No.189,
Twiki link
https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ALICE/AliceNewsletter21Jan2022

ONGOING AND UPCOMING EVENTS

  • ALICE Mini Week: 24 - 28 January 2022.

  • ALICE Physics Forum: 26 Jan 2022, 14:00 hrs.
     
  • ALICE Juniors are looking for candidates for a junior representative. The election will take place in early February. Candidates should contact the ALICE junior committee at alice-juniors-committee@cern.ch as soon as possible. In case of any question, you are very welcome to contact junior representatives or junior committee.
     
  • Summer Student Project Proposals 2022 - Deadline: 31 Jan. Please refer to the mail from the ALICE Secretariat.
     

NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

  • Tonga volcano eruption detected by ALICE DCS: On 15 January at 4:15 UTC, underwater volcano Hunga Tonga abd Hunga Ha'apai in the Tonga Archipelago generated a massive shock wave during a powerful eruption. More than 15 hours later, the ALICE DCS sensors detected an anomalous oscillation in the atmospheric pressure, with an amplitude of 1.3 hPa, followed by several secondary waves. This event triggered alarms in several gas systems, including TPC and TRD, which struggled for hours to compensate for the perturbation.
     
    TONDA ALICE DCS

     


    Estimating Tonga to CERN distance to 17150 km, the pressure wave traveled for 15:15 hours (54900 s) before being detected in ALICE at 20:30 CET (19:30 UTC), giving an average speed of 312 m/s. A second oscillation was observed at 01:00 UTC on January 16th, and it is compatible with the hypothesis of the same wave coming from the volcano in the opposite direction over a distance of about 22885 km (estimating the average Earth circumference to 40035 km), and traveling for 20:45 hours at an average speed of 306 m/s. Finally, assuming that the first pressure wave completed a full turn (57185 km), a third oscillation was observed two days later, on Monday 17th at 7:45 UTC, after 51:30 hours (185400 s), and having traveled at an average speed of 308 m/s. Details are in the ALICE Collaboration website.
     
  • Recent PhDs in ALICE. Congratulations to our new Doctors:
     
    • Dr. Bong-Hwi Lim
      Thesis title: “Study on Hadron Phase via Hyperon Resonance and Light Nuclei Produced in Elementary and Heavy Ion Collisions"
      Submitted to: Pusan National University, Pusan, Republic of Korea  
      Presented on: 16 December 2021
      CDS: http://cds.cern.ch/record/2799149 (CERN-THESIS-2022-001)
      Supervisor: Prof. In-Kwon Yoo
      Service Task: “Participation in the shifts for the operation and maintenance of the pixel sensor production tests for the ALICE ITS” and “Preparation od analysis task for the monitoring of beam-gas and past-future protection cuts"
       
    • Dr. Pranjal Sarma
      Thesis title: “Studies on particle production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC energies using ALICE-TOF and MC data"
      Submitted to: Gauhati University, Guwahati, India  
      Presented on: 27 December 2021
      CDS: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2798846 (CERN-THESIS-2021-244)
      Supervisor: Prof. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
      Service Task “QA TOF”
       
    • Dr. Rutuparna Rath
      Thesis title: “Event topology and multiplicity dependence of K*(892) production in proton-proton collisions with ALICE at the LHC and probing TeV collisions through particle production and transport properties"
      Submitted to: Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, India
      Presented on: 10 December 2021
      CDS: http://cds.cern.ch/record/2798406 (CERN-THESIS-2021-236)
      Supervisor: Prof. Raghunath Sahoo
      Service Task “QA checks of ESD and AOD data sets in ALICE data processing group (DPG)”

       
  • CERN is currently in Covid Level 4 - RED.
    Please refer to the link for further details about Level 4.
    The main change with the passage to red is that all those who can telework should do so, with one day per week on site possible in consultation with supervisors.  Meetings in person, both indoors and outdoors, should be avoided where possible, and in any case must be limited to a maximum of 15 people.
    => Completion of the COVID e-learning module is mandatory for access to the CERN sites: http://cern.ch/go/C99s.
     
  • If you show symptoms, have tested positive, or are a close contact, you must declare your situation using TRAMED
     
  • Self-testing at CERN for those without symptoms.
     
  • COVID-19 vaccination at CERN: Due to no-shows, slots may become available at CERN’s COVID-19 vaccination centre on a daily basis. If you are still waiting for a vaccination, it is worth checking on PLAMED in case slots have been freed up: https://plamed.web.cern.ch/
     
  • Measures in France:  Full details of the measures in France may be found in the link here (updated on 17 January)
  • Measures in Switzerland:
    • The Swiss Federal Council announced on 19 January that current teleworking measures and rules on close-contact quarantine will remain in place until the end of February. Currently-applicable measures in Switzerland are summarised in this infographic.

      You can check your eligibility for a booster dose in Switzerland using the form at the link here.
       
