Electrons and Positrons Collide for the first time in the SuperKEKB Accelerator

Electrons and positrons accelerated and stored by the SuperKEKB particle accelerator collided for the first time on 26 April 2018 0:38, GMT+09:00 at KEK in Tsukuba, Japan. The Belle II detector, installed at the collision point, recorded events from electron-positron annihilation (matter-antimatter annihilation) of the beam particles, which produced other particles likely including beauty quark and anti-beauty quark pairs as well as other hadronic and Bhabha scattering events (1). These are the first electron-positron collisions at the KEK particle physics laboratory in 8 years; the previous KEKB particle collider ceased its operations in 2010.

Progress on Belle II: magnets in Japan and tests at DESY

The Belle II project at the Japanese research centre KEK is making great strides forward. The detector is being upgraded in international collaboration and must be tested thoroughly before it start taking data with the similarly upgraded SuperKEKB accelerator.

J-PARC: recovering from earthquake

The European Physical Society sends its heartfelt congratulations to the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex [J-PARC], for their progress in recovering from the heavy damage suffered during the tragic earthquake of March last year.

“In May 2011, we planned to restore beams at J-PARC by the end of December 2011. Since then, all the J-PARC people have worked day and night, and even weekends. Finally, on 9 December, the switch of the Linac was turned on…