Discussions in June 2025 at the Open Symposium of the European Strategy for Particle Physics demonstrate strong progress towards ensuring that CERN remains a world leader in collider physics and technology Venice, Italy, 27th June 2025. This week, more than 600 scientists met in Venice, Italy, to debate the future direction of European particle physics in the global context. The Open Symposium is an important step in the ongoing update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP), providing particle physicists in Europe and beyond with an opportunity to assess scientific priorities and technological approaches for the medium- and long-term future.  The Strategy recommendations, which will reflect the ambitions and priorities of the community, are expected to be submitted to the CERN Council in early 2026. Projects are approved by the Council through a separate decision-making process, taking the Strategy recommendations and other considerations into account. The previous ESPP update in 2020 emphasised the importance of ensuring Europe’s continued scientific and technological leadership. Building on the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it recommended an electron-positron “Higgs factory” as the highest-priority next facility after the LHC reaches the end of its operational lifetime in 2041 and that Europe should have the long-term ambition to operate a proton-proton collider at the highest achievable energies. “The time is ripe to forge a brilliant future for our field in Europe, together with our global partners,” said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General. “The worldwide CERN community’s achievements in implementing the 2020 ESPP update prove that we are a strong community, capable of designing, building and operating facilities of astounding complexity that consistently exceed expectations. This is our greatest asset as we prepare for even more ambitious projects.” A total of 266 submissions from the community, spanning all aspects of particle physics, formed the basis for vibrant discussions during the week-long Open Symposium. Participants from almost 40 countries, including many early-career researchers, expressed the need for an ambitious and innovative research programme that will maintain CERN as a world-leading centre for collider physics while also ensuring a diverse programme that maximises physics reach and includes approaches complementary to colliders. Contributions from researchers in neighbouring fields also demonstrated the rich connections between particle physics and nuclear and astroparticle physics. Identifying the most promising flagship collider to succeed the LHC at CERN is a central aim of the 2026 ESPP update. In direct response to the 2020 Strategy update, a feasibility study for a Future Circular Collider (FCC) facility that could host a 91 km-circumference electron-positron collider followed by an energy-frontier proton-proton collider in the same tunnel was conducted, and the report was released in March 2025. In addition to the FCC, other projects under consideration in the relevant time frame are an electron-positron linear collider at CERN and smaller colliders that would re-use the LHC tunnel. Great progress has also been made towards a muon collider, but several years of R&D work are still needed to demonstrate its feasibility. National input from members of the high-energy physics communities in CERN’s 25 Member States so far indicate broad support for the FCC programme on account of its outstanding scientific potential and long-term strategic value. Underscoring the importance of continued dialogue and assessment, discussions on alternative options will continue. Several important steps remain before the ESPP recommendations are finalised. Expert ESPP panels are working on a comparative evaluation of proposed future colliders in terms of their physics potential, environmental impact and sustainability, technical maturity, cost, required human resources and implementation timelines. “I am happy to see that the recommendations of the 2020 ESPP update and their implementation via the FCC Feasibility Study enjoy overwhelming support from the vast majority of the high-energy physics community as well as leading experts,” said Costas Fountas, President of the CERN Council. “The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012 marked the start of a new journey of discovery that can only be realised by a future collider with the broadest and most powerful research programme, and the CERN Council eagerly awaits the community’s final recommendations.” The ESPP conclusions are eagerly awaited, as delays in reaching agreement on which collider should follow the LHC are viewed by the community as a risk to CERN’s leadership and its potential to attract interest from scientists across the world. Following rich dialogue at the Open Symposium, discussions will continue in the coming months. Together with a second round of input from the national communities, which is to be submitted by 14 November, they will provide the basis for the final Strategy recommendations to be drafted in December.  “I am pleased to see so many colleagues from Europe and beyond participating actively in debating the scientific input received from the particle physics community in order to define the next large accelerator project that will allow CERN and Europe to maintain their leading role in our field,” said Karl Jakobs, Strategy Secretary. “In addition, the scientific goals and priorities in other areas of physics were discussed. We anticipate further rich input and discussion as the 2026 ESPP update enters its final strait.” Image: Artistic view of a possible Future Circular Collider and of a particle collisionCredit: PIXELRISE and CERN

Author: Michael Gregory In September and October 2025, the European Physical Society is running a weekly webinar series on Discovery Space. The first webinars are aimed primarily at teachers who are new to Discovery Space, and will support teachers to implement Discovery Space learning scenarios in their classroom. In October, the focus will shift towards a deeper understanding of Discovery Space, how to spread its use amongst colleagues and become ambassadors for the project. Hosted by EPS project officer Michael Gregory, and joined by exciting guest hosts from across Europe, each webinar will focus on a different learning scenario or aspect of Discovery Space. September Schedule Date/Time Title Hosts Registration Link Tues Sept 9th 17:00 –   18:00 CET Introduction to Discovery Space and online Platform Nikolaos Grammatikos and Evangelia Anagnostopoulou Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (Greece) https://forms.office.com/e/Z5xLzN4pXd Tues Sept 16th 17:00 –   18:00 CET AI-Enhanced Pendulum Learning Scenario Dimitris Koulentianos, Ellinogermaniki Agogi (Greece)   https://forms.office.com/e/Zj3Bh18guW Mon Sept 22th 18:00 –    19:00 CET Zookeepers of the Galaxy Learning Scenario Michael Gregory European Physical Society https://forms.office.com/e/SNff1mMCJh October Schedule https://eps.org/event/discovery-space-fall-webinar-series/ This webinar series follows the success of our “Spring into Discovery Space” webinar series last April and May,  Recordings of the webinars are published in a playlist on the EPS YouTube channel: Spring Into Discovery Space Playlist. Discovery Space is an EU-funded project to develop an Exploratory Learning Environment to facilitate students’ inquiry and problem-solving through learning scenarios featuring virtual and remote labs. Students are guided through differentiated learning pathways, customized by their input as they progress through learning scenarios covering a variety of topics.  For more information on Discovery Space, please see: https://discoveryspace.eu/.

Demonstration of first antimatter quantum bit paves the way for substantially improved tests of nature’s fundamental symmetries Geneva, 23th July 2025. In a breakthrough for antimatter research, the BASE collaboration at CERN has kept an antiproton – the antimatter counterpart of a proton – oscillating smoothly between two different quantum states for almost a minute while trapped. The achievement, reported in a paper published today in the journal Nature, marks the first demonstration of an antimatter quantum bit, or qubit,­ and paves the way for substantially improved comparisons between the behaviour of matter and antimatter. Particles such as the antiproton, which has the same mass but opposite electrical charge to a proton, behave like miniature bar magnets that can “point” in one of two directions depending on their underlying quantum mechanical spin. Measuring the way these so-called magnetic moments flip, using a technique called coherent quantum transition spectroscopy, is a powerful tool in quantum sensing and information processing. It also enables high-precision tests of the fundamental laws of nature, including charge-parity-time symmetry. This symmetry rules that matter and antimatter behave identically, which is at odds with the observation that matter vastly outweighs antimatter in the Universe. Particles have quantum characteristics that defy our common sense, such as the characteristic of interfering with themselves, as demonstrated in the double slit experiment. Interactions with the surrounding environment can quickly suppress these interference effects through a process known as quantum decoherence. Preserving coherence is essential for controlling and tracking the evolution of quantum systems, like the transitions between the spin states of a single antiproton. Although coherent quantum transitions have been observed before in large collections of particles and in trapped ions, they have never been seen for a single free nuclear magnetic moment – despite the latter featuring prominently in physics textbooks. The BASE collaboration has now achieved this at CERN’s antimatter factory.  In some respects, the feat can be likened to pushing a child on a playground swing. With the right push, the swing arcs back and forth in a perfect rhythm. Now imagine that the swing is a single trapped antiproton oscillating between its spin “up” and “down” states in a smooth, controlled rhythm. The BASE collaboration has achieved this using a sophisticated system of electromagnetic traps to give an antiproton the right “push” at the right time. And since this swing has quantum properties, the antimatter spin-qubit can even point in different directions at the same time when unobserved. The BASE experiment studies antiprotons produced at CERN’s antimatter factory by storing them in electromagnetic Penning traps and feeding them one by one into a second multi-trap system to, among other things, measure and change their spin states. Using this set-up, the BASE collaboration has previously been able to show that the magnitudes of the magnetic moments of the proton and antiproton are identical within a just few parts-per-billion. Any slight difference in their magnitudes would break charge-parity-time symmetry and point to new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. However, this previous result was based on an incoherent spectroscopy technique in which the quantum transitions were disturbed by magnetic field fluctuations and measurement interference. In a substantial upgrade of the experiment, these decoherence mechanisms were suppressed and eliminated, culminating in the first coherent spectroscopy of an antiproton spin. The BASE team has now accomplished this for a period – called spin coherence time – of 50 seconds.  “This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments,” explains BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer. “Most importantly, it will help BASE to perform antiproton moment measurements in future experiments with 10- to 100-fold improved precision.” While qubits are the basic building blocks of quantum computers, where they allow information to be stored not just in one of two states but via a potentially limitless superposition of those states, the antimatter qubit demonstrated by BASE is unlikely to have immediate applications outside fundamental physics. An even bigger leap in the precision of antiproton measurements is expected using BASE-STEP, which was designed to allow trapped antiparticles to be transported by road to magnetic environments that are “calmer” than the antimatter factory. “Once it is fully operational, our new offline precision Penning trap system, which will be supplied with antiprotons transported by BASE-STEP, could allow us to achieve spin coherence times maybe even ten times longer than in current experiments, which will be a game-changer for baryonic antimatter research,” says lead author of the paper Barbara Latacz. Image: Physicist Barbara Latacz working in the BASE experiment – credit: CERN

The Graduate School of Physics at Université Paris-Saclay is launching a new postdoctoral fellowship programme: UPSaclay-STAR-φ, supported by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND programme, 2024 call. The programme will recruit up to 41 international postdoctoral researchers over two calls, for 24-month research projects in one of the 40 laboratories of the Graduate School, at the SOLEIL synchrotron, or at the French National Metrology Lab (LNE). Application deadline: July 31st, 2025Expected start of fellowships: Early 2026 (flexible up to October 2026) Applicants will propose their own research project aligned with the School’s wide-ranging fields—from fundamental to applied physics. Learn more and start preparing your application: http://www.cofund-physics.universite-paris-saclay.fr/ The UPSaclay-STARϕ programme has received funding from the European Union’s COFUND action, a part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Program within the European Commission MSCA framework. UPSaclay-STARϕ Grant Agreement ID : 101216532 Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or MSCA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

EU once again provides millions in funding for GSI research on tumor therapy – Investigating the FLASH effect 17th June 2025 – Press release of the European Research Council Professor Marco Durante, Head of the Biophysics Department at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and Professor at the Department of Physics at TU Darmstadt, Institute of Condensed Matter Physics, has been granted a prestigious European Union research funding award for established scientists: The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded him the renowned Advanced Grant. The biophysicist will be able to use the millions in funding to realize an ambitious research project to improve tumor therapy. As lead scientist and together with his team he will conduct research into even more effective treatments for cancer and investigate a promising radiotherapy method that uses ultra-short pulses of heavy ion beams with ultra-high dose rates. ERC Advanced Grants are awarded on the basis of the scientific excellence of the projects submitted and are aimed at established researchers from all disciplines whose highly innovative projects go considerably beyond the current state of the art and open up new areas of research. They are endowed with a maximum of 2.5 million euros each over a period of five years. Professor Marco Durante is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of radiation biology and medical physics, especially for therapy with heavy ions and radioprotection in space. He made important scientific progress in the field of biodosimetry of charged particles, optimization of particle therapy, and shielding of heavy ions in space. This award means a renewed recognition for the biophysicist and a seamless follow-up to a previous award: Professor Marco Durante had already received an “ERC Advanced Grant” for his research project “BARB” in 2020. The latest experiments in this field, which focused primarily on improving the precision of tumor therapy, were recently completed and are now being published in impactful scientific journals. The experience gained at BARB is also highly relevant for his new ERC-funded project entitled “Heavy Ion FLASH (HI-FLASH)”. In the HI-FLASH research project, Professor Marco Durante wants to use very heavy ions at ultra-high intensity against brain cancer. Patients are currently treated either with high-energy protons or carbon ions for many solid cancers, including brain malignancies. Nevertheless, the prognosis for glioblastoma (GBM) – an aggressive, fast-growing brain tumor in adults – is still dismal. This is where the new project comes in. Ions heavier than those previously used could be highly beneficial in treating of extremely resistant, hypoxic and fatal tumors such as glioblastoma. Unfortunately, the use of very heavy ions is constrained by their excessive normal tissue toxicity. Professor Durante’s approach is to enable very heavy ion therapy with acceptable toxicities by using the so-called FLASH effect. The focus on very short and high-intensity radiation pulses, where the treatment dose is delivered in sub-second timescales. The use of such particles with ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) may result in significantly sparing the normal tissues whilst maintaining tumor control. „Although the molecular mechanism is still unclear, the FLASH effect considerably broadens the therapeutic window and has already proven to be very promising in radiotherapy. While my group at GSI/FAIR has pioneered the first demonstration of the FLASH effect with high-energy carbon ions, UHDR use of even heavier ions, 20Ne, could be very effective for very resistant tumor”, explains Marco Durante. This is exactly what HI-FLASH will be investigating over the next five years in order to exploit the full potential for the best possible patient care. The new research project will compare toxicity and tumor control with neon ions at conventional and ultra-high dose rates and, for comparison, with high-energy protons, which are poorly effective in treating GBM but are known to spare normal brain at UHDR. The GSI accelerators on the campus in Darmstadt are perfectly suitable for this pioneering research. GSI/FAIR is the only facility world-wide where the FLASH effect can be explored with ions heavier than carbon. The GSI synchrotron can accelerate ions of all naturally occurring chemical elements to high energies and intensities, and the future FAIR accelerator center will significantly expand these possibilities. “If successful, HI-FLASH will pave the way for the use of heavy ions in cancer treatment, improving outcomes for patients with highly resistant and lethal tumors”, explains Marco Durante. Professor Marco Durante said, “I would like to thank the European Research Council for giving me another great chance with their ERC Advanced Grant funding and enabling me to significantly advance our research in the field of tumor therapy with charged particles. I look forward to realizing HI-FLASH together with my team and the experts of the GSI Biophysics and Accelerator departments. The next five years offer an extraordinary opportunity to transfer basic research into concrete medical progress.” Professor Thomas Nilsson, the Scientific Managing Director of GSI and FAIR, emphasized, “I am extremely pleased for Marco Durante and the recognition of his scientific work with this high-profile grant. Such successes also underline the excellent research quality at GSI/FAIR and demonstrate the unique opportunities and research perspectives offered by our exceptional infrastructures. The ERC grants are a clear sign of how forward-looking our research activities are.” Professor Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, said, “I warmly congratulate you on this success. I am confident that this grant will help you to develop your research at the highest level and to generate exciting results.“ About Professor Marco Durante Professor Marco Durante has over 30 years’ experience in heavy-ion biophysics. He studied physics and got his PhD at the University Federico II in Italy. His post doc positions took him to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Texas and to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan. During his studies, he specialized in charged particle therapy, cosmic radiation, radiation cytogenetics and radiation biophysics. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Galileo Galilei prize from the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (EFOMP), the Warren Sinclair award of the US National Council of Radiation

Geneva, 16 June 2025. Scientists from all around the world will gather in Venice Lido, Italy, from 23 to 27 June to discuss the future direction of the particle physics field in the coming years, and to define the scientific goals to be achieved.  The update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) is an open, inclusive and evidence-driven process that takes place every 5 to 7 years and takes into account the worldwide particle physics landscape and developments in related fields. Launched in March 2024, the 2026 ESPP update “aims to develop a visionary and concrete plan that greatly advances human knowledge in fundamental physics,  in particular through the realisation of the next flagship project at CERN”. After receiving 263 submissions for the update in March 2025, the European Strategy Group and the Physics Preparatory Group have digested them all and are now ready to present and discuss them during a community-wide Open Symposium. As the particle physics community drafts the roadmap for the future of the field, it will continue to discuss a successor to the Large Hadron Collider. More than 50 national and national-laboratory submissions taking a position on this specific topic have been received. Identifying a successor to the LHC is essential to allow CERN to maintain its leading position in the particle physics field.  When possible projects and the input received are discussed in Venice, a wide range of factors will be considered, from sustainability to cost and timeline, with the goal of drafting an ambitious roadmap that enables major steps forward in our understanding of the Universe. An online press briefing will be held on Friday, 27 June at 14:00  CEST, at the end of the symposium. Media representatives interested in attending the briefing should register by writing to the CERN press office at press@cern.chbefore 25 June. On-site participation in the symposium will not be possible, but a livestream will be available. The link can be obtained from the same e-mail address.  Further information: