Liverpool Accelerator Science Cluster contributions at IPAC’24

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Minh and Constantinos at the Group’s IPAC’24 booth, image QUASAR Group.

 

The 15th International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC’24) was held as a fully in-person event from 19 – 24 May 2024 at the Music City Centre located in the heart of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The event gathered over 1,200 delegates and 100 industrial partners to discuss the latest advances in accelerator science through an intense programme of talks and poster sessions together with an industry exhibition. The conference was co-hosted by Oak Ridge and Brookhaven National Laboratories.

Almost a dozen members of the University of Liverpool Accelerator Science Cluster attended this key event for the accelerator community and contributed to the scientific programme with around 20, either in person or by proxy, showing their latest results across beam characterization, novel acceleration schemes, data science, medical applications and antimatter research.

PhD students Lauryn Eley, Alessandro Frasca, Connor Monaghan and Oliver Stringer were amongst the QUASAR Group members who attended the conference in person to present their research work. A particular highlight was Oliver’s excellent talk on “First measurement of the proton beam and lead ion beam in the LHC using beam gas curtain monitor” where he discussed the results from measurements in the LHC the group conducted with its research partners from CERN and GSI.

Prof Carsten P Welsch – Head of Accelerator Science at the University of Liverpool alongside colleagues from Jefferson Laboratory (USA) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) hosted the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) Accelerator Collaboration kick-off meeting. As one of the Co-chairs of the EIC Accelerator Collaboration, he presented an overview of this new global collaboration and the opportunities to be involved to more than 200 conference delegates who attended this satellite event. Prof Welsch was also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of IPAC’24 and chaired a well-attended session on future colliders on the Wednesday.

Oliver Stringer presenting his talk at IPAC’24, image courtesy of IPAC.

Furthermore, the QUASAR Group hosted a booth as part of the industry exhibition. Constantinos Astreos and Minh Cao represented the group and distributed latest news on large-scales projects including the MSCA Doctoral Network EuPRAXIADN and the STFC-funded Liverpool Centre for Doctoral Training for Innovation in Data Intensive Science (LIV.INNO), as well as the R&D carried out within the group.

Following the first appearance to the global accelerator research community at IPAC’23 in Venice, this year the 3.2M€ EuPRAXIADN launched its initial brochure, offering a detailed overview of the network’s research objectives and the extensive network-wide training it provides to its 12 Fellows. Engagement with conferences participants at the industry booth was boosted by a fun quiz about Nashville, and a treasure hunt organised with support from industry partners Cosylab, UHV Design Ltd, Instrumentation Technologies, RI Research Instruments GmbH, DANFYSIK and AVS Spain. 

Finally, Dr Narender Kumar contributed to the conference as a member of the editorial team, assisting the authors of IPAC’24 in producing high-quality conference proceedings. Dr Kumar together with colleagues from institutions across the world edited more than 1,000 proceedings and successfully produced the IPAC’24 pre-press proceedings in only 9 days. Dr Kumar will lead the editorial work for IBIC25, which will be hosted in Liverpool in September 2025.

A huge Thank you to all who contributed to the preparation, review and presentation of the Group’s research at this flagship conference!