecommunication Union, although a third revi-sion has now been defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Using X.509, users can establish their identity by proving theyhave the private key associated with it. Since X.509 is based onasymmetric cryptography, it is possible to prove possession byrevealing only the public key. In turn, the public key is “signed” by atrusted third-party organization or “Certification Authority”, and thisdigital signature states that it is indeed the public key of the user inquestion. Grid services accepting X.509-based authentication needto establish trust for only a small number of certification authori-ties, even though they serve thousands of users.

To simplify the process whereby users and service-owners decideto trust a certification authority, consortia of certification authori-

WEB SECURITY


Towards a read–write WebSecurity efforts led by the LCG and EGEE projects are uniting the Web and the Grid, andhelping to fulfil the vision of a worldwide collaborative Web, says Andrew McNab.

Thousands of Internet users edit Wikipedia pages every month. GridPP uses GridSite to authenticate contributors to websites.

CCEJanWIKI21,22 24/1/06 8:54

ties have signed agreements and established criteria that usersmust meet to receive a signed public key. During the EU DataGridproject (the predecessor of EGEE), a group of European certifica-tion authorities formed the EU Grid Policy Management Authority(EUGridPMA) to coordinate their efforts, and published details ofapproved certification authorities. This year the International GridTrust Federation has been formed by the EUGridPMA and equivalentPMAs in Asia and the Americas. Preparation for LHC Grid computinghas been a major driving force in this area, and is having wider ben-efits for worldwide Grid interoperability.

The Grid software using X.509 keys to authenticate users is largelyadapted from World Wide Web e-commerce systems, implement-ing HTTPS (HTTP transported over an encrypted channel). X.509signed keys given to users of the Grid can thus also be used withstandard Web servers and Web browsers.

The GridPP project in the UK decided to base authentication for itscollaboration website on X.509 Grid credentials, to exploit thiscrossover. GridPP members at the University of Manchester devel-oped the GridSite security system, a software toolkit and set ofextensions to the Apache Web server. As well as support for X.509,GridSite accepts “Distinguished Name” and “Virtual Organization”credentials. Together, these components allowed GridPP membersto gain write access to their group’s section of the GridPP website, tomaintain Web pages or upload documents. However, users havehad to write in HTML, providing only the security side of the conve-nient read–write Web that is beginning to emerge.

To bridge this gap, GridPP has merged GridSite and Wiki tech-nology to give the convenience of a wiki coupled with the securityof X.509 credentials. Since the hard work of establishing a user’sidentity is done once by the certification authority or local con-tacts, users can install their X.509 signed key in the Web browserthen move between GridSite- or Wiki-enabled websites withouthaving to present (and maintain) their username and passwordagain and again.

Although this does not solve the problem faced by public wikis –where users in repressive states or expressing unwelcome profes-sional opinions may have legitimate privacy concerns – it does workwell in an academic environment where an article’s provenance andauthor names are already the accepted currency. For more information see www.gridsite.org.

RésuméVers un Web "lu-écrit"

En inventant le World Wide Web il y a 15 ans, Tim Berners-Leeavait non seulement l’intention de permettre aux utilisateurs delire les pages des sites, mais également de pouvoir y écrire. Maissi les sites Web sont ouverts aux contributions de tous, ils sontsouvent vandalisés ou pollués. La sécurité est par conséquentdevenue une préoccupation centrale pour le développement d’unWeb réellement “lu-écrit”. Des solutions commencent à émergerdes projets à grande échelle de Grille de calcul pour la physiquedes hautes énergies. Ces projets font en effet face à desdifficultés similaires en donnant à des milliers d’utilisateursl’accès à des centaines d’installations informatiques.

Andrew McNab, University of Manchester.

WEB SECURITY


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Photomultiplier tube modeled in LORENTZ 6.2, a program foranalyzing particle trajectories,electron and ion beam optics.LORENTZ’s calculations includefull secondary emissions,emittance, spot size and radius. Image courtesy of ADIT.

3D magneticposition sensor modeled

in AMPERES 6.1, a program foranalyzing magnetic components

incorporating linear, non-linear andpermanent magnet materials. AMPERES’calculations include force, torque, fluxlinkage and inductance.

CCEJanWIKI21,22 24/1/06 8:55

Globus software has longplayed a significant role inthe LHC Computing Grid(LCG) and related Griddeployments and applica-tions. In 2005 the Globuscommunity achieved thefollowing significant mile-stones: the release ofGlobus Toolkit version 4;the establishment of anew community develop-ment process; major newfunding from the USNational Science Founda-tion and the UK Engineer-ing and Physical ScienceResearch Council; and theestablishment of compa-nies focused on supporting commercial use of the software.

Globus software has been developed since the late 1990s to sup-port service-oriented distributed-computing applications and infra-structures. Core components of the Globus Toolkit (GT) address,within a common framework, basic issues relating to security,resource access, resource management, data movement, resourcediscovery and so forth. These components enable a broader “Globusecosystem” of tools and components that build on, or operate with,core GT functionality to provide a wide range of useful application-level functions. These tools have in turn been used to develop awide range of Grid infrastructures and applications.

A major upgradeGT4, released on 30 April 2005, provides significant improvementsin terms of robustness, performance, usability, documentation, stan-dards compliance and functionality (I Foster 2005). For example,the GRAM job submission service now easily manages 32 000 jobs,up from a few hundred in GT3. A UK e-Science evaluation speaksfavourably of the quality, usability and performance of the GT4 codeand its documentation (T Harmer et al. 2005). It notes, for example,that “GT4 installation was straightforward”, “GT4 services demon-strated significant improvements in performance and reliability overtheir GT3 versions” and “GT4 package descriptions were of a highquality, well structured, and accurate”.

GT4 makes extensive use of Web Services mechanisms to define its

interfaces and structure itscomponents. Web Servicesprovide flexible, extensibleand widely adopted XML-based mechanisms usedfor describing, discoveringand invoking network ser-vices. Furthermore, its doc-ument-oriented protocolsvery much suit the looselycoupled interactions thatmany argue are preferablefor robust distributed sys-tems. These help the devel-opment of service-orientedarchitectures: systems andapplications structured ascommunicating services, inwhich service interfaces

are described, operations are invoked, access is secured and so on –all happening in uniform ways.

The figure illustrates the principal GT4 components. A set of ser-vice implementations (the bottom half of the figure) implement use-ful infrastructure services. These address such concerns asexecution management (GRAM), data access and movement(GridFTP for data movement, reliable file transfer, OGSA-DAI fordatabase access), replica management (replica location service,data replication service), monitoring and discovery (Index, Trigger,WebMDS), credential management (MyProxy, Delegation, SimpleCA)and instrument management (grid telecontrol protocol). Most areJava Web Services but some (indicated at the bottom right) areimplemented in other languages and use other protocols. A power-ful authorization framework enables the implementation of diverseauthorization policies.

In addition, three containers can be used to host user-developedservices in Java, Python and C. These containers provide imple-mentations of security, management, discovery, state managementand other mechanisms frequently required when building services.They extend open-source service-hosting environments with supportfor a range of useful Web Service specifications, including WSResource Framework (WSRF), WS-Notification and WS-Security.

Finally, client libraries allow client programs in Java, C and Pythonto invoke operations on both GT4 and user-developed services (topof the figure). In many cases, multiple interfaces provide different

GRID SOFTWARE


Globus Toolkit upgradeaids the Grid communityIan Foster reports on the latest release of the Globus open-source software toolkit.

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Java services in Apache Axisplus GT libraries and handlers

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interoperableWS-I-compliantSOAP messaging

X.509 credentialsprovide commonauthentication

YourPythonclient

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GT4 architecture schematic, showing many but not all of the components.The violet boxes denote GT4 code, while the white boxes are user code.

CCEJanGLOBUS23,24 24/1/06 9:01

levels of control: for example, in the case of GridFTP, there is notonly a simple command-line client (globus-url-copy) but also controland data channel libraries for use in programs – and the XIO libraryallowing for the integration of alternative transports.

GT4’s use of uniform abstractions and mechanisms across thesedifferent components means that clients can interact with differentservices in similar ways, which facilitates the construction of com-plex, interoperable systems, and encourages code reuse.

Globus is more than software: it is also a community of users anddevelopers, and the infrastructure that supports this community –code repositories, e-mail lists, a problem-tracking system and soforth. To facilitate external contributions, the Globus team recentlyintroduced a community governance and development process,GlobDev, hosted at http://dev.globus.org. A growing number of Gridsoftware projects are hosted and developed there.

Further readingI Foster 2005 IFIP International Conference on Network andParallel Computing LNCS 3779 2.T Harmer et al. 2005 UK e-Science Technical Report SeriesUkeS-2005-03.

AcknowledgmentsThis report describes the work of many talented colleagues andcollaborators (see www.globus.org). Work on Globus has been sup-ported in part by the Mathematical, Information, and Com-

putational Sciences Division subprogram of the Office of AdvancedScientific Computing Research, US Department of Energy, by theNational Science Foundation (NSF) under its NSF MiddlewareInitiative and other programmes, and by IBM, DARPA, NASA,Microsoft, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences ResearchCouncil and Department of Trade and Industry, and the SwedishResearch Council. The author is also co-founder and chief open-source strategist at Univa Corporation.

RésuméLa boîte à outils Globus s’améliore

Globus Toolkit est développé depuis la fin des années 90 pourfournir des infrastructures et des applications de calculdécentralisées, axées sur le service. Ce progiciel joue un rôle clépour la mise en œuvre et les applications de la grille de calculpour le LHC (LCG) et de grilles associées. Dans cet article, IanFoster commente la version 4 de Globus Toolkit (GT4), le dernierné de ce progiciel de Globus en libre accès pour le calcul surgrille. Disponible depuis avril 2005, GT4 présente d’importantesaméliorations, que ce soit en matière de robustesse,performance, convivialité, documentation, conformité aux normesou fonctionnalités.

Ian Foster, Math and Computer Science Division, ArgonneNational Laboratory.

GRID SOFTWARE


CCEJanGLOBUS23,24 24/1/06 8:58

Quark Matter 2005, the 18th InternationalConference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus–Nucleus Collisions, provided a lively forumfor new results in heavy-ion physics.

The Quark Matter conferences have historically been the mostimportant venues for showing new results in high-energy heavy-ioncollisions. The 18th in the series, Quark Matter 2005, held inBudapest in August 2005, attracted more than 600 participantsfrom 31 countries in five continents; more than a third were juniorparticipants, reflecting the momentum of the field. The major focusof the conference was the presentation of the new data from theBrookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC) together with the synthesis of an understanding of heavy-iondata from experiments at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS),including new data from the NA60 experiment. The meeting alsocovered a broad range of theoretical highlights in heavy-ion phe-nomenology, field theory at finite temperature and/or density, andrelated areas of astrophysics and plasma physics.

After an opening talk by Norbert Kroó, vice-president of theHungarian Academy of Science, the scientific programme of the con-ference began with a talk by Roy Glauber, who was soon to share the2005 Nobel prize in physics (CERN Courier November 2005 p8).Glauber’s calculations in the 1960s laid the foundation for the deter-mination of centrality in high energy heavy-ion collisions – a measureof how close to head-on they are – which is now one of the most ele-mentary and widely used tools of heavy-ion physics. In his talk“Diffraction theory, quantum optics and heavy ions”, he discussedthe concept of coherence in quantum optics and heavy-ion collisionsand presented a new generalization of the Glauber–Gribov model.Further talks in the introductory session were given by Luciano Maiani,former director-general of CERN, who reassessed the main conclu-sions of the SPS fixed-target programme, and by József Zimányi, of theKFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics in Budapest,who gave an account of the evolution of the concept of quark matter.

It has become a tradition of the Quark Matter conferences to fol-low the introductory session with summary talks of all experiments.Thus, the first day sets the scene for the discussions of the rest of theweek. This short report cannot summarize all the interesting novelexperimental and theoretical developments, but it aims at illustratingthe richness of these discussions with a few of the many highlights.

One of the main discoveries of the fixed-target heavy-ion pro-gramme at the SPS five years ago was the strong suppression of theJ/Ψ yield with increasing centrality of the collision, which probed thedeconfinement phase transition. Another discovery concerned the sig-nificant enhancement of low-mass dileptons, which indicates modifi-cation in the medium of vector mesons and possibly providesinformation about the restoration of chiral symmetry. These major dis-

coveries by the NA50 and CERES experiments at the SPS also raiseda significant set of more detailed questions, which were recognized ascentral to understanding the dynamical origins of the observed effects.

In particular, the dimuon invariant-mass spectrum of NA50 showedan enhancement below the J/Ψ peak, which different theoreticalgroups ascribed either to a dramatic enhancement of the charm cross-section in the medium, or to significant thermal radiation. Having

QM ’05


Quarks matter in Budapest

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Fig.2. The nuclear modification factor, RAA, as a function oftransverse momentum, pT, for neutral pions (π), etas (η) andphotons (γ) in gold–gold collisions at RHIC, as presented by thePHENIX collaboration. Compared with proton–proton collisions,pions and etas are suppressed by up to a factor of five. This “jet-quenching” effect is well reproduced in models (yellow line),which account for strong medium-induced parton energy loss indense QCD matter created in heavy-ion collisions. By contrast,photons can escape the system without further interaction.

