The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) was inaugurated on Friday, September 1, 2017, in the city of Hamburg in Germany.

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Here's all you need to know about XFEL:

1. The European XFEL is the largest X-ray laser in the world. It was built over a span of eight years, with around $1.7 billion (€1.5 billion) spent to devise this facility.

2. What makes XFEL unique is that it can emit 27,000 X-ray laser flashes per second, and its luminance is a billion times greater than any previously-used X-ray source.

 "They (conventional X-ray sources) can send 100 pulses out per second, we can send 27,000," said Robert Feidenhan'l, chairman of the European XFEL management board.

3. The device will be used to analyse fast-moving atoms and molecules as human eyes cannot see them. This technology would help scientists study the molecular structure of viruses and processes occurring deep inside planets, record chemical reactions and even capture 3D images of the nanoworld. This would aid in developing new medicines and other products.

4. The laser is "like a camera and a microscope that will make it possible to see more tiny details and processes in the nanoworld than ever before," said Robert Feidenhans, chairman of the project's management board.

5. A 3.4-km-long tunnel complex houses the facility where XFEL is, and it extends to the German federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

 This international project involves 11 European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Various researchers are preparing to carry out their first experiments by mid-September. </s> From today (1st September 2017), the European XFEL - the world's biggest X-ray laser - will be in regular operation.

The €1.22 billion research facility in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region involves eleven European countries.

With 27,000 X-ray laser flashes per second and a luminance a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources, XFEL will open up entirely new research opportunities and help transcend the current boundaries of scientific research.

It will enable international scientists to decipher the molecular composition of viruses and cells, take three-dimensional images of the nanoworld, film chemical reactions and study processes occurring deep inside planets. XFEL will help develop, eg new medication and new materials.

Tthe facility was launched by Germany's Research Minister Johanna Wanka, Hamburg's First Mayor Olaf Scholz, Schleswig-Holstein's Science Minister Karin Prien, Russia's Presidential Advisor Andrei Fursenko, French Research Minister Frédérique Vidal and other high-ranking representatives. They will be joined by several external researchers, who are currently preparing for their first experiments in mid-September.

XFEL is a non-profit organisation that closely collaborates with DESY Hamburg and other international institutions. It employs about 300 people.

With a cost of €1.22 billion for construction and launch and a 3.4-kilometre tunnel system that extends to the state of Schleswig-Holstein, it is among Europe's biggest and most ambitious research projects.

Eleven countries are involved: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland; the UK is in the process of joining. </s> A series of laser beams crisscrossed the skies over Hamburg to mark the launch of the world’s biggest x-ray laser, co-financed by Russia. The device is able to photograph objects at an atomic level and is set to “transcend” current scientific boundaries.

Since Monday night, 10 green laser beams have lit up the sky from Hamburg to the nearby town of Schenefeld, while the words “Welcome European XFEL” projected onto a warehouse next to Hamburg’s new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie.

The elaborate light display, which could be seen from 24 kilometers away, marked the underground path of the world’s biggest X-ray laser, the European XFEL, which became operational on Friday.

“With 27,000 X-ray laser flashes per second and a luminance a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources, XFEL will open up entirely new research opportunities and help transcend the current boundaries of scientific research,” the XFEL team said in a press release.

“It will enable international scientists to decipher the molecular composition of viruses and cells, take three-dimensional images of the nanoworld, film chemical reactions and study processes occurring deep inside planets. XFEL will help develop e.g. new medication and new materials.”

A project between 11 European countries, developing the XFEL facility has cost €1.22 billion (US$1.45 billion), the bulk of which (58 percent) was funded by Germany, followed by Russia (27 percent). Present at the launch were German Research Minister Johanna Wanka, Olaf Scholz, the Mayor of Hamburg, Russian presidential aide Andrey Fursenko, and French Research Minister Frederique Vidal.

“Hamburg shines today and in the next few days particularly brightly for science – we are extremely proud that the European XFEL has found its home in the metropolitan area of Hamburg. This shows how well-versed we are in providing the basic framework for cutting-edge research,” Katharina Fegebank, Senator for Science, Research, and Equality, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“For the next years, the European XFEL will ensure that Hamburg is the world’s best location for research into the structure of matter and gives the Bahrenfeld Research Campus as a whole a big boost.”

