Post-doc honored for dissertation work at Fermilab

Fermilab post-doc Tim Koeth worked with Fermilab physicist Helen Edwards on his doctoral research.

Rutgers University will honor post-doc Tim Koeth this month with the Richard J. Plano Dissertation Prize, awarded to the student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who wrote the best Ph.D. dissertation during the past year.

Koeth conducted the research for his dissertation at the AZero Photoinjector Laboratory at Fermilab under the guidance of physicist Helen Edwards and his thesis advisor, Rutgers physics professor Steve Schnetzer.

"He is an excellent student," Edwards said. "He did exceptionally good work, driven by his interest in accelerators."

Koeth designed a system that essentially changes the shape of particle bunches in a beam while maintaining the individual particles' energies. This process has the potential to improve the performance of particle accelerators used in free-electron lasers and linear colliders.

Before a bunch of particles enters the beamline, it travels in the shape of a small, oval pill through an accelerator. The long side of the pill-shaped bunch points in the direction that the particles are traveling. The length of the pill is related to what is called the longitudinal emittance of the beam.

An emittance is calculated by multiplying the size of the beam with its angular spread. The angular spread is a measure of how much the particles in the bunch spread from the center like beams of light from a flashlight.

According to Liouville's theorem, a key theorem that applies to optics, the total emittance of a beam cannot be reduced. That means the total dimensions of the bunch of particles cannot be reduced. Accelerator scientists, however, usually aim to minimize one of the emittances, whether the longitudinal or transverse, which reduces the length or width of the bunch.

Koeth and his collaborators found a way to swap the longitudinal and horizontal emittances of the beam, making the bunches look like those same oval pills, but rotated by 90 degrees. They did this without increasing the energy spread, the variation of the energies of individual particles. While the total beam emittance remains the same, this process greatly reduces the beam's longitudinal emittance.

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-- Kathryn Grim

Tevatron sets new record for weekly uptime

The Tevatron ran for a record number of hours last week. Between Monday, April 5 and midnight on Sunday, April 11, the Tevatron ran for 166.25 hours out of 168, a 98.95 percent efficiency.

The last record uptime was set during the week of December 21, 2009. Between Dec. 21 and Dec. 28, the Tevatron ran for 165 out of 168 hours.

Configure your e-mail to ensure security

The Tune IT Up team has taken on its final task in improving laboratory cyber security: Ensuring secure e-mail use. The campaign will achieve this goal in two steps.

First, between today and Wednesday, May 5, those who use IMAP e-mail may need to alter the configuration of their e-mail clients in order to make certain communication is secure.

If you use an e-mail client such as Outlook or Entourage to access your IMAP e-mail account, you should configure it to use Transport Layer Security or Secure Sockets Layer. These programs ensure e-mail privacy by encrypting your password before sending it to the IMAP server to let you sign in. Changing your configuration usually takes less than 10 minutes.

Instructions for altering multiple e-mail client systems are available here.

If you access your IMAP e-mail through the Web, your access is already secure.

Please contact the Service Desk at x2345 with any questions or visit the Password Doctor booth during lunch hours in the Wilson Hall atrium between April 28 and May 5.

The second step will begin Thursday, May 6. From that date forward, IMAP users will be able to log into their accounts using their Services Account password. Fermilab employees already use this password to access the Fermilab Time & Labor Reporting system and to open Service Desk tickets. This will reduce the number of passwords Fermilab employees and users need to use. The Computing Division will disable IMAP passwords on Thursday, May 20. After that date, all employees and users must use their Services Account passwords to access IMAP e-mail.

Please contact the Service Desk at x2345 or visit the Password Doctor booth for help obtaining a Services Account password.

Scholars, scientists gather to discuss value of 'the art of science'

From University of Chicago News,
April 12, 2010

The recently-released "Science and Engineering Indicators 2010" has an insightful chapter on the public's understanding of science, and attitudes about scientists and S&T. The chapter commented on the importance of the public's attitudes as follows:

A provocative panel of speakers explored the striking similarities - and the discordant differences - between art and science at the first program in the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Joint Speaker Series held last month at the Oriental Institute.

About 100 faculty members, scientists, engineers and researchers came together to launch a series of informal events intended to spark new connections between members of the University and those of the national laboratories.

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