The world largest digital camera
Huge detector systems are mounted around the collision points of a particle accelerator to measure the particles created there. The innermost detector consists mostly of semiconductor detectors. These detection elements are position-sensitive to allow a precise survey of the tracks of particles escaping from the collision point. This makes such a tracker similar to a consumer digital camera, which takes - in the case of the CMS Experiment at CERN - 40 million three-dimensional pictures per second of the particle trajectories.
Semiconductor detectors are produced on large-area silicon wafers. The production methods are very similar to the ones established by the semiconductor industries for computer processors and memory chips. The Institute for High Energy Physics established a wide field of expertise in designing and developing those kind of detectors. [continue reading]
Candidate events for the top-quark, the heaviest known elementary particle, have been recorded at the LHC at CERN in Geneva. It is the first time this elusive constituent of matter has been detected outside of Tevatron at Fermilab. It is heavier than a nucleus of lead and lives only for a tousandth of a sexillionth part of a second.
Austrian scientists from the HEPHY are excited because this means that the detectors at the worlds largest particle accelerator are already working perfectly well. ...
On July 21st, numerous guests and employees of the institute enjoyed a great BBQ in the back yard, with delicious meals and drinks as well as wonderful musical entertainment.
The Japanese ministry of education MEXT has announced this week that close to 100 million Euros will be invested in the upgrade of the KEKB accelerator and the Belle detector at the Japanese lab for particle physics KEK in Tsukuba during the coming three years. The Vienna Institute of High Energy Physics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is a Belle member since 2001 and works on the design and production of the silicon tracker for Belle-II upgrade.