Since X-rays have a wavelength of 0.8 nanometers, almost 500 times shorter than visible light, the laser can be used to make pictures and videos of objects at an atomic level.

The XFEL facility uses a 3.4-kilometer tunnel system extending to the nearby state of Schleswig-Holstein to accelerate electron particles to a near-light speed before passing through a set of magnets which concentrate them into a series of short, intense bursts of X-rays.

The laser display to commemorate XFEL’s launch will remain until Sunday. </s> The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (European XFEL) project, involving 11 countries, including Russia, began operation on Friday. The €1.5 billion x-ray research laser facility will be used to study the structure of matter at the molecular level, and allow scientists to observe chemical reactions or biological processes as they unfold.

Scientists anticipate that the laser will lead to fundamental discoveries related to natural science, energy, medical treatments, the chemical industry, and the creation of new or improved materials. The massive, 3.5 km long laser has been likened to a giant microscope, accelerating electrons to incredible speeds and then producing very brief flashes in the x-ray range, illuminating matter and material processes down to the atomic level.

Professor Robert Feidenhans'l, the project's managing director, sat down with Radio Sputnik to discuss just how the new laser works, and its exciting applications.

"First of all, it's different in that it's an X-ray laser," the scientist explained.

"The way it works is: in order to make X-rays, you first need electrons. You start by making electrons, which is done at the DESY campus. You then put electrons into an injector, and accelerate them up to a very high energy to basically run at the speed of light. Then you put these electrons in a so-called undulator, where they go through a zig-zag path, and then your emit x-rays. You throw the electrons away and use the x-rays which come long."

Feidenhans'l stressed that put simply, "the important thing is that with our facility, it's very, very, very powerful; there's a lot of x-rays coming out, and they come fast. It only takes a very short time for this x-ray pulse to come along, and then you can take pictures of molecules, viruses, proteins, so you can see how they actually look on the atomic level."

Commenting on the tremendous length of the laser and the reason for this, the scientist admitted that "yes, it's actually very big. It's about 3.5 km in total. It starts at Bahrenfeld, a special part of the city here in Hamburg; then you have a 2 km accelerator, where you accelerate the electrons. Then you have another 1.5 km where the x-rays go along."

As far as European XFEL's uses are concerned, Feidenhans'l explained that among other things, "it will be used to look at the structures of biomolecules, to see how they are built, how they work. In particular, our laser can be used to look at biomolecules at room temperature in a normal environment. Normally, you have to cool the bio-samples down to where it's an unnatural environment for them."

"More importantly," he said, "one can make 'movies'; one can see how photosynthesis works –when a biomolecule absorbs light and converts it to energy. Then we can follow the individual steps in a kind of molecular movie."

"When you have understood how a molecule actually makes energy out of light, you could eventually design an artificial machine which does the same thing. But you need to see the 'movie' in order to do that," Feidenhans'l added.

European XFEL will also be used for medical research, Feidenhans'l said. "If you want to make new drugs, you want to see and understand how these drugs are working on a particular biomolecule, and that is also something we can actually measure and film, and then understand how the physical and chemical and biological processes actually run as a function of time."

Alongside their new x-ray laser, the professor noted that the team at European XFEL has also developed a high-powered optical laser, capable of heating material to extremely high temperatures and pressures, "similar to what you have in a star or an exoplanet." This will enable scientists to "see the material while it's at very high temperature, and high pressure. But it's not it's not the exabeam itself that heats it up; it's done by a powerful external optical laser." </s> The world’s most powerful X-ray laser opened Friday in Germany, promising to shed new light onto very small things by letting scientists penetrate the inner workings of atoms, viruses and chemical reactions.

 The mega-project generates extremely intense laser flashes, at a mind-boggling rate of 27,000 per second, inside a 3.4-kilometre tunnel below the northern city of Hamburg.

Hailed as one of Europe’s most cutting-edge research projects, the European XFEL, hidden 38 metres below corn fields and residential areas, was opened after eight years’ construction at a ribbon-cutting ceremony with science and technology ministers from the 11 countries involved.

At the heart of the 1.5-billion-euro facility is the ultrafast X-ray laser strobe light, which will allow researchers for the first time to look deep inside matter and take snapshots and “molecular movies”.

“We can look deep into the micro-world, the nano-world, the world of atoms and molecules, and study things we didn’t previously know, for example what molecules do in a chemical reaction,” said Johanna Wanka, Germany’s education and research minister.

