CERN@School: Forming Nationwide Collaborations for Physics Research in Schools

Quark Matter 2008—the 20th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus–Nucleus Collisions was held in Jaipur, the Pink City of India, from 4–10 February, 2008. Organizing Quark Matter 2008 in India itself indicates the international recognition of the Indian contribution to the field of heavy-ion physics, which was initiated and nurtured by Bikash Sinha, Chair of the conference.The conference was inaugurated by the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Smt. Vasundhara Raje followed by the key note address by Professor Carlo Rubbia. The scientific programme started with the theoretical overview, `SPS to RHIC and onwards to LHC' by Larry McLerran followed by several theoretical and experimental overview talks on the ongoing experiments at SPS and RHIC. The future experiments at the LHC, FAIR and J-PARC, along with the theoretical predictions, were discussed in great depth. Lattice QCD predictions on the nature of the phase transition and critical point were vigorously debated during several plenary and parallel session presentations.The conference was enriched by the presence of an unprecedented number of participants; about 600 participants representing 31 countries across the globe. This issue contains papers based on plenary talks and oral presentations presented at the conference. Besides invited and contributed talks, there were also a large number of poster presentations.Members of the International Advisory Committee played a pivotal role in the selection of speakers, both for plenary and parallel session talks. The contributions of the Organizing Committee in all aspects, from helping to prepare the academic programme down to arranging local hospitality, were much appreciated. We thank the members of both the committees for making Quark Matter 2008 a very effective and interesting platform for scientific deliberations.Quark Matter 2008 was financially supported by: Air Liquide (New Delhi) Board of Research Nuclear Sciences (Mumbai) Bose Institute (Kolkata) Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton) Danfysik, Department of Science and Technology (New Delhi) Elsevier B V (Amsterdam) Government of Rajasthan European Organization for Nuclear Research (Geneva) Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (Darmstadt) Hewlett-Packard Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bangalore) Institute of Physics (Bhubaneswar) IOP Publishing (Bristol) Merint Infrastructure Ltd. Rajasthan Travel service (Jaipur) RIKEN-BNL Research Centre (Upton) Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (Kolkata) Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai) The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Chennai) Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (Kolkata)Without the generous support of these organizations it would not have been possible to organize the conference successfully.Jaipur is a city of valour, of battles won and lost, of the vanquished and the victors; Jaipur is a city of legends and romance. Now Jaipur is also a city of carnival; carnival in the world of quarks and gluons with the beautiful maiden ALICE gracing the quarkland.

This study introduces a methodology for analyzing high-frequency financial market relationships at microsecond resolution, inspired by particle physics techniques. This methodology addresses the trade-off between message data and snapshot data and provides a market behavior analysis that scales well to ultra-high resolution. By examining data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), we analyze market interdependencies within the agriculture, energy, and metal complexes. Based on microsecond differences between markets, we reveal significant leading-following relationships among these markets, highlighting the dominant influence of corn in agriculture, crude oil in energy, and gold in metals. Additionally, we explore cross-domain interactions, revealing complex dynamics influenced by broader economic indicators. This research is the first to analyze market relationships at microsecond resolution over a complete year, which is made possible by the methodological and software infrastructure developed for particle physics at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics is committed to bringing its readers timely reviews in topics of interest to the nuclear and particle physics community, and an active programme of Topical Reviews is scheduled for future issues. Appropriate topics and authors are identified by the Editorial Board prior to invitation and commissioning of reviews, but any suggestions of suitable topics or offers of review contributions will be welcomed by the Board.

The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) is developing at the Laboratory of Accelerators and Applied Superconductivity (LASA) laboratory (Milano, Italy) the prototypes of five corrector magnets, from skew quadrupole to dodecapole, which will equip the high-luminosity interaction regions of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). These magnets are based on a superferric design, which allows a relatively simple, compact, and easy to construct magnet. This activity takes place within the framework of a collaboration agreement between European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and INFN. The first prototypes, a sextupole and an octupole, have been tested in 2016 and 2017, respectively. We present here the results of the cold tests of the decapole that has been assembled and tested in the second half of 2017, including the training performed at 4.2 K and the qualification at 2.17 K. We report also on the overall experience gained during construction and tests and the improvements toward the series production. Other important results concern quench studies.

