Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015
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Food trucks at Fermilab - Oct. 15

Office of the CRO meeting on Oct. 20

Zumba Fitness registration due Oct. 15

Special dancing workshop Oct. 15, English country dancing Kuhn Barn Oct. 25

Women's Initiative presents powerful speaker - Oct. 19

Yoga Mondays registration due Oct. 19

Concert of Sator Duo at Kuhn Village Barn - Oct. 21

Professional and Organization Development 2015-16 fall/winter course schedule

Scheduling a meeting with the Visa Office

FY 2017 diversity visa lottery registration open

Indoor soccer

Scottish country dancing Tuesdays evenings at Kuhn Barn

International folk dancing Thursday evenings at Kuhn Barn

Norris Recreation Center employee discount

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From symmetry

A measurement to watch

Finding a small discrepancy in measurements of the properties of neutrinos could show us how they fit into the bigger picture. Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Physics, perhaps more so than any other science, relies on measuring the same thing in multiple ways. Different experiments let scientists narrow in on right answers that satisfy all parties — a scientific system of checks and balances.

That's why it's exciting when a difference, even a minute one, appears. It can teach physicists something about their current model — or physics that extends beyond it. It's possible that just such a discrepancy exists between a certain measurement of neutrinos coming out of accelerator experiments and reactor-based experiments.

Neutrinos are minuscule, neutral particles that don't interact with much of anything. They can happily pass through a light-year of lead without a peep. Trillions pass through you every second. In fact, they are the most abundant massive particle in the universe — and something scientists are, naturally, quite keen to understand.

The ghostly particles come in three flavors: electron, muon and tau. They transition between these three flavors as they travel. This means that a muon neutrino leaving an accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois can show up as an electron neutrino in an underground detector in South Dakota.

Not complicated enough for you? These neutrino flavors are made of mixtures of three different "mass states" of neutrinos, masses 1, 2 and 3.

At the end of the day, neutrinos are weird. They hang out in the quantum realm, a land of probabilities and mixing matrices and other shenanigans. But here's what you should know. There are lots of different things we can measure about neutrinos — and one of them is a parameter called theta13 (pronounced theta one three). Theta13 relates deeply to how neutrinos mix together, and it's here that scientists have seen the faintest hint of disagreement from different experiments.

Read more

Lauren Biron

In Brief

All Office-of-the-CRO meeting - Oct. 20 in auditorium

Chief Research Officer Joe Lykken will hold an all-Office-of-the-CRO meeting on Oct. 20 from 11 a.m. to noon in Ramsey Auditorium.

If you work in one of the following departments, please plan to attend: Center for Particle Astrophysics, CMS Center, Neutrino Division, Particle Physics Division.

Photo of the Day

Number two bison?

nature, animal, mammal, bison
Two bison or not two bison? Photo: Dawn Mcwha, FESS
In the News

Fermilab's giant magnet passes test after cross-country move

From Daily Herald, Oct. 6, 2015

A huge collective sigh of relief emanated from scientists, engineers and construction workers three weeks ago at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia.

For the first time in about 10 years, a new-to-the-laboratory particle storage ring and electromagnet was plugged in. And it did what it was supposed to do: turned on, chilled down to 450 degrees below zero, and made a super-powerful magnetic field.

Read more

In the News

Massive neutrinos aren't just this year's Nobel Prize, they're the future of physics

From Forbes, Oct. 9, 2015

If you want to describe the Universe we live in today, from a physical point of view, there are only three things you need to understand:

1. What different types of particles are allowed to be present within it,

2. What the laws are that govern the interactions between all those different particles, and

3. What initial conditions the Universe starts off with.

Read more

From the Illinois Accelerator Research Center

What's going on with that sign at IARC?

Bob Kephart

Bob Kephart, director of the Illinois Accelerator Research Center, and Steve Dixon, CDF refurbishment project manager, wrote this column.

Several people recently asked me why the "Future Home of IARC" sign is still up, given that this summer the IARC, the Office of Partnerships and Technology Transfer, and PIP-II headquarters personnel moved into their new offices in the state-funded IARC Office, Technical, and Engineering (OTE) Building.

Work on the IARC Office, Technical and Education Building is nearing completion. Photo: Bob Kephart, IARC

The short answer is simply: "Because IARC is not yet done!" While State of Illinois funding for the shell OTE Building arrived as one big check, DOE's contributions have arrived in a number of smaller buckets known as general plant projects. These funds have allowed us to begin to finish the interior of OTE and to refurbish the former CDF Heavy Assembly Building (now known as HAB). OTE finishing, led by Rhonda Merchut from FESS, has made great progress in the past year, with all network cabling and IT routers installed on both floors; beautiful office suites installed on the third floor of OTE (the second floor remains unfinished); and new furniture installed in the 175-seat IARC lecture hall. With the new audio-visual system slated to be installed shortly, this latest IARC addition will soon be operational.

The third-floor office suites in the IARC OTE Building are finished. Photo: Bob Kephart, IARC
New furniture was recently installed in the 175-seat IARC lecture hall. Photo: Bob Kephart, IARC

In addition, lots of construction work continues on the refurbishment of HAB, led by Steve Dixon from FESS. In an earlier phase HAB general plant project, we replaced outdated electrical switch gear, refurbished cooling water systems, installed new HVAC units and upgraded building life safety systems. We also constructed new first-floor toilets, refurbished the 50-ton crane, epoxy-coated the HAB floors, and installed new energy-efficient LED lighting over the high-bay space.

Lots of refurbishment work has been done to HAB. Photo: Bob Kephart, IARC
The new elevator shaft is going up. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Work currently in progress will lead to the construction of 10 private offices, 12 cubicles, three conference rooms and new toilets on the third floor of HAB. The east end of the building will include a small addition housing the new elevator, exit stairs and a new east lobby. The south wall of the existing building will be re-clad with new siding, and windows will be added on the second and third floors. Already in place is a new loading dock ramp on the east side. These changes are all intended to repurpose HAB to comply with modern standards and codes so that it can support the IARC mission.

The changes are also transforming HAB into a beautiful work space. With several customers lining up to use space in HAB for both industry and high-energy-physics-based program projects, we are all looking forward to the day that sign comes down!

Safety Update

ESH&Q weekly report, Oct. 13

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ESH&Q Section, contains no incidents.

See the full report.