CCEJan/FebQUARK25-27 24/1/06 8:22

implemented a telescope of silicon pixel detectors with improved point-ing resolution, NA60 was able to report in Budapest that data taken inthe 2003 indium–indium run allow them to rule out conclusively anincreased charm cross-section as the source for the dimuon excess.The data are, however, consistent with the exciting possibility of a sig-nificant thermal contribution. In addition, for more than a decade, therehas been a theoretical debate on whether the embedding of ρ mesonsin dense quantum chromodynamic (QCD) matter leads to a shift inthe ρ mass, or to a density-dependent broadening, both scenariosbeing consistent with the original CERES dielectron data. NA60 nowconcludes, from data taken in the indium–indium run, that the shifting-mass scenario is not consistent with their data, which instead supporta broadening induced in the medium (see figure 1, p25). NA60 alsopresented their first indium–indium measurements of J/Ψ suppres-sion as a function of centrality. These confirm the strong anomaloussuppression seen by NA50 in central lead–lead collisions at the SPS.

The SPS experiments NA49, CERES, NA50 and NA57 also showednew results from their continuing data analysis. In addition to earlierhigh transverse-momentum (pT) measurements from CERES andWA98, this year NA49 and NA57 showed new results that wereextensively compared with the results of the experiments at RHIC.

The central topic of this Quark Matter conference was without doubtthe full harvest of the high-luminosity gold–gold run at RHIC in 2004,from which data analyses were shown for the first time. Equally impor-tant were results from the successful copper–copper run in the firsthalf of 2005, which had been analysed in time for the conference ina global effort by the participating institutions of the four RHIC exper-iments. With an integrated luminosity for 200 GeV gold–gold colli-sions of almost 4 nb–1, this run increased statistics by more than a

factor of 10, and made much-wanted information accessible for thefirst time. One of the most important early discoveries of the heavy-ionexperiments at RHIC was the strong suppression of hadronic spectraby up to a factor of five in the most central collisions. This so-called“jet-quenching effect” supports the picture that the matter created inheavy-ion collisions is of extreme density and thus very opaque tohard partons (CERN Courier September 2003 p18).

Results from the PHENIX experiment at RHIC now indicate thateven neutral pions of pT = 20 GeV show this dramatic energy degra-dation (figure 2, p25). Moreover, the increased luminosity allowedthe STAR experiment to study the recoil of hadron trigger particles upto 15 GeV, and for sufficiently high transverse momenta, this recoil isfor the first time observed to punch through the soft background.However, compared with reference data from proton–proton colli-sions, the particle yield of the recoil is strongly reduced, consistentagain with the picture of a medium that is dense and very opaque topartonic projectiles. In further support, PHENIX also reported thathigh-pT photons are not suppressed (figure 2, p25), and that photonsat intermediate transverse momenta show an excess, which may beattributed to thermal radiation from the hot and dense matter.

Another important piece in the puzzle of reconstructing the proper-ties of the produced matter came from the first measurements of high-pT single-electron spectra. These spectra are thought to be dominatedby the semi-leptonic decays of D- and B-mesons, thus giving for thefirst time experimental access to the propagation of heavy quarks indense QCD matter. Data from STAR and PHENIX reveal a medium-induced suppression of electrons, which is of similar size to that oflight-flavoured hadrons. There were many parallel talks, by both exper-imentalists and theorists, which contrasted these data with the theo-retical expectation that massive quarks should lose less energy in themedium than massless quarks or gluons due to the so-called “dead-cone effect” in QCD. While a final assessment is still awaited, therewas widespread agreement that these data will help significantly inrefining our understanding of the interaction between hard probesand the medium, which is much needed for a better characterizationof the dense QCD matter produced in nucleus–nucleus collisions.

Another much awaited result that gave rise to a great deal of dis-cussion was the first statistically significant J/Ψ measurement atRHIC. This was presented by the PHENIX collaboration and showeda similar pattern and strength to that observed in lead–lead andindium–indium collisions at the SPS. This result was of particularinterest also to lattice QCD theorists, who now find that the dissoci-ation of the directly produced J/Ψ in a deconfined medium sets inat much higher energy densities than previously expected.

The bulk properties of dense QCD matter reveal themselves notonly in the modification of hard processes by the medium, but also inthe collective motion of soft particle production and its hadro-chemical composition. One of the main discoveries of the first yearsof running RHIC was the unprecedented large size of the collectiveflow signals, measured in the asymmetries of particle productionwith respect to the reaction plane. Remarkably, the measured mass-dependence of the transverse radial and elliptic flow supports theassumption that different particle species emerge from a commonflow field. Flow measurements at intermediate transverse momentafollow constituent-quark counting rules and are consistent withquark coalescence as a medium-dependent hadronization scenario(figure 3). Moreover, to the surprise of many, the hydrodynamic

QM ’05


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description of the collision in terms of an adiabatically expanding,perfect fluid of vanishing viscosity and heat conductivity appears, atRHIC energies, to be satisfactory for the first time.

Much of the discussion at QM ’05 focused on the emerging pic-ture of the matter produced in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC, which,far from being a weakly interacting gas of quarks and gluons, showsfeatures of a strongly coupled partonic system indicative of a perfectliquid. This liquid includes not only the light and strange quarks; thefirst preliminary data on the elliptic flow of charmed hadrons fromthe PHENIX collaboration indicates that even charmed quarks par-ticipate in the collective expansion of this new form of matter.

The conference saw a lively theoretical discussion about thedynamic mechanisms underlying a possible rapid thermalization.Emphasis was given in particular to the relationship to thermaliza-tion processes in Abelian plasmas, to formal analogies with the ther-mal properties of black holes, and to the possibility that plasmainstabilities accelerate equilibration. The intellectual richness of thefield was further illustrated by exciting reports from string theory,where theorists have succeeded for the first time in calculating theviscosity to entropy density ratio in the physically relevant, strong-coupling limit of a certain class of thermal non-Abelian gauge theo-ries. The fact that this ratio is found to be very small indicates anon-dissipative behaviour. It raises the exciting possibility that thenon-dissipative character of an almost perfect liquid, which may becreated in gold–gold collisions at RHIC, could be understood fromfirst-principles calculations in QCD.

From the point of view of heavy-ion phenomenology, the centralquestion of whether more direct signals of negligible viscosity can beestablished led to another highlight of the conference. The widely dis-cussed idea was that if dissipation is negligible, then energy,deposited by a jet in dense QCD matter, must propagate in a char-acteristic Mach cone, determined by the velocity of sound in thequark-gluon plasma. Reports about back-to-back particle correlationsfrom PHENIX, which may show such a Mach-cone-like structure, werehotly debated amongst theorists and experimentalists alike (see fig-ure 4). Most importantly, these discussions showed that heavy-ionphysics at collider energies has a large set of novel tools available forthe controlled experimentation with hot and dense QCD matter, andthat the field is moving towards characterizing specific properties ofthis matter, including its speed of sound, equation of state, and itstransport coefficients such as heat conductivity and viscosity.

Past, present and futureThe Quark Matter conferences not only highlight the experimentalharvest of the recent past and the latest news from theory, they arealso the arena for assessing perspectives for the future. The firstheavy-ion beam at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN isexpected in 2008, and heavy-ion researchers are now well preparedfor the jump in centre-of-mass energy by a factor of 30 above RHIC.Most importantly, the fact that dramatic medium-sensitive effectspersist unweakened at RHIC up to the highest measured transversemomentum strongly supports the expectation that the new kine-matic regime accessible at the LHC will provide many qualitativelynovel tools for the study of ultra-dense QCD matter.

The LHC will not be the only big player in the field of heavy-ionphysics in the next decade. At Brookhaven, the STAR and PHENIXcollaborations are lining up for several important detector upgrades,

which will significantly enhance their abilities to characterize specificproperties of the matter created in heavy-ion collisions. Moreover,Brookhaven envisages a luminosity upgrade of RHIC, which willopen yet another class of novel opportunities. Finally, the newlyapproved Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research at the GSIDarmstadt is preparing for the start of a versatile heavy-ion pro-gramme in the next decade. Plenary talks provided overviews of thestatus and possibilities of these three programmes. The field is noweagerly awaiting its future, the next slice of which will be served atthe 19th Quark Matter conference in Shanghai in November 2006.

Further readingMore details about the QM ’05 Conference, including an archive ofthe talks, videos and photos, can be found at the conference homepage, http://qm2005.kfki.hu/. See also a press release by theHungarian Academy of Sciences, www.mta.hu/index.php?id=858&backPid=856&begin_at=30&tt_news=1530&cHash=f55085886a.

Résumé“Quark Matter” à Budapest

La 18e Conférence internationale sur les collisions noyau-noyau ultrarelativistes, “Quark Matter 2005”, a permis des échangesanimés sur les derniers résultats en physique des ions lourds.Elle a porté essentiellement sur de nouvelles données recueilliesau collisionneur d'ions lourds relativistes (RHIC) du Laboratoirenational de Brookhaven et sur une synthèse de l’interprétationdes données sur les ions lourds produites par des expériencesmenées au Supersynchrotron à protons du CERN (notammentNA60). Figuraient aussi au programme divers grands thèmes théoriques de la phénoménologie des ions lourds, de la théoriedes champs à température et/ou densité finies, d’astrophysiqueet de physique du plasma.

Tamás Csörgö and Péter Lévai, KFKI Research Institute forParticle and Nuclear Physics, Budapest, Helmut Satz, Universityof Bielefeld, and Jurgen Schukraft and Urs Wiedemann, CERN.

QM ’05


Fig. 4. Three-particle correlation functions are sensitive to theappearance of a Mach cone in the direction opposite to the “near-side” jet. These preliminary PHENIX data from gold–gold collisionsat 200GeV may thus give access to an essential property of aperfect liquid – the non-dissipative propagation of energy in shockwaves through matter produced in heavy-ion collisions.

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The 2005 European Physical Society (EPS) Conference on HighEnergy Physics (HEP) took place in Lisbon on 21–27 July at theCultural Centre of Belém, beautifully situated on the right bank ofthe Tagus river, 10 km west of downtown Lisbon. Held in alternateyears, the EPS HEP conference starts with three days of paralleltalks, followed by a day off, and then three days of plenary ses-sions. The format thus differs from that of the Lepton–Photon con-ferences, which are organized in the same year (CERN Courier,November 2005 p33), and allows the participation of more “grass-root” and young speakers.

This year a total of 17 sessions yielded a wealth of detailed resultsfrom both experiment and theory, including new results from astropar-ticle physics. One of the highlights was provided by Barry Barish, newlyappointed director of the Global Design Effort for the InternationalLinear Collider (ILC). The EPS and the European Committee for FutureAccelerators organized a particularly popular “Lab directors’ session”,which presented status and future plans.

The opening ceremony was honoured by the presence of MarianoGago, Portuguese Minister for Science, Technology and Universities,who as an experimental high-energy physicist, was also a member ofthe local organizing committee. As usual, the plenary sessions startedwith the prize awards. The EPS 2005 High Energy Particle PhysicsPrize was presented jointly to Heinrich Wahl of CERN and to the NA31collaboration, with other prizes awarded to Mathieu de Naurois,Matias Zaldarriaga, Dave Barney and Peter Kalmus (CERN Courier,September 2005, p43). The next highlight was the invited talk byDavid Gross of Santa Barbara/KITP, Nobel Laureate in 2004 andEPS Prize winner in 2003. He checked off the list of predictions hehad made in the summary talk of the 1993 Cornell Lepton–Photonconference, the majority of which had been confirmed.

Sijbrand de Jong of Nijmegen/NIKHEF and Tim Greenshaw ofLiverpool started the main business of the plenary session with talkson tests of the electroweak and quantum chromodynamic sectors ofthe Standard Model, respectively. The new (lower) mass for the topquark from Fermilab, of 172.7+–2.9 GeV, as presented by Koji Sataof Tsukuba in the parallel sessions, gives an upper Higgs mass of219 GeV at 95% confidence level. Greenshaw discussed how HERAcontinues to play a major role in precision studies in quantum chro-modynamics (QCD) of the proton, now mapped down to 10–18 m, ora thousandth of its radius. Such results will be very valuable for theanalysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). New resultson the spin structure of the proton were also reported.

Riccardo Rattazzi of CERN and Pisa then talked on physicsbeyond the Standard Model and was followed by Fermilab’s ChrisQuigg, who reviewed hadronic physics and exotics. Rattazzi pre-sented an interesting “LEP paradox”: the hierarchy problem, with apresumed light Higgs particle, requires new physics at a low scale,whereas there are no signs of it in the data from CERN’s Large

Electron–Positron collider. He also reviewed the anthropic approachto the hierarchy problem: we inhabit one of very many possible uni-verses. This many-vacua hypothesis is also referred to as “the land-scape”, and might have implications for supersymmetry. Quiggreviewed several new states discovered by the CLEO collaboration atCornell and at the B-factories, and reminded us that the pentaquarkstates are still controversial.

Near- and more-distant-future possibilities were reviewed byGünther Dissertori of ETH Zurich in his talk on “LHC Expectations(Machine, Detectors and Physics)” and by Klaus Desch of Freiburgin “Physics and Experiments – Linear Collider”. Dissertori gave anoverview of all the complex instrumentation in the process of beingcompleted for both the LHC and its four major detectors. The firstbeams are planned for the summer of 2007, with a pilot proton runscheduled for November 2007. All detectors are expected to be

HEP 2005


Particles in Portugal: new hEurope’s premier particle-physics conference took place this year on the banks

Following on from the parallel talks, the plenary sessions of HEP 2005 made date on such topics as the current status of the Grid projects, the prospects fo

CCEJanLISBON28-31 24/1/06 8:16

ready to exploit LHC collisions starting on “Day 1”. Desch presentedthe ILC project and highlights of the precision measurements it willprovide in electroweak physics, in particular, in the Higgs sector.