YOUR NEWS WANTED The news section gives updates on what has been happening in physics education worldwide. Items included show how events in one country could be relevant to good practice elsewhere in the world. Contributions are welcome from all our readers and should be about 200 to 300 words and can include a picture.

In Britain, the Council of the recently amalgamated Institute of Physics and Physical Society has announced that it has made three awards, one of which has been received by an American physicist. Scott E. Forbush, mathematical physicist on the staff of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was named to receive the Charles Chree Medal and Prize for distinguished contributions in the study of cosmic radiation. The other award winners are J. B. Adams, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, who has been given the Duddell Medal for his leadership of the CERN team, and A. W. Merrison, professor of experimental physics in the Nuclear Physics Research Laboratory of the University of Liverpool, who received the Charles Vernon Boys Prize for distinguished research in experimental physics.

A well-attended meeting, called "Brainstorming discussion for a possible biomedical facility at CERN", was held by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics on 25 June 2012. This was concerned with adapting an existing, but little used, 78-m circumference CERN synchrotron to deliver a wide range of ion species, preferably from protons to at least neon ions, with beam specifications that match existing clinical facilities. The potential extensive research portfolio discussed included beam ballistics in humanoid phantoms, advanced dosimetry, remote imaging techniques and technical developments in beam delivery, including gantry design. In addition, a modern laboratory for biomedical characterisation of these beams would allow important radiobiological studies, such as relative biological effectiveness, in a dedicated facility with standardisation of experimental conditions and biological end points. A control photon and electron beam would be required nearby for relative biological effectiveness comparisons. Research beam time availability would far exceed that at other facilities throughout the world. This would allow more rapid progress in several biomedical areas, such as in charged hadron therapy of cancer, radioisotope production and radioprotection. The ethos of CERN, in terms of open access, peer-reviewed projects and governance has been so successful for High Energy Physics that application of the same to biomedicine would attract high-quality research, with possible contributions from Europe and beyond, along with potential new funding streams.

The article discusses how researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research were able to detect a Higgs boson-like particle with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in June 2012. Topics include how scientists concealed data from themselves in "blind" analyses in order to prevent bias, how the Higgs-like particle carries several properties researchers anticipated, and how the particle signals the completion of particle physics' Standard Model. Additional information is presented on the engineering and mechanics of the LHC.

Despite burgeoning literature on knowledge transfer, relatively little is known about how strategic knowledge is created and exchanged and, specifically, the influence of leadership in stimulating and marshalling successful innovation. We frame this process as a dynamic capability that is primarily inter-organisational; it is also highly complex, hard to grasp and hard to imitate and calls for knowledge leadership, a qualitatively different kind of leadership from that which characterises more traditional industrial economies. This poses particular challenges for human resource (HR) specialists seeking to promote knowledge leadership across institutional and cultural boundaries. We report on preliminary findings from interviews with scientists working in a global particle physics experiment being conducted in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (an abbreviation of the French version of European Organisation for Nuclear Research), Switzerland. Given that this collaboration (a global set of loosely coupled, non-hierarchical networks) is prototypical of many international knowledge-based enterprises, the findings will help to inform the HR requirements for successful knowledge leadership.

