Fermilab Today

	Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

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Have a safe day!

Wednesday, Nov. 2
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquim - One West
Speaker: Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University
Title: Once Upon a Time in Kamchatka: The Strange Search For Natural Quasicrystals

Thursday, Nov. 3
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Joachim Brod, University of Cincinnati
Title: Standard Model Prediction of ԑK at NNLO
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Alex Melnitchouk, University of Mississippi
Title: Silicon Detectors at DZero

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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Chance of showers
63°/43°

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Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, Nov. 2

- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Cajun-style lentil soup
- Cajun chicken ranch
- Caribbean jerk pork chops
- Chicken parmesan
- Smoked turkey panini w/ pesto mayo
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken alfredo fettuccine

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Nov. 2
Lunch
- Bourbon glazed salmon
- Thai rice pilaf
- Sautéed pea pods
- Lemon Napoleon

Friday, Nov. 4
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Xtreme fun and networking comes to Fermilab - Nov. 17

Forget the colloquium you know. Fermilab is throwing out the traditional lecture hall and inviting scientists and engineers to mingle under a giant disco ball in a decades-old barn to talk about science that is so challenging it must be done outside the laboratory. Science in unusual, faraway and even dangerous places: Xtreme Research.

The fourth Argonne-UChicago-Fermilab joint speaker series will take place in the less-than-typical venue of Kuhn Barn in the Fermilab Village from 6 to 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 17. The panel topic "Xtreme Research: Interesting Places & Unusual Challenges” will highlight challenges of doing science outside the laboratory, as well as the inter-disciplinary collaboration and outreach opportunities those unique settings foster.

Moderated by Chicago Public Radio science reporter Gabriel Spitzer, speakers from Argonne and the University of Chicago will talk about collecting climate data throughout the world, studying apes in the wild, promoting adoption of renewable fuels and advanced technology through motorsports, and testing bacteria in remote locations such as volcanic craters. Regina Rameika, a scientist working on the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE), will represent Fermilab on the speakers’ panel. Rameika has extensive experience in designing and operating neutrino experiments deep underground and in remote locations.

—Tona Kunz

In the News

Bubble chambers aid search for dark matter

From DiscoveryNews, Nov. 1, 2011

The Tevatron collider shut down at the end of September, but Fermilab physicists are still active in the ongoing search to directly detect dark matter.

To aid in the research they're resurrecting bubble chambers and fixed target experiments dating back to the 1970s.

Bubble chambers are basically vessels filled with superheated liquid to detect particles moving through it. A new experiment underway aims to achieve better calibration for the bubble chambers used in the Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics (COUPP) experiment, located 350 feet underground in a Chicago tunnel. It's called the COUPP Iodine Recoil Threshold Experiment (CIRTE), and it's designed to improve the sensitivity of the COUPP detector.

The current working model for the actual "stuff" in the universe calls for only about 4 percent regular matter. The rest of the universe is comprised of dark energy (73 percent), which is causing the expansion of the cosmos to accelerate, and dark matter (about 23 percent).

In the News

Most annoying airline delays might just be in the boarding

From The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2011

It’s the common tale of woe for many travelers waiting to board a plane. First the airline has to go through a long list of passengers who have priority: First- and business-class passengers, frequent fliers, elite card holders, uniformed members of the military, families with children, those who hold credit cards affiliated with the airlines, passengers who paid for priority seats.

By the time coach travelers are called, the overhead bins seem to be already full.

Airlines have been boarding passengers since the first commercial flight, but as they have added new classes of seating to their cabins and new fees for priority boarding — all in the name of more revenue — they have slowed down the whole process.

From the Particle Physics Division

Intensity Frontier workshop

Mike Lindgren

Mike Lindgren, head of the Particle Physics Division, wrote this column.

Last month we celebrated the final chapter in Tevatron operations. Already, as I go through the CDF and DZero buildings I see major changes. PPD technical teams are securing the detectors and preparing the buildings for their next use. At CDF the work inside the building is going at a furious pace to match the construction schedule of the Illinois Accelerator Research Center building, and at DZero we are clearing out two decades of equipment from the high bay to prepare for construction of the MicroBooNE experiment, starting right after Christmas. This work helps us to close a historic chapter for the lab and helps usprepare for the next one.

The director and DOE have articulated a clear focus for particle physics in the three experimental frontiers: Energy, Intensity and Cosmic. With the close of the Tevatron, PPD’s focus on the Intensity Frontier has gotten even stronger, mirroring the direction of the future program in the U.S. At the end of November, many PPD scientists will travel to Rockville, MD to participate in a DOE Office of ScienceIntensity Frontier workshop that will help define our future work.

There are exciting opportunities at the Intensity Frontier to build and operate experiments that use rare processes to search for new physics.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Nov. 1

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes two incidents, one of which was recordable. A subcontractor employee injured his fingers and received sutures, making the injury a recordable case. Another employee suffered an abrasion after tripping on the stairs and received first-aid treatment.

Find the full report here.

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