More theoretical considerations were offered by CERN’s GabrieleVeneziano and Yaron Oz of Tel Aviv, who spoke on cosmology(including neutrino mass limits) and string theory, respectively.Veneziano reviewed current understanding, according to which thetotal energy content of the universe is split into 5% baryons, 25%dark matter and 70% dark energy. The question of what dark energyis was compared with the problem that faced Max Planck when herealized that the total power emitted by a classical black body isinfinite. Interesting speculations on alternative interpretations ofcosmic acceleration were also discussed. Precision measurementsin cosmology have an impact on high-energy physics: they providean upper bound on neutrino masses, indicate preferred regions in

the parameter space of minimal supergravity grand unification, andsuggest self-interacting dark matter. Oz reviewed the beauties ofstrings and their two major challenges: to explain the big bang sin-gularity, and the structure and parameters of the Standard Model.So far, neither is explained, but the consistencies are impressive.

The recently discovered connection between string theory andQCD was described by SLAC’s Lance Dixon. An important problembeing solved is how to optimize the calculation of multiparticleprocesses (which might be backgrounds to new physics processes).By ingeniously exploiting the symmetries of the theory, one is able togo beyond the method of Feynman diagrams in terms of efficiency.Roughly speaking, this amounts to first representing four-vectors byspinors, and then Fourier-transforming the left-handed but not theright-handed spinors.

Getting resultsChristine Davies of Glasgow presented new results on non-perturbative field theory, in particular in lattice QCD (LQCD). Shereported on the very impressive recent advances in LQCD, wherehigh-precision unquenched results are now available to confront thephysics of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) matrix withonly 10% errors on the decay matrix elements. This has been madepossible by breakthroughs in the theoretical understanding of theapproximations, together with faster computers.

Josh Klein of Austin and Federico Sanchez of Barcelona reviewedneutrino physics results and prospects, respectively. Neutrino physicshas become precision physics, and now oscillations, rather than justflux reductions, are beginning to emerge in data from the KamLANDand Super-Kamiokande II experiments in Japan. Sanchez discussedrich plans for the future, with two main questions to tackle. Is theneutrino mass of Majorana or Dirac origin? How can the small angleθ13 and the CP-violating phase δ be constrained, or preferably, mea-sured? The plans include the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experimentto study tritium decay, and the GERDA experiment in the Gran SassoNational Laboratory (LNGS), the Neutrino Mediterranean Observatoryand the Enriched Xenon Observatory, all of which will look for neutri-noless double beta decay. The Main Injector Neutrino OscillationSearch, the Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus(OPERA) in the LNGS, and the Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) long-baselineneutrino experiments will all study the phenomena of “atmospheric”neutrino oscillations under controlled conditions, and the DoubleCHOOZ experiment will further bound the small values of θ13. A newidea is to exploit beams of unstable nuclei, which would providemonochromatic neutrinos. Meanwhile, the CERN Neutrinos to GranSasso project will start taking data in 2006, with a neutrino beamfrom CERN to the OPERA detector.

Flavour physics was the topic for both Gustavo Branco of Centrode Física Teórica das Partículas in Lisbon, in “Flavour Physics –

HEP 2005


high-energy physics resultsnks of the River Tagus, near Lisbon. Per Osland and Jorma Tuominiemi report.

made up the last three days of the conference and brought attendees up toects for accelerators, and new developments in detectors. (Courtesy H Koers.)


Theory (Leptons and Quarks)”, and Marie-Hélène Schune ofLAL/Orsay, who talked about CP violation and heavy flavours. Atthe B-factories, the Belle detector is collecting a lot of luminosity,and after a long shutdown, BaBar is back in operation. Manydetailed results on CP violation in B-decays were presented at themeeting. The BaBar and Belle results on β or ϕ1 are now in agree-ment, and the CKM mechanism works very well, leaving little roomfor new physics, although the precision is also steadily improving.

Looking to the skiesAstrophysics was covered by three speakers, with Thomas Lohse ofBerlin talking about cosmic rays (gammas, hadrons, neutrinos),Alessandro Bettini of Padova presenting dark matter searches, andYanbei Chen from the Max-Planck Institute for Gravitational Physicsreviewing work on gravitational waves. What and where are thesources of high-energy cosmic rays? How do they work? Are the par-ticles accelerated or due to new physics (decay products) at largemass scales? The Pierre Auger Observatory is beginning to collectdata in the region of the Greissen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin cut-off, whileneutrino detectors search for “coincidences” (repeated events fromthe same direction).

The HESS telescopes and other detectors have discovered tera-electron-volt gamma rays from the sky! The origin is unknown, butthey are correlated with X-ray intensities. The galactic centre is onesuch tera-electron-volt gamma-ray point source. It has also beendiscovered that supernova shells accelerate particles (electrons orhadrons?) up to at least 100 TeV. The searches for weakly interact-ing massive particles, on the other hand, remain inconclusive. Otherexperiments are still unable to confirm or refute the observation ofan annular modulation seen by the DAMA project at the LNGS.

A major instrument in the search for gravity waves is the LaserInterferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a ground-basedlaser interferometer that is sensitive in the region from 10 Hz to10 kHz. The sources include pulsars, and one hopes to detect a sig-nal after the planned upgrade. The Laser Interferometer SpaceAntenna will be launched in 2015, and will be sensitive to lowerfrequencies, in the range 0.01 mHz to 0.1 Hz, as might come fromsuper-massive black-hole binaries.

Paula Bordalo of the Laboratório de Instrumentação e FísicaExperimental de Partículas in Lisbon presented an experimentaloverview of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion physics. Photon probes areimportant for the study of the new state of matter observed, as theydo not interact strongly and carry information about the early stageof the collision. There is also a related virtual photon or dilepton sig-nal that shows some interesting features. The new state beingexplored is possibly a colour glass condensate, which is behavingmore like a low-viscosity liquid rather than a gas (see p25).

Alexander Skrinsky of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physicsreviewed the status and prospects of accelerators for high-energyphysics, covering machines in operation as well as new facilitiesunder construction or planned. Superconductivity is widely used andis being further developed for accelerating structures and for mag-nets. One important line of development is oriented towards higherluminosity and higher quality beams, including longitudinal polariza-tion and monochromization techniques. There are studies aiming atshorter and more intense bunches, suppression of instabilities involv-ing fast digital bunch-to-bunch feedbacks and minimization ofelectron-cloud effects. Rapid progress is being made on energy-recov-ery linacs, recyclers and free-electron lasers, which are being studiedfor future synchrotron light sources. Higher power proton beams andmegawatt targets are being developed and several promising optionsfor neutrino factories are under study. Plasma wake-field accelera-tion appears to be still in an early stage of development, although ithas the potential to achieve very high acceleration gradients.

Grid referencesTurning to computing, DESY’s Mathias Kasemann described the sta-tus of the Grid projects in high-energy physics. The big experimentsrunning today – CDF, D0, BaBar and ZEUS – are already using dis-tributed computing resources and are migrating their software andproduction systems to the existing Grid tools. The LHC experimentsare building a vast hierarchical computing system with well definedcomputing models. The LHC Computing Grid (LCG) collaborationhas been set up to provide the resources for this huge and complexproject. The LCG system is being developed with connections to theEnabling Grids for E-science (EGEE) project and the Nordic Data

HEP 2005


Heinrich Wahl (centre), with members of the NA31 collabor-ation. Wahl and the collaboration were jointly awarded the2005 EPS High Energy Particle Physics Prize . (J Tuominiemi.)

A view of the Tagus river from the Cultural Centre of Belém,which played host to the 2005 European Physical Society (EPS)Conference on High Energy Physics. (Courtesy Boris Kayser.)


Grid Facility in Europe and to the Open Science Grid in the US. BasicGrid services have been defined and first implementations arealready available and tested. Kasemann’s personal prediction wasthat the data analysis of the LHC experiments will not be latebecause of problems in Grid computing.

On the detector front, CERN’s Fabio Sauli reported on new devel-opments presented at the conference. Interesting progress has beenachieved in fabricating the radiation-hard solid-state detectorsneeded for the LHC and other high-radiation-level applications. Oneway is through material engineering: choosing materials that areradiation resistant, such as oxygenated silicon, silicon processedwith the Czochralski method, or using thin epitaxial detectors. Othersolutions have been developed by device engineering, and theseinclude pixel detectors, monolithic active pixels or three-dimensionalsilicon structures. For high-rate tracking and triggering, gas micro-pattern detectors, such as the gas-electron multipliers, have foundversatile solutions in several experiments. For calorimetry, newmaterials like lead tungstenate crystals have been adopted in LHCexperiments. Also new scintillation materials with large light yield,fast decay time and with high density have been tested.

Boris Kayser from Fermilab closed the conference with an elo-quent summary. On the day off, various excursions to charmingmedieval villages and ancient monasteries all converged on the cityof Mafra, where the conference participants met Portuguese stu-dents and teachers in a baroque palace dating from 1717. Therewas also a visit to a precious library created by Franciscan friars,

with 36 000 prize volumes (the “arXiv” of its time!) and where batscontrol the insect numbers (visitors were told). Gaspar Barreira andhis colleagues jandled the local organization masterfully, and themany excellent fish restaurants nearby provided a relaxed settingfor informal discussions. The next EPS-HEP conference, in July 2007, will take place inManchester, UK.

RésuméLa physique des particules au Portugal

La plus prestigieuse conférence européenne de physique desparticules de 2005 s’est tenue à Lisbonne. 17 sessionsparallèles ont permis de communiquer une mine de résultatsdétaillés, notamment en astrophysique des particules. Parmi lesmoments forts : un exposé de Barry Barish, directeur du Projetmondial de conception du Collisionneur linéaire international, etune “Session des directeurs de laboratoire” sur le présent etl’avenir. On y a présenté divers résultats expérimentaux sur destests du modèle standard, l’observation des rayons cosmiquesde haute énergie et la quête des ondes gravitationnelles, demême que les dernières nouvelles de la théorie des cordes et del’énergie sombre de l’univers.

Per Osland, University of Bergen, and Jorma Tuominiemi,Helsinki Institute of Physics.

HEP 2005


Ansaldo Superconduttori S.p.A.

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The energies attained at CERN and other particle physics laboratoriesare useful not only for probing nature’s deepest layers, they alsoenable the study of matter in the relatively low range up to a few millionelectron-volts. This range is typical of supernovae and X-ray bursters,and is also relevant for most nuclear-structure phenomena.Experimentalists at CERN have exploited these lower energies for manyyears, and the present status of their achievements and the prospectsfor further studies were the subject of the recent Nuclear Physics andAstrophysics at CERN (NuPAC) meeting held on 10–12 October 2005.

These activities are concentrated at CERN around the IsotopeSeparator On-Line (ISOLDE) and Neutrino Time-of-Flight (n_TOF)facilities. Both come under the ISOLDE and Neutron Time-of-FlightExperiments Committee (INTC), which has been asked by the CERNmanagement to review the scientific case for the two facilities.NuPAC is one step in this review process.

In many ways, nuclear-structure physics is experiencing a renais-sance. Some of the “basic truths” about nuclear structure, believed tobe universal only 20 years ago, are now known to be approximationsthat hold for stable and close-to-stable nuclei, but that cannot be usedfurther away from stability. For example, we are used to thinking interms of nuclear shells based on unassailable “magic” numbers.However, it is possible to move far enough away from the stable nucleifor the balance between the number of neutrons and protons in anucleus to be so disturbed that the magic numbers can and dochange. Reaching the regions where this happens and performingdetailed studies of how and why the changes occur are important tasksfor nuclear physicists. So far “erosions” of the magic numbers N=8, 20and 28 are known, and it seems that they are at least partly replacedby N=6 and 16, although our present understanding is not complete.

Another change when we move far away from stable nuclei is thatcontinuum states need to be taken into account much more directlybecause binding energies become low (turning to zero at the neutronand proton driplines, where nuclei are so saturated with an excessof neutrons or protons that they “drip” the relevant nucleon). Experi-ments can now cross the proton dripline for many elements; andeven the neutron dripline, which is further away from stability thanthe proton one, has been reached and partially crossed for the lightelements up to about neon. The structure and dynamics of looselybound nuclei show new phenomena, such as the spatially extendedhalo and the “pygmy” resonances at low-excitation energies. Thisis a challenging area for both experimentalists and theoreticians.

Two of the sessions at NuPAC were dedicated to the evolution ofnuclear structure towards and at the driplines. Several theoreticaltalks outlined how far recent developments have taken us in des-criptions of nuclear structure and reaction theory for loosely boundsystems, of the evolution of shell structure and nuclear shape asthe proton and neutron numbers change, and of the very complex

problem the fission process presents. The experimental talks gaveexamples of the widely different techniques that are used today andplanned for the near future.

Measuring the nucleusUsing the low-energy ISOLDE beams, properties such as mass, radiusand magnetic moment can be measured relatively directly and in amodel-independent way for “long-lived” states (that is, with half-lives longer than a few milliseconds). Decay experiments also makeuse of these beams and provide information about many aspects ofnuclear structure. For the past four years it has also been possible toperform reaction experiments through post-acceleration in the Radio-active Beam EXperiment (REX-ISOLDE) accelerator. Most of theseexperiments have used the Miniball gamma-ray detector array.

Speakers at the meeting stressed the importance of the plannedenergy upgrade of REX-ISOLDE to at least 5.5 MeV per nucleon. Thiswill enable reaction experiments to be performed with all of the 800and more nuclei that ISOLDE can now produce. Participants alsostrongly supported the continuation of the beam developmentprogramme that is ISOLDE’s hallmark. On the “wish list” are beamsof even more kinds of nuclei, as well as improved quality (intensity,isotopic purity, phase space extent) for existing beams.

