Officials at the African Light Source (AfLS) Foundation are targeting 2035 as the start of construction for the continent’s first synchrotron light source. On 9 December the foundation released its “geopolitical” conceptual design report, which aims to encourage African leaders to pledge the $2bn that will be needed to build and then operate the facility for a decade.

There are more than 50 synchrotron light sources around the world, but Africa is the only habitable continent without one. These devices use magnets to accelerate electrons in a circular ring to near the speed of light, which then emit intense beams of synchrotron radiation. The X-rays are used to study the structure and properties of matter.

Scientists in Africa have been agitating for a light source on the continent for decades, with the idea for an African synchrotron having been discussed since at least 2000. In 2018 the African Union’s executive council called on its member states to support a pan-African synchrotron and the following year Ghanaian president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo began championing the project.

The new 388-page report, which has over 120 contributors from around the world, lays out a comprehensive case for a dedicated synchrotron in Africa, stating it is “simply not tenable” for the continent to not have one. Such a facility would bring many benefits to Africa, ranging from capacity building and driving innovation to financial returns. It cites a 2021 study of the UK’s £1.2bn Diamond Light Source, which essentially paid for itself after just 13 years.

“Without its own synchrotron facility, Africa will be left further behind at a corresponding accelerated rate and will be almost impossible to catch up to the rest of the world,” says Sekazi Mtingwa, a US-based theoretical high-energy physicist. Mtingwa is one of the founders of the South-Africa-based AfLS Foundation and editor-in-chief of the report.

The 2035 date is far away and gives us time to convince African governments

Simon Connell

The AfLS Foundation believes its report will persuade African governments to back the initiative. “The 2035 date is far away and gives us time to convince African governments,” Simon Connell, chair of the AfLS Foundation, told Physics World. He says it wants the funding to “predominantly come from African governments” rather than international grants. “The grant-funded situation is bedevilled by [the question of] where the next grant will come from,” he says.

Yet financial support will not be easy. Some have questioned whether Africa can afford a synchrotron given the lack of R&D funding in African countries. In 2007 African Union member states committed to spending 1% of their gross domestic product on R&D, but the continent still spends only 0.42%.

John Mugabe, a professor of science and innovation policy at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, notes that the light source is not even mentioned in the African Union’s science plans or in the science, technology and innovation initiatives of the G20, an international forum of 20 countries. “I do not think that there is adequate African political backing for the initiative,” he says.

However, a boost for the AfLS came on 12 December when the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and had been pushing for its own light source – the African Synchrotron Initiative – signed a memorandum of understanding with the AfLS to co-develop a synchrotron.

“[This] is a pivotal milestone in the continental effort to establish major infrastructures for frontier science in Africa,” says Nkem Khumbah, head of STI policy and partnerships at the AAS.

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The Arecibo Observatory’s “uniquely powerful electromagnetic radiation environment” is the most likely initial cause of its destruction and collapse in December 2020. That’s according to a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which states that failure of zinc in the cables that held the telescope’s main platform led to it falling onto the huge 305 m reflector dish – causing catastrophic damage.

While previous studies of the iconic telescope’s collapse had identified the deformation of zinc inside the cable sockets, other reasons were also put forward. They included poor workmanship and the effects of hurricane Maria, which hit the area in 2017. It subjected the telescope’s cables to the highest structural stress they had ever endured since the instrument opened in 1963.

Inspections after the hurricane showed some evidence of cable slippage. Yet these investigations, the report says, failed to note several failure patterns and did not provide plausible explanations for most of them. In addition, photos taken in 2019 gave “a clear indication of major socket deterioration”, but no further investigation followed.

The eight-strong committee, chaired by Roger McCarthy of the US firm McCarthy Engineering, that wrote the report found that move surprising. “The lack of documented concern from the contracted engineers about the inconsequentiality of cable pullouts or the safety factors between Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the failure is alarming,” they say.

Further research

The report concludes that the root cause of the catastrophe was linked to the zinc sockets, which suffered “unprecedented and accelerated long-term creep-induced failure”. Metallic creep – the slow, permanent deformation of a metal – is caused by stress and exacerbated by heat, making components based on the metal to fail. “Each failure involved both the rupture of some of the cable’s wires and a deformation of the socket’s zinc, and is therefore the failure of a cable-socket assembly,” the report notes.

