|
Have a safe day!
Friday, April 27
2 p.m.
Accelerator Controls Seminar - One West
Speaker: Charlie Briegel, Fermilab
Title: Fermilab Accelerator Controls Console; Introduction for Users
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Joint Experiment-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Diego Tonelli, CERN
Title: Challenging the SM Through CP Violation in Charm at CDF
8 p.m.
Fermilab Art Series - Ramsey Auditorium
Drs. Stephen Macknik and Susan Martinez-Conde present: Sleights of Mind
Tickets: $7
Monday, April 30
THERE WILL BE NO PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topics: Accelerator Work Plans During Shutdown;
Operations of the NOvA Near Detector on the Surface (NDOS);
T-992: Radiation-Hard Sensors for the SLHC at FTBF
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Upcoming conferences |
Friday, April 27
- Breakfast: Chorizo burrito
- Smart cuisine: Chunky vegetable soup w/ orzo
- Buffalo chicken wings
- Cajun breaded catfish
- Smart cuisine: Teriyaki pork stir-fry
- Honey mustard ham & Swiss panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Smart cuisine: Carved turkey
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
|
|
Friday, April 27
Dinner
Guest chef: Martin Murphy
- Mixed greens, red wine vinegar & olive oil, seasoned dressing
- Baked mostacholi w/ meat sauce
- Traditional Sicilian antipasto
- Sicilian pork spidini
- Roasted vegetables
- Cannoli
Wednesday, May 2
Lunch
- Thai beef noodle salad
- Coconut panna cotta w/ tropical fruit
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
|
|
LBNE reconfiguration workshop spring board for ideas from physics community
 |
Fermilab employees, users and community members filled One West during the two-day LBNE reconfiguration workshop on April 25 and 26. Photo: Cindy Arnold |
Scientists and community members packed One West on April 25 and 26 for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment reconfiguration workshop. After a charge from DOE's Office of Science Director Bill Brinkman, Fermilab Director Pier Oddone formed a steering committee to guide the physics and engineering working groups to determine an efficient phased approach for DOE. Workshop participants helped assess the best options to do the most science for the least amount of money.
"I see a lot of friends and leaders from the community here today," Oddone addressed the crowd in his opening remarks. "We have a fast time scale to put this report together. We don't want to lose momentum here. Let's get to work."
Fermilab Deputy Director Young-Kee Kim presented an overview of the possible options the two working groups had proposed so far.
"We're in very good shape for the next 10 years, for neutrino and muon programs," Kim said in reference to the upcoming NOvA, MicroBooNE, Muon g-2, Mu2e experiments and accelerator improvement activities. "The LBNE is a flagship experiment for the following decade that we are developing."
With 335 members from 61 institutions in 25 states and five countries, Kim called the LBNE collaboration rich with knowledge and experience.
Read more
—Ashley WennersHerron
|
Service outage for network file server maintenance - May 1-2
The Core Computing Division will take advantage of the scheduled beam downtime by performing system maintenance on the BlueArc network file-server from 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 1, until 6 a.m. on Wednesday, May 2. This maintenance will affect a variety of computing services, including the ES&H Section and Computing Sector websites, DocDB, InDico and various Windows project and home directories that are stored on the Bluearc network file server.
For a list of systems impacted, see the Fermilab Service Desk announcement here. Other services not listed here may also be affected. These user communities have received separate notifications.
Some sites or services may appear to be available during the maintenance period. However, we recommend not accessing them from 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 1, until after 6 a.m. on Wednesday, May 2. If files stored on the network file server will be needed during the maintenance period, users should save the files to their local computer before 7 p.m. on May 1.
If you have any questions about this outage, please contact the Service Desk.
|
Astrophysics: Stars throw their weight in old galaxies
From Nature, April 25, 2012
The observation that old, massive galaxies have a larger fraction of low-mass stars than their younger, lower-mass counterparts adds to mounting evidence that star formation may have been different in the early Universe.
When a star is born, it can have a mass 0.1 to 100 times that of the Sun. This property controls a star's influence on its environment, its lifetime and even its ability to host habitable planets. The relative distribution of low- to high-mass stars in a newly formed population, known as the initial mass function (IMF), is crucial to determining the evolution of any cosmic structure made up of stars, from stellar clusters to galaxies. In the local Universe, where individual stars can simply be counted, the form of the IMF does not seem to vary from one environment to another. But it is possible that in the early Universe the IMF had a different shape. On page 485 of this issue, Cappellari et al. present evidence for a different IMF in some of the oldest known objects — elliptical and lenticular galaxies.
Read more
|
Gamma rays hint at dark matter
From physicsworld.com,
April 24, 2012
Using a new statistical technique to analyse publicly available data from NASA's Fermi Space Telescope, an astrophysicist in Germany says he may have spotted a tell-tale sign of exotic particles annihilating within the Milky Way. If proved to be real, this "gamma-ray line" would, he claims, be a "smoking-gun signature" of dark matter.
There is a wide body of indirect observational evidence that an invisible substance accounts for some 80% of the matter in the universe. Although physicists can measure the effects that this dark matter has on the visible universe, they have very little understanding of what this mysterious stuff actually is.
Read more
|
|
Creating dark matter
 |
Studying the dark matter conundrum is like a three-legged stool. While clear observation of the dark matter in the Milky Way by detectors in deep underground mines will be necessary, we won't understand the nature of dark matter until we can make it and study it at will. |
Galaxies spin too fast. According to the familiar laws of gravity and inertia, they should tear themselves apart when rotating that quickly, as the gravity generated by the visible matter would be unable to hold them together. Galaxies have existed for billions of years, so we have a paradox. The leading explanation for this apparent impossibility is that dark matter exists. Dark matter is electrically neutral, which is why it can't be seen, and massive, which is why it affects the gravity of galaxies.
Dark matter, if it exists, is like a cloud of stable subatomic particles centered on galaxies like our Milky Way. Because of its neutral nature, it can pass through ordinary matter in much the same way that neutrinos do. If it does exist, dark matter is passing through you right now, essentially without interacting at all.
If dark matter interacts via the weak nuclear force, an occasional dark matter particle will bounce off an atom. This is how scientists try to directly detect dark matter. Physicists place their detectors in deep mines to shield them from the incessant rain of cosmic rays. In order for the detectors to work, they are cooled until the atoms are nearly stationary. That way, when a dark matter particle hits a stationary atom, we will see it: the detector will ring (figuratively) like a bell.
Read more
—Don Lincoln
|
CMS collaboration discovers its first new particle
Members of the CMS collaboration announced the experiment's first discovery of a new particle today.
In a paper submitted to Physical Review Letters, the CMS collaboration described the first observation of an excited, neutral Xi_b baryon, a particle made up of three quarks, including one beauty quark.
The new baryon is one of many particles made up of quarks predicted by the theory of quantum chromodynamics.
"We have found a very large fraction of these particles," said CMS physicist Vincenzo Chiochia, one of the co-leaders of the search. "But there are still very heavy ones and excited states to be discovered."
Individual quarks cannot float around on their own; scientists find them bound in pairs or in groups of three. Theory describes the different ways in which quarks should connect. It also predicts the existence of excited states of particles made of quarks.
Read more
—Kathryn Grim
|
|
Partly cloudy
