Latest news with #CERN
Irish Post
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Post
Ireland's membership of CERN approved with start date confirmed
IRELAND'S bid to become a member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has been approved it was confirmed today. In a statement Tánaiste Simon Harris and Science Minister James Lawless revealed they have 'jointly secured Government approval of the final steps for Ireland to join the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN'. 'Having personally advocated for Ireland's Associate Membership of CERN for a long time, it is a pleasure to officially announce that Ireland will join CERN in October this year,' Minister Lawless said. Mr Harris said Ireland's associate membership will demonstrate the nation's 'commitment to science and reaffirm our reputation as a centre for scientific investment'. The CERN centre in Geneva, Switzerland (Pic: CERN) 'It will create opportunities for Irish researchers, students and industry to join world-class teams at CERN, and it will give CERN access to Ireland's talent and expertise,' he added. Ireland's membership was approved by Cabinet today, in a move which 'authorises the final legal steps', Mr Lawless confirmed. 'Following today's decision, the Taoiseach signed a Government Order to enable the State to meet its obligations under the CERN Protocol on Privileges and Immunities,' he explained. 'The remaining steps are now for Ireland to notify the Director-General of CERN that the internal approval procedures for the Associate Membership Agreement are complete, and to deposit an Instrument of Accession to the CERN Protocol on Privileges and Immunities with UNESCO. 'Following a mandatory waiting period, Ireland's Associate Membership is expected to begin officially in October.' Ireland's associate membership of CERN will make Irish citizens eligible for staff positions and fellowships there Minister Lawless added: 'Associate Membership of CERN is a long-standing national ambition and a commitment in the Programme for Government. 'However, joining CERN is only the beginning of Ireland's journey. It is a priority for me as Minister to ensure Ireland's success as an Associate Member State. 'My Department will establish an expert advisory group in the coming months to guide our national approach to CERN membership. 'This group will work with my Department to maximise benefits for both Ireland and CERN.' Associate membership of CERN is expected to bring benefits to Ireland across research, industry, skills, science outreach, and international relations. It will open doors for Ireland's researchers to participate in CERN's scientific programmes and will make Irish citizens eligible for staff positions and fellowships at CERN. It will also be possible for Irish citizens to access CERN's formal training schemes and to develop skills in industry-relevant areas such as electronics, photonics, materials, energy systems and software. Membership will also allow Irish businesses to compete for contracts with CERN.
RTÉ News
4 hours ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
Government approves final steps for Ireland to join CERN
The Government has approved the final steps for Ireland to become an associate member of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Following a mandatory waiting period, the membership is expected to begin officially in October. CERN is an intergovernmental organisation that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world on the Franco-Swiss border, just outside Geneva. The main focus of activity in CERN is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27km underground ring in which protons are accelerated and collide with one another. Associate membership will allow Ireland's researchers to participate in CERN's scientific programmes and will make Irish citizens eligible for staff positions and fellowships at CERN. Membership will also allow Ireland's businesses to compete in CERN procurement programmes. Associate membership is expected to cost around €1.9 million a year, for an initial period of five years. Following today's Cabinet decision, the Taoiseach signed a Government Order to enable the State to meet its obligations under CERN membership. The remaining steps are now for Ireland to notify the Director-General of CERN that the internal approval procedures for the Associate Membership Agreement are complete, and to deposit an Instrument of Accession to the CERN Protocol on Privileges and Immunities with UNESCO. "Associate Membership of CERN will demonstrate Ireland's commitment to science and reaffirm our reputation as a centre for scientific investment," said Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Harris. Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless said today's Cabinet approval is a milestone which authorises the final legal steps. "My Department will establish an expert advisory group in the coming months to guide our national approach to CERN membership," Mr Lawless said. "This group will work with my Department to maximise benefits for both Ireland and CERN," he added.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
ATLAS detects rare Higgs boson decays occurring once in every 5,000 events
