Friday, Aug. 22, 2014
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Have a safe day!

Friday, Aug. 22

9 a.m.-2:10 p.m.
Fermilab-CERN Hadron Collider Physics Summer Symposium

9 am.-5 p.m.
Nature Guiding Theory Workshop

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

4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Raman Sundrum, University of Maryland
Title: Super-Natural Versus Other-Worldly in Fundamental Physics

Saturday, Aug. 23

9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Nature Guiding Theory Workshop

Monday, Aug. 25

9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Next Steps in the Energy Frontier — Hadron Colliders - One West
Register in person
Registration fee: $39

PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS WILL RESUME IN THE FALL

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

4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, Aug. 22

- Breakfast: French bistro breakfast
- Breakfast: chorizo and egg burrito
- Smoky Mountain chicken breast sandwich
- Smart cuisine: chicken vincenza with pasta
- Vegetarian eggplant lasagna
- Cuban panino
- Breakfast-for-lunch omelet bar
- New England clam chowder
- Texas-style chili
- Assorted pizza by the slice

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Friday, Aug. 22
Dinner
- Gazpacho salad
- Spicy flank steak
- Habanero pilaf
- Calabacitas
- Banana taco with papaya and strawberry salsa

Wednesday, Aug. 27
Lunch
- Skillet pork with warm pineapple salsa
- Basmati rice
- Haricots verts
- Profiteroles

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

U.S. CMS detector upgrade project completes successful review

The U.S. CMS collaboration recently wrapped up their DOE CD-2/3 review. Photo: Cindy Arnold

Earlier this month, the U.S. CMS detector upgrade project completed a major DOE critical-decision review — two, in fact. Project members are calling the combined review a success, and they hope to receive approval later this year to execute the upgrade.

The $45 million U.S. CMS detector upgrade project, to which 30 U.S. institutions contribute, focuses on enhancements to three major components, allowing the CMS detector to handle the LHC's higher luminosity: the forward pixel detector, the hadron calorimeter and the level 1 trigger. Once approved to proceed, the collaboration will upgrade the components, equipping the detector to collect 10 to 25 times more data than it could previously.

"The project team did an excellent job presenting the status of the work to the DOE team at the CD-2/3 review," said Mike Lindgren, Fermilab's chief project officer. "It's clear that they're on track to deliver several very important parts of the CMS Phase I upgrade."

The recent successful presentation to the DOE review committee focused on two project phases. Critical decision 2, or CD-2, approval would mean that DOE accepts the project's baseline cost, scope and schedule. CD-3 approval would mean that CMS can begin constructing the detector components. Because of the project's advanced state of development, the reviews for baseline and construction readiness were allowed to happen simultaneously.

Each of the three detector components slated for upgrades plays a different role in measuring the particles coming out of the LHC's colliding proton beams. The enhancements are crucial to recording and interpreting the collisions that will come out of the LHC over the next 10 years, when it will collide beams two to three times more intense than in its first run.

The original detector was not built for these intensities. Without the CMS upgrades, the detector would suffer significant performance degradation, affecting the discovery potential as the LHC's beam intensity increases.

"These are pieces that the United States had primary responsibility for 15 years ago," said Steve Nahn, U.S. CMS detector upgrade project manager. "We're just continuing on our responsibilities."

The detector parts are being built at Fermilab and the 30 U.S. universities.

"Most people think of CMS as a purely European project, but that's not true. The United States plays an enormous role in the success of the LHC," Nahn said. "The project would like to thank Fermilab, the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and everyone who has made the project a success so far."

Hanae Armitage

Video of the Day

Got a minute? Pixel detectors

Studying short-lived particles is a crucial ability for a particle physics experiment. In this video, scientist John Stupak describes how it is done. View the video. Video: U.S. CMS
Photo of the Day

Muon g-2 ring heads home - a rendering in chalk

Julie Kurnat's latest chalk drawing is of the Muon g-2 ring as it passes by Wilson Hall on its way to its home in the MC-1 Building. Image: Julie Kurnat, TD
In the News

The world's most powerful space camera begins another year of incredible photos

From Motherboard, Aug. 19, 2014

On Monday, the Dark Energy Survey announced that it will be kicking off season two of its five-year investigation into the nature of dark energy on Sept. 1. Given that the first season produced hundreds of thousands of unique images, the DES sequel has a lot to live up to.

For example, how do you top the discovery of a superluminous supernova 7.8 billion light years away? Or five new Kuiper Belt objects, one of which takes a thousand years to orbit the Sun? Or the ultra-close tracking of the hazardous asteroid 2014 BE63?

Read more

Frontier Science Result: CMS

Top Top Z

The author has been waiting a long time to use this joke.

If you listen in on particle physics conversations, you'll hear a lot of alphabet soup, such as "b to s gamma," "Z to tau tau" and "q q-bar to X." Reactions among particles provide a view to the underlying physics: You can learn how particles are related by how willing they are to collide and how often they decay a particular way.

I've long held a secret hope that someone would one day discover the "Z Z top event" (two Z bosons and a top quark), but this combination is just too rare. CMS has recently announced the next best thing: top top Z.

That is, in a large collection of proton-proton collisions, CMS scientists found that some of them produced a pair of top quarks and a Z boson. This shows that top quarks can interact with Z bosons, just like all other quarks.

This is not an assertion to be taken lightly. Top quarks are different from all other quarks, primarily because of their exceptionally high mass — 35 times heavier than the second heaviest. This difference in mass is responsible for many of the unique properties of the top quark. For instance, Z bosons decay into quark-antiquark pairs for every type of quark except top. Z bosons cannot decay into top quarks because they are heavier than the Z boson itself. Thus, it is well known that Z bosons interact with all other types of quarks, but only now do we learn that they interact with top quarks as well.

This analysis is challenging because the detector signature for top top Z resembles many other types of events, collectively called backgrounds. In particular, top top W has many features in common with top top Z because W and Z are both weak force bosons with similar masses. This analysis improves upon a previous one in that it distinguishes the W from the Z, measuring their rates separately (though top top W by itself cannot be clearly distinguished from its backgrounds).

Another challenge is that these event types, top top W and top top Z, are both exceedingly rare: a hundred times less common than Higgs production. This analysis is therefore one example of progress beyond the Higgs.

Jim Pivarski

These U.S. scientists contributed to this analysis.
These physicists used an X-ray source to test modules of the CMS forward pixel detectors. This method allows careful study of the detector components and validation of the electronics' design before they are put into the CMS detector.
Correction

Meeting time: Fermilab retiree medical changes

The meeting time for the information session on Fermilab retiree medical changes was incorrectly stated in Thursday's issue. The meeting will take place on Monday, Sept. 8, at 10 a.m. in the CDF Big Room. Thursday's issue has been corrected.

Announcements

Today's New Announcements

Art gallery talk - Sept. 3

Road closure at Main Ring Road - Aug. 25-26

Butts and Guts registration due Aug. 27

Strength Training registration due Aug. 28

Walk 2 Run offers two time slots in August

NBI 2014 Workshop - Sept. 23-26

eBook by head of Technical Division available at the Fermilab Library

International folk dancing Thursday evenings at Ramsey through August

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings at Ramsey through August

English country dancing at Kuhn Barn

Bowlers wanted

Outdoor soccer

Batavia Smashburger employee discount

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