A reliable knowledge of nuclear structure is one of the basic require-ments for properly understanding how energy is produced in stars,and thereby how stars evolve. The session dedicated to these

NUCLEAR PHYSICS


CERN’s low-energy frontier

The ISOLDE facility at CERN. The isotope separators arelocated behind the wall at the rear, from where beams can bedirected into any of the beamlines towards the experiments,some of which are visible in the foreground. The elevatedcubicle at the left of the image is the Electron Beam Ion Source,which acts as a charge-state multiplier for the REX accelerator.

The recent NuPAC meeting at CERN provided an overview of the laboratory’s present andfuture activities in nuclear astrophysics, nuclear-structure physics and related areas.

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questions presented various aspects of the problems as seen byastronomers, theoreticians and nuclear experimentalists. Half of theheavy elements produced are made in what is known as the s-process, the slow neutron capture that takes place in massive stars inlater stages of their evolution. Experimental data are still needed asinput for a complete understanding, in particular of the weak s-process component (nuclei below mass number 90). One of the mainlines of the future n_TOF physics programme is to measure these neu-tron-capture processes with sufficient resolution. Explosive astro-physical events – such as supernovae, novae and X-ray bursters –quickly drive nuclei far from the region of stability, and data collectedat ISOLDE can benefit in several ways the theoretical modelling ofthese events.

Further usesExperiments in nuclear physics dominated the early stages of theinvestigation into weak interactions. Particle physics has taken theplace of nuclear physics for many decades, but nuclei still provideimportant information through precision experiments that restrictthe low-energy limit of the phenomena seen more directly at higherenergy. A short session at NuPAC gave two examples of this: on theone hand nuclear measurements are needed to improve further theunitarity test of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa quark-mixingmatrix; and on the other hand precision measurements of beta-decays in ion and/or atom traps are sensitive to new interactions.These experiments typically run for up to a decade to obtain therequired low level of systematic uncertainties.

A session was devoted to presentations of applications of nuclearphysics. Basic data on neutron-capture cross-sections on manynuclei are indispensable to enable further developments of nucleartechnologies – for example, the accelerator-driven systems for trans-mutation or the thorium cycle with its potential for a significantreduction of the amount of radiotoxic waste. As several speakersoutlined, it is an important part of the present and future n_TOF pro-gramme to provide these data. The application of radioactive nucleiin solid-state physics and life science has been an important facetof the ISOLDE programme for many years, and some of the high-

lights were presented. A possible future use of radioactive ions asprobes of nanostructures was outlined; this again requires isotopic-ally pure beams of high beam-optical quality. Also discussed wasthe use of radioisotopes in nuclear medicine, where progress in bio-medicine combined with the introduction of new high-purity radio-isotopes opens new possibilities for diagnosis and therapy.

The last session was devoted to the proposed upgrades of theISOLDE and n_TOF facilities, and of the proton injectors on whichthey depend. The ISOLDE community is proposing an upgrade pro-ject, HIE (High Intensity and Energy)-ISOLDE, that includes increas-ing the REX energy to 5.5 MeV/u in 2009, with the goal of reaching10 MeV/u in 2011. Furthermore, the beam quality will be improvedwith the help of, for example, new ion sources, an upgraded laserion source with a trap close to the target, low-energy beam coolersand charge breeders. The target and ion source development pro-gramme would be boosted to keep the leading edge in this key field.

The n_TOF community is proposing to restart the facility (after refur-bishing the target) and to use a different moderator to increase theproton flux at low energy. It is envisaged that at a later date the n_TOFfacility will have a new, shorter TOF tube with a target area that is fullyequipped to handle radioactive sources. In principle, such an arrange-ment could enable sources collected at ISOLDE to be used at n_TOF.

The faster cycling of the Proton Synchrotron (PS) Booster could inthe short term provide ISOLDE with more protons. CERN’s Acceler-ator Beams Department is developing a scheme that will permit theBooster to cycle at 900 ms without any additional risk for the agingPS magnets. Further in the future, Linac 4 will make even more pro-tons available for both ISOLDE and n_TOF, and will serve as the firststep towards a multimegawatt proton source at CERN, the Super-conducting Proton Linac (SPL) (CERN Courier September 2004p31). The long-term goal of the ISOLDE community is to realise theEuropean Isotope Separation On-Line Radioactive Ion Beam Facility(EURISOL) – a high-intensity radioactive beam facility that willenable nuclear physicists to probe even further into the unknown.The SPL would be a suitable driver for EURISOL.

The opportunities at the present nuclear-physics and astrophysicsfacilities at CERN are clearly not yet exhausted. The proposedupgrades will further boost the scientific reach of the facilities andserve a community of more than 500 users. It will be interesting tofollow the development of this programme over the coming years.

RésuméLa frontière des basses énergies pour le CERN

La récente réunion NuPAC, tenue au CERN, a fait le point desactivités du laboratoire en astrophysique nucléaire, en physiquede la structure nucléaire et dans des domaines connexes. Cesactivités sont essentiellement menées aux installations ISOLDE etn_TOF. ISOLDE étudie des propriétés du noyau (notamment samasse et son rayon) utiles pour comprendre la structurenucléaire, qui joue un rôle dans l’évolution stellaire. L’importancedu relèvement de l’énergie de REX-ISOLDE a été soulignée. Desapplications de physique nucléaire, telles que les systèmespilotés par accélérateurs pour la transmutation nucléaire,s’appuient en particulier sur n_TOF.

Mats Lindroos and Karsten Riisager, CERN.

NUCLEAR PHYSICS


The 185 m-long n_TOF vacuum tube, with members of thedesign and construction team. In the n_TOF facility, protonsstrike a lead target to produce an intense neutron beam thattravels through the tube, giving rise to a time spectrum thatdepends on the neutron kinetic energy.

CCJan/Feb-NUPAC32,33 24/1/06 8:12

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Statistics has always been an essential tool in experimental particlephysics, and today this is truer than ever. In the early days emul-sions and bubble-chamber photographs were scanned slowly byhand; now modern electronic detectors perform equivalent pro-cessing quickly and automatically. However, physicists still classifyand count their events and then, eagerly or reluctantly, turn to sta-tistical methods to decide whether the numbers are significant andwhat results are valid.

As the subject has progressed, new themes have emerged. Thehigh numbers of events obtained by CERN’s Large Electron–Positroncollider (a Z-factory), the B-factories PEP-II and KEKB at SLAC andKEK respectively, and the experiments at DESY’s HERA collider,mean that statistical errors below 1% are now common. Many areashave become dominated by systematic effects, a relatively untrod-den and much less well understood field.

On the theoretical side, the high precision of theories such asquantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics meansthat the tiny uncertainties in their predictions have to be carefullystudied and understood. Supersymmetry and other “new physics”models predict signals that depend on several parameters of thetheory, and when an experiment fails to see such a signal the restric-tions this places on possible values for these parameters has to beworked out. When different experiments probe the same basic theory,we need to evaluate the combined implication of their results.

The science of statistics is also developing fast. The availability oflarge amounts of processing power opens new possibilities for evalu-ating statistical models and their predictions. Bayesian statistics is arapidly growing field in which a great deal of progress has been made.Machine learning techniques, such as artificial neural networks anddecision trees, are flourishing, with further applications continuallybeing found that open up new possibilities for exploiting data.

Astronomers and cosmologists are also developing the power andsophistication of their statistical techniques. Telescopes are becominglarger and more powerful, and the readout from their instruments withcharge-coupled detectors produces a torrent of data. Observationsat different wavelengths, from gamma rays to radio waves, fromground-based observatories and satellites are combined to yieldclues about the nature of distant objects, the processes that powerthem and other features of the universe. Details of the distribution ofthe cosmic microwave background will, when properly interpreted,tell us what happened in the Big Bang at energies beyond the

DATA ANALYSIS


PHYSTAT: making the mostof statistical techniques Roger Barlow looks at the development of the PHYSTAT series of meetings, which bringstatisticians together with astronomers, cosmologists and particle physicists.

Cosmologists and particle physicists share problems instatistics in the observational data. Top, determining theamounts of dark energy and dark matter from cosmicmicrowave background (CMB) observations (Courtesy AndrewJaffe, PHYSTAT 2005). Bottom, pinning down parameters of theCabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix (from HEP2005, Lisbon).

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ergy

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0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

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“matter” (normal + dark)

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

SNIa

Boomerang–98MAXIMA–I

WMAP

observationsof distantsupernova

CMBobservations

ΩΛ

Ωm

flat universeΩtot+ Ωm+ ΩΛ=1

+

0

1.5

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φ2

CCEJan/FebPHYSTAT35,36 24/1/06 11:16

reach of man-made accelerators.The PHYSTAT series of conferences and workshops provide a forum

in which different communities can meet and exchange ideas. A firstworkshop of particle physicists at CERN in 2000 was followed by oneat Fermilab in 2001, and then a full conference in Durham in 2002,which benefited from the presence of statisticians as well as physi-cists. At SLAC in 2003, astronomers and cosmologists were included(CERN Courier March 2004 p22). This was so successful that it wasrepeated at the most recent conference, “Statistical Problems inParticle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology”, held in Oxford inSeptember 2005 and organized by Louis Lyons.

PHYSTAT 2005 consisted of a wide-ranging programme of paralleland plenary talks. One of the most influential statistical thinkers ofthe 20th century, David Cox of Oxford University, gave the openingkeynote speech, in which he provided an authoritative account ofthe Bayesian and frequentist approaches to inference. The officialprogramme was supplemented by intense discussions in corridors,coffee lounges and local pubs, as the participants thrashed outideas that ranged from the philosophical abstractions of the mean-ing of probability to the pragmatic and technical details of differentcomputer systems.

These techniques are being fed back into the community throughthe activities of the participants, many of whom are active in analy-sis on various different experiments, through further meetings (afollow-up afternoon meeting in Manchester attracted 80 particlephysicists from the UK), through the academic training pro-

grammes offered at CERN and other laboratories, and throughgraduate conferences and summer schools. There are developingplans for a repository of software that performs these increasinglysophisticated statistical tests. Further workshops are planned for2006 and beyond.

Further readingMore information can be found at www.physics.ox.ac.uk/phystat05/and at www.pa.msu.edu/people/linnemann/stat_resources.html.

RésuméPHYSTAT: comment optimiser les techniques statistiques?

Les statistiques sont un outil essentiel de la physique desparticules expérimentale. Le cycle de conférences et d’ateliersPHYSTAT permet à des physiciens, des astronomes et descosmologistes de rencontrer des statisticiens pour échanger desidées. L’édition 2005, qui s’est tenue en septembre à Oxford, atraité aussi bien d’abstractions philosophiques sur la significationdes probabilités que de détails pragmatiques et techniques dedivers systèmes informatiques qui, au travers des échanges, ontété diffusés au sein de la communauté. Des plans sont élaboréspour établir une logithèque permettant d’exécuter les essaisstatistiques toujours plus complexes de l’époque actuelle.

Roger Barlow, University of Manchester.

DATA ANALYSIS


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CCEJan/FebPHYSTAT35,36 25/1/06 12:19

When high-energy beams of charged and neutral particles interactwith ordered matter, such as crystal lattices and nanostructures,they induce phenomena that are finding an increasing number ofapplications at particle accelerators. This has led to a great deal ofinterest both in assessing the current state of the art of this fast-growing field, and in stimulating research collaborations among thedifferent groups involved. The International Workshop on RelativisticChannelling and Coherent Phenomena in Strong Fields, held inFrascati on 25–28 July 2005, provided an appropriate showcase forrecent results in the field. The workshop was the latest in a series ofsuccessful similar meetings and was merged with the Radiationfrom Relativistic Electrons and Periodic Structures 2005 sympo-sium in the biannual series that has been organized by TomskPolytechnic University since 1993.

Bent crystalsOver the past decade, the understanding of particle steering by abent crystal lattice has progressed very well, and in particular theaccelerator applications of the bent-crystal channelling techniquehave greatly expanded (CERN Courier July/August 2004 p19).Crystal bending and extraction of particle beams has become anestablished technology at high-energy accelerators, and with theapproaching start-up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN,crystal-channelling techniques are providing further applications

that are useful in the multi-tera-electron-volt range. One new appli-cation proposes bending the LHC protons (or ions) by a huge angleof 1–20° in the 0.45–7 TeV energy range using a bent single crys-tal of silicon or germanium. This would allow calibration of thecalorimeters in the CMS (or ATLAS) detector in situ, using an LHCbeam of precisely known energy. The simulations presented at theworkshop show that such an application at the LHC is feasible. Theworkshop also reported results from the experiment at the Institutefor High Energy Physics (IHEP), Protvino, on crystal bending of70 GeV protons by 9° (150 mrad) and its application for beamdelivery during 1994–2004.

At lower particle-accelerator energies, crystal channelling can beused to produce low-emittance beams useful for medical and bio-logical applications. The success in bending beams of less than1 GeV was reported from the Beam Test Facility of the INFN’sLaboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF). Here, a positron beam of about500 MeV provides the right energy scale for using the facility as atest bench for possible future applications of crystal techniques withlight ions in medical machines. This study was made possible throughthe support of Transnational Access to Research Infrastructuregranted to LNF by the European Union as one of the major researchinfrastructures in Europe to give free access to researchers for theperiod 2004–2008. The advances in crystal micro-technology forproducing micro-beams for possible future applications in radio-

PARTICLE BEAMS


The future looks brightfor particle channelling

Techniques that make use of the ordered structure of a crystal lattice to manipulateparticle beams are finding an increasing number of applications.

Fig.1. Radiographs using a parametric X-ray radiation beam: (a) foils of copper and zinc at 9 keV; (b) integrated circuit card andalumium step (?) at 13.5 keV; and (c) sample slice of a human tooth at 13.5 keV. (Courtesy Y Hayakawa et al.)

