ALICE Newsletter No. 401
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No.401,
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ONGOING AND UPCOMING EVENTS
 SQM 2026: 22-27 March 2026
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ALICE article in Nature Communications: Observation of partonic flow in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions CERN News: ALICE sees new sign of primordial plasma in proton collisions |
- ALICE Mini Week: 30 March - 2 April
- "ALICE 3" Week: 4-8 May 2026: Please register by 20 April if you plan to participate in person!
- CERN Closure: Friday, 3 April (Good Friday) and Monday, 6 April (Easter Monday)
- 7th ALICE Upgrade Week Calaserena Resort, Geremeas, Cagliari, 14-18 September 2026:
It is highly recommended to register and reserve the rooms as soon as possible to benefit from the discounted rates (until 1 April 2026) and room availability.
- ALICE UPC Workshop: Katowice, Poland, 15-19 June 2026
- ALICE Calendar 2026
- ALICE approvals calendar for 2026
| Deadline: 10 April 2026 |
NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS
CERN Courier March-April 2026, Energy Frontier:
The flavour dependence of jet structures
- ALICE Breakthrough Prize PhD Grant 2026 (ALICE-BP-PhD-2026): PhD grants funded thanks to the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics awarded to the ALICE Collaboration. Deadline: 30 April 2026
- Accelerator Report: The 2026 run will be short but intense: By Bettina Mikulec
- HiLumi LHC: cryogenics equipment arrives underground
- Crystal shadowing to reduce beam losses
EVENTS OF INTEREST
- Detector Seminar, Friday 20 Mar 2026, 11:00: "Design, Performance and Status of the CMS MIP Timing Detector" by Bryan Cardwell (University of Virginia (US)), Murtaza Safdari (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US))
- Lattice seminar, Tuesday 24 Mar 2026, 16:00: "A non-perturbative definition of Magnetostatic QCD" by Guilherme Catumba (University of Milano-Bicocca)
- Theory Colloquia, Wednesday 25 Mar 2026, 14:00: "Cosmic structure formation" by Prof. Simon White (MPA-Garching)
- TH BSM Forum, Thursday 26 Mar 2026, 13:30: "Soft Gravitons, Medium Consequences, Hard Truths" by Sebastian Ellis, Sebastian Ellis (University of London (GB))
NEW PAPERS ON THE ARXIV
PAPERS IN THE COLLABORATION REVIEW
Papers currently open for comments can be inspected using the link: Paper in Collaboration Review (Open for Comments).
NEWS FROM POINT 2
- LICE
- During the last week, LHC continued with the intensity ramp up, eventually reaching full machine on Tuesday, March 17th with 2460 circulating bunches. ALICE started the data taking at 750 kHz at the 1200 bunch step, and pp physics production has been proceeding since then.
- On Monday morning, cryo was lost in the LHC sector 34, and in the shadow of the recovery accesses were granted to ITS, MCH and MFT.
- On Tuesday afternoon, during the last 1800b fill, an issue with the cooling plant at P2 took place, and a leak was reported in a valve. The cooling stopped working, temperatures rose in the detectors and the solenoid tripped as a response to the cooling issue, which was fixed via a CV-EN intervention that, overall, took three hours.
- On Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning, issues with a CTP machine were experienced, and an access was granted to ALICE on Wednesday morning, between two fills, to intervene on the CTP. The access was also exploited by MFT and MID.
- ALICE is now back to data taking.
- During the last week, LHC continued with the intensity ramp up, eventually reaching full machine on Tuesday, March 17th with 2460 circulating bunches. ALICE started the data taking at 750 kHz at the 1200 bunch step, and pp physics production has been proceeding since then.
- Open shift blocks (to be filled urgently):
If you have any question about the training and, overall, on how to get ready to cover these earlier shifts do not hesitate to contact us (alice-rc@cern.ch). Dedicated trainings can be arranged.
- a full QC block starting on April 5th (MM-AA-NN)
- a full ECS block starting on April 7th (MM-AA-NN)
- a partial ECS block starting on April 6th (A-NN)
- a full QC block starting on April 5th (MM-AA-NN)
- Run Manager (9 - 22 Mar 2026): Nicolas Strangmann
CONFERENCES
CURRENT CONFERENCES AND SCHOOLS (starting this week)
- The 22nd International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2026), University of California, Los Angeles, USA, 22-27 March
- Moriond/QCD2026, La Thuile, IT: 60th Rencontres de Moriond on "QCD & High Energy Interactions", La Thuile, italy, 22-29 March
SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES (events within 3 months or deadline within 1 month)
- HEPiX Spring 2026 Workshop, Lisbon, Portugal, 20-24 April, abstract deadline 1 April
- 37th Rencontres de Blois - Particle Physics and Cosmology, Blois, France, 10-15 May 2026, abstract deadline 31 March
- possibility of 2 to 4 contributed talks => contact CC chairs
- QCD Evolution 2026 Workshop, El Escurial, Spain, 11-15 May, abstract deadline 30 April
- LHCP 2026: 14th Large Hadron Collider Physics Confernece, Paris, France, 18 - 22 May, abstract (posters) deadline: 20 March (FOR POSTERS ONLY)
- WPCF 2026: 18th Workshop on Particle Correlations and Femtoscopy, Budapest, Hungary, 18-22 May, abstract deadline: 30 March
- Invitation to submit abstracts
- BEAUTY 2026 at Maastricht, NL, 1 June, abstract deadline 15 Apr 2026
- Invitation for 2 plenary talks:
- LHC multi-exp talk on recent results with light collision systems at the LHC and future perspectives, focus on the role of heavy flavours.
