Thursday, October 21
1:00 p.m. Computing Techniques Seminar - 1 West
Speaker: D. Duellmann, CERN
Title: The POOL and 3D Projects – Persistency Framework
and Distributed Database Deployment in the LCG
2:30 p.m. Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: E. Boos, Moscow State University/Fermilab
Title: MSSM Higgs Bosons in the Intense Coupling Regime
at the LHC and LC
3:30 p.m. DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m. Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - 1 West
Speaker: A. Apyan, Northwestern University
Title: Production of Polarized Positron and Photon Beams for
Future Linear Colliders and Beam Dynamics
Friday, October 22
3:30 p.m. DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m. Joint Experimental/Theoretical Physics Seminar - 1 West
Speaker: A. Nelson, University of Washington
Title: Dark Energy from Mass Varying Neutrinos, and
Neutrino Oscillations
8:00 p.m. Fermilab Lecture Series - Auditorium
Speaker: T. Wittman, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Title: A Confluence of Art, Science, and Economic Practicality: The Development of the Skyscraper
(Tickets: $5)
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Thursday, October 21
Minnesota Wild Rice soup with chicken
Tuna Melt on Nine Grain $4.75
Breaded Veal with Mushroom Cream Sauce $3.75
Sweet & Sour Pork over Rice $3.75
BLT Ranch Wrap $4.75
Cheesey Breadsticks $2.25
Winter Mix Salad $4.75
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
Chez Leon
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Director General of Research Councils in the United Kingdom Visits Fermilab
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Steve Holmes (left) giving a tour inside the Main Injector to Sir Keith
O'Nions (middle) and members of the British Consulate in Chicago and the
British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
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On Monday, October 18, Sir Keith O'Nions, Director General of Research
Councils in the United Kingdom, spent the afternoon touring Fermilab, along
with representatives of the British Consulate of Chicago and the British
Embassy in Washington D.C. O'Nions also toured Argonne National Laboratory
as part of an effort to visit a number of institutions with whom the UK
Research Councils have scientific relations. As the Director General,
O'Nions oversees a number of scientific agencies, including PPARC.
While at Fermilab, O'Nions had lunch with a group of British users and
visited the Main Injector, DZero and CDF. "This was his first visit to
Fermilab," said Associate Director for Accelerators Steve Holmes, who hosted
O'Nions. "He said that he was very impressed with everything he saw."
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Universities Help to Upgrade Booster
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Jeff Larson doing maintenance in the Booster
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After nine weeks of a scheduled shutdown, the first machines of Fermilab's chain of accelerators are slowly coming "back to life."
It will be early December before the Tevatron has beam again, but the Linear Accelerator is already back up and the Booster is getting ready this week.
"We plan to start up beam this week," said Eric Prebys, who is in charge of the Booster. "We have a couple of checkouts to do and we have to see whether the vacuum will be good enough. We need to let the pumps run long enough."
The shutdown goal for the Booster is to increase the number of protons that the machine can accelerate per cycle. The Booster provides beam to the MiniBooNE neutrino experiment as well as the Main Injector, which distributes beam to the Tevatron collider, the antiproton source, and--beginning in December--to the MINOS neutrino experiment. A larger number of protons allows all experiments to take more data, increasing the potential for discovery.
During the shutdown, technicians installed an additional RF cavity in the Booster, bringing the total number to 19. The new cavity has a larger opening that will reduce beam loss, preventing the cavity from getting too hot. "The aperture is five inches compared to two-and-a-quarter in the old ones," said Rene Padilla, manager of the cavity project. "The cavity is installed and has been power tested. All we need to do is finish some equipment outside the tunnel, which can be done when the machine is running."
The new cavity is one of two units built with the help of six universities--Caltech, Columbia University, Indiana University, Princeton, Tufts University and the University of Texas at Austin, which are involved in the MINOS and MiniBooNE experiments. University machine shops helped to fabricate cavity components. "It was an effective collaboration," Padilla said. "We managed to build two large-aperture cavities for little money."