(a)

Cu

Zn

(b) (c)

CCEJan/FebCHANNEL37,38 24/1/06 8:49

biology and medicine was also reported by the INFN-IHEP collabora-tion. This work covers the range from lower energies (kilo-electron-volts and mega-electron-volts) to higher energies (giga-electron-volts)and compares channelling techniques with alternative ones.

From Japan, a collaboration from Hiroshima University and KEKreported on an experiment on electron-beam deflection with chan-nelling in silicon crystals at the 150 MeV electron ring of the univer-sity’s Relativistic Electron Facility for Education and Research. Thegroup plans tests with bent crystals at KEK’s Proton Synchrotronand aims to apply crystal deflection of high-energy beams at theJapan Proton Accelerator Research Centre, the 50 GeV high-intensityproton machine currently under construction in Japan.

Undulators and targetsWhile bent (and also focusing) crystals are well-known tools in accel-erators, crystal undulators are just being introduced into experiments.Channelling undulators offer sub-millimetre periods and magneticfields of the order of 1000 T. Samples of crystal undulators havealready been manufactured and tested with X-rays and in channellingproton beams. Now tests using positron beams have been started atIHEP Protvino and at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron, and are alsoplanned at LNF. The first data from the experiment on positron radi-ation in a crystal undulator at IHEP were presented at the workshop.

The Yerevan Physical Institute presented calculations on radiationproduced by 20 MeV electrons channelled in the crystallographicplanes of quartz, both with and without periodic deformations. Theinstitute also plans experiments to study the influence of externalfields on channelling radiation.

Intense positron sources using crystal effects are another applica-tion of strong coherent fields. A number of talks reported on the the-ories of coherent radiation and pair production in ordered matter,and CERN’s WA103 collaboration reviewed the experimental progressin the field. The KEK–Tokyo–Tomsk–Paris collaboration reported astudy of positron production from a thick silicon-crystal target using8 GeV channelling electrons with high bunch charges.

The workshop marked two decades since the experimental dis-covery of parametric X-ray radiation (PXR) in Tomsk in 1985: theradiation is generated by the motion of electrons inside a crystal,such that the energy intensity of the radiation depends on the para-meters of the crystal structure. PXR has since been a subject ofexperimental and theoretical research and possible applications ataccelerators, and was a subject in many talks at the workshop. Ateam working at Nuclotron at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Researchin Dubna has reported the first observation of PXR from moderatelyrelativistic nuclei in crystals. A nice example of an application is atunable monochromatic X-ray source based on PXR developed atthe Laboratory for Electron Beam Research and Application in NihonUniversity, Japan. So far the main use of the X-rays there has been

in radiography for biological samples such as teeth or bones (figure1, p37). The contrast of the images was controlled with precisechanges of the X-ray energy, a great advantage of a system thatuses a PXR beam.

For the future, many interesting directions are foreseen in thefield. A great deal of effort worldwide is being put into crystal radi-ation research and applications. Further progress is expected inapplications using bent crystals for beam steering at accelerators.It will be an ideal opportunity to take full advantage of the chan-nelling-crystal potentialities at the LHC and other high-energy accel-erators, making crystals to serve for both collimation and extraction.The opportunity to have an extracted beam at a multi-tera-electron-volt machine should stimulate more research at the highest ener-gies into particle interactions with aligned atomic lattices. The firstcrystal-channelling undulators and their initial tests with positronbeams should proceed to the realization of novel radiation sources;thus, new positron-channelling experiments on undulator radiationare eagerly awaited.

The success of the workshop is reflected both in the level of par-ticipation, with around 40 specialists coming from different geo-graphical areas, such as Europe, Japan and the former USSR, andin the high quality of the presentations. The resulting papers will bepublished as a special issue of Nuclear Instruments and MethodsB, covering nearly all topics of current interest in channelling andradiation in aligned periodic structures at relativistic energies.

Further readingFor the proceedings of the previous workshop held in 2004 see:H H Andersen, S Bellucci, V M Biryukov (eds.) Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B234 2005 1.

RésuméLa canalisation des particules a le vent en poupe

Les phénomènes induits par des faisceaux de particules de hauteénergie interagissant avec de la matière ordonnée trouventtoujours plus d’applications auprès des accélérateurs. Lesderniers résultats dans ce domaine en pleine évolution ont étéprésentés à l'atelier international sur la canalisation relativiste etles phénomènes cohérents dans les champs intenses, tenu àFrascati en juillet 2005. L’atelier a notamment porté sur lacanalisation dans les cristaux, tant à haute énergie, au LHC, qu’àbasse énergie, dans des applications médicales et biologiques,les onduleurs cristallins, les sources intenses de positons, etl’utilisation de rayonnement X paramétrique en radiographie.

Stefano Bellucci, INFN/Frascati, and Valery M Biryukov, IHEPProtvino.

PARTICLE BEAMS


CCEJan/FebCHANNEL37,38 24/1/06 8:49

Last summer, physicists from 10 countries came to the campus ofthe Tokyo Institute of Technology for the 5th Circum-Pan-PacificSymposium on High Energy Spin Physics, held on 5–8 July 2005.The aim of this symposium is to enhance communications amongphysicists in the circum-pan-Pacific region as well as with guestsfrom other regions, including Europe. Another feature is the activeparticipation of young physicists.

In 1988, the European Muon Collaboration experiment at CERNreported that quark spin makes only a small contribution to the spinof the proton, contrary to what had been believed for many years.This gives rise to the well-known “nucleon spin problem”, now beingstudied by physicists all over the world: what in fact does give theproton and neutron their spin?

At the symposium, the COMPASS collaboration, EMC’s successorat CERN, reported on their measurements of the gluon spin’s contri-bution to the nucleon spin for which they use a high-energy muonbeam together with the detection of “open charm” and hadron pairs.In addition to a longitudinally polarized deuteron target, COMPASSoccasionally uses a transversely polarized deuteron target, and socan measure the Collins effect and hence the transversity distribu-

tion δq(x) (CERN Courier October 2004 p51). δq(x), which is thedistribution of transversely polarized quarks in a transversely polar-ized target, is the third distribution function at twist two, along withthe momentum distribution q(x) and helicity distribution ∆q(x).

At DESY, the HERMES experiment has performed quark flavour sep-aration of helicity distributions ∆q(x) using a ring-imaging Cherenkovdetector for hadron identification. Further progress in this experimenthas come with a transversely polarized hydrogen target, which hasenabled the Collins and Sivers effects to be separately identified forthe first time. Identifying each of these effects with both HERMES andCOMPASS will also help in understanding the mechanism in hadronreactions, such as the sizeable single-spin asymmetries observed,for example, by the E704 experiment at Fermilab and STAR at theRelativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven. A relationshipbetween the Sivers effect and the orbital angular momenta of quarkshas been suggested theoretically, and the quark orbital angularmomentum could contribute to the nucleon spin.

RHIC uses polarized proton–proton collisions to study the nucleon-spin problem, and both the luminosity and beam polarization arebecoming higher every year. Here each proton beam can be

SPIN PHYSICS


Tokyo meeting focuseson nucleon-spin problemQuark spin, gluon spin and the orbital angular momenta of quarks and gluons can allcontribute to nucleon spin, but which has the main role? Physicists met in Tokyo to discuss.

Day two of the 5th Circum-Pan-Pacific Symposium on High Energy Spin Physics included dinner at a traditional Japanese house.

CCEJan/FebSPIN39,40 23/1/06 5:40 pm

regarded as a bundle of high-energy partons, where gluon–gluon col-lisions and gluon–quark collisions tell us about the role of the gluon’sspin in the proton. The double-spin asymmetry ALL in π0 meson pro-duction has been measured with longitudinally polarized protonbeams as a function of transverse momentum, pt, and transverselypolarized proton beams are also used. At the symposium the PHENIXand STAR collaborations at RHIC presented recent data along withinteresting plans for the future.

Jefferson Lab also has a variety of experiments to study thenucleon-spin problem. The symposium presented experiments onthe quark helicity distribution at large x, deeply virtual Compton scat-tering, single-spin asymmetries from semi-inclusive hadron detec-tion, investigations in the nucleon resonance region and quark–hadron duality and so on, as well as the plan for a future beam-energy upgrade. High luminosity is one of the merits of Jefferson Lab.

The Belle collaboration at the KEK B-factory reported their analy-sis of the Collins fragmentation function in the hadronizationprocess in positron–electron collisions, where a non-zero value forthe function was observed. This fragmentation function is needed toextract the transversity distribution δq(x) from the Collins effectobserved in lepton–nucleon scattering.

The symposium also presented plans for a neutrino-scatteringexperiment to study the spin of strange quarks in the nucleon. Inaddition, there were theory talks on nucleon-spin structure based onlattice quantum chromodynamic calculations, the chiral quark solitonmodel, di-quark model and resummation method etc. Here devel-

opments in generalized parton distributions were a main topic.The symposium consisted completely of plenary sessions, so that

all the participants could share the same discussions. On the after-noon of the second day, a boat trip was organized at YokohamaBay, followed by a visit to a Japanese-style garden and a confer-ence dinner in an old traditional Japanese house in the garden. For the talks at the symposium see www.nucl.phys.titech.ac.jp/~pacific-spin05/.

RésuméUne réunion sur le problème du spin du nucléon à Tokyo

L’été dernier, des physiciens de dix pays se sont réunis à Tokyopour le 5e symposium Circum et Pan Pacifique sur la physique duspin à haute énergie, tenu pour promouvoir la communicationdes physiciens de la région, entre eux et avec les autres régions,dont l’Europe. Le thème central était le “problème du spin dunucléon”: le spin du quark, le spin du gluon et le momentcinétique orbital des quarks et des gluons peuvent tous concourirau spin du nucléon, mais dans quelles proportions? On y aentendu les derniers résultats de l’expérience COMPASS (CERN),de HERMES (DESY), des collisions proton–proton (RHIC) etd’études à plus basse énergie (Laboratoire Jefferson etinstallation KEKB – expérience Belle).

Toshi-Aki Shibata, Tokyo Institute of Technology.

SPIN PHYSICS


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CCEJan/FebSPIN39,40 23/1/06 5:45 pm

FACES AND PLACES


The fourth CERN Golden Hadron awards sawseven suppliers for the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) receive recognition for their high qualityof work, respect for delivery dates, flexibility,and adaptability to the demanding workingconditions of the project.

The awards went to Kemppi-Kempower(Finland), Metso Powdermet (Finland),Transtechnik (Germany), Babcock NoellNuclear (Germany), Iniziative Industriali (Italy),ZTS VVU Kosice (Slovakia), and Jehier (France).

Babcock Noell Nuclear (BNN) received itsaward for the successful production of a third(416 cold dipole masses) of the LHC’ssuperconducting dipole magnets, one of thecollider’s most critical and complexcomponents. BNN produced the magnetseight months ahead of the contract deadline,delivering high-quality magnets with anexceptional performance, despite theinsolvency of its parent company in 2002.

Metso Powdermet manufactured most ofthe end covers for the LHC superconductingmagnets and other cryogenic equipment.Metso stepped in and launched a “crashprogramme” after the company originallyholding the pre-series contract refused todeliver. Metso adapted its unique powdermetallurgy technique to the LHC, involvingmelting fine metal powder in a process thatreplaces welding and reduces costs.

Jehier has designed, and is now producingand delivering, multi-layer insulation (MLI)

blankets for the LHC’s superconductingmagnets, fulfilling CERN specifications. Afterthe delivery of thousands of MLI blanket sets,no non-conformities have been found. Jehierdemonstrated its goodwill and flexibility toadapt its production to numerous requestsfrom CERN during the crisis with the cryogenicdistribution line, and the company madeconsiderable efforts to supply at short notice.

A leading manufacturer of arc-weldingequipment, Kemppi-Kempower produced theonly workable prototype of the high-current andhigh-precision power converter for the LHC,when faced with competition in 2002 from twoother suppliers. Subsequently, the Finnish firmreceived the contract for pre-series and seriesdelivery, and by July 2005, 82 powerconverters had been delivered and accepted,constituting 42% of the total production.

At the end of 2002, Transtechnik, whoprovide power electronics for railwayapplications, went bankrupt having alreadydelivered successful prototypes of the mainquadrupole power converters and four-quadrant power converters for the LHC.Fortunately, another firm, Drosten, took overTranstechnik and all the key engineersremained with the company. Transtechnik isnow back on schedule, having recouped thetime lost due to the financial difficulties.

Since 2003, Iniziative Industriali hasinstalled more than 1600 tonnes of steelstructures and several kilometres of piping inthe LHC tunnel and underground caverns. Thisis a great achievement, as more than half thedesign-specification drawings for the steelstructures were unavailable when the contractwas initially signed. Iniziative Industriali andits subcontractors have adapted their meansof production to satisfy CERN’s requirements.

The LHC has required the development ofvery hi-tech handling devices for installing thebig, heavy and fragile superconductingmagnets in the very confined space of theLHC tunnel. Specialists in machineengineering and electro-technical products,ZTS VVU Kosice in Slovakia, manufacturedfive equipment-transfer sets for CERN. Theserobots can carry the LHC magnets from thetransport vehicles inside the tunnel and alignthem with the magnets’ support jacks withhigh precision (0.1 mm).

Suppliers win Golden HadronsA W A R D S

Representatives of the seven companieswith their Golden Hadron awards, togetherwith Lyn Evans, project leader for the LHC.

