Fermilab Today Friday, May 14, 2010
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Friday, May 14
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Guennadi Borrisov, Lancaster University
Title: Evidence for an Anomalous Like-Sign Dimuon Charge Asymmetry

Monday, May 17
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Alex Kim, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Title: Future Prospects for Type Ia Supernova Cosmology
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, May 14
- Breakfast: Chorizo burrito
- Italian vegetable soup
- Teriyaki chicken
- Southern-fried chicken
- Mediterranean baked tilapia
- Eggplant parmesan panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Assorted sub sandwich

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, May 19
Lunch
- Assortment of quiches
- Salad of field greens with raspberry vinaigrette
- Fresh fruit plate

Thursday, May 20
Dinner
- Gazpacho
- Paella(Saffron rice with seafood & chicken)
- Torta Moca

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Smooth sailing for CMS

Matt Fisher, of the University of Florida, presents his poster about the Level 1 trigger at the U.S. CMS collaboration meeting at Brown University.

Five weeks after the LHC officially launched its research program, members of the CMS collaboration confirmed that all systems are go at the annual U.S. CMS meeting, which took place at Brown University on May 5-8.

At the first meeting with data from the LHC's maiden voyage into uncharted waters at the Energy Frontier, the roughly 130 attendees expressed enthusiasm, if not outright giddiness, over the detector's performance.

"CMS has demonstrated it is a fantastic instrument for studying particle collisions," said U.S. CMS Project Manager Joel Butler. "It has actually surprised us in many ways, and is showing strengths in areas that some of us did not expect."

Via a remote connection from CERN, CMS Spokesperson Guido Tonelli reported that the experiment had collected roughly 1.45 inverse nanobarns of data thus far. The data-taking efficiency reached 93 percent, surpassing the goal of 90 percent. In addition, 90 percent of the recorded data is good for physics, Tonelli said.

At this stage in the game, the CMS collaboration is using the first data to rediscover the Standard Model. Like setting sail on a new type of vessel, CMS must first identify the known physics processes already measured by Fermilab's Tevatron to get a feel for how the detector works. These early stages of analysis are also important for validating future results when CMS ventures into new, unexplored territory, said CMS Collaboration Board Chair Dan Green.

"Nobody will believe you until you can prove that your detector does certain things," he said.

As the experiment deploys its tools that separate the interesting data from the not-so-interesting events for the first time, Wesley Smith, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, reported that the higher-level triggers demonstrated their expected performance. "We are ready for higher luminosity," he said.

After nearly four days of meetings on the brick and ivy campus, attendees expressed appreciation for their hosts. "We are very grateful," said U.S. CMS Collaboration Board Chair Nick Hadley. "Brown did a great job organizing the meeting."

The feeling was mutual.

"At Brown, we emphasize the importance of collaboration, and this is probably the field that most embodies large-scale collaboration," said Brown University Provost David Kertzer. "We are very proud and happy to be one of the nodes in that network."

- Elizabeth Clements

Photo of the Day

New employees - April 12

Mark Graczyk, BSS; Liqun Li, WDRS; and Angelo Di Canto, PPD.
In the News

Cosmic ray research may hit Kansas

From Kansas City Star, May 9, 2010

Southwest Kansas is vast; it is yucca-studded; it is dark enough to see stars at night, what with so few yard lights. And if you wrote out its economic profile as a physics equation it might read:

Giant hog farms + giant feedlots + oil fields = SW Kansas.

Nobel Prize winners don't flock to southwest Kansas. Not yet.

But some giddy state officials and scientists now look to the stars. And to black holes.

There's serious talk about bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to Colorado and perhaps to Kansas to study cosmic rays - ultra-high-energy particles that strike us from galaxies and other places far, far away.

Read more

Recovery Act

Expansion project to provide local jobs

Construction crews have begun the expansion of the MI-8 building.

A new construction project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will give a boost to local companies and provide much-needed space to the technicians who support Fermilab's neutrino program.

Fermilab has awarded to R.C. Wegman Construction Co. a $2.9 million contract for the expansion of the MI-8 building, where technicians build and test parts for neutrino experiments.

"Things have been tight in the construction industry," said Bill Arnolde, the company's project manager. Referring to his colleague, construction supervisor Mike Testa, he said, "Mike and I would probably be on unemployment right now if not for this project."

The company, based in Aurora, has been operating for 55 years and was responsible for the construction of local businesses, police and fire stations, and Fermilab's Remote Operations Center. A handful of employees from R.C. Wegman, along with about 100 subcontractors, will work on the expansion. At least 60 percent of the subcontractors come from within a 10-mile radius of the laboratory, Arnolde said.

The project will take until at least 2011 to complete, and will provide Fermilab technicians and contractors with 16,500 square feet of work, testing and storage space to keep Fermilab neutrino beams going.

With three neutrino experiments in operation and new ones such as NOvA and LBNE in the works, the technicians at MI-8 are going to be busier than ever, said Fermilab's Pat Hurh, project director for the expansion.

"NOvA and LBNE will become flagship projects for Fermilab for the next 15 years," he said. "There's no way we could do our work using the building as it is."

The expansion will separate the testing area from the building area. It will also add offices, a meeting room, bathrooms and a kitchenette. Construction workers will create new areas for the tricky process of horn welding, currently completed in a pump room, and for assembling long-horn conductor parts, currently completed within a service tunnel hatch.

-- Kathryn Grim

Special Announcement

Ask HR: The 15th floor comes to you this May-June

The May-June tour of the Ask HR campaign, which will begin next week, will feature Employment and Employee Relations. The group's first stop is the AD Dungeon conference room from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Monday, May 17. Stop by to check job fair material, fill out a vacation donation form or drop off donations for the maternity closet. The staff looks forward to hearing your ideas and answering questions about policies, open positions, employee programs and performance reviews. Watch Fermilab Today for future locations, dates and times.

Announcements

Sign up for summer Science Adventures classes

News for Cigna plan participants

May habitat restoration - May 22

May "Benefits Bulletin" now available

Artist Reception - 5-7 p.m. on May 14

Argentine Tango Wednesdays through May 26

NALWO Children's Playgroup International Party - May 14

English country dancing - May 16

Pool memberships available now

NALWO Spring Tea - May 20

Sand Volleyball Tuesdays begin May 25

43rd Fermilab Users' Meeting - June 2-3, register now

SciTech summer camps start June 14

Employee discount at Batavia Rosati's

Fermilab Arts Series presents Corky Siegel and Chamber Blues - June 26

ANSYS Mechanical Application classes offered in May

Additional activities


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