ATLAS presents best supplier award to Russian manufacturer
The Russian machine-building plant Molniya has been awarded a best ATLAS supplier prize for excellence in the construction of 29 modules for the ATLAS liquid argon Hadronic End-Cap Calorimeter (HEC). To manufacture the unique copper plates and module structures required, the company set up a dedicated production process and developed stringent quality-control criteria. Molniya completed the task on time, within budget and the completed modules surpassed required quality standards. Of the 29 modules, 13 are series modules that have already been integrated into the four wheels of the detector; the remaining 16 are calibration modules designed for the ATLAS beam tests.
The project, which ran from 1998-2004, was executed within a collaboration of the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC), involving CERN, MPI Munich and IHEP Protvino, together with Molniya, and was led by Serguei Denisov from IHEP Protvino. In presenting the award to Anatoly Kryuchkov, deputy general director and technical director of Molniya, Peter Jenni, the ATLAS spokesperson, emphasized the value of high-quality components to the HEC, as it will play a central role in the physics of the LHC. He went on to acknowledge the contribution made by the ISTC to the project by presenting a second award to the ISTC proposal group leader Elena Ryabeva.
Special meeting to consider future fixed-target plans
A special meeting of CERN's SPS and PS Experiments Committee, the SPSC, will be held in Villars, Switzerland, from 22-28 September 2004. The purpose of this special meeting is to review both the present and future activities and opportunities in fixed-target physics, and to consider the possibilities and options for a future fixed-target programme at CERN.
The chairman of the SPSC would like the groups that are currently working on fixed-target experiments at CERN, and those who have the submission of proposals for such experiments in mind, to forward to the SPSC secretariat a short report indicating their ideas and plans for the future. These submissions will only be for the purpose stated here; they will in no way be considered as binding with respect to the subsequent preparation and submission of letters of intent and proposals to the SPSC.
Further details concerning the meeting and the important dates leading up to it will be available soon on the SPSC website at: http://committees.web.cern.ch/Committees/SPSC/WelcomeSPSC.html.
The Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP) in Novosibirsk, Russia, recently played host to a visit from CERN's director-general, Robert Aymar. The purpose of the visit was to introduce the new director-general to the institute and to allow him to see the substantial contribution to the Large Hadron Collider that BINP is making in the framework of the CERN/Russia agreement. Aymar is seen here, on the left of the picture, together with Alexander Skrinsky (centre), the director of BINP, and Lyn Evans, the LHC project leader.