Fermilab Today

These are four of the more than 50 experiment contributors who traveled from around the world to spend a week at Fermilab developing their skills at the first ever art/LArSoft course. Photo: Hanah Chang, OCIO

Fermilab attracts visitors from around the world for collaborative research projects, to tour our one-of-a-kind science facilities and to see the bison herd. On Aug. 3-7, Fermilab added another reason to the list with the art/LArSoft course hosted by the Scientific Computing Division.

The week-long course quickly reached maximum capacity with 50 participants from many different experiments traveling to Fermilab from Brazil, Italy, Poland and throughout the United States.

This was the first ever LArSoft course, and its popularity was due in part to a growing need for trained developers in art and LArSoft.

The first four days of the course, led by SCD's Marc Paterno, focused on learning art, an event-processing framework for particle physics experiments. The last day, led by SCD's Erica Snider, covered the LArSoft suite, which allows data structures, algorithms and tools to be shared across liquid-argon-based neutrino experiments to efficiently and effectively gather and understand data from the particle detectors.

"This course, and LArSoft in general, is an opportunity to collaborate between experiments in a way that has never been done before," Snider said. "Each experiment will build on the previous one, and this collaboration will lower the costs of developing the software."

With only a few days to cover significant amounts of information, the instructors viewed the course as a chance to highlight the software's more helpful bits and pieces, giving the participants a jumping-off point for further study.

"Even if I was familiar with C++, I think it would take me a lot more than five days, more like months, to learn everything by myself even with the documentation," said Gustavo Valdiviesso, a professor at Federal University of Alfenas in Brazil who is working on the DUNE, LArIAT and SBND experiments. "Now I know where to start and which direction I want to go."

Both instructors and participants expressed hope that there will be similar courses in the future, with a multiday course dedicated to LArSoft.

—Hanah Chang and Hannah Ward

In the News

How quantum randomness saves relativity

From Forbes, Aug. 11, 2015

In physics, Albert Einstein is famous for two things: developing the theory of relativity, and hating quantum mechanics. Relativity is a colossal achievement, with the special theory of 1905 putting classical physics on a firmer philosophical footing, and the general theory of 1915 extending that idea into the best theory we have for understanding gravity. While Einstein's "heuristic" model of the photoelectric effect, also from 1905, played a critical role in launching quantum physics, he ended up finding it distasteful on the same sort of philosophical grounds that made relativity so successful.

Video of the Day

Pentaquarks

The LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider recently made an announcement about a new form of matter called pentaquarks. The history of the search for pentaquarks involves previous observations that eventually faded under the light of more study. Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln tells us of the history of this interesting possible particle and gives us an idea of what we can expect in the near future. View the nine-minute video. Video: Fermilab

In Brief

Commercializing innovation: IARC office hours on Aug. 24

The University of Chicago Innovation Fund invests in early business development and proof‐of‐concept work for ventures created by faculty, students and staff of the university and the labs it serves, including Fermilab. The associated Chicago Innovation Exchange is currently accepting applications for the fall cohort. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, Sept. 9.

Representatives from the Chicago Innovation Exchange will host office hours at Fermilab on Monday, Aug. 24, 2-3:30 p.m. in the IARC OTE Building, 3rd floor, Room 335. To make an appointment, visit the RSVP Web page.

To apply or to learn more, visit the Innovation Fund application website.

Photo of the Day

In the rearview

Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear. Photo: Aaron Sauers, OPTT

In Brief

Wilson Hall power outage on Saturday, building closed

Wilson Hall will experience a power outage on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 6 a.m.-6 p.m.

Only authorized personnel will be allowed to enter the building during this time. If access is warranted, please send a list of authorized names to John Kent.

The Wilson Hall email network will be unavailable, and the emergency communication center in Wilson Hall will have auxiliary power, cooling and limited networking during the outage.

All Wilson Hall occupants should turn off their electronic devices before they leave on close of business Friday.

In the News

GRAND plans for new neutrino observatory

From Physics World, Aug. 18, 2015

A novel radio telescope, currently being designed by scientists in France, China and other countries, could shed light on some of the most violent cosmic phenomena in the universe. If built, the so-called Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND) — comprising hundreds of thousands of antennas spread over an area just slightly smaller than the UK — would detect extremely high-energy neutrinos originating from deep space. According to the researchers, GRAND would be considerably cheaper to build than rival telescopes based on optical technology.