It’s begun!  I started working shifts in the ALPHA control room at CERN on Friday morning.  This is my first experience as an experimental physicist, and there is a lot to learn – but that’s not why I’m pulling all-nighters.

To understand the bizarre schedule many scientists keep at CERN, you have to understand that we can only collect data when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is running.  Its high energy particle collisions create lots of matter (via ).  The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) Hall slows down newly created antiprotons so they can be used to make antimatter.  Any time there’s antiprotons, AD Hall experiments operate 24/7.   Monday was my first midnight shift!

The experiments within the AD Hall share the antiprotons (written in equations as and read “p-bar”).  The 8 hour time slots when our experiment receives the beam of antiprotons are known as “p-bar shifts.”  We need antiprotons to make anti-hydrogen, so to maximize the amount available to study, we need to make the most of every p-bar shift.  That means ensuring the everything is calibrated and ready go before the shift starts!

So far I’ve been scheduled for “lepton shifts,” where we use electrons or positrons to calibrate the apparatus.  There are a lot of system checks that need to be made, and there are a LOT of things that can (and do) go wrong in experimental physics.  Lepton shifts involve a lot of testing, repairing, debugging, adjusting, and testing again to ensure that the apparatus is working the way we want it to for the p-bar shift.

I’m also learning to use one of the most important tools for our experiment: the sequencing software.  It allows us to remotely control the different components of the experiment.  Everything from the electrodes and magnets that create electric and magnetic fields inside the trap, to the sensors that allow us to visualize the beams of particles are controlled by the sequencer.  Basically, we give the experiment a list of actions to perform, and it runs them in sequence.  This is helpful for many reasons – mostly because the process is sped up considerably when you use a computer to send and receive signals, but also because it allows us to perform experiments while being removed from areas of high radiation.

I am scheduled for my first “p-bar” shifts this coming Thursday and Friday.  I will keep you updated about how it goes!