  • Travel:
    • France: Details of conditions for international travel to and from France are available on this page here (last updated 17 January).
      People arriving in France must complete a declaration form, which is available here in several languages: link here.
       
    • Switzerland: From Saturday, 22 January, those who have been vaccinated or who have recovered from COVID-19 will no longer be required to present a negative PCR or rapid antigen test before entering Switzerland. In effect, the 3G rule applies for entry to the country, meaning those who are vaccinated, recovered or who have tested negative may enter.
      The Passenger Locator Form will only have to be completed by those traveling to Switzerland by plane or on a long-distance bus service. Details of Switzerland’s conditions for entry can be found in the link here. This page will be updated on 22 January when the new rules come into force.
      This infographic summarises the conditions for entry to Switzerland: infographics link.
  • For any information and support: contact ALICE-covid19-coordination@cern.ch
     
  • ALICE secretariat opening hours (if the situation allows):
    • Monday morning
    • Tuesday afternoon
    • Wednesday morning
    • Thursday morning
    • Friday: closed
    Nathalie, Guylaine & Julia are available by telephone, Zoom and e-mail from Monday to Friday, 8h30-12h30 and 13h30-17h30.

    EVENTS OF INTEREST

    NEW PAPERS ON THE ARXIV

    All publications of the ALICE Collaboration submitted to Refereed Journals are in the link here

    New ALICE paper submissions appear in twitter: ALICE_Publications

     

    PAPERS IN THE COLLABORATION REVIEW

    New ALICE paper submissions appear in twitter: ALICE_Publications

    NEWS FROM POINT 2

    • At Point 2:
      • Milestone Week1:
        • global BUSY for CRORC detectors validated
        • measured latency profile of AliECS configuration times with and without EPN
        • MCH validated workflow for TF building + TF writing + CTF writing
        • ITS validated QC online-post processing tasks
        • more testing ongoing with remaining detectors until end of MW
    • LS2 Schedule:
       
      • LHC pilot beam test in weeks 42-43  done.
      • YETS started on 15 November 2021, right after the LHC pilot beam
      • L3 door closure: 16-18 February
      • Restart magnets in week 10 (7 March).
      • Underground access ends on Thursday 24 March 2022 evening. DSO test on 25 March, followed by 2 weeks machine
        checkout (punctual access possible). Machine commissioning with beam expected to start on 13 April.

    CONFERENCES

    CURRENT CONFERENCES AND SCHOOLS (starting this week)

    None

    SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES (events within 3 months or deadline within 1 month)
        SCHOOLS

        OUTREACH NEWS

        • CERN Group Guided Tours: All pre-booked group guided tours have been cancelled until end of March 2022.
           
        • ALICE visits: private visits are allowed in the exhibition (only visits of professional nature) and underground visits must be explicitly approved by the Spokesperson and by the Department Head of the requester.
           
        • Virtual visit to ALICE on 18 January  for JUAS (Joint Universities Accelerator School).
           
        • Outreach and educational activities forum will take place on Monday 24 Jan 2022, 15:30 (during the mini week).
           

        DIVERSITY

         

        ALICE Diversity Office website can be accessed here.
        Your feedback is extremely important, feel free to contact us at
        alice-diversity-office@cern.ch

         

        Have a great weekend and a great week ahead!

        JOB OPPORTUNITIES

         
        Title
         
        Institute
        		  
        Application deadline
        Marie-Curie Cofund PhD positions Padua University. Contact:
         
        		 8 Mar 2022
        Post-doctoral researcher Finnish ALICE group. Contact: Dr Sami Räsänen 6 Feb 2022
        Postdoctoral position in physics of heavy-ion collisions Institute of particle and nuclear physics of Charles University in Prague 31 Jan 2022
        Postdoctoral Position for Small Animal Fast Insert for MRI (SAFIR) ETH Zurich  
        Assistant Professor KEK 17 Feb 2022
        Electronics Engineer (EP-ESE-BE-2022-2-LD) CERN 14 Feb 2022 at noon
        Fullstack Engineer CERN 14 Feb 2022
        CERN Summer Student Programme 2022 (Member and Non-Member State) CERN 31 Jan 2022
        High Energy Nuclear Physics Postdoctoral Research Associate Los Alamos National Laboratory
        sPHENIX and EIC experiments. Contact: Dr. Ming Liu        		  
        Junior staff position The CEA-Saclay Quark-Gluon Plasma Laboratory (LQGP) is opening a junior staff position for an outstanding physicist in the field of experimental quark-gluon plasma physics. 25 Feb 2022
        Postdoctoral Researcher- Experimental High Energy Physics The Physics department at Syracuse University 28 Feb 2022
        Postdoctoral position in High Energy Heavy-ion Physics Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest 28 Feb 2022
        Tenure-track positions The Faculty of Science at Lund University (Sweden). please contact the Lund ALICE group: Peter Christiansen, Alice Ohlson, and David Silvermyr 15 Feb 2022