As the LHC delivered proton–proton collisions at the record energy of 13 TeV during the summer and autumn of last year, the experiments were eagerly scrutinising the new data. They were on alert for the signatures that would be left by new heavy particles, indicating a breakdown of the Standard Model in the new energy regime. A few days before CERN closed for the Christmas break, and only six weeks after the last proton–proton collisions of 2015, the ATLAS collaboration released the results of seven new searches for supersymmetric particles.
Supersymmetry (SUSY) predicts that, for every known elementary particle, there is an as-yet-undiscovered partner whose spin quantum number differs by half a unit. In most models, the lightest SUSY particle (LSP) is stable, electrically neutral and weakly interacting, hence it is a good dark-matter candidate. SUSY also protects the Higgs boson mass from catastrophically large quantum corrections, because the contributions from normal particles and their partners cancel each other out. The cancellation is effective only if some of the SUSY particles have masses in the range probed by the LHC. There are therefore well-founded hopes that SUSY particles might be detected in the higher-energy collisions of LHC Run 2.
The data collected by the ATLAS detector in 2015 are just an appetiser. The 3.2 fb–1 of integrated luminosity available are an order of magnitude less that collected in Run 1, and a small fraction of that expected by 2018. The first Run 2 searches for SUSY particles have focused on the partners of the quarks and gluons (called squarks and gluinos). They would be abundantly produced through strong interactions with cross-sections up to 40 times larger than in Run 1. The sensitivity has also been boosted by detector upgrades (in particular, the new “IBL” pixel layer installed near to the beam pipe) and improvements in the data analysis.
Squarks and gluinos would decay to quarks and the undetectable LSP, producing an excess of events with energetic jets and missing transverse momentum. The seven searches looked for such a signature, with different selections depending on the number of jets, b-tagged jets and leptons, to be sensitive to different production and decay modes. Six of the searches found event rates in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction, and placed new limits on squark and gluino masses. The figure shows the new limits for a gluino decaying to two b quarks and a neutralino LSP. For a light neutralino, the Run 1 limit of 1300 GeV on the gluino mass has been extended to 1780 GeV by the new results.
The seventh search looked for events with a Z boson, jets and missing transverse momentum, a final state where a 3σ was observed in the Run 1 data. Intriguingly, the new data show a modest 2σ excess over the background prediction. This intriguing excess, and a full investigation of all SUSY channels, make the upcoming 2016 data eagerly awaited.
The LHC Run 1, famed for its discovery of the Higgs boson, came to a conclusion on Valentine’s Day (14 February) 2013. The little-known fact is that the last three days of the run were reserved neither for the highest energies nor for the heaviest ions, but for relatively low-energy proton–proton collisions at 2.76 TeV centre-of-mass energy. Originally designed as a reference run for heavy-ion studies, it also provided the perfect opportunity to bridge the wide gap in jet measurements between the Tevatron’s 1.96 TeV and the LHC’s 7 and 8 TeV.
Jet measurements are often plagued by large uncertainties arising from the jet-energy scale, which itself is subject to changes in detector conditions and reconstruction software. Because the 2.76 TeV run was an almost direct continuation of the 8 TeV proton–proton programme, it provided a rare opportunity to measure jets at two widely separated collision energies with almost identical detector conditions and with the same analysis software. CMS used this Valentine’s Day gift from the LHC to measure the inclusive jet cross-section over a wide range of angles (absolute rapidity |y| < 3.0) and for jet transverse momenta pT from 74 to 592 GeV, nicely complementing the measurements performed at 8 TeV. The data are compared with the theoretical prediction at next-to-leading-order QCD (the theory of the strong force) using different sets of parameterisations for the structure of the colliding protons. This measurement tests and confirms the predictions of QCD at 2.76 TeV, and extends the kinematic range probed at this centre-of-mass energy beyond those available from previous studies.
Calculating ratios of the jet cross-sections at different energies allows particularly high sensitivity to certain aspects of the proton structure. The main theory scale-uncertainties from missing orders of perturbative calculations mostly cancel out in the ratio, leaving exposed the nearly pure, so-called DGLAP, evolution of the proton parton density functions (PDFs). In particular, one can monitor directly the evolution of the gluon density as a function of the energy of the collisions. This lays a solid foundation for future searches for new physics, for which the parametrisations of the PDFs are the leading uncertainty. Also, the experimental uncertainties cancel out in the ratio if the conditions are stable enough, as indeed they were for this period of data-taking. This principle was proven by ATLAS with 2.76 TeV data collected in 2011 (2013 Eur. Phys. J. C73 2509), but with a data set 20 times smaller.