AAAS annual meeting demonstrates the critical value of global scientific collaboration

Public science is critical to the economy and to society. However, much of the beneficial impact of scientific research only occurs when scientific knowledge is disseminated broadly and is used by others. This thesis examines the emerging policy, law, and practice of facilitating open access to scientific research data. One particular focus is to examine the open data policies recently introduced by research funders and publishers, and the potential in these for driving the practice of open scientific data into the future. This thesis identifies five major stumbling blocks to sustainable open scientific data. Firstly, the prevailing ‘mindset’ that facilitating open access to data is analogous to facilitating open access to publications and, therefore, research data can easily be shared, with research funders and librarians effectively leading the process. Secondly, the unclear meaning of the term ‘data’, which causes confusion among stakeholders. Thirdly, ‘misunderstood incentives’ for data sharing and the additional inputs required from researchers. Fourthly, ‘data privacy’—an issue that only applies to selected research datasets, and yet appears to dominate the discussion about open research data. Finally, there is ‘copyright law’, which poses challenges at different stages of data release and reuse. In this thesis, I argue that the above problems can be addressed using a staged model for open scientific data. I draw specifically on the practice with open scientific data at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) and the practice of sharing clinical trial data to argue that open data can be shared at various stages of processing and diversification. This model is supplemented by recommendations proposing changes to existing open data mandates and the introduction of a text and data mining exemption into Australian copyright law.

PHYSICS LABSPARIS-- An unpublished report, prepared at the request of science minister Claude AllA¨gre, is said to recommend some form of merger between the two main bodies responsible for subatomic physics in France: the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3), which is part of the giant CNRS basic research agency; and the Atomic Energy Commission's Department of Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics, and Associated Instrumentation (DAPNIA). Although this marriage would be consistent with AllA¨gre's long-stated desire to end duplication of research efforts and enhance scientific collaboration, some physicists argue that it would weaken the role of the CNRS and give the Atomic Energy Commission too much influence over research priorities.

These notes are an outgrowth of an advanced undergraduate course taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. They are intended as an introduction to various aspects of particle and nuclear physics with an emphasis on the role of symmetry. The basic philosophy is to introduce many of the fundamental ideas in nuclear and particle physics using relatively sophisticated mathematical tools -- but to do so in as a simplified a context to explain the underlying ideas. Thus, for example, the Higgs mechanism is discussed in terms of an Abelian Higgs model. The emphasis is largely, but not entirely theoretical in orientation. The goal is for readers to develop an understanding of many of the underlying issues in a relatively sophisticated way.

Abstract. Cloud microphysical processes involving the ice phase in tropospheric clouds are among the major uncertainties in cloud formation, weather, and general circulation models. The detection of aerosol particles, liquid droplets, and ice crystals, especially in the small cloud particle-size range below 50 μm, remains challenging in mixed phase, often unstable environments. The Cloud Aerosol Spectrometer with Polarization (CASPOL) is an airborne instrument that has the ability to detect such small cloud particles and measure the variability in polarization state of their backscattered light. Here we operate the versatile Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) chamber facility at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to produce controlled mixed phase and other clouds by adiabatic expansions in an ultraclean environment, and use the CASPOL to discriminate between different aerosols, water, and ice particles. In this paper, optical property measurements of mixed-phase clouds and viscous secondary organic aerosol (SOA) are presented. We report observations of significant liquid–viscous SOA particle polarization transitions under dry conditions using CASPOL. Cluster analysis techniques were subsequently used to classify different types of particles according to their polarization ratios during phase transition. A classification map is presented for water droplets, organic aerosol (e.g., SOA and oxalic acid), crystalline substances such as ammonium sulfate, and volcanic ash. Finally, we discuss the benefits and limitations of this classification approach for atmospherically relevant concentrations and mixtures with respect to the CLOUD 8–9 campaigns and its potential contribution to tropical troposphere layer analysis.

CARLOSv3 is the third version of a chip that plays a significant role in the data acquisition chain of the A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) silicon drift detector (SDD). ALICE is one of the foremost high-energy physics experiments (HEPE) conducted within the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. CARLOSv3 was principally designed and built for the on-line compression of the input dataset originating from a physical bidimensional silicon sensor. To compress a bidimensional dataset, a bidimensional data compressor was required. The compressor was designed for the ALICE SDD Experiment but could be applied to all experiments in which an incoming stream dataset originates from a bidimensional sensor.