The July/August 2026 issue of the CERN Courier is out
When the Large Electron–Positron collider (LEP) switched on, in 1989, the field had never worked at such a scale. Approved eight years earlier, it collided electrons and positrons until the turn of the century, marking two decades in which discovery truly turned global. Last November, some 200 physicists and historians gathered at CERN to take stock […]
The July/August 2026 issue of the CERN Courier has been released, covering a range of topics in physics. The Large Electron–Positron collider (LEP) first came online in 1989, setting the stage for two decades of significant discoveries. In November, physicists and historians convened at CERN to reflect on those formative years, while the Large Hadron Collider, located in LEP's tunnel, completed its final collisions in June.
Since then, the NA64 experiment has been conducting tests, firing probes into a target and observing missing energy to investigate a potentially elusive dark sector. Upcoming upgrades for NA64 aim to boost its capabilities, with the potential to increase its dataset by up to two orders of magnitude.
This edition of the CERN Courier also delves into Xsuite, an open-source framework that consolidates the field's various beam-simulation tools. The software plays a crucial role in designing future colliders, optimizing existing ones, and modeling synchrotrons used for cancer treatment.
In May, the CERN Council updated the European Strategy for Particle Physics, reaffirming the electron–positron collider, FCC-ee, as the next flagship project. Council president Costas Fountas discussed the conditions necessary for a decision, which is tentatively scheduled for 2028.
Written by urgent.news from CERN's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
