Dear Colleagues, Members of the EP Department and CERN Users,

We are in the middle of a fantastic year for CERN. After a difficult start, with some negative interference from the creatures in the Pays de Gex, the LHC is running like a Swiss clock breaking one record after another. Likewise, the LHC Experiments are keeping up and taking high quality data. When this newsletter gets online the experiments will have collected already more data than in 2015. With excitement we may look forward to see the results of this data in the various search channels but also in the precision physics channels.

The EP newsletter you are hopefully about to read covers the restart of the LHC experiments and some of the many other activities at CERN. Examples are the completion of the first stage of the HIE-ISOLDE project with the installation of the first two superconducting modules. This post-accelerator will open new physics opportunities for the ISOLDE community at CERN. The results from the CLOUD experiment have made it into the news all over the world recently. Their studies have shed light on the mechanism of cloud formation and are an important input for the climate change discussion. To reduce CERNs impact on the environment the EP-DT group is working on improving the efficiency of the gas usage in the LHC experiments and on the development of new more environmentally friendly gases for future detectors. These topics and much more can be found in this edition of our newsletter. Enjoy the reading!

Let me finally also take the opportunity to wish you and your family a nice summer season. I hope you will also enjoy your well-deserved holiday break, if you decide to take one.

With best regards,

Manfred Krammer

EP Department Head