Imagine a particle so elusive, so rare, that it's difficult even to catch a glimpse of it. That's the challenge researchers face when they try to study the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle—also called the God particle—responsible for giving mass to other particles. However, recent breakthroughs by the ATLAS collaboration at CERN have begun to unlock some of its most mysterious behaviors, including two incredibly rare decays. These decays, where the Higgs boson transforms into a pair of muons (H→μμ) or a Z boson and a photon (H→Zγ), are so scarce that they only occur in one out of every few thousand Higgs decays. The research could pave the way for discovering unknown particles and help us uncover the various mysteries associated with the God particle. Uncovering these rare decays wasn't easy. The ATLAS collaboration, a group of scientists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), spent years gathering data from their experiments. The first challenge they faced was the rarity of these events. The Higgs boson's decay into muons happens in only about one in every 5000 Higgs decays. So, the team had to search for a tiny signal amidst a vast amount of background noise caused by other particle interactions. To make the search more efficient, scientists combined data from LHC Runs 2 and 3, which gave them a more complete picture. With this enhanced data, ATLAS researchers used advanced techniques to filter out the background noise and focus on the events that showed signs of the rare Higgs decays. In the case of H→μμ, they looked for a small bump in the mass of the muon pair, right at 125 GeV, the known mass of the Higgs. Meanwhile, the H→Zγ decay presented an even tougher challenge. The Z boson that is produced in this decay only decays into electron or muon pairs about six percent of the time, and photons are notoriously difficult to distinguish from jets of particles created in other processes. Here, ATLAS developed new analysis methods to improve the sensitivity of their search. By categorizing events based on how the Higgs was produced and refining their selection criteria, the team was able to see a clearer signal. Their hard work paid off: For the H→μμ decay, they achieved a 3.4 standard deviation significance, which means the result is highly unlikely (one in 3000) to be a statistical fluke. This was a significant improvement over earlier results, which had only shown a hint of the decay at the two-standard-deviation level. For the H→Zγ decay, the team found an excess signal with 2.5 standard deviations, which was also an important step forward compared to previous results. These breakthroughs could have wide-scale implications. By uncovering the rare decays, the ATLAS collaboration is opening the door to exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. Unknown particles contributing to the H→Zγ decay could be an indication of physics that is still unexplored. However, there are still challenges. While these results are groundbreaking, they are not yet definitive. Looking ahead, ATLAS researchers plan to dig deeper into rare Higgs decays with even more data from future runs of the LHC. The team hopes that future data will not only confirm these findings but also reveal more details about how the Higgs interacts with other particles, especially those that haven't been studied as much, like the second-generation fermions. You can read about the two decays in more detail here and here.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Are Creating Plasma So Hot, It May Melt the Rules of Reality
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: CERN's Large Hadron Collider will soon be smashing oxygen and neon atoms into other atoms of their own kind as part of its ATLAS experiment. The collisions will happen under enough heat and pressure to melt protons and neutrons and release their components (quarks and gluons), creating quark-gluon plasma. Quark-gluon plasma was thought to have emerged during the Big Bang, and could tell us more about conditions in the nascent universe. Even the most powerful telescopes have not yet been able to see far enough back in time to witness events from the Big Bang. But by smashing atoms, it is possible to create a plasma that existed right after the universe was born. As part of CERN's ATLAS experiment, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is now crashing oxygen ions into each other, and will soon be doing the same with neon ions. Heavy ions like this can create the quark-gluon plasma that is thought to have existed when the universe first exploded into being. During those very early moments of the universe, things were extraordinarily hot, and quark-gluon plasma behaves in strange ways when super-heated. This is because high temperatures will bring on changes in the strong force—one of the three forces in the Standard Model of Particle Physics that is impossible to break down any further. The strong force holds subatomic particles together—protons and neutrons stay in one piece because the quarks they are made of are held in place by the strong force, (which in turn keeps protons and neutrons themselves together to form the