Accelerator Experts go to School
A week-long oPAC advanced School on Accelerator Optimization took place from 7th to 11th July 2014. The event was hosted by Royal Holloway University of London (UK) and was joined by around 80 delegates from across Europe. The School covered accelerator optimization through beam physics studies, instrumentation R&D and charged particle beam simulations at an advanced level. It was opened with a welcome address by the RHUL Vice-Principal for Research and Enterprise and Dean of Science Prof. Paul Hogg. All aspects of accelerator optimization were then presented by lecturers from universities, research centres and industry throughout the week and led to many interesting discussions between participants.
Of particular interest were also the tutorials held during the week, the lively poster session on Thursday afternoon, the seminar about the discovery of the Higgs particle by Prof. Phil Burrows, University of Oxford, and a lecture about different roads into the antimatter-world by Dr. Michael Doser from CERN. The School provided excellent opportunities for networking with colleagues from other institutions and included also a visit to the city of London.
Meetings of the oPAC Steering Committee and Supervisory Board also took place during a busy week and plans were made for future events and all R&D projects within the network were discussed. Prof. Carsten P. Welsch, oPAC coordinator, said: “We received excellent feedback from the participants and had a fantastic atmosphere throughout the week. The large number of participants underlines that there is a growing need for similar training events and oPAC will provide many additional training opportunities in the near future.”
All lectures are available online via the projects’ indico site. Further information about the oPAC project can be found on the oPAC home page.