Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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Tuesday, June 18

Noon
Undergraduate Lecture Series - Curia II
Speaker: André de Gouvêa, Northwestern University
Title: The Intensity Frontier

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

4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Nikolay Solyak, Fermilab
Title: The Conceptual Design of the PXIE Beam Dump, its Radiation Shielding and PXIE Complex Enclosure

Wednesday, June 19

1:30 p.m.
LHC Physics Center Topic of the Week Seminar - WH11NE
Speaker: Hooman Davoudiasl, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Title: Higgs Decays as a Window Into the Dark Sector

2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE, LOCATION) - WH3NE
Speaker: Kunal Kumar, Carleton University
Title: Learning What the Higgs is Mixed With

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

THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

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Secon Level 3

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Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, June 18

- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Breakfast: bacon, egg and cheese bagel
- Twin chili cheese dogs
- Smart cuisine: Mediterranean baked tilapia
- Cuban steak with black-bean salsa
- Rachel melt
- Chicken BLT ranch salad
- Chef's choice soup
- Hungarian pork goulash

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, June 19
Lunch
- Spicy orange beef
- Cucumber salad
- Almond cake

Friday, June 21
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Special Announcement

Reminder: DASTOW scheduled for this Friday

School-aged children of Fermilab employees and users can see physics up close on Friday, June 21, when they visit Fermilab for Daughters and Sons to Work (DASTOW) day. Events begin at 8:30 a.m., earlier than in previous years.

For a complete schedule of the day's events, visit the DASTOW website. You can also read more about this year's DASTOW in this earlier Fermilab Today article.

Feature

Cranking it up to 11: a new superconducting magnet

Fermilab's Technical Specialist Marty Whitson installs the 11-Tesla niobium-tin dipole magnet inside a bolted skin. Photo: Fermilab

Like the famous volume controls in This Is Spinal Tap, a new magnet developed by CERN and Fermilab goes to 11. But unlike the dubiously labeled amplifier, the magnet doesn't just say it goes to 11, it really does. 11.7, in fact.

Pushing past 11 Tesla is a goal that both laboratories have been working on since they combined forces three years ago to develop stronger magnets for the LHC upgrade. It's a remarkable achievement for the accelerator community.

"There were many happy e-mails going around," said 11-Tesla Project Leader Mikko Karppinen, of CERN.

For more than 10 years, Fermilab has been working to develop accelerator magnets with high fields using niobium-tin superconductor. In March, the High-Field Magnet Group announced a new milestone: In collaboration with the High-Luminosity LHC project at CERN, the group developed a niobium-tin magnet that broke the 11-Tesla barrier.

"When we heard about the need at CERN to develop these 11-Tesla magnets, we offered our help here," said Fermilab's Alexander Zlobin, head of the High-Field Magnet Program. "For us this was a good opportunity to implement niobium-tin technology in a real machine."

11 Tesla isn't an arbitrarily chosen value. The LHC is planning to use shorter magnets to make room in its tunnel for new instruments that will help narrow the particle beam, protecting the LHC ring from beam losses. But if the magnets must be shorter, they must also be stronger to compensate. The LHC currently uses niobium-titanium magnets at their maximum of 8.33 Tesla. The niobium-tin magnets will kick it up a few notches.

"Anywhere that we install new equipment, we can use this kind of magnet to make space available," Karppinen said. "It's a good first step on a path to having niobium-tin technology for accelerators in general."

For Fermilab and laboratories across the United States, the push for better magnets for accelerators has been steadily increasing.

"The goal is to develop new technologies for present and future accelerators, and the new technology now is niobium-tin as a baseline technology for the next generation of accelerators," Zlobin said.

Niobium-tin is a brittle and difficult-to-manage superconductor, so researchers have been working on methods to withstand the large forces and large temperature changes it will be subjected to in accelerator magnets as they help bend and focus particle beams.

The 11-Tesla project teams achieved their success on a 1-meter-long, single-aperture magnet (see photo; credit: Fermilab) developed at Fermilab. Over the next few years, the teams will work to develop a 5.5-meter magnet—the size required for the LHC upgrade—with accelerator-quality fields and that can also accommodate LHC's piping and connections.