Julius Wess has been awarded the degree ofDoktor rerum naturalium honoris causa bythe Mathematics and Science Faculty I of theHumboldt-University Berlin to mark theoccasion of Einstein World Year of Physics2005. The award ceremony took place on25 October in the new physics-institutebuilding in Berlin-Adlershof.

The award recognizes numerous scientificcontributions Wess has made to

mathematical and theoretical physics, andmore specifically his contributions toquantum field theory and anomalies, thediscovery of supersymmetry, the developmentof superspace geometry, and his work on non-commutative spacetime. This work, much ofwhich was done in collaboration with BrunoZumino, continues to play a key role inpresent efforts to understand the fundamentalstructure of space, time and matter.

Julius Wess receives awardfrom Humboldt-University

Julius Wess, right, receives the honorarydoctor award from the dean of theMathematics and Science Faculty I ofHumboldt-University Berlin, T Buckhout,centre, and the director of the PhysicsInstitute, Fritz Henneberger.

CCEJanPeople41-45 24/1/06 9:28

FACES AND PLACES


The International School for Advanced Studies(SISSA) and the Institute of Physics (IOP) havelaunched the new online-only Journal ofInstrumentation (JINST). Recent years haveseen a huge growth in instrumentation scienceand JINST has been created to support theneeds of this expanding community.

JINST covers all fields of radiation

instrumentation and deals both withconcepts and experimental techniques, aswell as with related theoretical aspects,modelling and simulations. Major JINSTsections include accelerator science,instrumentation and methods for acceleratorsand accelerator experiments, detectorphysics, detectors and apparatus for particleand nuclear physics, methods and apparatusfor astronomy and astrophysics, detectors forbiomedical applications, instrumentation andmethods for medical applications, non-destructive testing, and detector-readoutconcepts and electronics.

The SISSA–IOP online-only J-journals (JHEP,JCAP, JSTAT) have proved to be remarkably

successful in terms of quality and impact. Likeits siblings, JINST will feature highlydistinguished advisory and editorial boards.Unlike traditional journals, the editorial boardof the J-journals is entirely responsible for thepeer-review process: authors are thus assuredthat the fate of their submissions is in thehands of active scientists.

For the first year JINST will available free ofcharge. As with the other J-journals, paperspublished in JINST will be available on open-access terms for the first month of publicationand all papers will remain free of charge toinstitutions in developing countries. To access JINST see http://jinst.sissa.it orwww.iop.org/EJ/journal/jinst.

J-journals expandinto radiationinstrumentation

E - P U B L I S H I N G

Herwig Schopper, CERN director-general1981–1988, has received the UNESCO NielsBohr Gold Medal along with Sir Martin Rees,Britain’s astronomer royal, and Peter Zoller ofInsbruck, a central figure in quantuminformation. The medals, which werepresented at the Danish Royal Academy ofScience and Letters on 15 November,recognize scientific excellence, concern withthe impact of science, and efforts to promote

the free exchange of ideas on a broadinternational scale.

Schopper is president of the InternationalCentre for Synchrotron Light for ExperimentalScience and Applications in the Middle East(SESAME) council (CERN Courier November2002 p6). This is the second UNESCO awardSchopper has received in the past two years.In April 2004, he received the Albert EinsteinGold Medal (CERN Courier June 2004 p39).

Herwig Schopper, left, together with theDanish minister for Science, Technologyand Innovation, Helge Sander, whopresented the UNESCO medals.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation hasmade research awards to Joël Feltesse ofCEA/Saclay and Bikash Sinha, director ofthe Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics.

Feltesse has received one of sixHelmhotz–Humboldt awards made annuallyto internationally acknowledged scientistsfrom outside Germany in recognition of theirresearch achievements. These are awardedjointly by the Alexander von HumboldtFoundation and the Helmholtz Association.The award to Feltesse acknowledges hisoutstanding contribution to the study of deepinelastic scattering and the important role heplayed in the development of Europeanparticle physics during his time asspokesman of the H1 experiment at DESY, asdirector of DAPNIA at Saclay, and as chair ofCERN’s Scientific Policy Committee. He wasamong the first to realize the importance oflow x physics in the exploration of high gluondensities in the proton.

Sinha has received a Humboldt researchaward for his exceptional achievements inchanging the scale and dimensions ofnuclear-physics research in India. Sinha,who is also director of the Variable EnergyCyclotron Centre (VECC), worked with theMumbai-based Bhabha Atomic ResearchCentre and successfully campaigned for thesetting up of heavy-ion accelerators in India.The VECC is currently working on asuperconducting cyclotron and a project todevelop a radioactive-beam facility.

Patrick Janot du CERNa reçu la médailled’argent 2005 duCNRS pour l’IN2P3(Institut national dephysique nucléaire etde physique desparticules). Ce prix, l’undes plus prestigieux ducentre de recherche français, lui a été remisplus particulièrement pour ses travauxlorsqu’il était coordonnateur scientifique dugrand collisionneur électron–positon (LEP)au cours des deux dernières années defonctionnement de l’accélérateur, en 1999et 2000, et son “rôle central dans larecherche du boson de Higgs” durant cettepériode. Il s’est notamment illustré enproposant des idées novatrices pour pousserles performances de la machine dans leursretranchements et atteindre une énergie de209 GeV tout en optimisant la luminosité.

Herwig Schopper honouredA W A R D S

Joël Feltesse, left, and Bikash Sinha.


FACES AND PLACES


For the past few years, experiments atFermilab’s Tevatron collider have beenexploring uncharted territory at the high-energyfrontier of particle physics. With CERN’s LargeHadron Collider (LHC) operations to start in2007, a new era in the exploration of thefundamental laws of nature will begin.

In anticipation of this era of discovery,Fermilab and CERN are jointly launching aseries of Hadron Collider Physics SummerSchools, with the aim of offering students andyoung researchers a complete picture of boththe theoretical and experimental aspects ofhadron-collider physics. The first school willtake place on 9–18 August 2006 at Fermilab;the following one will be at CERN in thesummer of 2007.

Preparing young researchers to tackle thecurrent and anticipated challenges of hadroncolliders, and spreading the global knowledgerequired for a timely and competentexploitation of the LHC physics potential, areconcerns equally shared by CERN, the LHChost laboratory, and by Fermilab, the home ofthe Tevatron and host to the CMScollaboration’s LHC Physics Center in the US.

The first school will include nine days oflectures and discussions, with one free day inthe middle of the period. The emphasis will beon the physics potential of the first years ofdata-taking at the LHC, and on theexperimental and theoretical tools needed toexploit that potential. The school will befocused to attract senior graduate students

and recent PhDs in both experimental andtheoretical particle physics.

The lectures and discussions will include anintroduction to the theoretical andphenomenological framework of hadroncollisions, and current theoretical models offrontier physics, as well as an overview of themain detector components, the initialcalibration procedures and physics samples,and early LHC results. Examples of physicsanalyses drawn from the current Tevatronexperience will help inform these exchanges.

Scholarship funds will be available tosupport some participants. Updates,application procedures, and more details willbe available at the website for the first school:http://hcpss.fnal.gov.

CERN and Fermilab offer joint hadron-collider summer schoolsS U M M E R S C H O O L

Alexander Skrinsky, or Sasha as his friends andcolleagues call him, was 70 on 15 January. Theoccasion was celebrated on 14–16 January atthe Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP)in Novosirirk, where he is director, with aninternational seminar entitled Selectedchapters of modern high energy physics andcharged particle accelerators.

An outstanding member of Gersh Budker’sSiberian school, Skrinsky went to Novosibirskafter graduating from Moscow University in1959, and progressed to become director.From the earliest days, he led the pioneeringteam working on electron–electron andelectron–positron colliders. The successfulcommissioning of these machines, whichearned him the Lenin Prize in 1967, opened anew era in experimental high-energy physics.An attempt to extend this work to heavyparticles stimulated the development ofelectron cooling, a technique today exploitedall over the world. Now the high-energyphysics community is developing theInternational Linear Collider project, theconceptual design of which was suggested30 years ago by Skrinsky together with Budkerand Vladimir Balakin.

Skrinsky’s early fascination with spindynamics resulted in major developments for

polarized beams in colliders, leading to thediscovery and subsequent development ofresonance depolarization for high-precisionmeasurements of particle masses. For this,

Skrinsky and other physicists at Novosibirskreceived the State Prize of the USSR in 1989.

Skrinsky’s wide physics interests are acontinual source of fresh ideas, including theoptical klystron – a special free-electron laser –and various industrial applications of radiationtechnologies. For the past few years he hasbeen developing the concept of aninternational muon collider using ionizationmuon cooling as he proposed together withBudker in the 1970s. At present he is activelysupporting an upgrade of the complex ofcolliders at Novosibirsk, which will include newacceleration options such as round beams andmonochromatization. The aim is to achievecopious production of φ mesons and τ leptons.

As a leader of a major Russian physicscentre and as a head of the nuclear-physicssection of the Russian Academy of Sciences,Skrinsky contributes to the scientificprogramme of major accelerator laboratoriesand furthers the interests of Russianphysicists in various international projects, inparticular construction of the Large HadronCollider and its detectors at CERN, andexperiments at the B-factories at KEK andSLAC. He is an active member of severalinternational committees on scientific politicsin high-energy physics.

Alexander Skrinsky celebrates his 70th yearP E R S O N A L I T Y

Alexander Skrinsky, who was 70 in January,celebrated at the BINP, where he is director.


FACES AND PLACES


On 4–7 July 2005 the beautiful building ofthe German Physical Society in Bad Honnefoutside Bonn hosted EPEC-1, the first EPSPhysics Education Conference. Participantsfrom 20 countries gathered to present anddiscuss education projects and initiatives inphysics education. The aim was to provide aforum for new physics-education methodsand initiatives, involving school teachers anduniversity teachers in a dialogue and informalalliance to make physics at school anduniversity more interesting.

The conference presented frontline physicsfrom several fields, experiences in physicseducation and examples of how to usemultimedia in education. The Frontierslectures were much appreciated and it wasgratifying to observe the willingness of leadingresearchers to participate in a conference thatwas directed primarily towards education.Werner Hoffman of the Max Planck Institute forNuclear Physics, Heidelberg, spoke onelementary particles and the cosmos; UweCzarnetski of Bochum described recentadvances in Bose–Einstein condensates andthe construction of matter lasers; Klaus

Ensslin of ETH, Zurich, discussed the work thathe and his group have carried out innanophysics and the fabrication of nano-scaledevices; and Guy de Mortier from theLaboratorie d’analyses par reactionsnucléaires, Namur, described some of hismany applications of nuclear techniques toproblems in medical physics and archaeology.

Among the educational topics, ThomasTrefzger of Mainz described a neat experimentto observe cosmic muons using a thermosflask as a simple Cherenkov detector forcosmic-ray muons. Jef Colle and Frits Hiddenpresented HiSPARC, the Dutch cooperativeproject between the scientific community andhigh schools that aims to detect high-energycosmic showers with scintillation detectorshoused in ski boxes on the roof of severalschools in the Netherlands.

There was a general consensus that thereshould be an EPEC-2 in 2007 where physicsteachers and scientists can continue topresent their work on making physicseducation more interesting. Talks and reports can be found atwww.physik.uni-mainz.de/lehramt/epec/.

Physicists and teachers uniteE D U C A T I O N

Acqiris has introduced the first 10 bit, 4GS/s3U PXI digitizers, with input bandwidths of upto 3 GHz. The dual-channel DC152 and single-channel DC122 units reduce testing and data-acquisition time, making them ideal forhigh-speed applications. See www.acqiris.com.

Instrumentation Technologies has extendedits Libera product family for beam stabilization,introducing Libera Bunch-by-Bunch, whichdumps coupled bunch instabilities and helpsprovide beam users with a more stable orbit. Itenables digital signal processing, data storage,fine delay of analogue output, and a samplingrate of up to 500MHz. For more information seewww.i-tech.si/products-libera-bbfp.html.

Ulvac Technologies, Inc, has introduced theMS-E1S microscope, which, with an integratedhot furnace, enables the direct observation ofmaterials samples during heating and coolingexperiments, as in semiconductor andmetallurgical investigations. The unit integratesa compound optical microscope with aninfrared gold image furnace hot stage and avideo recording and display system. For furtherinformation contact Evan Sohm, tel: +1 978686 7550, fax: +1 978 689 6300, e-mail:[email protected] or see www.ulvac.com.

P R O D U C T S

In Bulgaria’s first CERN exhibition more than1400 people, many of them students andyoung physicists, visited the National Earthand Mankind Museum in Sofia on 8–17November 2005. Permanently staffed by youngphysicists from Sofia University, there wereexhibits about research activities at CERN, andfour posters describing Bulgaria’s participation.

The inauguration on 8 November took placein the presence of Vanya Dobreva, Vice-Minister for Science and Education, and some200 guests. Organized by Matey Mateev,president of the Union of Physicists in Bulgaria,the exhibition allowed CERN to present thelaboratory and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).It also underlined the important contributionthat Bulgarian physicists are making towardsthe LHC and experiments at CERN.

Bulgaria welcomes CERN exhibition

CERN’s first exhibition in Bulgaria covered the LHC and other experiments at CERN.

E X H I B I T I O N S


FACES AND PLACES


The International Accelerator School forLinear Colliders will take place on 19–27May at Sokendai, Hayama, Japan. Organizedby the International Linear Collider (ILC)Global Design Effort, ICFA Beam DynamicsPanel and the ILC Steering Committee, theprimary focus of the school will be on the ILC,but it will also cover multi-tera-electron-voltcolliders, such as the Compact Linear Collider.This seminar-style school is intended forgraduate students, postdocs and youngresearchers. Applications are welcomed fromphysicists who are considering changing theircareer from experimental physics toaccelerator physics. Students from around the

globe will be accepted into this first globalaccelerator school for linear colliders. Forfurther information contact Yoko Hayashi, KEK,tel: +81 29 864 5214, or e-mail [email protected] or see www.linearcollider.org/cms/?pid=1000171.

