Yerevan hosts school for experimenters
The 2003 European School on High Energy Physics was held in Tsakhkadzor near Yerevan, Armenia, on 25 August - 6 September. The school was organized this year by JINR and CERN, together with the International Center for Advanced Studies at Yerevan State University. This is the first time that one of the JINR member states has organized one of these schools, which occupy a special place in the development of relations between CERN and JINR.
The schools aim to teach various aspects of high-energy physics, but especially theoretical physics, to young experimental physicists, mainly from the member states of CERN and JINR. This year the scientific programme of the school was based on six series of lectures entitled Field Theory and the Standard Model (Ian Aitchison, Oxford), Flavour Physics and CP Violation (Robert Fleischer, CERN), Astroparticle Physics (Igor Tkachev, Moscow), Beyond the Standard Model (Gregory Gabadadze, Georgia), Neutrinos (Serguev Petkov, Bulgaria) and Quantum Chromodynamics (Alexander Khodzhamirian, Armenia). There were also lectures on Cosmic-ray Physics (Ashot Chilingarian, Armenia) and Multiparticle Dynamics (Ioseb Manjavidze, Georgia).
In the discussion sessions, the 75 students from around 30 European countries received help from the discussion leaders: Laura Covi, DESY; Dmitri Fursaev, JINR; Alexei Pivovarov, JINR; Tilman Plehn, CERN; Michael Plumacher, CERN; and Oleg Teryaev, JINR.
One of the interesting events of the school was the opening of the exhibition Science Bringing Nations Together in the main hall of Yerevan University. This exhibition is dedicated to international co-operation between scientists and their role in uniting nations. A number of posters were especially devoted to the cooperation of the Caucasus republics with world research centres, including CERN and JINR.
As well as an extensive cultural programme, which allowed students to acquaint themselves with many of the historical places of Armenia, a trip to two cosmic-ray stations was organized. At the first stop at Nor Amberd, Chilingarian gave a lecture on cosmic-ray physics and experiments with cosmic rays in Armenia. The second station is situated at almost 3200 m above sea level on the slopes of Mt Aragats, Armenia's highest mountain. Here the students were able to see modern experimental equipment for detecting cosmic rays.
On 6 October, the Polish minister of science and chairman of the State Committee for Scientific Research, Michal Kleiber, visited CERN. He is seen here (left) in the CMS assembly hall with CMS spokesperson Michel Della Negra. He also toured the ATLAS assembly hall and underground cavern and the LHC superconducting magnet string test hall.
The Croatian minister of science and technology, Gvozden Flego, visited CERN on 23 September. He toured the NA49 and CAST experiments, the LHC magnet test hall, the CMS assembly hall and the ALICE cavern, where he is seen here (right) with Jürgen Schukraft, ALICE spokesperson.
JINR vice-director and director of the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics,
Alexei Sissakian, is among three newly elected foreign members of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. Sissakian, who is also co-chairman of the CERN-JINR joint scientific committee, has taken part in a number of experiments at CERN, and has been involved in the CERN-JINR schools (see left) for many years.