The figure demonstrates the excellent agreement of the ratio of 2.76 and 8 TeV data with the QCD predictions, laying a solid foundation for future searches for new physics through smaller QCD uncertainties. This opportunistic use of the 2.76 GeV data by CMS has again proven the versatility and power of the LHC programme – a true Valentine’s Day for jet aficionados.
High-energy scattering of partons (quarks and gluons) produces collimated cones of particles called jets, the production rate of which can be calculated using perturbative QCD techniques. In heavy-ion collisions, partons lose energy in the hot, dense quark–gluon plasma (QGP), leading to a modification of the jet-energy distribution. Measurement of the jet characteristics can therefore be used to probe QGP properties.
In non-central heavy-ion collisions, the overlap region between the two nuclei where nucleon–nucleon scattering takes place has a roughly elliptic shape, resulting in a longer average path length – and therefore larger energy loss – for jets and particles that are emitted along the major axis, than for those emitted along the minor axis of the interaction region. The resulting variation of the azimuthal jet distribution can be expressed as jet ν2, the second coefficient of a Fourier expansion of the angular distribution. The magnitude of jet ν2 depends on the path-length dependence of the jet energy loss, which differs among proposed energy-loss mechanisms and can be studied via model comparisons.
The figure shows the new jet ν2 measurement of ALICE, using only charged particles for jet reconstruction, in semi-central collisions (30–50% collision centrality) compared with earlier jet ν2 results of ATLAS, using both charged and neutral fragments, and ν2 of ALICE and CMS, using single charged particles. The ALICE measurement covers the pT range between the charged-particle results and the ATLAS jet measurements. Jet measurements in this momentum range (20–50 GeV/c) are challenging due to the large background of soft particles in the event. This background is itself subject to azimuthal variations, which have to be carefully separated from the jet ν2 signal.
The significant positive ν2 for both jets and single charged particles indicates that in-medium parton energy loss is large, and that sensitivity to the collision geometry persists up to high pT. For a more quantitative interpretation in terms of density and path-length dependence, the experimental results will need to be interpreted within theoretical models that include the effects of parton energy loss as well as jet fragmentation. Larger data samples from Run 2 will further improve the measurement, giving more precise information about the nature of the QGP and its interactions with high-momentum quarks and gluons.
Owing to the large cross-section for charm production at the LHC, LHCb collected the world’s largest sample of charmed hadrons, allowing for stringent tests of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) mechanism in the Standard Model (SM). The search for violation of the charge-parity (CP) symmetry in weak interactions is among the most relevant of such tests.
In recent years, LHCb confirmed unequivocally that CP violation occurs in the B0 system, and observed, for the first time, the same mechanism in B0s decays. All of the results match the SM predictions well. Although an outstanding experimental precision in the charm sector has been achieved, clear evidence of CP violation has not been seen yet. Mesons composed of a charm and an anti-up quark, so-called D0 particles, constitute an interesting laboratory for this search. The D0 meson is the only particle in nature containing an up-type quark that gives rise to the phenomenon of matter–antimatter oscillation.
In the SM, in contrast to the case of beauty mesons, the weak decays of charmed mesons are not expected to produce large CP-violating effects. However, CP violation can be enhanced by transitions involving new particles beyond those already known.
In 2011, LHCb reported the first evidence for CP violation in the charm sector, measuring the difference of the time-integrated CP asymmetries in D0 →K–K+ and D0 →π–π+ decays to differ significantly from zero, ΔACP = [–0.82±0.21 (stat.)±0.11 (syst.)]%. This result was reinforced later by new measurements from the CDF and Belle experiments. On the other hand, in 2014, LHCb published a more precise measurement, ΔACP = [+0.14±0.16 (stat.)±0.08 (syst.)]%, with a central value closer to zero than that obtained previously, with a precision of 2 × 10–3.
Now, using the full data sample collected in Run 1, LHCb breaks the wall of 10–3 for the first time ever, reaching a precision of 9 × 10–4. The measured value of ΔACP is [–0.10±0.08 (stat.)±0.03 (syst.)]%.
Although the evidence for CP violation in the charm sector is not confirmed, LHCb brings charm physics to the frontier of experimental knowledge. The experiment plans to collect an integrated luminosity of 50 inverse femtobarn, owing to an upgraded detector, in about 10 years from now. This will improve the precision of these results by an order of magnitude.
