BE-EA at the 2026 Joint Accelerator Performance Workshop

The Experimental Areas group was well represented at the 2026 Joint Accelerator Performance (JAP) Workshop, held at CERN in November. The workshop brings together experts from across the accelerator sector to review operational performance, exchange experience and discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead. This year’s programme placed particular emphasis on the preparations for Long Shutdown 3 (LS3) and the restart of the accelerator complex in 2029. Laurie Nevay was a member of this year’s Organising Committee, helping to bring together the different topics and contributions from across the accelerator sector.

Two contributions from BE-EA highlighted both the achievements of the 2026 physics run and the preparations for the future of the North Area.

Maarten van Dijk presented an overview of the operation of the secondary beamlines and their interfaces with the experimental users. Despite a considerably shorter running period, 2026 was a very successful year, with a large number of experimental installations and an overall high North and East Area beam availability. The presentation also highlighted several important developments, including improved beam performance, new optimisation tools, advances in particle identification instrumentation and the successful operation of HiRadMat with lead ions for the first time. Extensive reference measurements were collected to support the commissioning of the beamlines after LS3.

Looking further ahead, Nikos Charitonidis presented the challenges and opportunities associated with bringing beam back to the North Area in 2029. His contribution was part of Session 5, “Run 4: Injectors & Facilities”, co-chaired by Dipanwita Banerjee. The extensive North Area Consolidation programme will introduce major changes to the primary beam transfer lines, target infrastructure, instrumentation and control systems. His contribution outlined the preparations required to commission these systems, including the new beam delivery scheme for the future SHiP experiment, while maintaining the flexibility and performance needed by the diverse North Area physics programme.

The contributions from Maarten and Nikos highlighted both the achievements of the 2026 run and the challenges ahead. A key outcome was the importance of using the extensive operational experience and reference measurements collected in 2026 to prepare for the restart in 2029. In particular, the new North Area infrastructure will require careful commissioning, validation of the beam delivery schemes and close coordination between the groups involved. The discussions also underlined that completing the consolidation works is only one part of the challenge, with operational readiness and maintaining the flexibility of the experimental programme remaining equally important. BE EA is closely involved in all these activities, contributing both operational experience and expertise in beamline design and commissioning.

Further information and presentations are available on the JAP 2026 workshop website.

– Johannes Bernhard