Fermilab Today Friday, Dec. 4, 2009
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Have a safe day!

Friday, Dec. 4
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Oscar Gonzalez Lopez, University of Madrid
Title: MET+jets at CDF - Results Across the Program

Saturday, Dec. 5
8 p.m.
Fermilab Arts Series - Ramsey Auditorium
The Night Before Christmas Carol - tickets: $18/$9

Monday, Dec. 7
THERE WILL BE NO PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR TODAY
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topics: LARP/LAFS Instrumentation at the LHC; Conventional Construction for the NOvA Far Detector; CMS/LHC Report

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Mostly cloudy
28°/18°

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, Dec. 4
- Breakfast: Chorizo burrito
- New England clam chowder
- Black and and blue cheeseburger
- Tuna casserole
- Dijon meatballs over noodles
- Bistro chicken and provolone panini
- Assorted slices of pizza
- Carved top round of beef

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Dec. 9
Lunch
- Salmon Wellington
- Parmesan orzo
- Lemon pound cake with blueberry sauce

Thursday, Dec. 10
Dinner
- Chestnut soup
- Lobster medallions with champagne butter sauce
- Spaghetti squash with scallions
- Steamed green beans
- Eggnog cheesecake with bourbon cream

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Ask-a-Scientist goes to Supercomputing 2009

PPD's David Christian fields questions via a video link from Jessica Gonowon, an undergraduate at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, on Nov. 18. Christian participated in Fermilab's Ask-a-Scientist feature at SC09, a conference focusing on high-performance computing.

Each month, members of the public get the opportunity to quiz laboratory scientists about how the universe works.

Participating in this event normally involves a trip to Fermilab. However, at the recent Supercomputing 2009 conference in Portland, Oregon, attendees ranging from undergraduates to established researchers and industry professionals had the chance to ask 12 Fermilab scientists anything and everything via videoconference.

Hank Glass, a researcher at Pierre Auger Observatory, was one of several volunteers who spoke with Jessica Gonowon, an enthusiastic undergraduate studying computer science at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, during SC09.

"I talked with him for a long time, and he was very patient with me," Gonowon said. "I didn't see how Maxwell's Equations would hold up if there's an isolated monopole. He assured me they [the equations] are still valid."

David Ritchie, the Computing Division employee who organized the event, said the video link to scientists was well received.

"People approached us over the course of the conference to remark positively upon it," Ritchie said. "Its success suggests that this approach could be used at other conferences to showcase the expertise of Fermilab scientists."

David Christian, head of Fermilab's Experimental Particle Physics Department, thought participating in the program was very rewarding."Anywhere you can give feedback to young people interested in science is worthwhile."

Miriam Boon

In the News

Collider weathers power cut

From MSNBC.com, Dec. 2, 2009

Editor's note: Katie Yurkewicz is a Fermilab employee and the US LHC Communication person at CERN.

Europe's Large Hadron Collider was knocked offline today due to a faulty electrical cable, just a couple of days after the accelerator broke the world record for proton-smashing power. Electrical power was restored within hours, with no major effect on LHC operations, according to the CERN particle-physics center.

"Even as we speak, they are still trying to get beam back to the LHC," CERN spokeswoman Katie Yurkewicz told me just before 3 p.m. ET (9 p.m. Geneva time).

Read more

In the News

Seeking a shortcut to the high-energy frontier

From Science, Dec. 4, 2009

When you fall behind, you need a comeback plan, and physicists here at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) think they have a dandy. They're losing their title as keepers of the world's highest-energy particle smasher, but they have an idea for a wild new one that might vault them back to the energy frontier. They're hoping the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will give them enough money to find out whether their idea is a dream machine-or a technological nightmare.

For 24 years, Fermilab's Tevatron collider has held the energy record for particle collisions, firing protons into antiprotons at a maximum of 2 tera-electron volts (TeV). But researchers at the European particle physics lab, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, are finally revving up the 27-kilometer-long, $5.5 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which aims to blast protons into other protons at 14 TeV. With the Tevatron facing obsolescence, Fermilab physicists hope to build a beast called a muon collider.

Read more

Feature

Mitch Soderberg new spokesperson for ArgoNeuT

Mitch Soderberg (right) succeeded Bonnie Fleming (left) as spokesperson for ArgoNeuT.

The institutional board for ArgoNeuT has named Yale postdoctoral researcher Mitch Soderberg successor to Yale scientist Bonnie Fleming as spokesperson for the test experiment.

Fleming hired Soderberg in 2006, about the same time she used a career grant to instigate the ArgoNeuT test.

"He's the obvious candidate," Fleming said. "He's been involved in every aspect of ArgoNeuT. He's really been driving design, construction and operation throughout its history."

ArgoNeuT, which stands for the Argon Neutrino Test project, is a liquid-argon detector used to study low-energy neutrino interactions with unprecedented resolution.

The ArgoNeuT collaboration is one of the smallest at Fermilab, with about 20 members. The detector has been collecting data since May, except for one break to study cosmic rays during the Tevatron's shutdown and another to repair a malfunctioning cryogenic component.

"With a small experiment like this, you get to know everyone on the project," Soderberg said. "When something breaks, there's only a few of you to fix it. It makes you learn a lot of things you never thought you would have to know – like how to fix a cryocooler."

Soderberg also has acted as a mentor to the four graduate students on the test experiment, Fleming said. "He's absolutely an exceptional postdoc," Fleming said. "He has demonstrated the ability to lead."

Fleming now serves as spokesperson for the MicroBooNE experiment, which recently achieved CD-0.

Many ArgoNeuT collaboration members are using their experiences with the test detector to prepare to design and run the new experiment. "A lot of this work will carry over," Soderberg said.

In late February, the ArgoNeuT collaboration will remove the detector from the MINOS tunnel and focus on analysis.

"I'm looking forward to analyzing all the data," Soderberg said. "We have thousands of neutrino interactions recorded that we haven't looked at yet."

Kathryn Grim

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Book atrium events through the Office of Communication

FMLA and FTL policy updates

Yoga class promotion - Dec. 1-22

"The Night Before Christmas Carol" at Fermilab Arts Series tomorrow

English Country Dancing, Dec. 6

Wilson Hall stocking stuffer holiday sale - Dec. 9-10

Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Employees at Fermilab - information meeting Dec. 10

Gallery talk by Peter Olson - Dec. 11

Register for Quigg symposium - Dec. 14-15

Free introductory martial arts classes - Dec. 14 and 16

Fermilab blood drive - Dec. 15-16

Inaugural potluck party - Dec. 16

Tell us about your Take 5 moment by Dec. 16

Fermilab Management Practices seminar beginning Feb. 11

Sign up for spring Science Adventures classes

Argentine Tango at Fermilab meets Wednesday nights

Prescription eyewear technician location change

Lederman Science Center holiday hours

Discount movie tickets available

Chicago Blackhawks discount tickets

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