The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN welcomes a new management team at its helm. Spokesperson Andreas Hoecker (CERN) will continue to steer the experiment until February 2025.

The ATLAS Collaboration is a global effort involving almost 6000 physicists, engineers, technicians and other experts. Made up of 182 institutions (249 institutes) spread over every populated continent, its multinational efforts require a high level of coordination. Together, a new ATLAS management team will oversee all aspects of the collaboration throughout most of LHC Run 3.

ATLAS Spokesperson Andreas Hoecker will work with several familiar faces in the management team. Manuella Vincter (Carleton University) continues as Deputy Spokesperson. She is joined by Deputy Spokesperson Stéphane Willocq (University of Massachusetts Amherst), who previously served as ATLAS Physics Coordinator. Technical Coordinator Ludovico Pontecorvo (CERN) will continue in his role for another year, before handing the baton to Martin Aleksa (CERN) in March 2024. David Francis (CERN) continues as Resources Coordinator and Benedetto Gorini (CERN), who joined the team in October 2022, continues as Upgrade Coordinator. Stepping down from their roles are Deputy Spokesperson Marumi Kado (new Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich) and, since October 2022, Upgrade Coordinator Francesco Lanni (new leader of the CERN Neutrino Platform). Both provided invaluable contributions to ATLAS during their terms.

"This is an exciting time for the ATLAS Collaboration, as we are undertaking several key objectives simultaneously," says Andreas. "In addition to collecting and analysing data from the current record-energy operation of the LHC, benefitting from recently installed detector improvements, our broad programme of physics analysis and experiment upgrade will continue apace. Meeting this wide range of goals will require our full commitment and focus of effort."

The coming years should see the LHC colliding particles at record intensity and energy. Although operation has been reduced last and this year in response to the European energy crisis, the LHC is expected to deliver an unprecedented amount of data to the ATLAS experiment. “Our operations, trigger, data preparation, software, computing, and analysis teams have a busy few years ahead of them, as we are only just beginning to tap into the potential of Run 3,” says Ludovico.

This era of exploration will see ATLAS’ sensitivity to new physics processes increase, as scientists will be able to explore new types of collision events that were previously out of reach. At the same time, analysis of the Run 2 dataset (collected in 2015-2018) continues to be a priority. “We have several high-precision studies of the Run 2 dataset still underway, as well as a wide range of ongoing searches and measurements,” says Andreas. “Finalising those, and finding new ways to explore this treasure trove of Run 2 data, also together with the new Run 3 data, remains very important.”

In parallel, work on ATLAS upgrades for the high-luminosity phase of the LHC (HL-LHC) is entering a pivotal phase. “Starting from 2029, HL-LHC will provide an order of magnitude more data to the ATLAS experiment,” says Benedetto. “We have necessary and ambitious detector upgrade projects underway that will allow us to take full advantage of these data. The new detector systems are being constructed and tested by ATLAS groups at universities and laboratories around the world. Getting these detectors from design to delivery – starting as early as 2026 – is a critical task."

In its 30 years of history, the ATLAS Collaboration has proven to be a leading source of scientific excellence – a legacy the ATLAS management team plans to build on. "I am confident that ATLAS members will rise to the occasion to meet these challenges," concludes Andreas. "Our members are a great source of inspiration to me; their ideas and contributions are the driving force behind our experiment's excellent results. As Spokesperson, I will continue to cultivate our longstanding culture of open and inclusive engagement."