Friday, July 20, 2012
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Have a safe day!

Friday, July 20
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speakers: Marc Schumann, University of Zurich
Title: Recent Results from the XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment (in association with the Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs, and WISPs)

ANNOUNCEMENT
10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs, WISPs - One West
Presentations open to the Fermilab community

Monday, July 23

PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS WILL RESUME IN THE FALL

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO ALL EXPERIMENTERS' MEETING THIS WEEK

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a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, July 20

- Breakfast: Chorizo burrito
- Smart cuisine: chunky vegetable soup w/ orzo
- Buffalo chicken wings
- Cajun catfish
- Smart cuisine: teriyaki pork stir-fry
- Honey mustard ham & Swiss panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Smart cuisine: carved turkey

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
Chez Leon

Friday, July 20
Closed

Wednesday, July 25
Lunch
- Ham & gruyere crepes
- Mixed greens w/ herb vinaigrette
- Fruit pie

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

DOE gives Fermilab’s Mu2e experiment CD1 approval

The Mu2e experiment received CD1 approval from DOE this month. It will look for the rare transformation of a muon into an electron in the absence of neutrinos.

Last week, Fermilab’s planned Mu2e experiment received Critical Decision 1 approval from the Department of Energy, only about a month after the DOE’s initial review.

“I know of no other project that has received sign-off that quickly after review,” said Mu2e Project Manager Ron Ray. He attributed the success of the CD1 review to a high level of support for the project from the laboratory and from the agency.

The Mu2e experiment will make use of the former antiproton source, which will be repurposed into a facility for making muons. The goal of the experiment is to determine whether muons can convert into electrons in the absence of neutrinos.

DOE has five critical decision levels, starting with CD0, which Mu2e received in 2009. DOE makes critical decision approvals following a review by a panel from the DOE Office of Science, led by Daniel Lehman, director of DOE’s Office of Project Assessment. To receive CD1, a project needs to submit a detailed conceptual design report with ranges for possible costs. The price of materials and labor and risk management of the project define those price ranges.

Most importantly, the process obligates project managers to refine their plans early on in development.

“There’s an awful lot of scrutiny,” said Mu2e Co-spokesperson Bob Bernstein. “A lot of it is getting across how carefully you’ve looked at certain things.”

Bernstein added that the review process is collaborative and gives the project leads ideas on how to move forward. That’s where Ray said agency support was essential to getting CD1 approval so quickly.

Ray added that Lehman was so impressed by the Mu2e review that he asked for extra copies of their presentation to use an exemplar.

During the review, the review team suggested the Mu2e team make use of a little-known rule that would allow them to jump ahead in the critical decision process. The typical next step, CD2, is granted when specific design plans are approved; CD3 allows the project to make purchases. Mu2e plans to pursue part of CD3 early in order to purchase parts that take a long time to manufacture.

Bernstein said the CD1 review was a giant step forward for the experiment.

“It’s a huge sign from DOE that they want to do this experiment,” he said. “It’s a process that gives you a sense of reality about the experiment. It focuses the mind and efforts quite nicely.”

—Joseph Piergrossi

Photo of the Day

Real collaboration, virtual ring

The Muon g-2 collaboration stands over the site where the g-2 ring will be located. The location of the site is indicated in the plan below. Photo: Brendan Casey
Plan for Fermilab's Muon Campus. The arrow points to the MC-1 building, future site of the Muon g-2 ring. Click to enlarge. Image: Muon Department/FESS
In the News

How to Higgs boson: Q&A with UCSB Professor Joe Incandela

From the Santa Barbara Independent, July 19, 2012

On July 4, UCSB professor Joe Incandela made the historic announcement to a worldwide audience that a new particle resembling the Higgs boson had been discovered. He earned that privilege when elected in April 2011 to a two-year term as spokesperson for the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment, which is a collaboration between roughly 3,000 scientists from 179 institutions in 41 countries. Altogether, it's a de facto government, so calling Incandela merely a "spokesperson" is a bit misleading ​— ​"president," "executive director," or "generalissimo" might all be more appropriate. On top of that, he's the first American in charge of any LHC experiment.

