Fermilab Today Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009
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Have a safe day!

Thursday, Dec. 10
10:30 a.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Aaron Manalaysay, Physik Institut Universität Zürich
Title: The Physics of Liquid Xenon Dark Matter Detectors
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Tao Liu, University of Chicago
Title: Prospects for MSSM Higgs Searches at the Tevatron and LHC
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Robert Welton, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Title: Next-Generation H- Ion Sources for SNS

Friday, Dec. 11
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Dmitry Bandurin, Kansas State University
Title: Determination of αs and Double Parton Interactions in DZero.

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Weather Breezy
13°/4°

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Thursday, Dec. 10
- Breakfast: apple sticks
- Santa Fe black bean soup
- Steak tacos
- Chicken Wellington
- Chimichangas
- Baked ham and swiss on a ciabatta roll
- Assorted slices of pizza
- Crispy fried chicken salad

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

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

Wednesday, Dec. 16
Lunch
- Stuffed flank steak
- Garlic mashed potatoes
- Cherry cheesecake

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Debbie Harris named as new MINERvA co-spokesperson

Fermilab scientist Debbie Harris stands in front of the nearly completed MINERvA neutrino detector. Harris was recently elected MINERvA co-spokesperson and will begin the transition to this role in January.

If you told Debbie Harris a decade ago that she'd really enjoy coordinating all of the pieces of an experiment, she would have laughed.

"But I love coordinating all the pieces, no matter how modular they seem," Harris said.

Soon, she'll get to do even more of what she loves.

 Fermilab scientist Jorge Morfin, a MINERvA co-spokesperson for the past six years, will step down from the position in February.

Harris, who has worked on MINERvA since its inception, was recently elected the experiment's new co-spokesperson. She will begin transitioning into the role, currently held by Jorge Morfin, beginning in January. She will work with current co-spokesperson Kevin McFarland of the University of Rochester.

"What we need in a co-spokesperson is someone with a good vision of the experiment's physics goals, and we need someone who can keep harmony within the collaboration and keep the collaboration structured and enthusiastic, even when we start talking about the little nuts and bolts problems," Morfin said. "Debbie will be a great co-spokesperson."

Morfin, co-spokesperson for the past six years, decided not to run for election again so that he can focus on other areas. In addition to working on MINERvA physics, he wants to continue expanding the laboratory's Latin American program and work on the near detector physics and technology for both the Homestake mine and Neutrino Factory projects to encourage the sharing of common efforts.

"I've seen what was a concept 10 years ago develop into an approved experiment and then get backed by the Department of Energy. When I step down, we will have completed building our detector and will be taking data," Morfin said. "I can now get more involved in working on actual physics results."

The end of MINERvA detector construction, expected by the end of January, is a good time for Harris, project manager for MINERvA, to transition, too.

"It is sort of like parenting. If I'm successful, MINERvA won't need a project manager after January or February," Harris said. "This is an honor, a huge honor, and I will have big shoes to fill."

Rhianna Wisniewski

Special Announcement

Humanitarian photographer presenting today in One West

Humanitarian photographer Ivan Yee-Gwan Lo will give a presentation today on his work, which documents everyday life, medical programs and education in the developing world. His presentation will take place from 12:15 to 1 p.m. in One West.

Lo, who grew up in Chicago, has photographed for humanitarian non-governmental organizations. The event is part of the Diversity Council's series of events for Universal Human Rights month.

From symmetry breaking

How a new muon experiment can advance physics

In recent years, particle physicists have increasingly turned their attention to finding physics beyond the Standard Model description of the building blocks of matter and how they interact.

While many signs point to the existence of physics outside of the realm of current knowledge, a treasure map doesn't exist, and a new particle's discovery won't necessarily include clues to how it fits into the rest of the particle zoo. Many theories exist to explain the origins of suspected "new physics" and extensions to the Standard Model, the current theoretical framework.

A new Fermilab-based experiment, the Muon-to-Electron Conversion experiment, or Mu2e, could shine light on those gray areas, aiding researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe and likely the next-generation of collider experiments.

Read more

Tona Kunz

University Profile

University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

Fermilab collaborators at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

NAME:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

HOME TOWN:
Urbana, IL

MASCOT:
None

SCHOOL COLORS:
Orange and blue

PARTICLE PHYSICS COLLABORATIONS:
ATLAS, CLEO, Dark Energy Survey, LSST, FOCUS, CDF, Mu2e, G-2, Daya Bay, E-906 (SeaQuest) and USQCD.

EXPERIMENTS AT FERMILAB:
Dark Energy Survey, FOCUS, CDF, Mu2e, G-2, SeaQuest and USQCD.