In the early morning of 3 December, scientists and engineers started the installation of KM3NeT (CERN Courier July/August 2012 p31). Once completed, it will be the largest detector of neutrinos in the Northern Hemisphere. Located in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, the infrastructure will be used to study the fundamental properties of neutrinos and to map the high-energy cosmic neutrinos emanating from extreme cataclysmic events in space.
Neutrinos are the most elusive of elementary particles and their detection requires the instrumentation of enormous volumes: the KM3NeT neutrino telescope will occupy more than a cubic kilometre of seawater. It comprises a network of several hundred vertical detection strings, anchored to the seabed and kept taut by a submerged buoy. Each string hosts 18 light-sensor modules, equally spaced along its length. In the darkness of the abyss, the sensor modules register the faint flashes of Cherenkov light that signal the interaction of neutrinos with the seawater surrounding the telescope.
On board the Ambrosius Tide deployment boat, the first string – wound, like a ball of wool, around a spherical frame – arrived at the location of the KM3NeT-Italy site, south of Sicily. It was anchored to the seabed at a depth of 3500 m and connected to a junction box, already present on the sea floor, using a remotely operated submersible. The junction box is connected by a 100 km cable to the shore station located in Portopalo di Capo Passero in the south of Sicily.
After verification of the quality of the power and fibre-optic connections to the shore station, the go-ahead was given to trigger the unfurling of the string to its full 700 m height. During this process, the deployment frame is released from its anchor and floats towards the surface while slowly rotating. In doing so, the string unwinds from the spherical frame, eventually leaving behind a vertical string. The string was then powered on from the shore station, and the first data from the sensor modules started streaming to shore.
The successful acquisition of data from the abyss with the novel technology developed by the KM3NeT collaboration is a major milestone for the project. It represents the culmination of more than 10 years of research and development by the many research institutes that make up the international collaboration.
The international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe (FAIR) (CERN Courier May 2007 p23) is currently under construction at GSI, in Darmstadt, Germany. The FAIR accelerators will deliver antiproton and ion beams of unprecedented intensities and qualities to perform heavy-ion and antimatter research. The driver accelerator of FAIR is a fast-ramping, superconducting synchrotron, SIS100, which allows the acceleration of high-intensity beams of stable elements from protons (29 GeV) to uranium (11 GeV/u). SIS100 will be installed in an underground tunnel and all of the services will be installed in a parallel supply tunnel.
The delivery of components for SIS100 commenced at the end of 2015. On 21 December, AURION in Seeligenstadt delivered the first of nine magnetic-alloy bunch-compression cavities. In a combined site/factory acceptance test at GSI, approval for series production is now in preparation.
As the first Polish in-kind contribution, the first piece of cryogenic-bypass line, made at the Wroclaw University of Technology, was delivered in February. After delivery, the bypass line will undergo acceptance tests at GSI.
The site acceptance test of the first of a series of fast-ramped, dipole magnets is in its final stage (see figure). The results available so far indicate high mechanical precision and excellent performance of the superconducting coil. Following successful results, series production has started, and the first devices are expected to be delivered by the middle of 2016. The series devices will be tested at the new test facility at GSI, which has been set up for cold testing of FAIR magnets. In accordance with the contracts, many other SIS100 components will be delivered in 2016, including the first of a series of superconducting quadrupoles from JINR (Dubna, Russia), resonance sextupole magnets, acceleration cavities, magnet chambers, cryo-catcher and cryo-absorption pumps, and many others.
The realisation phase of the SIS100 project is fully under way, and the work is proceeding according to schedule. The production of accelerator components is expected to take a maximum of four years.
In December, the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) experiment reported the first direct observation of sodium production in giant red stars, one of the nuclear reactions that are fundamental to the formation of the elements that make up the universe.
LUNA is a compact linear accelerator for light ions (maximum energy 400 keV). A unique facility, it is installed in a deep-underground laboratory and shielded from cosmic rays. The experiment aims to study the nuclear reactions that take place inside stars, where elements that make up matter are formed and then driven out by gigantic explosions and scattered as cosmic dust.
For the first time, LUNA has observed three low-energy resonances in the neon-sodium cycle, the 22Ne(p,γ)23Na reaction, responsible for sodium production in red giants and energy generation. LUNA recreates the energy ranges of nuclear reactions and, with its accelerator, goes back in time to one hundred million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars formed and the processes that gave rise to the huge variety of elements in the universe started.