As to the cause of the creep, the committee sees the telescope’s radiation environment as “the only hypothesis that…provides a plausible but unprovable answer”. The committee proposes that the telescope’s powerful transmitters induced electrical currents in the cables and sockets, potentially causing “long-term, low-current electroplasticity” in the zinc. The increased induced plasticity accelerated the natural ongoing creep in the zinc.

The report adds that the collapse of the platform is the first documented zinc-induced creep failure, despite the metal being used in such a way for over a century. The committee now recommends that the National Science Foundation (NSF), which oversees Arecibo, offer the remaining socket and cable sections to the research community for further analysis on the “large-diameter wire connections, the long-term creep behavior of zinc spelter connections, and [the] materials science”.

• Meanwhile, the NSF had planned to reopen the telescope site as an educational center later this month but that has now be delayed until next year to coincide with the NSF’s 75th anniversary.

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The UK particle physicist Mark Thomson has been selected as the 17th director-general of the CERN particle-physics laboratory. Thomson, 58, was chosen today at a meeting of the CERN Council. He will take up the position on 1 January 2026 for a five-year period succeeding the current CERN boss Fabiola Gianotti, who will finish her second term next year.

Three candidates were shortlisted for the job after being put forward by a search committee. Physics World understands that the Dutch theoretical physicist and former Dutch science minister Robbert Dijkgraaf was also considered for the position. The other was reported to have been Greek particle physicist Paris Sphicas.

With a PhD in physics from the University of Oxford, Thomson is currently executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), one of the main funding agencies in the UK. He spent a significant part of career at CERN working on precise measurements of the W and Z boson in the 1990s as part of the OPAL experiment at CERN’s Large Electron-Positron Collider.

In 2000 he moved back to the UK to take up a position in experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge. He was then a member of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and between 2015 and 2018 served as co-spokesperson for the US Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Since 2018 he has served as the UK delegate to CERN’s Council.

Thomson was selected for his managerial credentials in science and connection to CERN. “Thomson is a talented physicist with great managerial experience,” notes Gianotti. “I have had the opportunity to collaborate with him in several contexts over the past years and I am confident he will make an excellent director-general. I am pleased to hand over this important role to him at the end of 2025.”

“Thomson’s election is great news – he has the scientific credentials, experience, and vision to ensure that CERN’s future is just as bright as its past, and it remains at the absolute cutting edge of research,” notes Peter Kyle, UK secretary of state for science, innovation and technology.“Work that is happening at CERN right now will be critical to scientific endeavour for decades to come, and for how we tackle some of the biggest challenges facing humanity.”

‘The right person’

Dirk Ryckbosch, a particle physicist at Ghent University and a delegate for Belgium in the CERN Council, told Physics World that Thomson is a “perfect match” for CERN. “As a former employee and a current member of the council, Thomson knows the ins and outs of CERN and he has the experience needed to lead a large research organization,” adds Ryckbosch.

The last UK director-general of CERN was Chris Llewellyn Smith who held the position between 1994 and 1998. Yet Ryckbosch acknowledges that within CERN, Brexit has never clouded the relationship between the UK and EU member states. “The UK has always remained a strong and loyal partner,” he says.

Thomson will have two big tasks when he becomes CERN boss in 2026: ensuring the start of operations with the upgraded LHC, known as the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) by 2030, and securing plans for the LHC’s successor.

CERN has currently put its weight behind the Future Circular Collider (FCC), which will cost about £12bn and be four times as large as the LHC with a 91 km circumference. The FCC would first be built as an electron-positron collider with the aim of studying the Higgs boson in unprecedented detail. It could later be upgraded as a hadron collider, known as the FCC-hh.

The construction of the FCC will, however, require additional funding from CERN member states. Earlier this year Germany, which is a main contributor to CERN’s annual budget, publicly objected to the FCC’s high cost. Garnering support from the FCC, if CERN selects it as its next project, will be a delicate balancing act for Thomson. “With his international network and his diplomatic skills, Mark is the right person for this,” concludes Ryckbosch.

That view is backed by particle theorist John Ellis from King’s College London, who told Physics World that Thomson has the “ideal profile for guiding CERN during the selection and initiation of its next major accelerator project”. Ellis adds that Thomson “brings to the role a strong record of research in collider physics as well as studies of electron-positron colliders and leadership in the DUNE neutrino experiment and also extensive managerial experience”.

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