Teams from around the world will be able to, for instance, map the atomic details of viruses, take 3-D images of the molecular make-up of cells or film chemical reactions as they happen.

The huge laser is “like a camera and a microscope that will make it possible to see more tiny details and processes in the nano-world than ever before,” XFEL managing director Robert Feidenhans’l told AFP.

He said that so far, scientists know many chemical and biological processes only by their outcomes — like a football fan reading the score of a match he missed.

“Now you can see the game and you can analyse it … so next time you can win,” Feidenhans’l said. “The game could be a chemical process, a biological process, it could be how you get energy from sunlight. The principle is the same: you want to see the game.”

The applications are sweeping — images of biomolecules may help understand and treat illnesses, while a peek inside a building material might explain why it tears or cracks.

The light beams can also be bundled to create extreme pressure and temperatures to study processes like those at the Earth’s core.

“There will be very concrete applications, for example to develop custom-made drugs against tumours and viruses … or to test the purity of materials,” said Wanka.

“We don’t yet know everything that will result from this, but it is unique and an opportunity for many researchers.”

The XFEL boasts a list of superlatives: the light’s brilliance is a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources.

The silicon mirrors along which the light is bounced, produced in Japan, are so smooth that any bump on their surface measures no more than a millionth of a millimetre.

Some 800 guests were invited for the launch of the project, which stretches from inside Hamburg to Schenefeld in the adjoining state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Germany has coughed up 58 percent of the cost and Russia 27 percent, with scientific cooperation continuing despite geopolitical tensions.

The other partners, with stakes of one to three percent each, are Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Britain is in the process of joining.

XFEL — which stands for X-Ray Free-Electron Laser — is all about looking at things at the hard-to-fathom nano-level. (For a rough idea, a human hair is about 100,000 nanometres thick.)

It works by blasting a powerful laser into metal which sends bundles of electrons flying through a superconducting linear accelerator, the world’s longest at 1.7 kilometres.

As they hurtle through the tube, which is supercooled to minus 271 degrees centigrade, they are charged by microwaves in order to reach nearly the speed of light.

In the next section, thousands of alternating magnets send the electrons onto a tight “slalom” course.

The electrons gather into a multitude of ultrathin discs, allowing them to emit their light in sync and produce intense X-ray flashes of laser light.

When these hit a material, they create a strobe-like series of crisp pictures with an ultrashort “shutter speed” of a billionth of a second, which can be assembled to create 3-D images or films. </s> Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany has opened after 16 years of planning and construction, which was held back by financial and legal issues. The grand opening of the concert hall, taking place on January 11 and 12, 2017, features inaugural concerts and a light display on the façade of the building.

As Hamburg’s newest cultural destination, the building was inaugurated by German Federal President Joachim Gauck, Mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz, architect Jacques Herzog from Herzog & de Meuron, and General and Artistic Director Christoph Lieben-Seutter.

More than 4,500 guests from Germany and abroad will take part in the opening concerts in the Grand Hall and Recital Hall today and tomorrow, including Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, various high-ranking political and cultural leaders from around the world, and 1,000 visitors who won tickets to the event, out of 220,000 entrants from 73 countries.

On both opening days, music will be made available outside of the building for all to see and hear, accompanied by a projection of colored lights onto the building’s façade.

“With its wavy lines on the warehouse foundation, the first sketches for the concert hall were first put to paper in 2001 by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. In 2003, the Hamburg populace were given their first glimpse of the development plans […] In 2007, the citizens of Hamburg approved the construction, which then began in April 2007. At the end of 2012 and after many challenges, the City of Hamburg concluded an agreement for the complete reorganization of the project with the construction company Hochtief. Since then, the project has progressed according to schedule. On October 31, 2016, Hochtief handed over the completed Elbphilharmonie to the City of Hamburg.”

A 360-degree live stream will be available on the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg YouTube page. </s> BERLIN (AP) — Hamburg's spectacular new Elbphilharmonie concert hall is finally hosting its first concert, several years behind schedule and far over the original budget.

Germany's president and chancellor are among the guests expected at Wednesday night's maiden concert, to be conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.

