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Have a safe day!
Tuesday, Aug. 20
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE, LOCATION) - WH3NE
Speaker: Tong Li, Monash University, Melbourne
Title: Prove or Disprove Light MSSM Higgs at LHC
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY
SEMINAR TODAY
Wednesday, Aug. 21
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab
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Tuesday, Aug. 20
- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Breakfast: bacon, egg and cheese bagel
- Ranch chicken breast sandwich
- Smart cuisine: pork piccata with lemon sauce
- Chicken curry
- California turkey panini
- Taco salad
- Chef's choice soup
- Minnesota chicken and rice soup
Wilson Hall Cafe menu
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Wednesday, Aug. 21
Lunch
- Sundried tomato spiced shrimp
- Coconut-almond couscous
- Steamed broccoli
- Fresh lemon mousse
Friday, Aug. 23
Dinner
- Crab cocktail with parmesan chip
- Bristro bouillabaisse
- Baby spinach salad with warm citrus bacon vinaigrette
- Berry-filled cinnamon crepes
Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Why particle physics matters
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Particle physicists give short explanations of why they do what they do. Vote for your favorite. Image: Sandbox Studios, Chicago
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Particle physicists dedicate their lives to understanding the fundamental nature of energy, matter, space and time. Why do they do it? Why is it important to the rest of us?
Symmetry asked them to explain, and a couple of dozen bravely stepped forward to do so on camera. Vote for your favorite of our top five videos here, and then meet the rest of the crowd on symmetry’s YouTube channel.
View the videos
—Kathryn Jepsen
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Argonne and Fermilab team up for joint business fair Aug. 21
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Congressmen Bill Foster, Randy Hultgren and Dan Lipinski will attend the inaugural Argonne-Fermilab joint business fair this Wednesday. Illustration: Argonne National Laboratory |
This Wednesday, representatives from 84 Illinois small businesses will join Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory staff to talk about potential partnerships.
The first of what will be an annual joint business fair, Wednesday’s session at Argonne Lab will offer local small businesses and startup firms a chance to learn more about Argonne and Fermilab, and explore opportunities to partner on the laboratories’ initiatives. The one-day session will give participants a chance to talk one-on-one with representatives from the laboratories’ procurement and technology development groups, as well as user facility and small business support staff.
Three Illinois Congressmen will be in attendance and give remarks: Bill Foster, Randy Hultgren and Dan Lipinski. Other speakers will include Jack Anderson, interim director of Fermilab; Eric Isaacs, director of Argonne Lab; and Ed Daniels, Argonne’s deputy associate lab director for energy engineering and systems analysis.
This year’s event is at capacity. For information about the next business fair, call the Fermilab Office of Communication at 630-840-3351 or send email to fermilab@fnal.gov.
—Andre Salles
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Don't feed the animals
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Don't feed coyotes. Feeding the animals at the laboratory can be dangerous for us and for them. Photo: adactio |
There have been more reports of people feeding wild animals on the Fermilab site, especially coyotes. This is a bad, potentially dangerous practice. By teaching animals that humans are a source of food, it emboldens them to approach and removes the natural fear and wariness that they have of us humans. It may seem like a good deed, or a way to get that great coyote close-up photograph, but the consequence is encouraging coyotes to approach humans with the expectation of a handout.
—Rod Walton, ecologist, FESS
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Energy Dept. has a strong record with small businesses
Letter to the editor, The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2013
The Aug. 14 news story “Energy Dept. faulted for falling short on use of small contractors” omitted facts that are critical for a complete understanding of how this agency works with our small-business partners.
In fiscal 2012, 26 percent of the department’s overall procurements went to small businesses. That represents $6.4 billion in procurement investment with $1.3 billion in prime contracts and $5.1 billion in subcontracts for small businesses.
The Department of Energy is responsible for managing 17 national laboratories and 13 other major facilities, such as nuclear cleanup sites and nuclear weapons facilities. These facilities — run by major contractors — account for 85 percent of our procurement budget.
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ASTA gains momentum
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Jack Anderson
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Over the last month there have been a number of encouraging developments related to Fermilab’s plans for the Advanced Superconducting Test Accelerator (ASTA) at the New Muon Lab (NML) building. Fermilab recently hosted its first ASTA Users’ Meeting. The interest displayed at this meeting went beyond our expectations. Eighty-four potential users—two-thirds of whom were from institutions outside of Fermilab—attended the meeting to present and discuss 24 proposals for experimental programs that could be carried out at ASTA. Attendees included researchers from universities, national laboratories and industry.
Held concurrently with the Users’ Meeting was the first meeting of the ASTA Program Advisory Committee (PAC), chaired by Gerry Dugan from Cornell University. The five-member PAC participated in the Users’ Meeting and then assessed the scientific potential of the various research proposals. Their report highlights the unique capabilities that a state-of-the-art superconducting linear accelerator brings for the accelerator R&D needs of the country. ASTA supports an extremely broad accelerator R&D program that stands to benefit particle physics, photon sciences and applications. The PAC report also highlights the cost-effective approach outlined in our proposal, noting the significant investment already made in ASTA over the last several years.
Meanwhile the DOE Office of High Energy Physics will be assessing Fermilab’s plans for ASTA this fall. The feedback provided by the ASTA PAC will be invaluable for helping to make the case for ASTA.
Impressive technical progress at ASTA continues. Earlier this summer, first electrons were observed from the photoinjector gun. Now, commissioning of beam instrumentation and further work on the gun’s laser systems is in progress. The cryomodule that will provide first beam acceleration in ASTA is being readied for cooldown, presently scheduled for the first week in September.
More and more, the accelerators of the future will be based on superconducting radio-frequency technology, whether for particle physics, nuclear physics or photon sciences. ASTA stands out as an R&D facility that can enable accelerators of the future by supporting researchers in their development of those next-generation accelerators and concepts that make use of this powerful technology.
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Keeping watch
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A hawk sits atop a post on the Fermilab grounds. Photo: Suzanne Weber, PPD |
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Computing quarks on a chessboard
From DOE Pulse, Aug. 19, 2013
Scientists have long puzzled over how the smallest bits of matter add up to form the world around us. Now, Chris Monahan of DOE's Jefferson Lab is using the power of a video gaming system to attempt a new method of exploring those bits.
More specifically, Monahan’s project is to calculate how the smallest bits of matter, quarks and gluons, come together to build the ubiquitous proton.
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