TESLA Tech Collaboration tests new recipes at Fermilab

During a tour of Fermilab's new ILC facilities, participants in the TESLA meeting visited the Cryomodule Assembly Building.

Last week, more than 100 scientists from around the world met at Fermilab to discuss recipes for baking, rinsing and polishing -- but not the kinds of recipes used for baking a cake. Instead, attendees at the TESLA Technology Collaboration shared information about developing the optimal recipe for pushing forward superconducting radiofrequency, or SCRF, technolgy.

As the chosen technology for the International Linear Collider, the SCRF cavity is a hot (or cold) topic for hundreds of scientists who are contributing to R&D for the proposed electron-positron accelerator. On a larger scale, the mission of the TTC is to advance SCRF technology and related accelerator studies across the broad spectrum of scientific applications, providing a forum for the world's experts to share ideas, developments and tests. "The ILC is a big component right now, but there are many other applications for this technology," said Cornell University's Maury Tigner, chair of the TTC.

The meeting at Fermilab marked the fourth TTC workshop, originally established in 2004 in response to the decision to use SCRF technology for the ILC. At a time when new advancements in SCRF technology are occurring weekly, the meeting allowed experts to ask questions and seek out advice for producing the optimal superconducting cavity. "In recent weeks, we achieved an accelerating gradient of 59 megavolts per meter, which exceeds the initial expected capabilities for this technology," Tigner said. "This is wonderful, but there is a real concern about the variations in performance from one cavity to the next."

Superconducting cavity recipes aren't simple. The tiniest piece of dust inside a cavity can impact how efficiently it can accelerate particles, and getting the cavities sparkling clean is a complicated process. Laboratories and universities throughout the world have each developed their own cavity recipes, making it difficult to determine the best process. In order to overcome this hurdle, members of the TTC are developing one specific recipe for all labs to use. "We need more testing to get more data before we will know if this recipe works," said John Mammosser of Jefferson Laboratory, during the TTC meeting. "We need to make sure to stick with this one recipe and not change it until we understand its performance." Mammosser hopes to have enough data to evaluate this recipe by the next TTC meeting.

In between discussions on simplifying the process for treating superconducting cavities, meeting attendees toured Fermilab's ILC test facilities. Attendees visited the lab's brand new horizontal test stand and a functioning cryomodule assembly building, just a few of the highlights of Fermilab facilities that will be used by collaborators around the world.

-- Elizabeth Clements

'Number, please:' Dial up new phone listings on Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, those searching for a Fermilab employee through the telephone directory will no longer see the familiar old blue and white page. May 2 marks the changeover to a new telephone directory system, which promises to simplify and speed up searches.

The new telephone directory system will mark the first change in the Fermilab online telephone directory in more than six years. More search functions will simplify finding contacts. Instead of searching for a single string in a single field, such as someone's last name, the new system allows simultaneous searches for up to three strings. You can now search for someone by entering the last name, first name and department. The system also features a more accurate "sounds like" option. More information will be listed in each search result, including public addresses (if allowed by the employee) and Jabber IM account information.

The new page will be in place Wednesday morning, but if anyone needs additional transition time, a link to the old page will be available for a few weeks. Notably, URL links from the old system on the web, and command line searches, will continue to work with the new directory.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

From msnbc, April 30, 2007

Possible delays are in part a result of magnet failure in 17-mile tunnel

GENEVA - The world's most ambitious particle collider - which scientists hope could reveal what matter is made of - might not be fully functional until next year, months after its scheduled startup date, officials at the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday.