LHC@home

There's been a lot of interest over the years in colliding muons: cleaner collisions than with protons, less energy loss to synchrotron radiation, etc. The feasibility of a muon collider of course depends in part on herding the muons into well-collimated beams.
The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) recently announced its demonstration of ionization cooling as a method for producing high-quality beams of muons - for more info you might start from https://micewww.pp.rl.ac.uk/projects/mice/wiki/For_the_public
(Disclaimer - I can't work out what any conflict of interest would be, but I should probably admit I was involved in MICE!)

---

That is quite promising I would think. But you still need to accelerate them. Could either the Tevatron at Fermilab or the LHC be converted to do that?

That is quite promising I would think. But you still need to accelerate them.

Well, my guess is that a useful muon collider is still decades away - MICE is just a tiny first step. Certainly one of the selling points of muon colliders is the reduced civil engineering compared with the FCC or 10km linear colliders.

Could either the Tevatron at Fermilab or the LHC be converted to do that?

It's an obvious way forward: the LHC is itself a re-use of the tunnel built for LEP, after all, and the High-Luminosity LHC upgrade will be looking tired in 30 years time by which time a muon collider might be feasible. Not sure about the Tevatron: for some reason I'm under the impression that everything (the beamline and the detectors) is being (or has been) ripped out which would make it easy to put in something new, but I can't remember if it isn't going to be used for one of the neutrino facilities there.
Of course, the laser wake-field stuff might stir things around, too.

---

... for more info you might start from https://micewww.pp.rl.ac.uk/projects/mice/wiki/For_the_public

Calling this website causes the browser to print an SSL security warning:
SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER

Of course, the laser wake-field stuff might stir things around, too.

They are probably working on the surfatrons in California.
Great stuff.

... for more info you might start from https://micewww.pp.rl.ac.uk/projects/mice/wiki/For_the_public

Calling this website causes the browser to print an SSL security warning:
SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER

I didn't think I've got access to that server any more, but I checked from a laptop on the random internet and an on-site desktop; both report

Subject: CN = micewww.pp.rl.ac.uk
Issuer: CN = QuoVadis EV SSL ICA G3
Serial Number: 33 be 54 59 85 b9 d1 22 ed 54 13 93 97 d1 5d 68 ea 2a ee 6b

"QuoVadis EV SSL ICA G3" should in turn be signed by "QuoVadis Root CA 2 G3" which looks like it should be one of the standard ones shipped with a web browser/OS.
You can try again if it was a glitch or plain http should work.

Edit: … but apparently I still do:
issuer= /C=BM/O=QuoVadis Limited/CN=QuoVadis EV SSL ICA G3

---

My (recent) Firefox claims the server certificate is signed with "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G2" instead of "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G3"

Firefox's certificate store provides "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G3" but no "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G2".
Either an error regarding the certificate store or the server certificate has to be renewed.

My (recent) Firefox claims the server certificate is signed with "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G2" instead of "QuoVadis Global SSL ICA G3"

I think it's lying:

issuer= /C=BM/O=QuoVadis Limited/CN=QuoVadis EV SSL ICA G3
serial=33BE545985B9D122ED54139397D15D68EA2AEE6B
notAfter=May 15 10:36:00 2021 GMT

and that's straight from the OpenSSL incantation on the file (and matches what I saw from the public internet).

The embedded photos are also from a server with a G3 signed cert. I noted down my laptop was using "Connection: TLS 1.2, AES with 256 bit encryption (High); ECDH_P256 with 256bit exchange" in case that helps, but to me it looks like something's up to no good somewhere towards your end. :(
(Any follow-ups should probably go via PM)

---

No problem here via Google Chrome Win 10 via satellite

Only have the Defender running
(and text)

Anyone interested in muon beams, colliders et al. may want to have a look at Chris Rogers' "A Bright Future for Muons" talk on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgGigWS6fbo .

Certainly one of the selling points of muon colliders is the reduced civil engineering compared with the FCC or 10km linear colliders... Of course, the laser wake-field stuff might stir things around, too.

Youtube will no doubt suggest this anyway, but there's also a nice discussion of future collider concepts (with separate Q &A ) there too.

---