|
Have a safe day!
Thursday, April 12
10:30 a.m.
Research Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: George Williams, Voxtel, Inc.
Title: Technology Development at Voxtel, Inc.
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Pilar Coloma, Virginia Tech
Title: Neutrino Oscillations for Large q13
3:30
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK -
2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY
SEMINAR TODAY
Friday, April 13
11 a.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Matthew Evans, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: Large Scale Interferometry - the Challenges of Advanced LIGO
2 p.m.
Accelerator Controls Seminar - One West
Speaker: Dennis Nicklaus, Fermilab
Title: Front End Framework (FEF); a Linux Framework with C/C++ and Erlang Interface
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experiment-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Chris Polly, Fermilab
Title: Fermilab's Muon Campus at the Intensity Frontier
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Upcoming conferences |
|
Thursday, April 12
- Breakfast: Apple sticks
- Southwestern chicken tortilla
- Philly style cheese steak
- Garlic herb roasted pork*
- Smart cuisine: Mardi Gras jambalaya
- Southwestern turkey wrap*
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Marinated grilled chicken Caesar salads
*carb-restricted alternative
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
|
|
Friday, April 13
Dinner
- Spanakopita
- Grilled lamb chops
- Oregano cubed potatoes
- Gigantes (greek lima beans)
- Karidopita
Wednesday, April 18
Lunch
- Southern California crepes
- Spicy chicken
- Tomato & avocado salad
- Chocolate fondue w/ fresh fruit
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
|
|
Arts & Lecture Series presentation available online
The Fermilab Arts & Lecture Series presented, "The Intensity Frontier - The New Challenge for Fermilab," by Stan Wojcicki of SLAC on Friday, March 23.
The presentation is now availble for viewing online.
|
IMSA students at Fermilab
 |
| The 2012 class of the Student Inquiry and Research program at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Photo: Cindy Arnold |
The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) Student Inquiry and Research (SIR) students will showcase their work at 7:45 a.m. on Wednesday, April 25, at Fermilab. The program provides students with real-world experiences. Every year, IMSA presents IMSAloquium, which is a showcase for the research projects students worked on during their time in the program. These abstracts, posters and oral presentations are the highlight of the year spent at Fermilab. During the school year, students three days a month with their mentors.
This year, 19 students participated. Usually, every student has their own mentor. Anyone interested in being a mentor can contact Carol Angarola.
|
Retired: Randolph Herber
Fermilab employee Randolph Herber retired on Oct. 27, 2011. He worked at Fermilab for nearly 22 years. Herber was hired on Jan. 29, 1990, as an application developer and system analyst in the Computing Division. At the time of his retirement, Herber was working on accelerator and detector simulation.
|
IMSA discussion: From dark matter to extra dimensions
From Aurora Beacon News,
April 11, 2012
What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy? Is Einstein's theory of gravity wrong? Is there a "supersymmetry" in nature that makes extra dimensions of space possible?
Students from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy lined up to ask these and other heady questions to a panel of Fermilab physicists during a question-and-answer session in the school's main gym this week.
The panel discussion served as the culmination of the Inaugural Leon M. Lederman Frontiers of STEM Symposium. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is a hallmark of the IMSA educational mission. The symposium was also sponsored by the IMSA Great Minds Program, launched in 1998 by IMSA founder, resident scholar, former Fermilab director and Nobel laureate Leon Lederman.
Read more
|
A universe without purpose
From The Vancouver Sun,
April 7, 2012
New revelations in science have shown what a strange and remarkable world we live in
The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.
The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.
As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.
Read more
|
|
Standard Model wins again
 |
| The measured multiplicity (black points) of additional muons in events
that pass the W boson selection, compared to the expected Standard Model sources shown as stacked colored histograms. This search for new physics concentrates on the bins with three or more additional leptons where the SM background is very small.
|
In recent years, many alternatives have been proposed to complete the Standard Model. These models have interesting (though sometimes uninformative) names such as the Next-to Minimal Supersymmetric Model, the little Higgs models and R-parity violating models. Predictions of these models include production and decays of new particles. For example, if some of the new particles were noticeably lighter than the W and Z bosons, they would produce
soft, or low-momentum, decay products, possibly including multiple soft muons and electrons, depending on the new particle couplings.
In looking for new physics, CDF scientists searched for multiple electrons and muons in electroweak events that contained an identified W or Z boson. Of particular interest are
processes that produce lepton jets, which are a large number of low-energy leptons, often close together. These lepton jets could have been missed in traditional searches for larger energy, isolated leptons, and they could be a signature of certain exotic Higgs decays.
By searching within these W and Z events, we ensure that the search starts from a well-understood sample. New algorithms were developed to look for low-energy, non-isolated leptons. The numbers of these leptons were compared to the number expected from known processes. These predicted numbers decrease very rapidly at high lepton multiplicity, which is the region where the new physics would likely appear.
We compared the electron and muon results with the Standard Model predictions. Once again, the Standard Model provides a good description of the observed data. However, the possibility still remains that new light and weakly coupled particles beyond the Standard Model Higgs are mixed in with the Tevatron and LHC data. There is more searching still to be done.
Learn more
—Edited by Andy Beretvas
 |
| These physicists were responsible for this analysis.
From left: Scott Wilbur, Henry Frisch, Carla Grosso-Pilcher,
Dan Krop (not pictured); all from the University of Chicago.
|
|
|
Mostly sunny