This result is an important piece in the puzzle of the origin of the elements in the universe, which LUNA has been studying for 25 years. Stars assemble atoms through a complex system of nuclear reactions. A very small fraction of these reactions have been studied at the energies existing inside of the stars, and a large part of those few cases have been observed using LUNA.
A high-purity germanium detector with relative efficiency up to 130% was used for this particular experiment, together with a windowless gas target filled with enriched gas. The rock surrounding the underground facility at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory and additional passive shielding protected the experiment from cosmic rays and ambient radiation, making the direct observation of such a rare process possible.
On 17 December, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) successfully launched the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, marking the entrance of a new player in the global hunt for dark matter.
The nature of dark matter is one of the most fundamental questions of modern science, and many experiments have been set up to unravel this mystery, using either large underground detectors or at colliders (for example at the LHC), or with space missions (for example, AMS, CERN Courier November 2014 p6, or CALET, CERN Courier November 2015 p11).
DAMPE is the first science satellite launched by CAS. Built with advanced particle-detection technologies, DAMPE will extend the dark-matter search in space into the multi-TeV region. It will measure electrons and photons in the 5 GeV–10 TeV range with unprecedented energy resolution (1.5% at 100 GeV), to find dark-matter annihilation in these channels. It will also measure precisely the flux of nuclei up to above 100 TeV, which will bring new insights into the origin and propagation of high-energy cosmic rays. With its excellent photon-detection capability, the DAMPE mission is also well placed for new discoveries in high-energy γ-ray astronomy. The DAMPE collaboration consists of Chinese (Purple Mountain Observatory, University of Science and Technology, Institute of High Energy Physics, Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou, National Space Science Center) and European (University of Geneva, INFN Perugia, Bari and Lecce) institutes.
The DAMPE detector weighs 1.4 tonnes and consumes 400 W. It consists of, from top to bottom, a plastic scintillator detector (PSD) that serves as an anti-coincidence detector, a silicon-tungsten tracker-converter (STK), a BGO imaging calorimeter of about 31 radiation lengths, and a neutron detector (NUD). The STK, which improves the tracking and photon detection capability of DAMPE greatly, was proposed and designed by the European team and was constructed in Europe, in collaboration with IHEP, in a record time of two years. DAMPE became a CERN-recognised experiment in March 2014 and has profited greatly from the CERN test-beam facilities, both in the Proton Synchrotron and the Super Proton Synchrotron. In fact, CERN provided more than 60 days of beam from July 2012 to December 2015, allowing DAMPE to calibrate its detector extensively with various types of particles, with energy raging from 1 to 400 GeV.
Three days after the launch, on 20 December, the STK was powered on, and four days later, the high voltage of the calorimeter was also turned on. To the satisfaction of the collaboration, all of the detector sub-systems functioned very well, and in-orbit commissioning is now well under way to tune the detector to optimal condition for the three-year observation period. A great deal of data collection, process and analysis lie ahead, but thanks to CERN, we can look forward to a well-callibrated DAMPE detector to produce exciting new measurements in the very near future.
Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet of the solar system, until it was relegated to a “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006. It was judged to be too small among many other trans-Neptunian objects to be considered a real planet. Almost 10 years later, two astronomers have now found indications of the presence of a very distant heavy planet orbiting the Sun. While it is still to be detected, it is already causing a great deal of excitement in the scientific community and beyond.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by a young American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, who tediously looked at innumerable photographic plates to detect an elusive planet moving relative to background stars. With the progressive discovery – since the 1990s – of hundreds of objects orbiting beyond Neptune, Pluto is no longer alone in the outer solar system. It even lost its status of the heaviest trans-Neptunian object with the discovery of Eris in 2003. This forced the IAU to rethink the definition of a planet and led to the exclusion of Pluto from the strict circle of eight planets.
Eris is not the only massive trans-Neptunian object found by Mike Brown, an astronomer of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US, and colleagues. There are also Quaoar (2002), Sedna (2003), Haumea (2004) and Makemake (2005), all only slightly smaller than Pluto and Eris. Despite these discoveries, almost nobody during recent years would have thought that there could still be a much bigger real planet in the outskirts of our solar system. But this is what Mike Brown and one of his colleagues, the theorist Konstantin Batygin, now propose.
The evidence comes from an unexpected clustering of perihelion positions and orbital planes of a group of objects just outside of the orbit of Neptune
The two astronomers deduced the existence of a ninth planet through mathematical modelling and computer simulations, but have not yet observed the object directly. The evidence comes from an unexpected clustering of perihelion positions and orbital planes of a group of objects just outside of the orbit of Neptune, in the so-called Kuiper belt. All six objects with the most elongated orbits – with semi-major axes greater than 250 AU – share similar perihelion positions and pole orientations. The combined statistical significance of this clustering is 3.8σ, assuming that Sedna and the five other peculiar planetoids have the same observational bias as other known Kuiper-belt objects.
