ALICE Newsletter No. 403
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No.403,
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ONGOING AND UPCOMING EVENTS
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- "ALICE 3" Week: 4-8 May 2026: Please register by 20 April if you plan to participate in person!
- 7th ALICE Upgrade Week Calaserena Resort, Geremeas, Cagliari, 14-18 September 2026:
Please note that the current hotel rates are valid up to 1 April, 2026.
- ALICE UPC Workshop: Katowice, Poland, 15-19 June 2026
- ALICE Calendar 2026
- ALICE approvals calendar for 2026
NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS
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- 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
- CERN Courier March-April 2026, Energy Frontier: The flavour dependence of jet structures
- Accelerator Report: HiLumi LHC beam reliability runs pave the way to the future: By Bettina Mikulec
EVENTS OF INTEREST
- LHC Seminar, Tuesday 7 Apr 2026, 11:00: "Measurement of B-meson production cross section in proton–proton collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV with ALICE" by Fabrizio Chinu (Universita e INFN Torino (IT))
- QTI Seminars, Thursday 9 Apr 2026, 10:00: "Formalism for simulating lattice gauge theories coupled to matter on a quantum computer" by Tommaso Rainaldi
- TH BSM Forum, Thursday 9 Apr 2026, 13:30: "Vector Portals to Dark Matter: Models, Signatures and Future Probes" by Patrick Foldenauer
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
- ALICE
- ALICE is continuing with pp data taking with positive magnet polarities. So far, around 13pb-1 have been collected.
- In order to let the post-processing catch-up with the large amount of data associated with excellent machine performance, ALICE collision rate has been lowered since Tuesday, 31 March from 750 kHz to 500 kHz, and will be adjusted dynamically considering the performances of the next weeks.
- On Wednesday 8 April an access is scheduled for FASER, and in the shadow of it ALICE will proceed with the inversion of the magnet polarities, also granting access to CTP, EMCAL, FIT, ITS, MFT, TPC.
- ALICE is continuing with pp data taking with positive magnet polarities. So far, around 13pb-1 have been collected.
- Open shift blocks:
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.
- We need to urgently fill the night QC shift on 10 April (N)
- a full (non expert) QC block starting on May 9th (MM-AA-NN)
- expert ECS and QC blocks from 19 May.
- We need to urgently fill the night QC shift on 10 April (N)
- Run Manager (23 Mar - 5 Apr 2026): Anisa Khatun:
Anisa Khatun is a postdoctoral researcher at INFN and the University of Foggia, specializing in ultra-peripheral collisions (UPC), with a focus on vector meson photoproduction. Her research background includes quarkonium and heavy-flavour production in hadronic collisions.
Anisa is currently the coordinator of the UPC Physics Analysis Group. She is involved in the ALICE Run 3 physics program and has strong expertise in the O2 analysis framework and in the development of machine-learning techniques, including GAN-based approaches for fast simulation. Anisa has a strong background in data-taking operations across ALICE Run 2 and Run 3, where she has served in all central shift roles, including as a DCS and ECS expert and as Shift Leader during data taking. She has also contributed to detector operation and data taking in the COMPASS experiment at CERN, as well as to the ALICE FoCal test beam campaign. In addition, she has been involved in data quality control and software development for UPC analyses, including asynchronous QC responsibilities and recent contributions to LHC beam-background studies in ALICE.
During her term, Anisa will coordinate data-taking operations for the collection of pp collisions with positive magnet polarities.
CONFERENCES
CURRENT CONFERENCES AND SCHOOLS (starting this week)
None
SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES (events within 3 months or deadline within 1 month)
- HEPiX Spring 2026 Workshop, Lisbon, Portugal, 20-24 April, abstract deadline 5 April (New deadline)
- 37th Rencontres de Blois - Particle Physics and Cosmology, Blois, France, 10-15 May 2026, abstract deadline 10 April (New deadline)
- possibility of 2 to 4 contributed talks => contact CC chairs
- QCD Evolution 2026 Workshop, El Escurial, Spain, 11-15 May, abstract deadline 30 April
- 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 30 April (New deadline)
- 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 15 April (New deadline)
- Still looking for a plenary speaker
- ISMD 2026, Chungli, Taiwan, 17-21 Aug, abstract deadline 15 May
- invitations for several topical ALICE plenary talks
- Vertex 2026 in Stoos, Switzerland, 20–24 July, abstract deadline 15 May
- two invitations for talks on ITS2 operations and ITS3 sensor characterisation
SCHOOLS
none
| Upcoming major conferences | ||
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
- ALICE visits this week:
- Tuesday 31 March 2026
- Horizon Community College, UK
- RGS Guildford, UK
- Thursday 2 April 2026
- ALICE member’s friends, Italy
- Tuesday 31 March 2026
- ALICE Virtual Visits
- Saturday 28 March 2026:
- virtual visit for online Particle Therapy Masterclass in Greece
- virtual visit for Particle Therapy Masterclasses in Novi Sad (Serbia) and Algeria
- Saturday 28 March 2026:
- Recent Social Media Highlights:
DIVERSITY
- 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.