Wednesday, June 29, 2011
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Have a safe day!

Wednesday, June 29
11:30 p.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Asher Haig, Emory University
Title: Exploring Programmatic Structure
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

Thursday, June 30
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Kemal Ozeren, University of California, Los Angeles
Title: Driving Missing Data at the LHC
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: Marc Ross, Fermilab
Title: ILC Technical Design Phase Progress
4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE) - One West
Speaker: Bruce Hoeneisen, Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Title: Updated Measurement of the Like-Sign Dimuon Charge Asymmetry

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, June 29

- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Portabello harvest grain
- Santa Fe chicken quesadilla
- Hoisin chicken
- Smart cuisine: Parmesan fish
- Cuban panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Shrimp pesto

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, June 29
- Szechuan spicy pork & noodle salad
- Carrot cucumber relish
- Lemon cheesecake w/ gingersnap crust

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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From symmetry magazine

LBNE: the inside buzz on a new science project

Illustration: Sandbox Studio

Editor's note: This story appears in the latest issue of symmetry magazine. Read the magazine online.

Planning and designing the $900 million Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment takes more than a village. It takes a hive’s worth of scientists, engineers, technicians, accountants, and other specialists of every stripe.

A single bee colony, that model of industry and organization, may contain upwards of 40,000 bees. Yet so flawlessly choreographed are their interactions and so well does each bee know its business that the whole hive effectively functions as a single organism. While the hundreds of collaborators in a large scientific project may not see themselves as one big organism, in fact they have much in common with the bees. To achieve sweet success, they must all carry out their particular roles in the project, and they must work together in a highly organized and coordinated fashion.

A look behind the scenes of Fermilab’s Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment reveals a colony of scientists, engineers, and project specialists, from across the United States and around the world, abuzz with the work of creating what they hope will become the world’s most advanced neutrino experiment. Each member of the 300-person team for this $900 million undertaking has a specific set of tasks. An intricate system of organization and communication meshes their efforts together to achieve each stage of the project’s development—from initial approval to construction, operation, and scientific discovery.

LBNE will measure fundamental properties of neutrinos to probe questions at the heart of 21st-century particle physics. The “Long Baseline” in Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment refers to the distance a beam of neutrinos traverses from its origin to a detector. Fermilab accelerators will generate the world’s most intense neutrino beam and aim it through the earth to underground detectors at the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, 800 miles away. Another detector on the Fermilab site, known as the near detector, will characterize the beam as it starts its journey.

Read more

— Amelia Williamson Smith

In Brief

Fermilab to launch new scientist emeritus policy

Scientists who retire from Fermilab can soon apply to be considered for scientist emeritus, a status of honor granted in recognition of the scientist’s contributions to the laboratory over his or her career.

The new status is a result of the most recent Fermi Research Alliance, LLC Board of Directors meeting. It is reserved for scientists who are retiring from the laboratory. The FRA board will approve all scientist emeritus appointments.

Retired scientists with emeritus status will receive an invitation to continue scientific connections with the laboratory. Scientists with emeritus status will belong to a division or center and may receive Fermilab resources as appropriate.

To initiate the appointment process, scientists must discuss emeritus status with their division or section head, who may then recommend the status to the Directorate. The Directorate may then recommend the appointment to the board, summarizing the candidate’s career accomplishments and major contributions to the laboratory.

Fermilab is working to formalize this process. More details will be publicized as they become available.

Photos of the Day

New employees - June 6

First row, from left: Aaron Bossert, TD; Sarah Pfluger, APC; Bailey Wilkinson, AD; Kyler Sherman-Wilkins, WDRS; Kaitlyn Sprosty, WDRS; Cole Cook, AD; Aubrey Benton, TD; Andrew Davies, TD; Christopher Nicholson, PPD; Charles Tschirhart, CD. Second row, from left: Hexuan Wang, APC; Sarah Baermann, PPD; Cristina Schlesier, WDRS; Keren Li, Ye Zhao, PPD; Khalida Hendricks, AD; Gaston Carcagno, TD; Brendan Whiting, AD; Evan Wise, PPD; Alexander Morris, TD; Ryan Putz, CD; George Dzuricsko, CD. Third row, from left: Jacob Noyola, TD; Johanna-Laina Fischer, WDRS; Toni Aubrecht, WDRS; Almir Khabiboulline, TD; Emil Khabiboulline, TD; Nicholas Cothard, PPD; Bryan Musolf, PPD; Prajwal Mohanmurthy, PPD; Antonios Varelas, AD; Chris Melanson, PPD. Photo: Cindy Arnold

New employees - June 13

First row, from left: Alex Sulek, FESS; Josh Kilmer, Anna Campbell, ES&H; Rebecca DiOrio, WDRS; Evan Schiewe, PPD; Joshua Louis, PPD; Jonathan Oderinde, CD. Second row, from left: Paula Zimmerman, FS; Natasha Arvanitis, PPD; Travis Roon, AEESD; Carrie LaFreniere, WDRS; Mary Misner, APC; Michael Shemanske, FESS; Kevin Killis, BSS. Third row, from left: Geoffrey Schmit, Cindy Fuhrer, PPD; Jeremy Tang, CD; Laura Napierkowski, PPD; Alyssa Miller, PPD; Sabina Maddila, PPD; Noah Lewis, TD; Jacob Schwinger, PPD. Photo: Cindy Arnold
From Center for Particle Astrophysics

Watching the cosmic web unfold

Craig Hogan, head of the Center for Particle Astrophysics, wrote this week’s column.

Craig Hogan

The grandest spectacle in the universe is the structure defined by galaxies on the largest scales. Called the cosmic web, it is an enormous, perhaps even infinite structure, with a transcendent beauty. Dense clusters, each one swarming with thousands of orbiting galaxies, connect with each other over gossamer filaments and delicate sheets of galaxies, stretching across tens to hundreds of millions of light years. Between the sheets loom large, nearly empty voids. Similar clusters, filaments, sheets and voids extend as far as we can see in all directions, and probably far beyond that.

This majestic structure has been created from a nearly uniform expanding gas of matter by the simple force of gravity, the same process that earlier created galaxies. Using powerful computers, scientists can simulate its evolution over billions of years, as the cosmic web emerges from uniform matter: voids expand and galaxies stream, swarm and merge into larger galaxies and clusters. The simulations reproduce the properties of this complex structure very well, using remarkably few assumptions. The detailed evolution over time does depend on some unknown cosmic physics, in particular, the behavior of the dark energy that is accelerating the cosmic expansion.

For a physicist, it is deeply moving, as well as scientifically instructive, to compare the views of the computer simulation with the real cosmic web. Our first glimpses of the cosmic web— the closest clusters, filaments, sheets and voids— started to come into view about 30 years ago, when galaxy redshift surveys started to give us a three-dimensional map of the cosmos. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Fermilab’s first foray into large spectroscopic surveys, used a system of optical fibers to collect spectra and make a breathtaking 3D map with about a million galaxies, and hundreds of sheets, filaments and clusters. The real cosmic web, as seen by SDSS, that you can virtually fly through online (or view as part of a tour of the known universe), looks remarkably like the computer-generated universe based on the physics of gravity, dark matter and dark energy.

Read more

In the News

How to keep lonely exoplanets snug - just add dark matter!

From Space Daily, June 27, 2011

Dark matter is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when considering how life can be supported on another planet, but to Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, dark matter could be a contributing factor in allowing life to evolve and survive on distant worlds outside of our solar system.

The scientists propose that dark matter particles could sink into a planet's core, and through the annihilation of matter, release enough energy to keep the surface of the planet warm enough for liquid water, even outside the traditional habitable zone.

Dark matter was first postulated in 1933 by Fritz Zwicky, and then again in the 1970s by Vera Rubin to account for evidence of 'missing mass' in the orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters and stars at the edges of galaxies. Dark matter is inferred to exist from its gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but it emits no visible light and does not interact with any other matter except by gravity.

Read more

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, June 28

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes no recordable incidents and two injuries requiring first-aid treatment: An employee tripped on carpeted stairs, twisted an ankle and ended up with a broken fibula and displaced bones of the ankle, and an employee bumped the right rear bumper of a parked car with the front bumper of employee’s car.

Find the full report here.
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