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The new large-aperture cavity in the Booster
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From Nature, October 21, 2004
Going public
Should scientists let the public help them decide how government research funds are spent? Yes they should, because the consequences are to be welcomed, not feared.
Science communication, circa 1600: discussions with the public, according to one prominent researcher, are little better than listening to the "maunderings of a babbling hag". So said William Gilbert, a pioneer of research into electricity and magnetism.
Today's scientists are, at least in the main, a more open-minded bunch. But the prejudices and fears that underlie Gilbert's remark have not entirely gone away, as reactions to some new initiatives show.
Read more
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New Physics with Photons at CDF?
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Missing transverse energy is often used as a
pointer to possible new physics signals. Recently CDF
physicists have searched for anomalous production of diphoton
events and found no events with large missing transverse
energy. The result is in good agreement with the Standard
Model expectations.(Click on image for larger version.)
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One of the most exciting hints of possible new physics from the
Tevatron Run I came from CDF data. In the last run, CDF
studied collisions yielding two high energy photons, looking
specifically for the presence of large missing transverse
energy (missing ET) in the events. Many models of new
physics, including some in Supersymmetry (SUSY), predict an
excess of events having large missing ET. In those data an
event was observed with 55 GeV of missing ET. This would be
interesting enough except that it also appeared to have a
pair of electron candidates, making it even more exciting!
Some authors of the Run I analysis have teamed up again to
search the Run II data, taking advantage of the new and more
powerful CDF detector, higher energy and increased dataset.
The hope is that with the improved sensitivity, more
exciting hints of new physics will show up. Unfortunately,
no similar super-event has appeared so far in this run.
While this is disappointing, the researchers remain
optimistic, as quite a bit more data have already been
collected, and much more are on the way.
The analysis has more to say, however. Most searches provide
limits on models of new physics, and in this analysis, CDF
has set limits on an important model of Supersymmetry. In
Gauge-Mediated SUSY breaking, the production of pairs of
SUSY particles leads to two "neutralinos", which in turn
each decay to a photon and a gravitino. The gravitino does
not interact in the detector, producing the large missing
ET signature. This analysis result has excluded a lightest
chargino mass less than 167 GeV/c2, and lightest a
neutralino mass less than 93 GeV/c2. CDF will set stronger
limits, or perhaps find new physics, as Run II continues.
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(Left to Right) David Toback (Texas A&M),
Sung-Won Lee (Texas A&M), Ray Culbertson (Fermilab),
Minsuk Kim (Kyungpook) and Dong-Hee Kim (Kyungpook) have all
worked on searching for new physics with photons. (Click on image for larger version.)
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Result of the Week Archive
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GSA Halloween Party
The GSA will host their annual Halloween costume party on the evening
of Friday, October 29 in the Kuhn Barn. Prizes will be awarded for the best
costume. Food and drinks will be served. And back by popular demand, apple
bobbing will also be available.
more information
Fermilab Lecture Series this Friday
Timothy N. Wittman, Adjunct Professor of Architectural History & Historic Preservation,
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago will present
"A Confluence of Art, Science, and Economic Practicality: The Development of the Skyscraper."
this Friday, October 22 at 8:00 p.m. in Ramsey Auditorium.
more information
New Books in the Fermilab Library
New books in the Fermilab Library for the week of October 18
are now on display in the Library near the front desk. A list
of the of new books is available online.
New books may be reserved by using the online Library catalog,
or by calling the library at x3401, or by filling out
the reserve card in the book.
Upload Your Ph.D. Thesis
We would like to remind students and their advisors
that Ph.D. theses done at Fermilab should be uploaded to
our Technical Publications website.
The URA tracks the number of theses we produce each year.
Power Outage News
MI-65
October 25 – Power will be off to the MI-65 service building and tunnel for
5 hours starting at 2 PM on Monday.
MI-40
October 27 – The power will be off to the MI-40 service building and tunnel
for three and a half hours starting at 8:30 AM on Wednesday.
Upcoming Activities
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