Monday, Feb. 6, 2012
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Have a safe day!

Monday, Feb. 6
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Immanuel Buder, University of Chicago
Title: Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Results from the QUIET Experiment
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topics: Measurements in the Muon Rings; Surface Chemistry and the Quality Factor in SCRF Cavities

Tuesday, Feb. 7
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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Weather Mostly sunny
40°/27°

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Feb. 6

- Breakfast: Croissant sandwich
- Spicy beef & rice soup
- Corned beef reuben
- Smart cuisine: Roast pork loin
- Smart cuisine: Lasagna
- Chicken oriental wrap pineapple
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Smart cuisine: Pacific rim rice bowl
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Feb. 8
Lunch
- Cheese Fondue
- Marinated Vegetable Salad
- Mixed Berry Pie

Friday, Feb. 10
Dinner
Valentines Dinner
- Roasted butternut salad w/ sherry vinaigrette
- Surf & turf
- Sautéed spinach
- Cauliflower gratin
- Chocolate pots de crème w/ fresh berries

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Special Announcement

Wilson Hall construction safety

While the Wilson Hall atrium is under construction, please be aware of the following procedures in case of an emergency evacuation.

The west atrium stairs will remain unlocked during construction as a secondary path to the floor below in a fire emergency. The doors are posted with signage, cone barriers and removable yellow tape. They should be used only if the rear enclosed exit is blocked in a fire emergency. No access is allowed at any other time.

Follow progress of the construction with updates from FESS here.

Feature

Hot Fermilab experiments: Cooling system is a success

Lee Hammond checks the dials on the new cooling system for the MINOS underground area. Photo: Brad Hooker

In 2009, after experimenters in the MINOS underground area expressed concern over a gradual increase in temperatures in the tunnel, Fermilab engineers went to work on a clever, yet tricky plan to rebuild the aging cooling system.

By adding two new chiller units and replacing the groundwater-based system with a recirculating loop of chilled water, the air temperatures would drop from the mid-80s to a breezy 68 degrees – optimal for these highly sensitive detectors. In the seven years since MINOS began taking data, minerals collected from the groundwater gradually clogged the filters and pipes, resulting in countless maintenance hours along with the reduced water pressure. The system struggled with a water flow reduced by half.

"We're watching these temperatures and seeing it just get warmer and warmer down there. And at 80 degrees the scintillator is just getting baked," said Debbie Harris, co-spokesperson for MINERvA. "That's the heart and guts of both the MINOS detector and the MINERvA detector."

Hotter scintillators age quicker, producing less light as particles pass through and hampering the detectors. Hotter electronics are compromised as well and are more likely to fail.

Much of this heat is generated by the MINOS coil. Another heat source requiring constant cooling is the hadron absorber, a concrete and metal enclosure that filters out the neutrinos and muons from the beamline. With seven experiments housed in or visiting the underground area in recent years and with the development of NOvA, the rising heat had to be restrained.

Read more

Brad Hooker

Photo of the Day

New employee - Jan. 3

Bonnie King, CD. Photo: CIndy Arnold
From SLAC Today

BaBar extends the search for new matter-antimatter asymmetries

The BaBar collaboration's detailed studies of the subtle ways in which matter behaves differently from antimatter are hailed as one of the success stories of experimental high-energy physics. After all, BaBar data and measurements have confirmed a nearly 40-year-old theory that explained the asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and helped convince the Nobel Prize committee to award the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, the two Japanese developers of that theory.

But BaBar's SLAC-based search for matter-antimatter asymmetries did not end there. Perhaps Kobayashi's and Maskawa's theory, which is now part of the Standard Model of particles and interactions, is not the whole story.

"We know our current picture of particle physics, the Standard Model, cannot be complete, as it vastly underestimates the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry," said Aaron Roodman of SLAC and Stanford's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. "Some new source of asymmetry in particle interactions or decays must exist."

In a collaboration paper headed to the journal Physical Review D, Roodman, his graduate student Brian Lindquist and SLAC Staff Scientist Mathew Graham search for one such possible new source by studying an asymmetry in a particular decay of charged B mesons. B mesons decay in literally thousands of different ways, but about 40 times in a million the charged B decays into three charged K mesons.

Read more

Lori Ann White

ES&H Tip of the Week:
Computer Security

Timing is everything: It's phishing season!

Read your email carefully to avoid falling prey to phishing attempts, especially during the tax season.

Every day, your email inbox is bombarded with spam, which most people properly ignore. Laboratory users are well aware that this spam is designed to extract personal information, such as passwords and financial account numbers. With this information, Fermilab personnel know to safeguard this information carefully.

However, when attackers tailor spam to coincide with events in your life, you can let your guard down. One common example is malicious requests to verify email account information due to oversubscribed email quotas or other issues purported to prevent users from accessing their email. When such messages, by happenstance, coincide with current FNAL email migration, users may fail to be properly suspicious.

An upcoming seasonal scam involves tax relief and tax refund mailings. These emails are intended to arrive in inboxes shortly after taxpayers file their yearly returns and tempt users by offering speedy refunds. These emails request that the tax filer provide more information such as verification of SSN, bank account numbers and a host of other personal information. To make the email appear even more legitimate, web links may be present that appear to be directed to popular tax preparation sites, along with graphics and other company information. Falling for one of these scams can lead to pilfering of bank accounts, fraudulent tax filings and identity theft.

If you receive an email that appears to coincide with an event currently taking place in your life, such as email migration or tax preparation, approach it with skepticism. Verify the sender by calling them using the customer service agent numbers listed on the company's website, not the one listed in the email. Don't follow the links in the email, but instead navigate manually to the company's website to access your account.

Remember that when it comes to your identity and your money, you can never be too safe.

Joe Klemencic, Fermilab computer security coordinator

Accelerator Update

Feb. 1-3

- Controls personnel upgraded the Time Line Generator hardware
- The Neutron Therapy Facility continued to treat patients

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

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Abri Credit Union announces winner

URA Visiting Scholars Program deadline - Feb. 29

Argentine tango classes - Wednesdays, through Feb. 8

Outlook 2010: Intro. - Feb. 22

Embedded Design with LabVIEW FPGA and CompactRIO class scheduled - Feb. 23

Introduction to LabVIEW scheduled - Feb. 23

PowerPoint 2010: Intro. - Feb. 28

The University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program deadline -
March 2

Word 2010: Intro Mar. 6

Excel 2010: Intro. - Mar. 8

Access 2010: Intro. - Mar. 14

FRA scholarship applications due Apr. 1

Python Programming class - April 16-18

Fermilab Management Practices courses are now available for registration

"5 Treasures" Qigong for stress relief

January 2012 float holiday

NALWO - Volunteers needed for English conversation

Tax presentation for users and visitors

Requests for on-site housing for summer

International folk dancing Thursday evenings in Kuhn Barn

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings in Kuhn Village Barn

Open badminton at the gym

Winter basketball league

Indoor soccer

Atrium construction updates

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