Indian ambassador praises Fermilab-India collaboration

From left: Fermilab's Steve Holmes, Her Excellency Meera Shankar, Fermilab's Rajendran Raja and the Honorable Consul General of India Ambassador Ashok Kumar Attri visit the Main Control Room at Fermilab.

Following the Indian tradition of presenting honored guests with flowers, Fermilab greeted Her Excellency Meera Shankar, Ambassador of India to the United States, with carnations when she arrived at the lab on Saturday, Oct. 10.

The Honorable Consul General of India Ambassador Ashok Kumar Attri and consulate members, Suresh Kumar Menon and Manju Sahni, accompanied the ambassador during her visit.

After receiving a general overview about the laboratory and a summary of the collaboration activities between Indian institutions and Fermilab, the ambassador visited the LHC Remote Operations Center at Fermilab.

Fermilab physicist Pushpa Bhat explained how the ROC allows U.S. scientists to take remote shifts for the CMS experiment at CERN. While inside the ROC, Shankar had the opportunity to chat via videoconference with Jim Virdee, CMS spokesperson, Guido Tonelli, CMS spokesperson-elect, and Austin Ball, CMS technical coordinator, who greeted the ambassador with "Namaste," an Indian salutation of respect.

Shankar also visited Fermilab's Main Control Room and the 15th floor of Wilson Hall.

After completing her tour, Shankar expressed gratitude for the detailed explanations of the research conducted at Fermilab.

"Basic science expands national boundaries and frontiers of knowledge," she said. "We would very much like to continue to be part of this international science community as we seek answers to all of the questions Fermilab is trying to answer."

Shankar noted India's participation in such scientific projects as DZero, the LHC and ITER, and she commended the scientists from Indian institutions who work at Fermilab.

"The collaboration that we put in place is a very good example of the kind of collaboration we have and should continue to grow," she said. "I am very pleased and proud that so many of you are contributing to work being done here and at India."

— Elizabeth Clements

Extreme Beam lecture series
4 p.m. Thursday in Curia II

Kenneth Long, from the physics department of Imperial College London, will deliver the next lecture in the Extreme Beam series Thursday.

The next lecture of the Extreme Beam lecture series will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday in Curia II. Kenneth Long, from the physics department of Imperial College London, will give a talk titled "The Neutrino Factory: Sensitivity for the Next Decade." A reception will follow.

The lecture series, which will feature talks at Fermilab throughout 2009, will give in-depth information about the science of accelerator and detector technologies that will create a world-leading physics program at the Intensity Frontier.

Visit the Extreme Beam Web site for more information.

The science of spending stimulus money wisely

From The New York Times, Oct. 17, 2009

Dr. Wim Leemans, a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, shows a touch of parental pride for the hulking machine he affectionately calls T-Rex - a high-intensity laser that pushes electrons around. But a new machine called Bella - formally, the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator - is uppermost on his mind these days.

Bella will be twice as large and 20 times more powerful, and Dr. Leemans just got the $20.7 million in federal stimulus money that he needs to build it. "Bella is T-Rex on steroids," said Dr. Leemans, a slight man of 46. Bella has the potential, he said, to help restore the nation's prowess in particle physics.

Less certain, however, is whether Bella represents smart economics. The cash for the project is a tiny slice of the stimulus package developed by Congress and the Obama administration to jump-start the economy. The stimulus legislation included about $18 billion for nondefense scientific research and development, a significant boost to the estimated $61.6 billion already going to science in the 2009 budget, according to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. But experts are divided about whether projects like Bella are compatible with the intent of Congress to create jobs as fast as possible.

Read more