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Researchers in the Laboratory for Scientific Computing and Modelling at the Paul Sherrer Institute PSI solve the most complex problems through a combination of theory, modelling, and high-performance computing. With powerful computers, they simulate the smallest molecules or large-scale research facilities.

The 5^th Workshop on the Physics of Fundamental Symmetries and Interactions (PSI2019) took place from 20 to 25 October 2019 at PSI, bringing together 200 scientists from all over the world working on some of today’s most precise particle-physics experiments at the low-energy frontier.

On 27 November 2019, at the recommendation of the ETH Board, the Federal Council has appointed Christian Rüegg as the new director of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI. The 43-year-old will take over from Thierry Strässle, who has headed the institute on an interim basis since the beginning of the year. Mr Rüegg is currently head of the Neutrons and Muons Division at the PSI. He will take up his new position on 1 April 2020.

The MaNEP Network met at the University of Bern, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, for a Workshop on Materials Discovery and its annual Forum Meeting. The community discussed potential future joint initiatives and the role of MaNEP.

The League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) with the participation of PSI held its second General Assembly at Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) together with meetings of its five working groups and the LENS Executive Board. The meetings brought the consortium’s operational working groups together with the leaders of the LENS member facilities to advance priority actions for the organisation in the months to come.

PSI is entirely responsible to build the polarised neutron reflectometer ESTIA at the European Spallation Source ESS in Lund, Sweden. The lead ESTIA scientist Artur Glavic (LNS/NUM) has now simulated a virtual tour of the neutrons travelling through the instrument from the focusing neutron guide to the detector.

On October 1 and 2, the Laboratory of Neutron and Muon Instrumentation (LIN) hosted the first meeting of the working group on “Synergies in Technology Development and Operation” of the League of Advanced European Neutron Sources, LENS, to kick off developments aimed at creating a new generation of neutron technology.

On 24 September the Paul Scherrer Institut was the venue of a meeting between the top supervisory board of the European Spallation Source ESS to be built in Lund, Sweden, and representatives of the Swiss government from SERI. The chair and the vice chair of the ESS Council, Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph and Kurt Clausen, respectively came to Switzerland to discuss the Swiss In-Kind Contributions to the largest spallation neutron source under construction in Sweden.

Highly efficient two-dimensional detectors are essential for the performance of modern neutron diffractometers. The NUM Division of PSI and the Technical University Munich TUM jointly develop two identical new ³He gas detectors, one for the diffractometer DMC at SINQ and the other for operation at FRM-II in Munich.