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The Talk of the Lab
Liberty. Equality. Supersymmetry. From an article in the Paris newspaper "Le Monde," August 19, 1999, by Jean-Paul Dufour headline: "Course contre la montre derrière une particule fantùme1. "Les physiciens du CERN esperènt identifier le boson de Higgs avant deux ans sur leur accèlèrateur "gonflè" "Trouvera, trouvera pas? Les physiciens du laboratoire europèen pour la physique des particules (CERN) de GenËve viennent de lancer une course contre la montre pour tenter d'identifier une particule fantùme qu'ils traquent en vain depuis une dizaine d'annèes. Depuis le dèbut d'aošt, le LEP (Large electron positron collider), l'accèlèrateur gèant don't ils disposent actuellement, fonctionne ý l'extrÍme limite de ses possibilitès. Avec, pour mission, de trouver le boson Higgs avant dècembre 2000, date ý laquelle il sera, en principe, arrÍtè pour travaux.... "Il n'y aura plus alors, dans le monde, d'accelerateur en fonctionnement susceptible de mettre en èvidence ce boson fantùme. Les physiciens devront attendre, pour complèter leurs thèories, la mise en service de LHC, prèvue pour 2005 au plus tùt, ou celle de son futur concurrent amèricain, le Tevatron du Fermilab, ý Chicago, dans sa version amèliorèe "Run 3," qui, si financement est votè, produira ses premiers faisceaux ý la mÍme èpoque..."
From the September 2, 1999 issue of FAST, ("French Advances in Science and Technology") an electronic "free review of mainstream French press on issues of science and technology," produced and written by Timothy Carlson From: FAST<fast@amb-wash.fr> To: jjackson@fnal.gov Date: Tuesday, September 7, 1999 Subject: FAST - September 2,1999 -Issue #109 headline: A souped up CERN closing in on Higgs boson before closing
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Timothy, Au contraire! As any CERN physicist will confirm, the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, just west of Chicago, is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, with a center-of-mass energy of two trillion electron volts. It is eminently capable of flushing a heavy boson such as the postulated "light" Higgs. Moreover, the good news is that the world's particle physicists will have to wait not "5 or 6 long years" but only 5 or 6 short months to take up the search for the Higgs after LEP shuts down.... When Fermilab's Collider Run II at the souped-up Tevatron begins in 2000, scientists at Fermilab will be going after the Higgs with the utmost energy! Regards, Judy Jackson Fermilab Office of Public Affairs
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Dear Judy, Thank you very much for the light you shed on this matter. I recontacted Le Monde, who went in turn back to CERN, and their clarification along with yours forms the basis for a rectification of the Higgs chase discussion that you will find in a forthcoming issue of FAST. I welcome of course any further comments you may want to make, since the purpose of FAST is, as I hope readers know, information and understanding, not boosterism. Thanks again, Timothy Carlson
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Timothy, Thanks for your gracious response. I'll watch with interest for the new story on the Higgs chase. In fact, FAST doesn't come across as boosterish at all.
Incidentally there are five French institutions among the 60 member institutions of the DZero collaboration here at Fermilab. DZero is one of the two collaborations that will be taking up the Higgs search at the Tevatron when the collider run gets under way next year. Physicists (37 in all) from SACLAY, l'Institut des Sciences Nuclèaires de Grenoble, le Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseilles, Paris VI et VII, and le Laboratoire de l'Accèlèrateur Linèaire are among the 450 or so DZero experimenters searching for the Higgs here in Chicago. In addition, France has contributed substantially to the construction of the DZero detector. If you think this might make an interesting FAST story, let me know and I'll be glad to put you in touch with some French experimenters from Day Zayro. Regards, Judy Jackson
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Dear Judy, Yes, I'd love to cover Day Zayro. If you send me a contact, I'll follow up when I get back from a trip to the States sometime in mid-October. Looking forward to staying in touch. Best regards, Tim Carlson
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Date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 8:02 PM Subject: Re: LEP most powerful? Au contraire! Judy, Thanks for the plug for our French colleagues. In the spirit of Day Zayro you should know that one of the poky little conference rooms out in our trailers is called the Salle des Hèros.
Mont, Co-Spokesperson, Day Zayro
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Physicists at CERN, the European Particle Physics Center, have been driving the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) pretty hard this summer, reaching an energy level of 200 giga-electron volts and thereby sparking hopes among physicists everywhere that Higgs's theoretically splendid but experimentally elusive boson particle will show itself. Scottish physicist Peter Higgs posited the existence of a universal force field which would supply the missing element in the "standard model" description of matter: the source of particle mass. Since, according to quantum theory, to every force field there corresponds a particle, Higgs's boson must exist. With the last quark recently hunted down and the standard model looking better and better, particle hunters are more keen than ever on bagging the boson. Recent experiments at CERN have led to more precise estimations of its likely mass (expressed in energy) and 200 GeV might well be enough juice to detect Higgs's particle. There is one hitch; the LEP is slated to be torn down beginning in December 2000 to be reborn in five years as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Since the LEP is the world's most powerful accelerator and the only one remotely capable of flushing a heavy boson, scientists are pushing themselves as hard as their machine in an effort to get the job done before they are forced to wait 5 or 6 long years for another try. (Le Monde, August 18 [sic], Jean-Paul Dufour)
| last modified 10/1/1999 email Fermilab |
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