The XXVI Physics in Collision conferencewill take place in Búzios, Rio de Janeiro on6–9 July. These international conferences,which began in 1981, comprise invited talksand contributions in poster sessions. Speakersreview and update key topics in elementary-particle physics with the aim of encouraginginformal discussions on new experimentalresults and their implications. For furtherdetails see http://omnis.if.ufrj.br/~pic06/.

In the obituary for John Bahcall, who died inAugust 2005 (CERN Courier December 2005p41), his year of birth was unfortunatelyincorrectly given as 1935. John was in fact

born in 1934. CERN Courier offers itsapologies to all concerned.

In the obituary for Cesare Mansueto GiulioLattes, who died in March 2005 (CERNCourier November 2005 p48), the firstsentence implied that Lattes was the last

surviving member of the team thatdiscovered the pion. Hugh Muirhead ishowever still with us, and CERN Courierwould like to wish him well and apologise tohim and his family for any undue upset thiserror may have caused.

CERN Courier welcomes letters from readers.Please e-mail [email protected] reserve the right to edit letters.

In my proof that four-legged tables can be putin equilibrium, what matters of course is thatthe feet form a perfect square (CERN CourierDecember 2005 p9). The top can beanything, in particular a disc. The next step isto extend the proof to the case where the fourfeet are on a circle, for instance, form arectangle, and also a half hexagon, like thetables you find in the “salle des pas perdus”at CERN or in certain conference rooms.André Martin.

L E T T E R SM E E T I N G S

C O R R E C T I O N S


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47CERN Courier January/February 2006

R E C R U I T M E N TFor advertising enquiries, contact CERN Courier recruitment/classified, Institute of Physics Publishing, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK.

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The position of

Scientifi c Director at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH (GSI) in Darmstadt is to be fi lled with effect from 1 April 2007.

The GSI is a member of the Helmholtz Association of National Research Centres and receives 90% of its funding from

the Federal Government and 10% from the State of Hesse. The GSI conducts heavy ion research in the fi elds of nuclear

physics, nuclear chemistry, atomic physics, physics of dense plasmas, materials research, radiation biology and related

areas. It operates a system of heavy ion accelerators and numerous experimental plants for this purpose.

The GSI currently employs approximately 1000 members of staff. In addition, a further approximately one thousand

external scientists from around 35 different countries conduct research work using the GSI’s accelerators each

year. The GSI’s budget for 2005 amounted to approximately 85 million euro. More detailed information is available

at http://www.gsi.de/

A European accelerator centre with unique opportunities for research in the above-mentioned fi elds is to be established

in Darmstadt under the „FAIR – Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research“ project, which is to be conducted jointly with

European and international partners (construction due to begin 2007/2008). The GSI will assume a leading role in the

construction and subsequent operation of FAIR.

Apart from being responsible for the scientifi c work of the GSI, the Scientifi c Director is thus also responsible for coope-

ration in FAIR. He or she will represent the centre and its research activities in dealings with third parties, particularly at

the interface between science and politics, and will be familiar with the German and European science system. He or

she will promote the scientifi c and structural development of the GSI within the framework of the Helmholtz Association’s

programme-based funding and in the light of international competition.

Candidates should have an outstanding scientifi c profi le, excellent powers of leadership, the ability to take decisions,

social talents, the willingness and ability to communicate with and motivate others, extensive managerial experience

with complex organizations, and outstanding skills in the communication of research and science. Experience with

the management of large-scale projects, preferably also at international level, is an advantage. Candidates should

also demonstrate abstract planning ability, organizational skills and the ability to assert themselves, and should have

experience in the fi eld of international cooperation.

The appointment will be for a period of fi ve years. Reappointment is possible. Remuneration will be based on the salary

scale for senior university professors.

The members of the Helmholtz Association have set themselves the goal of promoting women in leadership positions.

Applications from women are therefore especially welcome.

Please send your application, enclosing relevant documents, within six weeks of the publication of this advertisement to:

The Chair of the Supervisory Board of the

Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH

- Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph -

- Private and Confi dential -

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

(Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

53175 Bonn

Germany

cerncourier.com

CCFebClassified47-53 25/1/06 2:27 pm

48 CERN Courier January/February 2006

US Department of EnergyOffice of Science

Office High Energy Physics

Director, Research and Technology DivisionAnnouncement Number PN-ES-SC25-625

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High EnergyPhysics (HEP), is seeking applicants to fill the Research and TechnologyDivision Director position with a salary range of $107,550 to $162,100 perannum. HEP supports research in the study of the basic nature of matter,energy, space and time, seeking an understanding of the ultimate constituents and structure of matter and the fundamental forces of nature.This program includes the management and administration of basicphysics research and the development, design, construction, operation,and maintenance of large, highly technologically advanced particle physicsfacilities. The Research and Technology Division is responsible for managing and administering basic research that will provide discoveriesand new insight that advance our scientific knowledge of high energyphysics processes and for R&D activities to advance the high energyphysics facilities in areas such as instrumentation, detectors, and accelerator technology. This position manages and directs the activitiesof this Division. For further information on the program please go tohttp://www.science.doe.gov/hep/index.shtm.

For further information about this position and the instructions on how toapply and submit an application, please go the following website:https://jobsonline.doe.gov/. To be considered for this position you mustapply online. This announcement closes February 16, 2006. It is imperative that you follow the instructions as stated on the announcement(PN-ES-SC25-625) located at the website indicated above for DOE JOBS.

The Department of Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

$109,808 to $165,200

US Department of EnergyOffice of Science

Office High Energy Physics

Director, Facilities DivisionAnnouncement Number PN-ES-SC25-626

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High EnergyPhysics (HEP), is seeking applicants to fill the Facilities DivisionDirector position with a salary range of $107,550 to $162,100 perannum. HEP supports research in the study of the basic nature of matter, energy, space and time, seeking an understanding of theultimate constituents and structure of matter and the fundamentalforces of nature. This program includes the development, design,construction, operation, and maintenance of large, highly technologi-cally advanced particle physics facilities and the management andadministration of basic physics research. The Facilities Division isresponsible for planning, constructing, upgrading, and operating theHEP program user facilities. This position manages and directs theactivities of this Division. For further information on the programplease go to http://www.science.doe.gov/hep/index.shtm.

For further information about this position and the instructions on howto apply and submit an application, please go the following website:https://jobsonline.doe.gov/. To be considered for this position youmust apply online. This announcement closes February 16, 2006. Itis imperative that you follow the instructions as stated on theannouncement (PN-ES-SC25-626) located at the website indicatedabove for DOE JOBS.

The Department of Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

$109,808 to $165,200

LIP invites applications for two 3-year research positions. Theappointments will be directed towards original work and/orthe pursuit of work of relevance for the current activities ofLIP-Coimbra. Applicants with a solid CV and at least twoyears experience after their PhD will be considered. Thesepositions can be renewed or converted into staff positions atthe end of the first three years term.

The present activities of LIP-Coimbra cover areas of accel-erator experiments (ATLAS, at CERN, and HADES, at GSI),astroparticle experiments (UK Dark Matter Collaboration),as well as R&D on different detector technologies for parti-cle physics and biomedical applications (liquid xenon, tim-ing RPCs, GEMs and air fluorescence). For details, seehttp://www-lip.fis.uc.pt

Until the 17th March 2006, candidates should send theirCVs and letters of reference to LIP Directorate, Depart-amento de Física da Universidade de Coimbra, Rua Larga,3004-516 Coimbra, Portugal. Further information can berequested from LIP Directors ([email protected]).

Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas

CCFebClassified47-53 25/1/06 12:34


The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at MichiganState University is seeking outstanding candidates to fill a facultyposition in accelerator physics. The successful candidate should pro-vide a significant increase in the scope and depth of the MSU accel-erator physics program, play a leadership role in developing futurefacility upgrade options, and contribute to the accelerator physicsgraduate education program at MSU.

The NSCL is the premier rare isotope facility in the U.S. The Labor-atory has the tradition of close interaction between groups providngan ideal mix of cutting-edge technical infrastructure and an intellec-tually stimulating open academic environment.

The accelerator physics group is comprised of 2 faculty and 9 pro-fessional scientific staff. Accelerator physics R&D has strong infra-structure support from experienced design and manufacturinggroups. A strong program of R&D in superconducting rf technologyhas been developed with necessary facilities in place. Theoreticaland experimental research on space charge dominated beams isbeing pursued. A strong program on linac and cyclotron design forbasic research and medical applications have been a core activityin the laboratory for many years.

Depending upon the qualifications of the successful applicant, theposition can be filled at the assistant, associate, or full professorlevel. Applicants please send a resume, including a list of publica-tions, and the names and addresses of at least three referencesdirectly to Professor Richard York, Associate Director for Accelerators,National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan StateUniversity, 1 Cyclotron, East Lansing, MI 48824-1321. For moreinformation, see our website at http://www.nscl.msu.edu.

Michigan State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunityinstitution. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply.

Faculty Position inAccelerator Physics

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University invitesapplications from outstanding candidates from all areas of elementaryparticle theory for a tenure-track faculty appointment.

Candidates should have demonstrated their ability to carry outindependent research in theoretical particle physics at the highestlevel. The position includes opportunities for classroom teaching andsupervision of Stanford graduate students. The position allows aclose interaction with the experimental program at the Stanford LinearAccelerator and with the program of the new Kavli Institute for ParticleAstrophysics and Cosmology.

Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, publication list, andstatement of current research interests and future plans, and shouldarrange for four letters of recommendation to be sent to: ProfessorLance Dixon, Theory Search Chair, MS 81, SLAC, P.O. Box 20450,

Stanford, CA 94309-0450. All material should arrive in February 2006.

Stanford University is an equal opportunity employer and is committedto increasing the diversity of its faculty. It welcomes nominations ofand applications from women and members of minority groups, aswell as others who would bring additional dimensions to theuniversity’s research and teaching missions.

Faculty Position inTheoretical Elementary

Particle Physics

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www.gla.ac.uk

UNIVERSITY of GLASGOWDEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

Research Assistant£20,044 – £30,002 A 34 month position is available to develop “3D”silicon detectors for use in theDiamond Light Source Synchrotron.You will have (or expect soon to receive) a PhD, or have an equivalent level of experience, in experimental particle physicsor semiconductor detector development for a related discipline.You will beexpected to design, develop and test innovative radiation detection structuresand systems. In addition a modest involvement in Departmental Teaching isexpected.The post is based in Glasgow but will involve periods of work at theDiamond Light Source, and elsewhere.For further information on the post and method of application please seehttp://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/3DRA.html Informal enquiries can be made toDr Chris Parkes, email: [email protected] quoting Ref 11959/DPL/A3.Closing date: 28 February 2006.

The University is committed to equality of opportunity in employment.



DIRECTOR OF RHIC/USATLAS COMPUTING FACILITY

The Physics Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory invites applica-tions for the position of Director, RHIC/US ATLAS Computing Facility.

The RHIC Computing Facility and the US ATLAS Tier 1 Center are co-locatedand co-operated in the Physics Department at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory. This joint facility is responsible for supplying computing support tothe RHIC experiments at BNL and to US participation in the ATLAS experimentat the CERN LHC. The facility is committed to using Grid computing technolo-gy to making its resources available and is one of the lead institutional partic-ipants in the Open Science Grid.

Responsibilities of this position include establishing organizational structures,approving the hiring of all staff, translating institutional, agency and userrequirements into specific technical and managerial goals, overseeing plan-ning processes directed toward accomplishing those goals, and representingthe facility and its interests in a wide range of venues.

Brookhaven seeks a leader in the field of scientific computing. Qualified can-didates must have an in depth grasp of modern high performance computingtechnology and the experimental nuclear and particle physics mission to whichit is being applied. They must have demonstrated organizational, managerial,and leadership skills in the context of a major scientific/technical project. APh.D. is required, along with significant relevant experience.

The starting date for the position is flexible. Please send a CV and three lettersof recommendation, before May 1, 2006, electronically to: [email protected] ormailed to: S. Dawson, Chair, Physics Department, Bldg. 510 BrookhavenNational Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000. Documents need to be receivedby May 1, 2006. BNL is an equal opportunity employer and encourages allqualified candidates to apply.

The NESTOR Institute for Astroparticle Physics, which recently becamepart of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA), invites interested physi-cists to apply by November 21 for the tenure track position of AssociateResearcher (grade gamma). Furthermore, the NESTOR/NOA Institutewill have a number of tenured (Research Director or Principal Researcherlevels) or other tenure track openings in the near future, inquiries areencouraged.

The NESTOR Institute has been awarded a Center of Excellence grant bythe General Secretariat for Research and Technology.

IN ADDITION: The Physics Departments of the Universities of Athens andCyprus, the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the National Center forScientific Research “Demokritos” and the NESTOR Institute for Astro-particle Physics/NOA are seeking candidates for a number of postdoc-toral Research Associate positions (at varying seniority levels) in the fieldof Neutrino Astroparticle Physics. Candidates should have experience inthe fields of Experimental Particle, Nuclear or AstroPhysics.

