Friday, Jan. 28, 2011
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Have a safe day!

Friday, Jan. 28
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Edward Wegner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: Observation and Studies of Jet Quenching using Dijet Momentum Imbalance in 2.76 TeV PbPb Collisions at CMS

Monday, Jan. 31
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Charles Shapiro, Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, U.K.
Title: Connecting Probes of Dark Energy and Modified Gravity
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topic: 11 T Magnet Development Effort with CERN; JASMIN December Activation Experiments (T-972/993)

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a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, Jan. 28

- Breakfast: Chorizo burrito
- *Chunky vegetable soup with orzo
- Buffalo chicken wings
- Cajun breaded catfish
- *Teriyaki pork stir-fry
- Honey mustard ham and Swiss panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- *Carved turkey

*carb-restricted alternative

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Friday, Jan. 28
Dinner

- Closed

Wednesday, Feb. 2
Lunch
- Gingered flank steak
- Sake glazed vegetable
- Rice pudding

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Local student contributes to Tevatron's DZero experiment

High school student Ike Swetlitz examines the DZero detector. Photo: Marc Swetlitz

While perhaps fatal to felines, curiosity is a motivating force for one local high school student. Seventeen-year-old Ike Swetlitz spent his summer at Fermilab on the hunt for the Higgs boson with DZero physicists.

On his quest for answers about the fundamental nature of matter and the universe, Swetlitz contacted Fermilab and arranged to spend his summer holiday working side by side with DZero experiment collaborators.

Swetlitz worked on one problem in particular over the summer. The DZero team tasked him with dissecting a few troublesome particle collision events to discover what the data was really reporting.

He published his work as an internal document that was used and praised by members of the DZero collaboration. He also submitted his work to the Intel Science Talent Search and qualified as a semifinalist, taking home $1,000 dollars for himself, and another $1,000 for Naperville Central High School.

“The collisions I was looking at hit some triggers that made them seem like Higgs boson events. My project was to look at that data and verify them as Higgs events, or find out what errors were happening so we could improve the program,” Swetlitz said.

With the help of his advisors, Swetlitz learned which variables pushed the DZero computers to falsely record the events as Higgs-like, allowing the collaboration to look for better ways to examine data and exclude similar events in the future.

“He’s not afraid to ask questions,” said Brendan Casey, who worked with Swetlitz at DZero. “Ike always wants to go one step further, and he’ll keep asking questions until he really understands the answers.”

Bjoern Penning, Swetlitz’s primary supervisor over the summer, was amazed how fast Swetlitz became an asset to the laboratory.

“Within a few days he was using our software and extending it to his purposes. The document he produced made a real contribution to the collaboration,” Penning said.

As he applies to colleges, Swetlitz plans to go wherever his curiosity takes him. He is considering a dual major in physics and philosophy.

“I’m not only curious about physics and what the universe is fundamentally made of. I also want to look at the existential questions related to why we are here,” Swetlitz said.

-- Cynthia Horwitz

Special Announcement

Physics for Everyone: Neutron Therapy Facility Feb. 2

Physicists at Fermilab primarily use accelerators to speed up and smash together particles, but these machines have other uses. Learn more about how scientists at Fermilab use accelerators to help treat cancer at the Neutron Therapy Facility on site during the next Physics for Everyone lecture.

Join Fermilab at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, to learn more about how the laboratory uses accelerators to target some cancerous tumors. In his lecture, Fermilab physicist Tom Kroc will explain how neutron therapy works, what cancers it can treat and how it differs from other cancer therapies.

The lecture will take place in Ramsey Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public. No registration is required. There will be time for questions and answers. The lecture is part of a non-technical series about Fermilab science and culture.

Milestone

MI-8 addition construction sets safety record

Subcontractors celebrate 10,000 hours of work with no accidents or injuries.

During 10,000 man-hours of hammering, cutting and moving to construct the addition to the Main Injector-8 building, no one was injured and no accidents occurred.

Aurora-based subcontractor R. C. Wegman Construction Company held a pizza party on site last month for 30 people involved with the work to celebrate the safety milestone. While the party highlighted the safety success of the subcontracted employees, Fermilab employees involved in the project also stayed injury-free during the nine months of construction. FESS officials credit the 10,000-hour milestone in large part to good preplanning and hazard analysis work before construction began.

Fermilab added a new high bay to the existing Main Injector-8 service building, which functions as the access and support building for the Main Injector underground enclosure at the 8 GeV injection point.

The expansion of the MI-8 service building allows for the consolidation of two Accelerator Division Target Hall Operations Groups into one support facility. Wegman received the $2.9 million construction contract with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

-- Tona Kunz

In the News

Hunt for dark matter closes in at Large Hadron Collider

From Physorg.com, Jan. 26, 2011

The scientists have now carried out the first full run of experiments that smash protons together at almost the speed of light. When these sub-atomic particles collide at the heart of the CMS detector, the resultant energies and densities are similar to those that were present in the first instants of the Universe, immediately after the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. The unique conditions created by these collisions can lead to the production of new particles that would have existed in those early instants and have since disappeared.

Read more

Announcements

Latest Announcements

On-site Housing for summer 2011 - now taking requests deadline Mar. 7

Fermilab blood drive Feb. 14 and 15

SunFlower, CNAS & ProCard application systems will be unavailable on Saturday, Jan. 29

Exchange outage this Saturday, Jan. 29

English country dance demonstration Sunday afternoon Jan. 30

Floating holiday - Kronos timecard

GSA announced 2011 standard mileage reimbursement rate

Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle wrap up

Tax presentation for foreign visitors and employees Feb. 1

Lecture Series - Electrochemical Energy Storage for Transportation: Opportunities and Challenges in an Evolving Lithium Economy - Feb. 4

Project Management Introduction class - Feb. 14, 16 & 18

FRA Scholarship 2011

Argentine Tango Classes through Feb. 23

Open basketball at the gym

Disney On Ice presents Toy Story 3 - Feb. 2-13

Project Management Introduction class - Feb. 14, 16 & 18

Apply now for URA Visiting Scholars awards program deadline Feb. 18

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