The first ATAP Newsletter for 2026 highlights the final magnet for the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It also shows how our researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve particle accelerators and expand their uses; recent progress in fusion research; and Berkeley Lab’s leadership in advanced magnet technologies.
Congratulations to staff from across ATAP and the Lab’s Engineering Divisions who played a key role in building 21 new magnets for the high-luminosity upgrade to the LHC. These advanced magnets, which—for the first time—use superconducting cables made from niobium-tin, can generate much higher magnetic fields than the LHC’s current magnets. This improvement promises to enhance the collider’s capabilities, enabling further fundamental research and new discoveries in high-energy physics and related fields. The last of the magnets recently left the Lab for the first stage of its journey to CERN.
Researchers from ATAP are also working at the intersection of AI and scientific research. For example, as part of the Department of Energy’s AI Genesis Mission, researchers from our Advanced Modeling Program (AMP) lead a multi-lab effort, the Multi-Office Particle Accelerator Team (MOAT) project, to deploy AI tools that optimize and reshape the design and operation of accelerators. This makes them more efficient and supports advances in fundamental and applied research, including fusion.
In recently published work, researchers from our Advanced Light Source Accelerator Physics Program have deployed the Accelerator Assistant, the first AI system capable of autonomously conducting multi-stage physics experiments at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS). The system enables accelerator physicists to describe complex experimental or diagnostic tasks in natural language and automatically translate them into executable workflows. Now, tasks that once took hours of manual scripting and expert knowledge can be completed in minutes.
Last month, the ALS hosted a workshop on agentic AI for user facilities. The workshop drew about 100 registered participants from user facilities across the U.S. national lab complex and European light sources, who heard from speakers about how interconnected AI agents could someday handle much of the routine work of lab research, freeing researchers to focus on innovation and new discoveries.
Researchers are using the BELLA Center to test deployment methods across the accelerator complex as part of the Genesis Mission. They are also applying AI and machine learning to accurately predict the position of a high-power laser before it hits a target, achieving micron-level precision. This progress paves the way for enhancing the stabilization and control of high-power, high-intensity lasers used in next-generation particle accelerators known as laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs). BELLA will also serve as a testbed for methods developed under MOAT to enhance accelerators and drive breakthroughs across the national accelerator complex.
Learn how researchers from our Superconducting Magnet Program are advancing magnet technology to create more powerful superconducting magnets. These magnets help make accelerators more efficient and push forward fusion research. They also have the potential to improve medicine, materials, fundamental physics, and many other areas.
Collaborations involving our AMP and BELLA teams and their partners are evaluating the feasibility of laser-based methods to accelerate 100 GeV electrons for muon production. The award-winning Exascale code WarpX was used to simulate the acceleration process, a vital step toward creating a new muon-based imaging technology that surpasses current methods. Additionally, for the first time, BELLA researchers have used ultrafast X-rays and electrons simultaneously to image a shock wave in water, revealing details that earlier experiments couldn’t detect. The research shows how LPAs can be used to investigate plasma physics and advance inertial confinement fusion.
I am also very pleased that ATAP alum John Byrd has been chosen to lead the U.S. Particle Accelerator School. His distinguished research background will strengthen the school’s vital role in providing accelerator physics education not available at most universities and will help him leverage contributions from lecturers across the community.
Finally, congratulations to AMP Research Scientist Arianna Formenti for being recognized for her contributions to the Lab’s K-12 STEM Education programs. Our outreach and education efforts are a key part of the Lab’s mission to inspire future generations of accelerator scientists and engineers, and our researchers actively participate in this. Well done, and thank you for your dedication, Arianna!
Written by Carl A. Williams or other authors as credited.
For more information on ATAP News articles, contact caw@lbl.gov.