To hear Incandela put it, his leadership position stems from seniority, and he moved up the ranks naturally. But according to UCSB Dean of Sciences Pierre Wiltzius, "Behind this modest person, there's a very strong, smart, and incredible leader." In addition to the public speaking, Incandela's job involves herding 3,000 highly intelligent cats, which isn't so easy, said Wiltzius, explaining, "You can't always just say, 'Let's figure this out together.'" Beyond that, Incandela has some serious science chops, too. "In these collaborations," said UCSB's Vice Chancellor Michael Witherell, whom Incandela replaced on the Physics faculty in 1998, "it needs to start with your own credibility as a scientist."

Read more

CMS Result

Would the real Higgs boson please stand up?

Many different kinds of Higgs bosons have been hypothesized over the years. Any one of these ideas could be correct—or none at all.

After decades of speculation, the Higgs boson was finally discovered on the fourth of July, 2012 – or was it? Despite the headlines, scientists claimed to have seen not a Higgs boson, but "a new particle" or "a new boson." As it often happens in science, the eureka moment is an explosion of more questions than answers.

What the experiments actually revealed was an excess of certain types of events. More collisions produced pairs of photons, pairs of Z bosons or pairs of W bosons than would be expected in a world without a Higgs. The photon and the Z boson measurements were precise enough to show that they came from decays of a single particle with a mass of approximately 125 GeV (heavier than all known particles except the top quark). The photon, Z and W are all bosons, which are particles of force, as contrasted with fermions, which are particles of matter. Fermions attract or repel each other by tossing and catching bosons.

In the Standard Model, fermions and bosons both acquire their masses by pushing through the same Higgs field, but the Standard Model may be wrong. Perhaps only bosons interact with the Higgs field. If so, then the fermions would have to get their masses some other way.

A group of CMS physicists considered this possibility, known as a "fermiophobic" Higgs. In this scenario, all of the usual assumptions about how Higgs bosons are produced in collisions and how they decay have to be modified. The physicists were able to reinterpret some existing studies, but others had to be reanalyzed for the fermiophobic case. Their result using last year's data doesn't support the idea that a fermiophobic Higgs boson exists, though it is not completely conclusive. The CMS collaboration has released a preliminary result using more data.

This is just one way that the Higgs can be non-standard. Some models, such as those with supersymmetry, require at least five Higgs bosons with complex Higgs-to-Higgs transitions. Rather than a finish line, this summer's discovery was the start of a new adventure.

—Jim Pivarski

The U.S. physicists pictured above made major contributions to the search for a fermiophobic Higgs boson.

These physicists lead the Computing Operations office, which manages all computing services, sites and workflows that process, store, transfer and analyze data and Monte Carlo simulations.

Special Announcement

Controls, power, and cooling outages – July 20-23

From today until Monday morning, power will be off in the Accelerator Division computer room. Please turn off computers and small electrical devices in your Wilson Hall offices before you leave work Friday afternoon, July 20, as temperatures may increase over the weekend.

Starting tomorrow, Saturday, July 21, at 7 a.m., the Central Utility Building power system will be down for power and utility maintenance until Sunday, July 22, at 5 p.m. Wilson Hall will have NO COOLING during this time except in a few areas.

See yesterday's Fermilab Today for more information.

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Tektronix and ConRes (Continental Resources) new products demonstration - today

Cafeteria closed - Saturday, July 21

Artist reception - today

Collider New Play Project - July 21

Collecting school supplies - through July 27

Volunteers invited to Fermilab prairie quadrat study - July 28

Ecology Lunch Bus Tour - July 31

ANSYS courses offered in July and August

University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program deadline - Aug. 17

Howard Levy & Chris Siebold - August 18

Project Management Introduction class - Sept. 10-14

Fermilab Management Practices Seminar - begins Oct. 4

Interpersonal communication skills training - Nov. 14

Outdoor soccer - Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 p.m.

Fermilab employee discounts

Atrium work updates

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