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Have a safe day!
Wednesday, July 20
2:30 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Pat Lukens, Fermilab
Title: Observation of a New Heavy Baryon at CDF
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Toshiki Tajima, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich
Title: Laser Wakefield Acceleration and Fundamental Physics
Thursday, July 21
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Satyajit Seth, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
Title: Signature of Large Extra Dimensions to NLO in QCD at the LHC
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Denis Kostin, DESY
Title: XFEL SRF Accelerating Module Prototypes Tests at DESY
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Upcoming conferences
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Wednesday, July 20
- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Chicken noodle soup
- Steak sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Maple dijon salmon
- Smart cuisine: Mongolian beef
- California club
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken pesto pasta
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu |
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Wednesday, July 20
Lunch
- Yogurt-marinated beef kabobs w/ wasabi aioli
- Greek chick pea salad
- Baklava
Friday, July 22
Dinner
Closed
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Special W&C lecture at
2:30 p.m. today in One West
CDF collaborator Pat Lukens will present the collaboration’s latest result in a talk at 2:30 p.m. today titled “Observation of a New Heavy Baryon at CDF.” The talk will take place in One West. Streaming video will be available.
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Laboratory releases physics advisory committee report
Fermilab released the latest report from the committee that advises laboratory leaders on the direction of the laboratory’s future experiments and programs.
At its summer meeting in Snowmass, Colo., the Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee (PAC), focused on the Intensity Frontier and Fermilab's current and future neutrino program, including the LBNE/DUSEL situation. The committee also considered a letter of intent from the MINERvA Collaboration, as well as a proposal to extend MINOS running in the NOvA era.
The committee recommended Stage I approval for the continued running of MINOS, MINOS+ (E-1016), and the Holometer experiment (E-990). For MINOS+, the committee noted the known performance of MINOS, the modest costs involved and the interest in accessible physics, in particular for sterile neutrino searches. For the Holometer experiment, the committee noted that the experiment aims to have the world’s best limits on megahertz gravitational waves and, within two years, the first holographic noise results.
The MINERvA letter of intent focused on obtaining the engineering resources to run the existing helium target, but with hydrogen or deuterium. The PAC encouraged this, with particular interest in using deuterium, and possibly argon, to obtain data.
Throughout the laboratory’s history, the PAC has analyzed proposals for experiments and potential programs and helped the laboratory to define its strategic plan. PAC is comprised of senior scientists from universities and high-energy physics laboratories in the U.S. and abroad.
The charge to the PAC and the committee’s comments and recommendations are now available from links on the PAC website.
The PAC’s next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 8-10 at Fermilab.
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Today is an Air Pollution Action Day
The Partners for Clean Air and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency have issued an Air Pollution Action Day notice for Wednesday, July 20. Check www.cleantheair.org for updates and tips on reducing air pollution.
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Iowa State physicist to test next-generation neutrino detector for major experiment
From the newsroom of Iowa State University, July 15, 2011
Hundreds of physicists from around the world are making plans to shoot the world's most intense beam of neutrinos from Illinois, underground through Iowa, all the way to a former gold mine in South Dakota. And Iowa State University's Mayly Sanchez is part of the research team.
Sanchez, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is working to develop the next generation of detectors to pick up the trail of neutrinos, subatomic particles that are among the most abundant in the universe and normally race through matter without leaving a trace.
"Advances in material sciences are allowing us to make photodetectors that are larger, cheaper, better," said Sanchez. "They'll have a larger surface area and be better able to measure points in space with better timing. The question is, can we make a better experiment?"
Read more
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July 21 "Third Thursday" lunchtime clean-up postponed
Due to the extreme weather temperatures, the cleanup scheduled for tomorrow is cancelled. The rescheduled date is next Thursday, July 28.
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NASA telescopes face budget abyss
From Nature News, July 19, 2011
Flagship missions at risk as astrophysics funding shrinks.
As the space shuttle glides through its final week, another arm of the US space programme faces a bleak future. Astrophysics was once NASA's highest-funded science division and, with the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-time public-relations winner. But its two flagship telescope missions, ranked as the highest priorities for US astronomy, are now under threat as budget constraints start to bite.
Stung by spiralling costs and charges of mismanagement, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — Hubble's long-awaited successor — is now seen by some critics as too expensive to fly. And the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which would hunt for exoplanets and probe the poorly understood phenomenon known as dark energy, may take too long to develop to be worthwhile.
Read more
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News from the Muon Collider 2011 conference
Fermilab theorist Chris Hill wrote this week’s column.
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| Chris Hill |
During the last week of June, roughly 100 physicists met in the thin air of Telluride, Colo., to contemplate the construction and physics goals of a muon collider. This new type of particle collider would be one of the most complex devices ever created by humans. It would employ a short-lived particle, the muon, which disintegrates in a mere 2 millionths of a second. That’s just long enough to use the particle as a probe to unveil the secrets of nature.
The muon collider plans and designs are still conceptual, and we won’t be building such a machine for at least 20 years. Undaunted, the scientists at Telluride trekked on to identify and solve the multifarious issues that revolve around three topics:
- creating a large number of muons and antimuons for the collider using the proposed Project X accelerator
- cooling these particles to form small packets that can be accelerated to an energy of up to 2 TeV
- making the muons and antimuons collide head on at 4 TeV in a complex and robust particle detector
For the detector design, the challenge is to differentiate between the particles coming from actual muon-antimuon collisions and the enormous background created by particles coming from muon decays. At the Telluride meeting, scientists reported a feasible solution: a detector that utilizes fast timing and clever geometry to deal with the ferocious backgrounds. Major, more detailed, studies need to be done before this type of detector becomes a reality.
Theorists provided a list of the "top six" key physics questions to explore 20 years from now, when a muon collider exists. The list includes:
- studying a very heavy, beyond-the-Standard Model Higgs boson, via WW scattering, which would be difficult to detect at the LHC
- probing in depth the collider production of dark matter particles
- studying a Z’-boson, should the LHC find evidence of such a particle. If it exists, a Z’ boson will act as an amplifier for new physics, and this would reduce the stringent technological requirements for muon cooling and background reduction.
The muon collider complex would fit on the Fermilab site and could be built in functional stages, beginning with the Project X proton accelerator. The next stage would be the construction of a large muon storage ring, or neutrino factory, followed by the construction of the muon collider itself. Staging distributes the costs over many years and many sub-projects and might be the way for the United States to once more host experiments at the Energy Frontier.
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| Participants in the Muon Collider 2011 conference. The conference co-chairs were Marco Battaglia, Berkeley Lab/UC Santa Cruz; Estia Eichten, Fermilab; and Robert Palmer, Brookhaven. Ron Lipton chaired Fermilab’s organizing committee.
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ES&H weekly report, July 18
This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes one recordable incident, one injury requiring first-aid treatment and one incident not requiring first-aid treatment. One employee received a laceration on his thumb while moving a lifting fixture that required sutures to close. Another employee received an abrasion required first-aid treatment to the side of his finger while dismantling a pneumatic valve. Another employee hit a car while parking his or her vehicle, but no one was injured.
Find the full report here. |
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