Have a safe day!
Tuesday, Dec. 17
11 a.m.
Academic Lecture Series - One West
Speaker: Jodi Cooley, Southern Methodist University
Title: Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments 1
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE AND LOCATION) - WH3NE
Speaker: Terrance Figy, University of Manchester
Title: Electroweak Higgs Boson Production in Association of Three Jets (A.K.A. VBF + 1 Jet) at NLO QCD
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY
Wednesday, Dec. 18
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Hitoshi Murayama, University of California, Berkeley, Kavli IPMU
Title: Toward the International Linear Collider
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab
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Tuesday, Dec. 17
- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Breakfast: bacon, egg and cheese bagel
- Grilled reuben sandwich
- Smart cuisine: portobello and peppers over soft polenta
- Southern fried chicken
- Grilled-chicken Caesar jazz salad wrap
- Pork carnitas soft tacos
- Split pea and ham soup
- Chef's choice soup
- Assorted pizza by the slice
Wilson Hall Cafe menu
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Wednesday, Dec. 18
Lunch
- Salmon Wellington
- Parmesan orzo
- Lemon berry Napoleon
Friday, Dec. 20
Dinner
- Spinach and pomegranate salad
- Lobster tail with champagne butter sauce
- Spaghetti squash with scallions
- Grilled asparagus
- Raspberry mousse with assortment of Christmas cookies
Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Mu2e attracts magnet experts
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By tapping into specialized knowledge around the world, the Mu2e collaboration will undertake a first-of-its-kind experiment. Image courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
Fermilab's Mu2e experiment is unlike anything ever attempted. So when the collaboration needed a first-of-its-kind magnet prototype built, they turned to an institution known for its magnet expertise: the Genoa section of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, or INFN, located in the University of Genoa in Italy.
Earlier this year, INFN-Genoa became the sixth Italian institution to join the Mu2e collaboration, which now sports more than 150 members from 28 labs and universities in the United States, Italy and Russia. The team of magnet experts there has decades of experience working on high-energy physics experiments—they helped design and build magnets for BaBar at SLAC and, more recently, the CMS detector at CERN.
Now they're putting that knowledge toward building prototypes of the years-in-development magnets that will be used for for Mu2e, an experiment intended to study whether charged particles called leptons can change from one type to another. According to Doug Glenzinzki, the deputy project manager for Mu2e, the experiment's goal is to narrow down the possibilities for completing physicists' picture of the universe by amassing evidence for one theory over others.
"We know the Standard Model is incomplete," Glenzinski says. "The number one goal of particle physics is to elucidate what a more complete model looks like. There are a lot of theories, and we are looking for data that tells us which is right."
It turns out, Glenzinski says, charged lepton flavor violation — the phenomenon Mu2e is being built to study — is a powerful way of discriminating between possible models. Seeing this violation would also open up new questions about a theory of nature that has stood for 80 years. In short, this experiment could point the way toward the future of particle physics.
Read more
—Andre Salles
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Tom Wokas retires Dec. 18
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Tom Wokas
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Although the job classification "super tech" does not officially exist, TD Technician Tom Wokas could be said to easily meet all of the requirements and perform the essential duties of one. After 33 years of perfecting his craft, Tom is retiring to enjoy family and pursue his many outside-the-lab interests.
Tom has been the "go-to guy" for the varied and unique projects in our group that require an inventive, intelligent approach, attention to detail and a high level of craftsmanship.
"I used every opportunity to involve Tom in work I was doing, as he was a person who could generate solutions for solving design problems, propose design and effective fabrication techniques, and make things happen," said the SRF Department's Iouri Terechkine.
Tom started his Fermilab career building Tevatron "spool" devices. He managed fabrication of the turn-around box that supplied the Superconducting Super Collider string test with vacuum and cryogenic end components. He then found a long-time home in the ICB engineering lab, contributing to cryogenic devices and materials. In the Magnet Systems Department, Tom hit his stride producing a series of small superconducting magnet prototypes for an expanding list of accelerator projects such as HINS, ILC and ASTA.
"All magnets were successfully tested, and not one had a short," said Chief Magnet Engineer Vladimir Kashikin. "The quality of his work is outstanding."
Tom's expert skills have been crucial to recent development of a new class of magnetic measurement probes and devices.
"Besides being personable and enthusiastic, he has a variety of areas of genuine expertise and is good at applying them in new contexts," said physicist Joe DiMarco. "He was always good at picking up on the concepts involved and running with them, even if documentation was sketchy, and was always thorough and thoughtful in his work."
Tom is a self-starter with a broad knowledge base and experience that will be hard to replace. It has been a privilege to work with him.
A farewell celebration for Tom will be held in the IB2 wrapping room today from 2:30-3:30 p.m.
