Universities, Fermilab both benefit from collaboration

View a map and list of the universities that collaborate with Fermilab. Click on the graphic above to download the pdf.

University collaboration is the norm in high-energy physics experiments. But for students interested in accelerator physics, working with a national laboratory is often essential.

Professors and students from more than 104 U.S. institutions in 34 states rely on Fermilab for their research, and the laboratories benefit from their participation as well.

Before the 1970s, universities could build their own high-energy particle accelerators, said Ashutosh Kotwal, a professor of physics at Duke University. "But eventually they became too big for any university group to build and fund locally." Since that time, accelerator expertise at universities has declined, and only a handful of universities still maintain accelerator physics programs.

But some high-energy physics faculty, such as Sacha Kopp of the University of Texas at Austin, have formed relationships with Fermilab to allow their students to work on projects related to accelerators.

National laboratories can offer students a course of study focused intensely on the subject they want to pursue, said Bob Zwaska, a Fermilab employee and former student of Kopp. "University programs may not have special classes in accelerator physics," Zwaska said. "This is a stimulating place to be." As a student, Zwaska worked at Fermilab on a system that synchronizes the beam in the Booster accelerator with the beam already circulating in the Main Injector.

Universities offer laboratories additional manpower as well as contact with experts from different fields, such as engineering and computer science. Kotwal became involved with particle physics when one of his engineering professors helped design electronics for a detector at Fermilab.

For students, working at a laboratory means joining a collaboration instead of simply turning work in to a professor, Zwaska said. "It's more collegial than at universities, where there's a larger difference between professors and students," he said. "At the lab, everyone works together."

-- Kathryn Grim

Fermilab earns award for marsh restoration project

Fermilab Roads and Grounds employee Dave Shemanske (center) accepted a natural landscaping award from the Chicago Wilderness Council and the U.S. EPA Nov. 12 on the laboratory's behalf. Shemanske stands with Gary Gulezian, director of the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office (left) and John Rogner, the chair of Chicago Wilderness. The award was given for the conversion of a former sewage treatment area into a natural marsh. Read more about the Nepese Marsh restoration in the Nov. 12 issue of Fermilab Today.

The Klezmatics perform at Fermilab Saturday, 8 p.m.

The Klezmatics

World-renowned and Grammy-winning band The Klezmatics will bring their unique brand of klezmer music to Ramsey Auditorium on Saturday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. Klezmer, from the Yiddish word for "musician," has its roots in the celebratory music that Ashkenazi Jews traditionally played at weddings and other occasions for dancing.

The Klezmatics erupted out of New York City's East Village in 1986. Over the course of 20 years, the group has released nine albums of provocative, reflective and ecstatically danceable music played with fiddle, bass, cello, clarinet, drum, hammer dulcimer and accordion. A multitude of mainstream media outlets such as the BBC, PBS, MTV and NPR have featured the band on their programming.

Tickets are $25 for adults and $13 for children aged 18 and under. For more information or to make reservations, call (730) 840-ARTS (2787) weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. At other times, an answering machine will give you information and a means of placing ticket orders. Ramsey Auditorium is located in Wilson Hall, the central building at Fermilab.

Antarctic balloon on the trail of dark matter?

From Scientific American, Nov. 19, 2008

New results from an instrument that detects energetic particles in the upper altitudes above Antarctica show an excess of cosmic-ray electrons that may be a signal of dark matter, researchers say. The study, published today by Nature, examines data from a balloon-borne detector called ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter). The unexpected wealth of electrons in a specific energy range, about 300 to 800 giga-electron-volts, points to a nearby source, the authors write.

One of the possible sources is the annihilation of dark matter, a mysterious type of particle that current theories indicate is many times more prevalent in the universe than the ordinary matter we can see and touch. Some candidates for dark matter, including the so-called Kaluza-Klein particles, would have energies that fit the bill. (The authors speculate that other astronomical objects, such as pulsars or microquasars, could also be responsible.)

Read more