CERN Courier Nov/Dec 2021
Welcome to the digital edition of the November/December 2021 issue of CERN Courier.
Assembly of the tokamak for the ITER fusion experiment (cover feature, p34) is in full swing, marking a crucial new phase in the project. ITER is the culmination of more than half a century of efforts to magnetically confine and heat a plasma inside a large tube from which energy may eventually be extracted. Two decades of scheduled operations starting in 2025 will determine the integrated technologies, materials and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity. As a large international collaboration relying on similar technologies, the project has a natural affinity with high-energy physics.
Heavy lifting is also taking place at CERN, with the second of the new ATLAS muon end-cap wheels (p27) making its way underground – one of countless activities that have taken place across the experiments and accelerator complex during Long Shutdown 2 to prepare for the LHC restart in the spring (p7).
Elsewhere in the issue: a tribute to the great Steven Weinberg (p43); precision luminosity measurements at CMS (p39); SKA project enters construction (p49); counting down to the next collider (p47); stirrings in the world of sterile neutrinos (p8); the latest meeting reports (p21); reviews (p55); careers (p57) and more.