The British Mark Thomson, new director normal of CERN | Science | EUROtoday

The British Mark Thomson would be the new director normal of the European particle physics laboratory, CERN. The researcher and supervisor has been chosen immediately by the council that brings collectively the 24 member nations of this group, together with Spain.

Thompson, born in Brighton 58 years in the past, is a well known professional in particle physics who has participated in massive experiments at CERN itself or within the DUNE neutrino detector (within the United States) and who can also be the creator of one of many books on textual content on the subject most utilized by physics college students on the college. In a current interview with EL PAÍS, the researcher acknowledged that his nation is making an attempt to make a rapprochement with Europe after the Brexit strengthening scientific collaboration. Thanks to CERN, Thompson mentioned, Europe goes to “open a window to the universe that we did not know before.”

CERN was based in 1954 and is the most important particle physics laboratory on this planet, with a everlasting employees of two,500 employees and a community of just about 20,000 collaborators. Its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, is dwelling to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is probably the most highly effective particle accelerator on Earth and is 27 kilometers in diameter. One of the brand new director normal’s priorities can be to finish the present renovation strategy of this facility to extend its luminosity, which is able to enable the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle, to be studied in additional element. After years of looking, the boson was found by this CERN machine in 2012. It is a elementary piece for the remainder of the particles to have mass and for a universe with galaxies, stars, planets and life just like the one we all know to exist.

The new head of CERN has a second, much more sophisticated activity forward of him: approving the development of the Future Circular Collider, a brand new particle accelerator with nearly 100 kilometers in circumference, which goals to be the brand new largest discovery machine for physics within the coming years. 70 years.

The new director normal should get the CERN member nations to comply with launch this mammoth venture, which is able to price round 15 billion euros. The hope of physicists is that this machine can be a manufacturing facility of Higgs bosons, and that this particle – or household of particles, since there will be multiple boson – will deviate from present theories that describe the habits of matter, saying thus the entry into a very unknown subject of physics. This subject encompasses the 2 biggest mysteries of the cosmos: darkish matter, which makes up roughly 25% of the complete universe, and darkish vitality, which makes up 70%.

Maintain Europe’s management over China

Europe is the world chief in particle physics analysis, and one other of the present director normal’s duties can be to make sure that it stays so within the coming a long time. Its declared rival is China, a rustic of huge drive and rising scientific expertise that additionally plans to construct an enormous particle accelerator that may rival that of CERN.

Although the member nations have elected him immediately, the brand new director normal won’t take workplace till January 2026. Until then, the Italian Fabiola Gianotti can be outgoing president and the brand new director normal may have a yr of touchdown earlier than assuming energy fully.

Gianotti, an experimental particle physicist born in Rome 64 years in the past, was the primary lady to preside over CERN in its whole historical past, and has held the place for 2 five-year phrases. On this event, the three remaining candidates have been males: the British physicist Mark Thompson, present director of the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Greek Paris Sphicas, a veteran researcher at CERN, and the Dutch Robbert Dijkgraaf, theoretical physicist and former Minister of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands.