Thursday, May 12, 2011
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Thursday, May 12
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Zackaria Chacko, University of Maryland
Title: A Model-Independent Approach to WIMP Dark Matter
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar
(NOTE LOCATION)- Curia II
Speaker: Richard Wade, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK
Title: Science Funding in the UK and the Priorities for the Science and Technology Facilities Council

Friday, May 13
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: George Fuller, University of California, San Diego
Title: Sterile Neutrinos and Cosmology (In conjunction with the Short Baseline Neutrino Workshop)

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Thursday, May 12

- Breakfast: Apple sticks
- Santa Fe black bean soup
- Steak tacos
- Chicken Wellington
- Chimichangas
- Baked ham & Swiss on a ciabatta roll
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Crispy fried chicken salad

*Heart healthy choice

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Friday, May 13
Booked

Wednesday, May 18
Lunch

- Chicken, spinach & mushroom crepes
- Spring salad
- Vanilla berry parfait w/
meringue cookies

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Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

Stay safe when working with electricity

In observance of electrical safety month, which runs through May, we’d like to remind you of ways to stay safe around electricity. We should all be diligent when working around electricity both at work and at home.

At home, make sure electrical outlets in kitchens, bathrooms, garages, unfinished basements and outdoors are protected by ground fault circuit interrupters. Also make sure the circuit breaker is turned off before any work is done such as replacing an outlet. Use outlet covers to protect small children.

At work we are required to follow certain procedures when working around electrical equipment, and Fermilab maintains a comprehensive electrical safety training program. Electrical training at the laboratory includes courses on basic electrical safety, Lockout/Tagout, and electrical safety in the workplace. Fermilab’s ES&H Manual has 10 chapters that deal with electrical safety. The Electrical Safety Subcommittee is in the process of revising some of these guidelines for electrical workers to incorporate stricter personal protective equipment.

While it is important to prevent electrical shocks, another key objective of electrical safety is to prevent an arc flash. A metal tool that makes contact between an energized conductor and ground (or another energized conductor) can vaporize the metals involved. If the energized conductor is from a powerful-enough source, a sustained arc flash can evolve with extreme explosive force that could result in severe burning or even death.

During the last year the DOE complex has had 121 violations of Lockout/Tagout, a set of safety procedures designed to protect workers from electrical hazards. This is the highest number since 2005. There were some minor injuries and electrical shocks but no fatalities. The main reasons for these violations include poor planning, failure to follow LOTO procedures, and failure to adequately verify that there is zero energy present. The DOE's theme for this May is "When in doubt, lock it out."

Find more information on DOE's electrical safety month online.

-- Mike Utes, head of Fermilab's Electrical Safety Subcommittee

Photo of the Day

First baby bison of the year born at Fermilab

A protective mother bison stands over her calf. The calf was born on April 21 and is the herd's first baby bison born so far this year. Photo: Reidar Hahn
Fermilab's first baby bison of the year was born on April 21. Photo: Reidar Hahn.
In the News

'Superflares' spotted in Crab Nebula by NASA's Fermi

From International Business Times,
May 12, 2011

Editor's Note: A Fermilab team helped to manufacture a key component of the Fermi gamma-ray telescope called the Large Area Telescope. The project name was changed from Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) to its current name when it launched on June 11, 2008.

Astronomers were shocked when the dusty remains of an exploded star, the Crab Nebula, unleashed a surprising blast of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe.

The outburst, which was similar to an enormous 'superflare' five times more powerful than any flare previously seen from the object, was first detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on April 12 and lasted six days.

The nebula, which is the wreckage of an exploded star whose light reached Earth in 1054, is one of the most studied objects in the sky. The Crab Nebula is composed mainly of the remnant of a supernova.

"At the heart of an expanding gas cloud lies what's left of the original star's core, a superdense neutron star that spins 30 times a second. With each rotation, the star swings intense beams of radiation toward Earth, creating the pulsed emission characteristic of spinning neutron stars (also known as pulsars)," NASA said in a statement.

Read more

Result of the Week

Looking for the W-prime

The transverse mass distribution of electron + missing transverse energy for data and standard model expectation. The red region shows our expectations for a W-prime of mass equal to 800 GeV/c2.

In the Standard Model the quarks and leptons communicate with each via the exchange of particles known as bosons. The bosons of the Standard Model are the photon, the gluon and the W and Z particles. It is natural to wonder if there are additional bosons present in nature; after all there is nothing in the Standard Model that restricts the number to four. The observation of a new boson would be a major discovery and would signal, perhaps, the existence of a new force of nature. Since the discovery of the W boson in 1983, many experiments have looked for a hypothetical heavier cousin to the W, generically called the W' (pronounced W prime).

A recent analysis at CDF searched for evidence that a W' was produced and decayed to an electron and a neutrino using a 5.3 inverse femtobarn data sample. The Standard Model W bosons also decay to an electron and a neutrino, and the Tevatron produces them by the millions. In order to get away from these everyday bosons, we looked for candidate events that are much more energetic than expected.

In order to get a really clean sample of electrons necessary to isolate these hypothetical W’ bosons, we measure their momentum in our tracking chamber and their energy in our calorimeter. For electrons, the momentum and energy should be about the same. The neutrinos in the event stream right through the CDF detector without leaving a trace. But we can infer their energy by looking for a momentum imbalance. The figure shows a distribution that represents the combined energy of the electron and neutrino. A W' particle would show up as an excess of events on the right hand side of this distribution. As you can see, our data is well described by the Standard Model backgrounds, so we find no evidence of the W boson's heavier cousin. We use this lack of evidence to conclude that the mass of the W-prime boson must be larger than 1.12 TeV/c2 at the 95 percent confidence level This result essentially means that if the W' exists, it will not be found at the Tevatron, but perhaps it will be discovered at the higher energies of the LHC.

edited by Andy Beretvas and Doug Glenzinski

These physicists are responsible for this analysis. From left: Dong Hee Kim, Jieun Kim and Yu Chul Yang; all from Kyungpook National University, Korea.
Accelerator Update

May 9-11

- Four stores provided ~37.5 hours of luminosity
- Network storms and Linac RF problems delayed termination of store 8719
- Pbar sweeper magnet controls problems; halted stacking for an hour
- A switchyard power supply failure held off beam to FTBF experiment T-978 for about three hours

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

Announcements

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Employee Health & Fitness Day - May 18

International party - May 13

Plant & seed exchange event - May 21

Lunch & Learn about scuba certification at Fermilab - May 12

DASTOW 2011 - June 22

Young scientist travel awards to participate in the Users' Meeting

Argentine Tango classes - May 11- June 8

Accelerated C++ short course - June 6

Registration open for 44th annual Users' Meeting - June 1-2

Creative Writers - May 19

How to Advance Women in Science - May 12

Windows 7 Introduction course - May 19

Word 2010: Transition from 2003/2007 course - May 25

Excel 2010: Transition from 2003/2007 course - May 25

Change in cashier's office hours

Adult swim lessons at Fermi pool

Beginner swim lessons at pool

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Aqua Tots at the pool

Pool opens - June 7

Medical scans that use radioisotopes require work adjustments

Do you have a foreign bank account outside of the U.S.?

Jazzercise discount for employees

Chilled Water Plant Design course - June 14 – 16

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