- Recent ALICE results and prospects for Run4 and 5 (focus on HF/DQ)
- Contact CC chairs
- Possibilities for lighting talks and posters for juniors
- Invitation for 2 plenary talks:
- 4th Joint ECFA-NuPECC-APPEC Activity Workshop "Synergies between the EIC and the LHC", Cagliari, Italy, 8-10 June, abstract deadline 30 April
- QCD@Work 2026 - International Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics - Theory and Experiment, Trani, Italy, 16-19 June, abstract deadline 1 April
- Invitations for multi-exp talk: recent results from LHC collab in light colliding systems (in particular pilot O-O and Ne-Ne runs).
- (25+5)-recent results from ALICE and future perspectives (25+5)
- 1 contributed talk (15+5)
- Contact CC chairs
- 18th International Workshop on Meson Physics (MESON2026) KRAKÓW, Poland, 25-30 June, abstract deadline 25 March
- 17th Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum (QCHS26), Wrocław, Poland, 29 June - 4 July, abstract deadline 26 April
- Strong and Electro-Weak Matter 2026 (SEWM), Helsinki, Finland, 17-21 August, abstract deadline 30 April
- 9th Conference on Micropattern Gaseous Detectors (MPGD2026), Prague, Czechia, 31 August - 4 September, abstract deadline 24 April
- 23rd International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI), 6-10 Jul, abstract deadline 31 March
- invitation for highlights relevant to cosmic rays - please contact CC Chairs
- other contributions possible
SCHOOLS
- QCD Master Class 2026 (school), Saint Jacut de la mer, France, 28 August - 10 September, registration deadline 31 March
- The XXII LNF Spring School “Bruno Touschek” in Nuclear, Subnuclear and Astroparticle Physics, INFN, Frascati, Italy, 11-15 May, registration deadline 30 April
| Upcoming major conferences | ||
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22-27 Mar 2026 |
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18-22 May 2026 |
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21-26 Jun 2026 |
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30 July - 5 Aug 2026 |
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JUNIOR'S CORNER
Message from Junior Representatives (Bianca, Rohaan, Sara)
- ALICE Run 3 Analysis Resources: a collection of all resources and news that can be helpful for people engaged in the analysis of ALICE Run 3 data. This is especially beneficial for those new to the Run 3 data analysis.
- Link to all ALICE Theses
- ALICE Theses website
- Guidelines for ALICE Thesis Video: a ~3-min video summarising the key results of the PhD thesis.
OUTREACH NEWS
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ALICE Masterclass at Padova with Andrea Dainese: 18 March |
- ALICE visits this week:
- Saturday 14 March 2026
- Worth School, UK
- Ionidios Model High School, Greece
- APV Mezieres, Switzerland
- Sunday 15 March 2026
- KEK cryogenics group, Japan
- Tuesday 17 March 2026
- 1st General Lyceum of Pylea, Greece
- 2nd High School of Thermi “Giorgos Ioannou”, Greece
- IES Nicolas Copernico, Spain
- Wednesday 18 March 2026
- 1 LO Sanok, Poland
- Thursday 19 March 2026
- Lycée Cassin, France
- ESN Zurich, Switzerland
- Friday 20 March 2026
- Richmond School, UK
- Ypsomed, Switzerland
- colleague’s family, UK
- Saturday 14 March 2026
- ALICE Virtual Visits
- Tuesday 17 March 2026: virtual visit for Particle Therapy Masterclass held at Radley College, UK
- Tuesday 17 March 2026: virtual visit for Particle Therapy Masterclass held at Radley College, UK
- International Masterclasses - Hands-on Particle physics:
- Saturday 14 March 2026 ALICE masterclasses were held in Sofia, CERN, WUT Warsaw and Johannesburg
- Wednesday 18 March 2026 ALICE masterclasses were held in Padua, Lyon, Constantine and Algiers
- Friday 20 March 2026 ALICE masterclasses were held in Campinas, CTU Prague, Constantine, Sofia and Heidelberg
- Saturday 14 March 2026 ALICE masterclasses were held in Sofia, CERN, WUT Warsaw and Johannesburg
- Recent Social Media Highlights:
- Do all jets lose energy in the same way?
- International Women’s Day, 8 March
- LHC Career Event: 17 Mar 2026
- ALICE 3 MID
- ALICE EMCal
- International Day of Women and Girls in Science
- Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector
DIVERSITY
- On 8 March, International Women's Day, the ALICE Collaboration recognizes the important contributions of women to the activities and achievements of the collaboration. The 130 women featured in the poster represent a fraction of the 450 women in the ALICE Collaboration, including about 200 female students. More information in the ALICE Diversity Office webpage.
- ALICE Diversity Office website can be accessed here. Your feedback is important. You can send us an email that will be treated confidentially by using the email address: alice-diversity-office@cern.ch or send us an anonymous message by using this form.