Batygin and Brown then show that a planet with more than about 10 times the mass of the Earth in a distant eccentric orbit anti-aligned with the six objects would maintain the peculiar configuration of their orbits. This possible ninth planet would rotate around the Sun about 20 times further out than Neptune, therefore completing one full orbit only approximately once every 10,000 years. Batygin’s simulations of the effect of this new planet further predict the existence of a population of small planetoids in orbits perpendicular to the plane of the main planets. When Brown realised that such peculiar objects exist and have indeed already been identified, he became convinced about the existence of Planet Nine.
Observers now know along which orbit they should look for Planet Nine. If it happens to be found, this would be a major discovery: the third planet to be discovered since ancient times after Uranus and Neptune and, as with the latter, it would have been first predicted to exist via calculations.
La nouvelle Direction du CERN entame un mandat de cinq ans
Plusieurs défis attendent le CERN entre 2016 et 2020. L’arrêt technique hivernal des accélérateurs se terminant fin mars, l’étude de la physique de l’après-Higgs va pouvoir commencer au LHC. Parallèlement, les autres accélérateurs et expériences vont permettre au Laboratoire de conserver un programme scientifique diversifié et passionnant. Pour le CERN, cela voudra dire maintenir le cap sur les plans technique et financier pour le projet HL-LHC et les améliorations des injecteurs, aussi bien pour les accélérateurs que pour les expériences. Le vaste programme de collaboration avec la communauté scientifique mondiale sera enrichi grâce à des études et des projets comme l’étude FCC, le CLIC et AWAKE. Le CERN contribuera aussi à la recherche sur les neutrinos en dehors de l’Europe grâce à la “plateforme neutrino”. Selon la Directrice générale du CERN, ces années seront décisives pour “commencer à bâtir l’avenir à long terme de la physique des particules”.
Several challenges lie ahead for CERN during the years 2016–2020. With the winter technical stop of the accelerators coming to an end in March, the voyage of true post-Higgs physics exploration can start at the LHC. In the meantime, all of the other accelerators and experiments will continue to ensure that the scientific programme of the laboratory remains as diverse and compelling as it has always been.
For CERN, this means ensuring that the High-Luminosity LHC project and injector upgrades remain technically on track and financially secure, for both the accelerators and the experiments.
The rich programme of collaboration with the worldwide scientific community will be enhanced through studies and projects like the FCC study, CLIC and AWAKE. Beyond the lab, CERN will contribute to neutrino research outside of Europe through the CERN neutrino platform.
In the words of the Director-General, these years will be crucial “to start building the long-term future of particle physics”.
In 1989, Fabiola Gianotti was awarded a PhD in experimental particle physics from the University of Milan, and went on to become an eminent physicist with more than 500 authored or co-authored publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Gianotti has been a research physicist in the Physics Department of CERN since 1994 – when she joined as a fellow – and since then has been involved in several CERN experiments, detector R&D and construction, as well as software development and data analysis.
From 2009 to 2013, she held the elected position of spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment, and was honoured to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson in a seminar at CERN on 4 July 2012.
During her career she has also been a member of several international committees, such as the Scientific Council of the CNRS (France), the Physics Advisory Committee of the Fermilab Laboratory (USA), the Council of the European Physical Society, the Scientific Council of the DESY Laboratory (Germany), and the Scientific Advisory Committee of NIKHEF (Netherlands). She is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN secretary-general, Mr Ban Ki-moon, and of both the US National and the Italian Academy of Sciences (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei).
Since 2012, Gianotti has been bestowed with several awards, including the Special Fundamental Physics Prize of the Milner Foundation (2012), the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society (2013) and the Medal of Honour of the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen (2013). She was also awarded the honour of “Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’ordine al merito della Repubblica” by the Italian President.
Gianotti’s influence and success have also led to her being ranked 5th in Time magazine’s “Personality of the Year 2012”, included in the Guardian’s 2011 “Top 100 most inspirational women” and Forbes magazine’s 2013 “Top 100 most inspirational women” lists, and is considered one of the “Leading Global Thinkers of 2013” by Foreign Policy magazine (USA, 2013).
On 1 January, she became the first female Director-General of CERN.
