FCC-ee: The Lepton Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 2

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched, as an international collaboration hosted by CERN. This study covers a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee) and an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), which could, successively, be installed in the same 100 km tunnel. The scientific capabilities of the integrated FCC programme would serve the worldwide community throughout the 21st century. The FCC study also investigates an LHC energy upgrade, using FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the second volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the electron-positron collider FCC-ee. After summarizing the physics discovery opportunities, it presents the accelerator design, performance reach, a staged operation scenario, the underlying technologies, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, and an implementation plan. FCC-ee can be built with today’s technology. Most of the FCC-ee infrastructure could be reused for FCC-hh. Combining concepts from past and present lepton colliders and adding a few novel elements, the FCC-ee design promises outstandingly high luminosity. This will make the FCC-ee a unique precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles (Z, W and H bosons and the top quark), offering great direct and indirect sensitivity to new physics

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS

A new general purpose fixed target facility is proposed at the CERN SPS accelerator which is aimed at exploring the domain of hidden particles and make measurements with tau neutrinos. Hidden particles are predicted by a large number of models beyond the Standard Model. The high intensity of the SPS 400~GeV beam allows probing a wide variety of models containing light long-lived exotic particles with masses below ${\cal O}$(10)~GeV/c$^2$, including very weakly interacting low-energy SUSY states. The experimental programme of the proposed facility is capable of being extended in the future, e.g. to include direct searches for Dark Matter and Lepton Flavour Violation

Bioassays to evaluate the resistance of whole plants to the herbivorous insect thrips

Thrips are tiny, cell-content–feeding insects that are a major pest on crops and ornamentals. Besides causing direct feeding damage, thrips may also cause indirect damage by vectoring tospoviruses. Novel resistance mechanisms to thrips need to be discovered and validated. Induction of jasmonic acid–dependent defenses has been demonstrated to be essential for resistance to thrips, but underlying mechanisms still need to be discovered. For this, it is vital to use robust plant-thrips assays to analyze plant defense responses and thrips performance. In recently developed high-throughput phenotyping platforms, the feeding damage that is visible as silver spots, and the preference of thrips in a two-choice setup is assessed, using leaf discs. Here, we describe whole-plant thrips assays that are essential for (1) validation of findings obtained by the leaf disc assays, (2) assessment of longer-term effects on thrips feeding success and fecundity, (3) determination of spatial-temporal effects induced by primary thrips infestation on a secondary attack by thrips or other insects or pathogens, and (4) assessment of gene expression and metabolite changes. We present detailed methods and tips and tricks for (a) rearing and selection of thrips at different developmental stages, (b) treatment of the whole plant or an individual leaf with thrips, and (c) determination of feeding damage and visualization of thrips oviposition success in leaves

Bioassays to evaluate the resistance of whole plants to the herbivorous insect thrips

Thrips are tiny, cell-content–feeding insects that are a major pest on crops and ornamentals. Besides causing direct feeding damage, thrips may also cause indirect damage by vectoring tospoviruses. Novel resistance mechanisms to thrips need to be discovered and validated. Induction of jasmonic acid–dependent defenses has been demonstrated to be essential for resistance to thrips, but underlying mechanisms still need to be discovered. For this, it is vital to use robust plant-thrips assays to analyze plant defense responses and thrips performance. In recently developed high-throughput phenotyping platforms, the feeding damage that is visible as silver spots, and the preference of thrips in a two-choice setup is assessed, using leaf discs. Here, we describe whole-plant thrips assays that are essential for (1) validation of findings obtained by the leaf disc assays, (2) assessment of longer-term effects on thrips feeding success and fecundity, (3) determination of spatial-temporal effects induced by primary thrips infestation on a secondary attack by thrips or other insects or pathogens, and (4) assessment of gene expression and metabolite changes. We present detailed methods and tips and tricks for (a) rearing and selection of thrips at different developmental stages, (b) treatment of the whole plant or an individual leaf with thrips, and (c) determination of feeding damage and visualization of thrips oviposition success in leaves