Abstract: This paper presents a first experimental demonstration of a new nondestructive method for aperture measurements based on ac dipoles. In high intensity particle colliders, such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), aperture measurements are crucial for a safe operation while optimizing the optics in order to reduce the size of the colliding beams and hence increase the luminosity. In the LHC, this type of measurements became mandatory during beam commissioning and the current method used is based on the destructive blowup of bunches using a transverse damper. The new method presented in this paper uses the ac-dipole excitation to generate adiabatic forced oscillations of the beam in order to create losses to identify the smallest aperture in the machine without blowing up the beam emittance. A precise and tuneable control of the oscillation amplitude enables the beams to be reused for several aperture measurements, as well as for other subsequent commissioning activities. Measurements performed with the new method are presented and compared with the current LHC transverse damper method for two different beam energies and two different operational optics.

Abstract: The exploration of the universe has recently entered a new era thanks to the multi-messenger paradigm, characterized by a continuous increase in the quantity and quality of experimental data that is obtained by the detection of the various cosmic messengers (photons, neutrinos, cosmic rays and gravitational waves) from numerous origins. They give us information about their sources in the universe and the properties of the intergalactic medium. Moreover, multi-messenger astronomy opens up the possibility to search for phenomenological signatures of quantum gravity. On the one hand, the most energetic events allow us to test our physical theories at energy regimes which are not directly accessible in accelerators; on the other hand, tiny effects in the propagation of very high energy particles could be amplified by cosmological distances. After decades of merely theoretical investigations, the possibility of obtaining phenomenological indications of Planck-scale effects is a revolutionary step in the quest for a quantum theory of gravity, but it requires cooperation between different communities of physicists (both theoretical and experimental). This review, prepared within the COST Action CA18108 “Quantum gravity phenomenology in the multi-messenger approach”, is aimed at promoting this cooperation by giving a state-of-the art account of the interdisciplinary expertise that is needed in the effective search of quantum gravity footprints in the production, propagation and detection of cosmic messengers.

Abstract: This paper presents the main features of a new and updated version of the program PArthENoPE, which the community has been using for many years for computing the abundances of light elements produced during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. This is the third release of the PArthENoPE code, after the 2008 and the 2018 ones, and will be distributed from the code's website, http://parthenope.na.infn.it. Apart from minor changes, the main improvements in this new version include a revisited implementation of the nuclear rates for the most important reactions of deuterium destruction, H-2(p,gamma) He-3, H-2(d, n)He-3 and H-2(d, p)H-3, and a re-designed GUI, which extends the functionality of the previous one. The new GUI, in particular, supersedes the previous tools for running over grids of parameters with a better management of parallel runs, and it offers a brand-new set of functions for plotting the results. Program summary Program title: PArthENoPE 3.0 CPC Library link to program files: https://doi.org/10.17632/wygr7d8yt9.2 Developer's repository link: http://parthenope.na.infn.it Licensing provisions: GPLv3 Programming language: Fortran 77 and Python Nature of problem: Computation of yields of light elements synthesized in the primordial universe Solution method: Livermore Solver for Ordinary Differential Equations (LSODE) for stiff and nonstiff systems, Python GUI for running and plotting Journal reference of previous version: Comput. Phys. Commun. 233 (2018) 237-242 Does the new version supersede the previous version?: Yes Reasons for the new version: Update of the physics and improvements in the GUI Summary of revisions: Update of the physics implemented in the Fortran code and improvements in the GUI functionalities, in particular new plotting functions.