"We see needs and possibilities to improve and really demonstrate all the capabilities of these magnets, which are higher than what we have now," said Zlobin, who pointed out that his group hasn't popped any champagne bottles so far. "We will celebrate when we satisfy ourselves with the magnet performance. Now we have to work hard."

Leah Hesla

The first practice coil for the 11-Tesla niobium-tin dipole—wound, reacted and impregnated with epoxy at CERN—is used to validate the technology transfer from Fermilab. Photo: CERN
In the News

Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from NY to Chicago

From the Associated Press, June 16, 2013

UPTON, N.Y. (AP) — New York to Chicago, in five weeks?

Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200 miles over land and sea to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The trip is expected to take more than a month.

"When we first started thinking about this, we all thought it wouldn't be possible," said Bill Morse, a physicist at Brookhaven National Lab on eastern Long Island. "But if you have a big problem, you find good people who can fix the problem. That's physics."

Read more

Director's Corner

Last rounds in Washington

Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone

These days, as I near the end of my tenure at Fermilab, I find myself finishing up this and doing the last of that. It is no different with my interactions in Washington. Last week the Fermilab senior leadership had its yearly planning meeting with the Office of Science. The meeting, presided by Office of Science Deputy Director Pat Dehmer and attended by the associate directors of all the Office of Science programs, is a very important one for our laboratory. We present and discuss the state of the lab and our plans and initiatives of the entire spectrum of laboratory activities. Pat Dehmer was complimentary of the presentation, but she emphasized that our plans are very ambitious and that we have to execute them perfectly in every aspect if we want to see the projects through. She explained that even simpler facilities than LBNE and Project X are difficult to execute in the current environment.

During that trip I also paid my respects to staff members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and the office of Senator Durbin. I have always kept the staff of these and other offices and committees abreast of our programs, and they appreciate being apprised of developments in both our current facilities and our plans for the future.

Yesterday I met with Energy Secretary Moniz and brought him up to date on the state of particle physics and the major initiatives in our program. We had a very good discussion, and he had a clear message to give us: He can and will promote our field and our initiatives, provided the physics community lines up behind a plan and defends it coherently. He gave as an example how the nuclear physics community has prospered, relative to our community, by working together in generating their plans and supporting them. In making such plans there are trade-offs, and not every initiative can be accommodated.

I also had a very good meeting and wide-ranging discussion at the Office of Management and Budget on our program in a relatively relaxed atmosphere, since many folks were on furlough. Ultimately, the OMB holds the purse strings, so it helps if they are familiar with our plans and the ways that, even in difficult times, these projects can be accommodated in phases and with the strong contributions of our international partners. In all of these meetings there was strong interest in the proposed joining of Fermilab's LBNE and Europe's LBNO to carry out the long-baseline neutrino experiment in the United States, as well as in our strong collaboration with India.

Photo of the Day

Fun in the vernal pool

A wood duck in Big Woods splashes its way out of the water. Photo: Steve Krave, TD
Construction Update

Elevator installation at IARC

Workers are installing elevator equipment at the IARC OTE Building. Photo: Ron Foutch

Interior construction is quickly moving along in the IARC Office, Technical and Education Building. Elevator equipment installation is taking place at the double elevator bank on the west end of the building. A third elevator will be installed on the east end. The east elevator will have front and back doors so that it can provide access onto the CDF main floor area.

Announcements

Today's New Announcements

Closure on Main Ring Road - June 19

DASTOW scheduled for June 21

Help the environment! Attend Abri's Shred & Recycle event - June 22

BuZheng Qigong & Tai Chi Easy begins June 24

Registration for FEMA assistance due July 9

Behavioral interviewing course scheduled for July 18

Summer intern Friday tours

Sitewide domestic water flushing

Volunteer opportunity - Coat Drive 2013

10K Steps participation drawing winner

Pool now open

Water fitness at Fermi Pool

Ultimate Frisbee Mondays and Wednesdays

Outdoor soccer at the Village

International folk dancing moves to Wilson Hall for summer

Scottish country dancing meets Tuesday evenings in Auditorium

Join the Tango Club

Raging Waves water park discount