SESAME sees first light
At 10.50 a.m. on 22 November 2017, the third-generation light source SESAME in Jordan produced its first X-ray photons, signalling the start of the regional laboratory’s experimental program. Resea...
The long road to Linac4
CERN's newest accelerator is soon to join the LHC injection chain
Exploring the physics case for a very-high-energy electron–proton collider
Rapid progress is being made in novel acceleration techniques.
The twists and turns of a successful year for the LHC
On 11 December, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is scheduled to complete its 2017 proton-physics run and go into standby for its winter shutdown and maintenance programme. With the LHC having surpasse...
Charting a course for advanced accelerators
Progress in experimental particle physics is driven by advances in accelerators. The conversion of storage rings into colliders in the 1970s is one example, another is the use of superconducting magne...
Xenon beams light path to gamma factory
On 14 September, CERN injected a beam of partially ionised xenon atoms into the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and kept it circulating for a short period. The successful demonstration, carried out by ...
CLEAR prospects for accelerator research
A new user facility for accelerator R&D, the CERN Linear Electron Accelerator for Research (CLEAR), started operation in August and is ready to provide beam for experiments. CLEAR evolved from the...
China neutron source sees first beam
In late August, the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) produced its first neutron beam, representing an important milestone for the $280 million project. The world’s fourth pulsed spallation neu...
Injecting new life into the LHC
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most famous and powerful of all CERN’s machines, colliding intense beams of protons at an energy of 13 TeV. But its success relies on a series of smaller mac...
ITER’s massive magnets enter production
As Matthew Chalmers reported in 2017, completion of the first toroidal-field coil for ITER demonstrates niobium-tin superconductor technology on a gigantic scale.
