SA scientist appointed to lead a major European physics experiment
The Department of Science and Innovation congratulates Bruce Mellado, a Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a Senior Scientists at iThemba LABS, on his appointment to lead the institutional board of one of the major physics experiments in Europe, adding to South Africa's contribution at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.
The Wits scientist has been elected Chairperson of the Institutional Board of the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment at European laboratory CERN. As Institutional Board Chairperson, Mellado is also a member of the management body that runs the detector.
Representatives of 25 research institutes from all over the world cast their votes in favour of Prof. Mellado.
"This appointment recognises South Africa's growing role at CERN, which has established itself as a world-class community of scientists. This would not have been possible without the sustained support and leadership from the Department of Science and Innovation, the National Research Foundation and iThemba LABS, to whom I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude," says Prof. Mellado.
ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) is one of the four major particle detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator at CERN.
At 46 m long, 25 m high and 25 m wide, the 7 000-tonne ATLAS detector is the largest volume particle detector ever constructed. It sits in a cavern 100 m below ground near the main CERN site, close to the village of Meyrin in Switzerland.
It is a general-purpose particle physics experiment run by an international collaboration since 1992 and is designed to exploit the full discovery potential and the huge range of physics opportunities that the LHC provides. It was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery in July 2012 of the Higgs boson, the particle that completed the supposed standard model, the current best theory of understanding nature at the level of particles.
The Tile Calorimeter covers the central region of the ATLAS experiment. Approximately 10 000 photomultipliers collect light from scintillating tiles acting as the active material sandwiched between slabs of steel.
The detector is managed, maintained and operated by several hundred scientists, engineers, technicians and graduate students.
These activities represent an invaluable opportunity for South Africa to train students and to conduct technology transfer to local industry. South African students routinely graduate with training gained through their work at the Tile Calorimeter.
The upgrade of the detector is scheduled for 2025. In partnership with the local electronics industry, South Africa will manufacture and deploy radiation hard and fast high-throughput electronics to meet the requirements of the upgrade.
Mellado serves as the Director of the Institute for Collider Particle Physics. He is also the National Contact Physicist of South Africa at the ATLAS experiment at CERN and is the co-Chair of the Nuclear Particle and Radiation Division of South African Institute of Physics.
An internationally acclaimed, B1-rated researcher, Mellado has received several awards and fellowships.
The ATLAS experiment at CERN: https://atlas.cern
Calorimetry at ATLAS: https://atlas.cern/discover/detector/calorimeter
Virtual walk of the ATLAS experiment