The landmark building with its wave-shaped roof and shiny glass facades was built on top of a former coffee warehouse jutting out into the harbor of Germany's second-biggest city. It's also home to a hotel. Its main concert hall can seat 2,100 people, none more than 30 meters (98 feet) from the conductor.

In this Jan. 10, 2017 images a laserboard displays a countdown with the words '1 DAY'TO'GO' on the outside of the new Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany. The concert hall opens on Jan. 11, 2017. (Christian Charisius/dpa via AP)

Construction started in 2007 and was originally supposed to be finished in 2010. The cost to taxpayers climbed from an initially planned 77 million euros to 789 million euros ($835 million). </s> BERLIN: Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert hall opens on Wednesday, delivering one of Germany's most prestigious 21st century cultural projects: albeit some seven years late and busting its budget.

The new landmark, with a red-brick base and glass structure on top, curved windows and a roof that resembles the crest of a wave, is built on a 1960s warehouse that stored tea, tobacco and cocoa.

Overlooking Hamburg harbour, it evokes a ship floating on water and is part of a development that uses old warehouses to create residential and office space in Germany's biggest port.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, a regular at the annual Wagner festival in Bayreuth, and President Joachim Gauck will attend the inauguration on Wednesday evening. The programme includes works by Beethoven, Cavalieri and Wagner.

Music-lovers are keen to judge the acclaimed acoustics in the main hall which has 2,100 seats and where no member of the audience is more than 30 metres (yards) from the conductor.

The Hanseatic trading port of Hamburg, now a media hub with chic shopping arcades as well as its red light district around the Reeperbahn, hopes the hall will help draw tourists to Germany's second-biggest city.

"The construction of the Elbphilharmonie is an invitation to the world to come to Hamburg to visit this extraordinary building and experience the power of music," said Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz.

Architects Herzog & de Meuron have called the Elbphilharmonie a city in itself, with restaurants, a hotel and a 37 metre-high plaza between the brick and glass layers open to the public, offering a panorama of the city.

The cost to the city was put at about 75 million euros (US$80 million) back in 2003 but has ballooned to some 790 million euros due in part to delays and legal disputes. It had been due to open in 2009.

The opening has come as a relief to Germans whose reputation for efficiency has been dented by delays on infrastructure projects, most notably Berlin's new airport.

German media have praised the Elbphilharmonie's ambition to perform a range of music, from traditional symphony concerts and operas to modern improvisations and electro music.

"In post-war Germany, culture was something like spiritual self-defence against a dark past and a murky present. That has changed. Today it is rather a confirmation that times are better," wrote the Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an editorial. </s> IGR J17329-2731: Swift/XRT localization and characterization

ATel #10645; E. Bozzo (ISDC, Switzerland), E. Kuulkers (ESA/ESAC, Spain), A. Postel, V. Savchenko (ISDC, Switzerland), C. Sanchez-Fernandez (ESA/ESAC, Spain), R. Wijnands (UVA, Netherlands), K. Pottschmidt (NASA-GSFC/UMBC, USA), V. Beckmann (CNRS/IN2P3, France), A. Bodaghee (GCSU, USA), J. Chenevez (DTU, Denmark)

on 16 Aug 2017; 21:46 UT

Credential Certification: E. Bozzo (enrico.bozzo@unige.ch)

Subjects: X-ray, Transient

Referred to by ATel #: 10682, 10685, 11273

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The new INTEGRAL transient IGR J17329-2731 (ATel #10644) was observed with Swift/XRT on 2017 August 16 from 2:26 to 2:45 UTC (effective exposure time 1 ks).

A single faint X-ray source (0.07 cts/s) is detected by Swift/XRT within the positional uncertainty provided by INTEGRAL IBIS/ISGRI. The best position obtained from the on-line XRT data analysis tool is at RA, Dec (J2000.0) = 263.20952 deg, -27.50135 deg (the associated 90% confidence level uncertainty is 3.1 arcsec; Evans et al. 2009, MNRAS, 397, 1177). The XRT spectrum could be preliminarily characterized by an absorbed power-law model, providing indication of a high absorption column density (>1E23 cm^-2) and hard emission (power-law photon index ~0.2). The estimated X-ray flux in the 0.5-10 keV energy band is about 2.5E-11 erg/cm^2/s. We are grateful to the Swift planning team for the very rapid scheduling of the Swift ToO observation.
The European X-ray free-electron laser is inaugurated in Hamburg, Germany.