SCIENTISTS, STUDENTS, ENGINEERS AND TECHNICIANS WORKING AT FERMILAB:
16 faculty, 10 engineers/technicians, seven postdocs, 13 graduate students and 13 undergraduates

COLLABORATING AT FERMILAB SINCE:
Fermilab began

University of Illinois scientists in the CDF trigger room. Top row from left: Ben Carls, Greg Thompson and Olga Norniella. Bottom: Heather Gerberich.

MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO FERMILAB EXPERIMENTS:
CDF muon systems, CDF trigger, CDF central tracking chamber, G-2 design, Mu2e design, Dark Energy Survey electronics and ILC design, among many others.

PARTICLE PHYSICS RESEARCH FOCUS:
Charm, bottom and top quark physics, heavy bosons, electroweak symmetry breaking, dark energy, rare muon decays and muon g-2.

WHAT SETS PARTICLE PHYSICS AT UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN APART?
We have strong high- and medium-energy groups.

FUNDING AGENCY:
Department of Energy and National Science Foundation

FAVORITE NATIONAL LABORATORY:
Fermilab

Fermilab Result of the Week

A banner year for CDF results

The figure shows the number of papers published in refereed journals per year by the CDF experiment.  With 57 papers already published in FY2009, CDF closes in on an incredible 500 publications during its lifetime.

There were far too many outstanding new results from the CDF collaboration this year to pick just one. With 57 papers published already this year and more than 100 new results presented at international conferences, CDF scientists have had their most productive year to date.

The Tevatron accelerator ran great in 2009. Scientists at CDF now have more than 6 inverse femtobarns of data on tape that can be used for physics analysis.

This staggering amount of data is the result of the accelerator's banner performance and the hard work of the CDF data acquisition and processing groups.

During FY2009, CDF collected and processed about 2 billion data events and more than 1.1 billion simulated events (to model the new data). Just to process these events required more than 100 CPU-years. This means if only one computer processed this information, it would take that machine more than 100 years to finish processing. Archiving these events required well over 1 peta byte of storage space. To put a peta byte into perspective, it is about the combined size of the hard drives of 10,000 personal computers.

Scientists at CDF were able to sort through all the new data to produce many exciting results: For the first time they observed the Omega B baryon and found evidence for the Y4140; scientists performed numerous searches of exotic new particles, resulting in limits on the theories that predict these new particles (for example b', GMSB, and heavy particles decaying to two bosons); they measured Standard Model properties such as the photon cross section, diffractive W production, and the charged particle multiplicity in min bias events; they measured properties of the top quark such as its mass and production rate with better precision than ever before; last but not least, the observation of single top production and two new diboson final states prove that CDF scientists are closing in on the Higgs boson. With the LHC turning on and more Tevatron data arriving daily, there is bound to be even more excitement in 2010.

Edited by Craig Group

As the CDF data sample grows, CDF scientists climb closer to one of their ultimate goals: helping the Tevatron find some sign of the elusive Higgs boson. 

In the News

Collider meets its goal for power

From The New York Times, Dec. 10, 2009

Tiny spitfires of energy blossomed under the countryside outside Geneva late Tuesday night, heralding the arrival of a new European particle collider as the biggest, baddest physics machine in the world.

Scientists said that the new Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile loop underneath the Swiss-French border, had accelerated protons to energies of 1.2 trillion electron volts apiece and then crashed them together, eclipsing a record for collisions held by an American machine, the Tevatron, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

Officials at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, which built the collider, said that the collisions lasted just a few minutes as a byproduct of testing, and that the Champagne was still on ice in Geneva. But in conjunction with other recent successes, those tiny fireballs displaced American physicists as the leaders in the art of banging subatomic particles together to see what nature is made of.

Read more

What's Happening Here?

Work continues near Pine Street and Road A

The Swan Lake pumping station project stays on schedule this week as crews build trench boxes to protect workers while installing a new intake piping system. Periodic traffic control will continue to occur at the intersection. FESS expects to complete the project in December.
Accelerator Update

Dec. 7-9
- Three stores provided approximately 44.25 hours of luminosity
- Ground-faulted magnet found in MTest beamline
- Booster ICW leak repairs
- Booster kicker problem repaired
- LRF2 problems resolved

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Scottish country dancing will meet every Tuesday through December

International folk dancing meets Dec. 10, 17, then not untill Jan. 7

Give the gift of movies

Book atrium events through the Office of Communication

FMLA and FTL policy updates

Wilson Hall stocking stuffer holiday sale ends today

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

Barn Dance - Dec. 13

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

English Country Dancing - Jan. 3

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

Chicago Blackhawks discount tickets

Additional Activities


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