—Michael Tartaglia and John Tompkins, Technical Division Magnet Systems Department
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Listen up, it's neutrino time
From The New York Times, Dec. 13, 2013
Have you noticed how the Higgs boson has been hogging the limelight lately? For a measly little invisible item, whose significance cannot be explained without appealing to thorny concepts of quantum field theory, it has done pretty well for itself. The struggling starlets of Hollywood could learn a thing or two about the dark art of self-promotion from this boson.
First, its elusiveness "sparked the greatest hunt in science," as the subtitle of one popular book put it. Then came all the hoopla over its actual discovery. Or should I say discoveries? Because those clever, well-meaning folks at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva proclaimed their finding of the particle not once but twice. First in 2012, on the Fourth of July no less, they told the world that their supergigantic — and awesomely expensive — atom smasher had found tentative evidence of the Higgs. Eight months later, they made a second announcement, this time with more data in hand, to confirm that they had nabbed the beast for real. Just recently, there was yet more fanfare when two of the grandees who had predicted the particle's existence back in 1964 shared a Nobel Prize for their insight.
Read more
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Classical carrier could create entanglement
From Physics World, Dec. 11, 2013
Quantum entanglement between two distant parties could be achieved using a non-entangled or classical information carrier. That is the conclusion of three independent teams of physicists that have done quantum-optical experiments backing up their claims.
Entanglement is a purely quantum-mechanical phenomenon that allows two particles, such as photons or electrons, to have a much closer relationship than is predicted by classical physics. Over the years, it has played a central role in creating in quantum-information systems such as quantum cryptography.
Read more
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Recognizing accomplishments, part 2
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Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer
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With the end of the year upon us, I would like to continue to acknowledge the hard work and progress on many key lab projects and initiatives that happened in 2013. The Dec. 3 Director's Corner highlighted successes and milestones from the accelerator and operations sectors; this week, we focus on the particle physics and computing sectors.
Congratulations to all of you for the following accomplishments:
- Making excellent progress on the construction of the NOvA and MicroBooNE experiments, which will lead to first data for each in mid-2014.
- Beginning the five-year Dark Energy Survey of the cosmos after completion of science verification studies.
- Advancing the Mu2e, Muon g-2 and CMS upgrades toward full construction projects with successful Office of Science reviews and R&D. (And the Muon g-2 ring was welcomed by large crowds along its journey from Brookhaven to Fermilab.)
- Developing cutting-edge, 3-D integrated circuit technology, leading to much higher-density electronics.
- Conducting important R&D in liquid-argon purification with electronics functioning well over many months, demonstrating an electron drift-lifetime greater than that needed for LBNE.
- Making important theory contributions to the recent delta mass squared measurement of the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment and the cross sections times branching ratios for the recently discovered Higgs boson at the LHC.
- Contributing to several significant physics results, including the measurement of the spin-parity of the Higgs boson and the observation of Bs to μμ. The observation of the Higgs boson at the LHC led to a Nobel Prize for Francois Englert and Peter Higgs.
- Making significant progress on modernizing the lab's human resources system, including selection of a cloud vendor to support the new system called FermiWorks.
- Completing the upgrade of the lab's wide-area networking to 100 Gb/s, which continues to provide for worldwide data transfers and grid capabilities.
- Planning and beginning deployment of a sitewide optimized modern print service, which will provide increased functionality consistent with industry best practices and at reduced costs.
- CERN adopting the SYNERGIA software package as their product of choice for modeling their injector chain.
- Receiving allocations of significant INCITE high-performance computing time on the big supercomputers.
On behalf of senior management, I thank you for your continued dedication and hard work. We wish you and your families a very happy holiday season.
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Final plastic extrusion for NOvA far detector produced
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The last shipment of Extrutech Plastics extrusion panels for the NOvA far detector is on its way to Minnesota. From left: Jim Fagan (Fermilab), Chuck Grozis (Extrutech) and Greg Sheehy (Extrutech). Photo courtesy of Chuck Grozis, Extrutech Plastics |
Last week, Extrutech Plastics, based in Manitowoc, Wisc., produced the final plastic extrusion panel for the NOvA far detector in northern Minnesota. Together, these 21,504 PVC extrusions will hold 2.7 million gallons of the liquid scintillator needed to detect neutrino interactions.
Each 15.5-meter-long PVC panel (see this photo) is made up of 16 hollow tubes arranged side by side. Each tube, made of white, highly reflective plastic, is filled with the liquid scintillator. When a neutrino strikes an atom in the scintillator, the liquid will release a burst of photons, and photodetectors will sense the resulting pattern of lighted tubes. Scientists can then determine the kind of neutrino that caused the interaction. Each tube measures 3.9 cm wide, 6.0 cm deep and 15.5 m long.
Now that the final extrusion panel is complete, members of the NOvA collaboration can finish assembling the modules for installation in the detector.
View a 7-minute video on the assembly of the NOvA far detector. |
Venus and the moon
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Earth's moon and Venus hover beside Ramsey Auditorium. Photo: Elliott McCrory, AD |
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