The groups mentioned above play leading roles in the NESTOR experi-ment, hosted by the NESTOR Institute, or the KM3NeT (Cubic kilometerDeep Sea Neutrino Telescope) collaboration and form a significant partof the proponents for the KM3NeT Design Study which has been recentlyfunded by the 6th FP of the E.U. Successful applicants will participate inthe ongoing NESTOR experiment and/or the design and development ofthe KM3NeT project. Further information for all the above positions canbe obtained at the NESTOR Institute (www.nestor.org.gr) or by contactingthe Institute at email:[email protected]

TENURE TRACK and POSTDOCTORAL positions inNEUTRINO ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS

The Faculty of Mathematics and Physics invites applications for a

Junior Professorship inTheoretical Physics (W1)

in the field of theoretical particle physics with emphasis on phenome-nology. It is desirable that the candidate participates in the Graduier-tenkolleg “Physik an Hadron-Beschleunigern”, especially in the field ofLHC physics. The successful candidate will participate in the teachingduties of the department at the level of 4 (6) hours per week. Pre-requisites for a junior professorship are as specified in § 51 Abs. 2 LHG.Required is an excellent research record in theoretical particle physics.

In case the candidate has been employed before or after obtaining thePhD degree, the combined duration of employment and PhD thesisshould be less than 6 years. The Junior professorship is limited initiallyat 4 years and can be extended up to 6 years in total.

The university is seeking to increase the number of female faculty mem-bers and therefore especially encourages suitably qualified women toapply. Applicants with a physical handicap will be given preference overother candidates when they have equal qualifications.

Applications (with a curriculum vitae, copies of certificates, list of publi-cations and teaching records) should be sent by 15 March 2006 to Dekander Fakultät für Mathematik und Physik, Eckerstr. 1, D-79104 Freiburg,Germany.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to excellence through diversity.

Department of PhysicsUniversity of California, Riverside

FACULTY POSITION INCOSMOLOGY/PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS

The Department of Physics at the University of California, Riverside, is seeking an outstandingindividual for a faculty appointment in the area of cosmology/particle astrophysics. Thisappointment will initiate a new program at UCR, which will complement existing programsin Astronomy, Astrophysics and Elementary Particle Physics. The appointment will be at theAssistant, Associate or Full Professor rank, as appropriate. The appointment will be effective July 1, 2006.

We encourage applications from candidates capable of instituting and sustaining a vigorousresearch program, and having an outstanding record of research achievement and leadershipin one or more areas relevant to the field, such as dark matter or dark energy, structureformation, or the early universe. Candidates are also expected to support the training ofgraduate students and teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Salary will be competitive and commensurate with qualifications and level of appointment.

Applicants should submit curriculum vitae, list of publications, statement of research andteaching objectives, and names and addresses of four references. Applications should bedirected to: Chair, Cosmology Search Committee, Department of Physics, University ofCalifornia, Riverside, 3401 Watkins Drive, Riverside, CA 92521-0413

Review of applications will commence on February 1, 2006, but the position will remainopen until filled. For more information please visit the UCR web site at www.ucr.edu, theCollege of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at www.cnas.ucr.edu, and the Department ofPhysics at http://www.physics.ucr.edu/ .



Job# 018686. The Relativistic Nuclear Collisions (RNC) program at LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory invites outstanding recent PhD recipients to applyfor post-doctoral positions. The successful candidates will conduct Heavy Ion exper-iments using the STAR detector at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Candidates maywork in any field of heavy ion physics but preference will be given to those whoexpress interest in heavy flavor physics. One postdoctoral position is reserved fora candidate with a strong interest in building innovative, new technology, silicondetectors for heavy flavor physics measurements. A postdoctoral fellow is nor-mally appointed for two years, with a one year extension possible upon review.For further information about the RNC program or the Berkeley Lab Nuclear ScienceDivision's research programs, please visit http://www.lbl.gov/nsd

Applicants should apply online at http://jobs.lbl.gov with reference to Job#018686. In addition, applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, a publication list,a statement of research interests and arrange to have three letters of reference sent toDr. James H. Thomas, MS 70R0319, 1 Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720-8169 or via email to [email protected] mail or email all materials byMarch 31, 2006. LBNL is an equalopportunity employer committed to de-veloping a diverse workforce.

Heavy Ion Physics Post Doctoral Fellow

Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbHPersonalabteilungRef. No.: 1810-05.62Planckstraße 1 64291 DarmstadtGERMANY

GSI Darmstadt one of the leading laboratories in heavy ion and hadron physics, member of the Helmholtz Association invites appli-cations for a

Staff position in Theoretical Hadron Physics (tenure track) Ref. No.: 1810-05.62We are seeking an outstanding individual with expertise in lattice gauge theory to strengthen the theoretical activities in the area of non-perturbative QCD. He/she is expected to build and lead a research group of international visibility in the fi eld of numerical simulations for hadron spectroscopy and/or QCD thermodynamics and to actively participate in conceptual theoretical developments in the framework of the FAIR project. Involvement in the teaching of advanced courses in hadron physics at one of the nearby Universities is envisaged. GSI is an equal opportunity, affi rmative action employer and encour-ages applications of women. Disabled applicants will be given prefer-ence over other applicants with comparable qualifi cations.Applications including curriculum vitae, list of publications and state-ment of research and teaching experience should be sent not later then 28.02.2006 to

Department of Physics

Physicist/Engineer (Prinicipal Experimental Officer)

£31,525 - £39,935 pa Joining the High Energy Physics Group (HEPG), you will work in the area ofradiation tolerant tracking detector development. Current work includesthe LHCb vertex detector (VELO), the ATLAS SCT and future upgrades forthe LHC programme including pixel technology and you will take a leadingrole in the LHCb programme. You should hold a PhD in experimental particle physics, or closely alliedresearch involving position sensitive detectors. Familiarity withdevelopment and testing of solid state devices, data acquisition systemsand some experience with HEP software would be a strong advantage.The post is available for three years. Quote Ref: B/626/CERN Closing Date: 20 February 2006

For full details, or to request an application pack visitwww.liv.ac.uk/university/jobs.html or e-mail [email protected] Tel: 0151

794 2210 (24 hr answerphone), please quote Ref: in all enquiries

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The particle physics laboratory of the French Atomic Energy Commission(CEA-DAPNIA) has an opening for a two-year postdoctoral fellow toexperiment on antihydrogen physics. This position is available startingjanuary 2006.Our final goal is the production of antihydrogen via the interaction ofantiprotons with a positronium target. In a first phase, we aim atdemonstrating hydrogen production with protons on positronium. Some ofthe experiments will take place at RIKEN, Japan.This position requires a PhD in Physics. Experience in plasma confiningtraps, detectors and electronics, data analysis or simulation techniques isdesirable. Contact Patrice Pérez, [email protected], for more information.Please send all applications, including CV, list of publications, descriptionof research interests and skills, and two letters of recommendation [email protected].

Post Doctoral FellowAntihydrogen Experiments

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Jefferson Lab, located in Newport News, Virginia, USA, is a world-classscientific laboratory centered around a high-intensity, continuous waveelectron beam, which provides a unique capability for nuclear physicsresearch. The lab is managed for the Department of Energy by theSoutheastern Universities Research Association.

Currently, we have an excellent opportunity for a Hall D Group Leader toprovide overall management of Hall D including the physics program andexperimental equipment project from the R&D phase through construction and operation. Incumbent will serve as a member of the 12 GeV Upgrade Project Team with responsibility for planning anddelivering the Hall D scope of work within cost and on schedule; providecoordination and communication between the GlueX collaborationmanagement and the Laboratory; provide scientific leadership indeveloping an experimental program of high scientific relevance atJefferson Lab, and present it to the larger nuclear physics and scientificcommunities. Incumbent will oversee the commissioning and operationof the Hall D experimental equipment, including the Hall D detector,beamline instrumentation, and other ancillary devices; andcreate/maintain a positive EH&S culture and implement and maintain aself assessment program. Incumbent will supervise the Hall D staffincluding scientific staff, postdoctoral researchers, and the engineeringand technical staff; act as contact person for user groups.

Minimum Qualifications:

Ph.D. in Experimental Nuclear or Particle Physics or the equivalentcombination of education, experience, and specific training. At least tenyears of professional experience in intermediate energy nuclear/particlephysics or a closely related area, of which a minimum of three years isin management of an internationally recognized nuclear/particlephysics research group. Technical experience with a broad variety ofequipment, detectors, targets and experimental programs associatedwith nuclear/particle physics. Scientific excellence as demonstratedby extensive publication in nuclear/particle physics, and demonstratedsupervisory, planning, problem solving, decision making, andcommunication skills. Capable of quickly acquiring a comprehensiveknowledge of Hall D instrumentation and detailed familiarity with theHall D physics program. Significant project management experience ishighly desirable.

For prompt consideration, apply on-line at: www.jlab.org/jobline /Fax: 757-269-7559

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Hall D Group Leader

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BOOKSHELF


Astroparticle Physics by Claus Grupen,Springer. Hardback ISBN 3540253122,737.40, (£27, $59.95).

Claus Grupen provides a comprehensiveand up-to-date introduction to the main ideasand terminology of the study of elementaryparticles originating from astrophysicalobjects. In fact, as is evident from the historicalintroduction, astroparticle physics reachesbeyond elementary particles and includesgamma radiation, X-rays, gravitational waves,and extensions of the current Standard Model.

The style and presentation of the materialmake the book accessible to a broadaudience with a basic knowledge ofmathematics and physics. A good selection ofsimple exercises with solutions increases itspedagogical value and makes it suitable as atextbook for an undergraduate course. Non-specialists who want to follow the main issuesof current research in the field or to have ageneral overview before more advancedreadings can also benefit from Grupen’s book.

A distinguishing feature of the book is theuse of relatively simple models directly tied,where possible, to experimental data; theseillustrate physical mechanisms or problemswithout unnecessary details. The main physicalmotivations for a theory are introduced, itsexperimental consequences discussed togetherwith the current status of the key parametersand the expected future developments. Boththe pedagogical nature and the emphasis onthe experimental basis of models are signalledby a chapter dedicated to particle and radiationdetectors and, especially, by the manyinstructive figures and diagrams that illustratedata and their theoretical interpretations.

A good third of the book deals with cosmicrays, our main experimental window on theuniverse. Grupen presents the astronomy ofneutrinos, gammas and X-rays, and discussesand reviews the basic mechanisms for particleacceleration and production, and importanttopics such as extended atmospheric showersinitiated by the highest-energy cosmic rays orgamma-ray bursts. This part constitutes thefoundation of astroparticle physics.

The next largest part of the book, about onequarter, is devoted to the thermal history ofthe early universe, including an extensivedescription of Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

Introductions to standard cosmology and tobasic statistical mechanics are included. Inaddition there is a concise description of theimportant information carried by the cosmic

microwave background radiation – inparticular, the bearings of the latestmeasurements of the radiation’s angularanisotropy on key cosmological parameters,such as the total energy density, the baryon-to-photon ratio and the Hubble constant.

Before the stimulating overview of some ofthe open problems and perspectives of thefield the author reserves two chapters forinflation and dark matter. These fundamentalconcepts in modern astrophysics not onlyanswer specific experimental and theoreticalquestions (rotational curves of galaxies,monopoles, flatness, etc), but raise new onesand stimulate experimental tests. Marcello Lissia, INFN/Cagliari and University ofCagliari.

A Physicist’s Labour in War and Peace:Memoirs 1933–1999 by E WalterKellermann, Stamford House Publishing.Paperback ISBN 1904985092, £8.99.

The story of the flight of Jewish physicistsfrom the Nazis and their allies in the 1930s iswell known, told usually in the context of majorplayers, such as Albert Einstein, or EnricoFermi. So it is interesting to read of how theevents of that time touched someone less wellknown, but who nevertheless went on to a fulland rewarding career in physics. In 1937Walter Kellermann fled to the UK, where hewas to establish his career in physics, inparticular in cosmic rays. This book is his story.

After completing his schooling in Berlin,

Kellermann left his native Germany in 1933,as the Nazis were making it impossible forJews to enter university there. To continue hisstudies, he went to Austria – not the bestchoice – where he had relatives in Vienna.University regulations there were flexible andafter only four semesters he was accepted asa physics-research student with Karl Przibram.Then with German occupation imminent and aDPhil to his credit, he fled to Britain in October1937, and with some ingenuity secured workat Edinburgh University under Max Born. Itwas there that he made an importantcontribution to solid-state physics, calculatingfor the first time the phonon spectrum.

With the outbreak of war in 1939,Kellermann found himself interned, like manyothers, despite his refugee status, and waseven sent to Canada on a dangerous voyage,during which the internees were kept in abarbed-wire enclosure. Fortunately, he wassoon released, and joined the teaching staffat Southampton University.

After the war, Kellermann moved to joinPatrick Blackett’s group at Manchester, to workon cosmic rays. This was to become his field forthe rest of his academic life, in particular from1949 onwards at Leeds University. At Leeds, hewas one of the main instigators of the extensiveair-shower detector array at Haverah Park, theforerunner of major modern projects such asthe Pierre Auger Observatory. In the early1970s his “15 minutes of fame” came whenKellermann’s group observed a bump in thehadron energy spectrum in cosmic rays,detected in an innovative hadron calorimeter.This could have been due to a new particle,which the researchers dubbed the Mandela.Sadly, the bump was eventually found to bedue to a burned-out connection in thedetector’s custom-built computer. Soonafterwards, Kellermann reached retirement age,but went on to a second career in sciencepolicy in Britain, the subject of the final chapter.

Kellermann’s account makes fascinatingreading, describing the aspirations andfrustrations of a physicist who was not centrestage, but moved among a cast of famousnames. These included not only Born andBlackett, but also Klaus Fuchs, best known asa spy. The book also presents a revealing viewof the British university system, with somealarming examples of racism, in particular inthe 1930s and 1940s when departments werekeen to keep down the number of refugees. Christine Sutton, CERN.

CCEJan/FebBookshelf54 23/1/06 5:07 pm

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