Frédérick Bordry – Director for Accelerators and Technology
In 1978, Frédérick Bordry graduated with a PhD in electrical engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique in Toulouse, and went on to gain his higher doctorate in science from the same institute in 1985.
Bordry’s early career was spent teaching and conducting energy conversion research. Then he moved to Brazil, where he spent two years as a professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Florianópolis). In 1981, he was appointed senior lecturer at the Institut National Polytechnique in Toulouse.
Bordry came to CERN in 1986, joining the group working on power converters for the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), before moving in 1988 to the Operations Group as an engineer in charge of the Super Proton Synchrotron and LEP.
In 1994, the year that the LHC was approved, he joined the Power Converter Group as the head of power converters design and construction for the LHC. He was appointed leader of the Power Converter Group in 2002, a position he held until December 2008.
In 2009, Bordry was promoted to head of the CERN Technology Department – responsible for technologies specific to existing particle accelerators, facilities and future projects – where he has remained until 2013.
From 2014, he acted as the director for accelerators and technology, where he is responsible for the operation and exploitation of the whole CERN accelerator complex, with particular emphasis on the LHC and for the development of new projects and technologies. He was re-appointed CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology.
Eckhard Elsen – Director for Research and Computing
Eckhard Elsen obtained his PhD in particle physics from Hamburg University in 1981.
Elsen’s research focused initially on e+e– collider particle physics and led him to prominent postdoctoral positions at Hamburg University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Heidelberg University, where he first made contact with CERN as a member of the OPAL collaboration.
In 1990, Elsen was promoted to senior scientist for the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), in Germany. During this time, he became the spokesperson for the H1 experiment (an international collaboration that developed and built the H1 detector at the ep-collider HERA at DESY), and later – after a sabbatical at the BaBar experiment at Stanford – project manager for the International Linear Collider (ILC) project team at DESY, when Elsen continued his relationship with CERN.
In 2006, Elsen was made a professor at Hamburg University, where he taught both general physics courses and accelerator physics, and supervised students.
Elsen has co-authored two books (the most recent on the physics harvest of the LHC Run 1), worked on more than 450 publications in various fields of particle physics, and participated in many scientific committees – including chairing the LHC experiments committee from 2011 to 2014.
Martin Steinacher – Director for Finance and Human Resources
Martin Steinacher studied physics, mathematics and astronomy before going on to gain his doctorate in experimental physics at the University of Basel.
After completing his studies, Steinacher moved to the University of Berne, where he worked for seven years as a scientific collaborator on space-research projects.
Then he continued as a civil servant at the Foreign Ministry, where he acted as a delegate for Switzerland and was responsible for planning the Swiss financial contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA), European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other international organisations.
These skills led to Steinacher being appointed the scientific adviser for the Federal Office for Education and Science, before being appointed the deputy head of international co-operation at the State Secretariat for Education and Research.
In his role as chairman of the CERN Finance Committee, Steinacher worked closely with CERN member states, which led to the unanimous approval of a new method to calculate the annual scale of contribution.
In 2013, Steinacher was promoted to head of the International Research Organisations Unit, giving him high-level roles as senior scientific administrator in the ESO and ESRF Councils. His achievements while in this position include helping to negotiate Poland’s accession to ESO and also securing a funding agreement for the Swiss participation in the European Spallation Source project, until 2026.
Charlotte Lindberg Warakaulle – Director for International Relations
Since 2001, Charlotte Warakaulle has held a variety of posts at the United Nations, from associate speechwriter to chief of the Political Affairs and Partnerships Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva.
During her time in this post, she was a key focal point for relations between CERN and the United Nations Office at Geneva, and was closely involved in the first-ever UNOG-CERN Co-operation Agreement, signed in 2011.
She was also a linchpin in the preparations for CERN obtaining observer
status with the General Assembly at the United Nations in 2012.
Most recently, she took on the position of chief of the United Nations Library in Geneva, where she was responsible for library services, knowledge management, cultural diplomacy and intellectual outreach.
Prior to her work with the United Nations, Warakaulle held a Carlsberg visiting research fellowship at Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge from 1998 to 2001.
During her time at the University of Cambridge, she also served as editor-in-chief of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, a peer-reviewed international affairs journal then published by the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge.
She gained her MPhil in international relations at the University of Cambridge (Pembroke College), and also holds an MA in history (cand.mag.) from the University of Copenhagen, as well as an MA in history (coursework) from the University of Sydney and a BA in history from the University of Copenhagen.
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