nucleus of an atom). This critical force is propagated by fundamental particles known as gluons, which are both massless units of energy that have no electric charge and bosons, which spin in full integer values (as opposed to fermions which have odd half-integer spins). Because quarks and gluons are held together so tightly by the strong force, the only way to release them is turning up the temperature and density so high that it can actually melt the protons and neutrons they make up, creating quark-gluon plasma. CERN is colliding oxygen ions with each other—and repeating the process with neon ions—because they have far fewer protons and neutrons than the lead ions which are usually smashed to create this plasma. This means that oxygen and neon will produce smaller blobs of quark-gluon plasma that could possibly reveal what happens somewhere between collisions of lighter particles (such as protons) in 'cold' conditions and heavier particles (such as lead ions) in immensely hot and dense conditions. CERN researchers are eagerly hoping to observe some specific potential phenomena during these tests. Jet quenching, for one, occurs when highly energetic particle jets begin to lose energy as they zoom through quark-gluon plasma. (It has been observed with xenon and iron ions before, but never with oxygen or neon ions.) If what theories have predicted actually happens, the results of the ATLAS experiment might show how dense quark-gluon plasma needs to get for jet quenching to begin. The tests could also provide more insight into conditions needed for the plasma to form, opening a proverbial a portal 14 billion years back in time to what conditions were like in the wake of the Big Bang. The tests could even give researchers new information on the showers of particles produced by subatomic particles of cosmic origin, which run into the oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth's atmosphere. There are still many unknowns present in these interactions, colliding protons with oxygen ions could recreating the situations in a way that scientists could analyze up close and personal. You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
Scottish Sun
05-07-2025
- Scottish Sun
Top Scots Cern scientist admits plotting to rape kids aged eight and 12
In one message, the beast said that the thought of abusing her children made him 'so h***y' DEPRAVED SEX FIEND Top Scots Cern scientist admits plotting to rape kids aged eight and 12 ONE of Scotland's top scientists can today be exposed as a depraved sex fiend who plotted to rape two young girls. Physicist Ian Bird — a former chief at the world-famous Hadron Collider project in Switzerland — was caught trying to arrange a sordid meet with kids aged eight and 12. 2 Physicist Ian Bird was a former chief at the world-famous Hadron Collider project in Switzerland 2 He was the leader of the Large Hadron Collider computing grid project Credit: AFP The 70-year-old paedo believed that he was chatting online with the mum of sisters but it was really an undercover police officer. In one message, the beast said that the thought of abusing her children made him 'so h***y'. Bird also wrote: 'I want to make love to them.' The retired scientist, from Bathgate, West Lothian, pleaded guilty to attempting to conspire to meet 'lovingmum' and her family for the purposes of sexually abusing her children. He admitted the offence on the morning he was due to stand trial before a jury at Livingston Sheriff Court. Prosecutor Chris Yule told how the undercover cop — 'Cazi' — works within a covert English police unit that traps paedophiles. The fiscal depute added: 'The officer contacted Police Scotland. Detectives applied for a search warrant for Bird's home and seized electronic devices which were later found to contain evidence of his lewd conversations.' Bird communicated with the officer, who told him she lived in Manchester with her 'daughters', between August 6 and September 29, 2020. He also faced three almost identical charges — including conspiring to rape twin girls aged three. The Crown accepted his not guilty pleas to these allegations. Sheriff Jane Farquharson deferred sentence for background reports and immediately placed Bird on the sex offenders register. She told him: 'You'll understand, no doubt, just how serious this matter is. I'll just point out that all options remain open given the seriousness of this offence.' Bird refused to comment when The Scottish Sun on Sunday went to his home last week. He served as a senior staff scientist at CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland from 2002. He was the leader of the Large Hadron Collider computing grid project and also had responsibility for all physics computing activities. It is believed Bird stepped down from his role in January 2020 — months before committing his crimes. A CERN spokesman said: 'At the time of the events, this employee's contract had ended, and he had begun his retirement. During his time here, no complaints were ever made against him, and we have no knowledge of any other inappropriate behaviour. 'CERN understands this former employee has pleaded guilty and we wish to express our profound sadness in light of the reported facts.'
