Have a safe day!
Wednesday, May 2
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium -
One West
Speaker: Jeff Harvey, University of Chicago
Title: Strings and QCD
Thursday, May 3
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Norman Christ, Columbia University
Title: Computing K → ππ Decay Using Lattice QCD
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK -
2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Upcoming conferences
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Wednesday, May 2
- 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 |
Wednesday, May 2
Lunch
- Thai beef noodle salad
- Coconut panna cotta w/ tropical fruit Friday, May 4
Dinner
Closed Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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symmetry available online
The May online-only issue of symmetry magazine is now available here, featuring articles on the BaBar experiment, humanitarian and physicist Jean Tran Thanh Van and much more. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox once a month, subscribe to the symmetry email update list.
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Rutgers University
NAME:
Rutgers University
HOME TOWN:
Piscataway, New Jersey
MASCOT:
Scarlet Knight
SCHOOL COLORS:
Scarlet
PARTICLE PHYSICS COLLABORATIONS:
CDF, DZero, CMS, MINERvA, SeaQuest
NUMBER OF SCIENTISTS AND STUDENTS AT FERMILAB:
Eight faculty, eight postdocs and 12 graduate students
COLLABORATING AT FERMILAB SINCE:
1974, starting with research on polarization and magnetic moments of hyperons.
PARTICLE PHYSICS RESEARCH FOCUS:
Rutgers is hunting the Higgs with CMS, DZero and CDF. We contribute to both the theoretical development of SUSY and its experimental verification in CMS. The theory group is also very active in the development of string theories. Rutgers scientists study the nuclear dependence of nucleon structure with MINERvA and SeaQuest.
WHAT SETS PARTICLE PHYSICS AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY APART?
Rutgers is proud of the broad scope of its particle physics program. The nuclear and high-energy groups are active in projects from theory to construction, from strings to nuclei. In the spirit of Rutgers, we have, "Jersey roots, global reach," in the particle physics world.
FUNDING AGENCY:
National Science Foundation
Editor's note: This series of university profiles is back after a long hiatus. To view our past university profiles and to find out how to have your university featured, click here.
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Remarkable outburst seen from old black hole
From ScienceDaily, April 30, 2012
An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.
Researchers used Chandra to discover a new ultraluminous X-ray source, or ULX. These objects give off more X-rays than most binary systems, in which a companion star orbits the remains of a collapsed star. These collapsed stars form either a dense core called a neutron star or a black hole. The extra X-ray emission suggests ULXs contain black holes that might be much more massive than the ones found elsewhere in our galaxy.
The companion stars to ULXs, when identified, are usually young, massive stars, implying their black holes are also young. The latest research, however, provides direct evidence that ULXs can contain much older black holes and some sources may have been misidentified as young ones.
Read more
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LHC gets first glimpse of excited baryon
From New Scientist, May 1, 2012
Another day, another particle. Unlike the Higgs boson, the neutral Xi_b baryon is not expected to solve any deep, outstanding mysteries. But, sightings of its excited state are another first for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.
The Xi_b, a conglomerate of quarks, was previously seen by the now-defunct Tevatron collider at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, but only in its lowest energy state.
Theory says the particle has higher energy states that decay rapidly into a zoo of lower-mass muons, pions and protons. These are tough to spot in the LHC's particle detritus but can be used to confirm the presence of excited Xi_bs.
The team at CMS, one of the LHC's two main detectors, now reports piecing together 21 instances of excited Xi_b baryons. The result has a statistical significance greater than 5 sigma, meaning there is less than 1-in-a-million chance that it's a fluke.
Read more
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Managed-services contract
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Jon Bakken
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Jon Bakken, head of the Core Computing Division, wrote this week's column.
On May 12, Fermilab will begin to transfer responsibilities for some of its core computing services to Dell Services Federal Government. The primary goal of the contract is to consolidate the various vendor contracts we have for the Service Desk, hardware repair, data center installations, networking cabling, PREP logistics and printers and copiers. We expect to leverage Dell's organization and experience to deliver improved and more efficient services at reduced costs. Dell will be responsible for responding to and resolving all the activities we've outsourced to them.
I am often asked, "How will this affect me?" The Dell managed-service contract should not change the way individuals ask for help – you continue to open Service Desk tickets and the work will be completed. We are working well with Dell and we consider their staff team partners. If you experience a delay, respond to the open ticket and ask for it to be escalated.
Dell has hired 17 Fermilab employees and contractors affected by our outsourcing, and it is negotiating with five more. More hiring is expected in the coming weeks. Dell is also establishing a networking and cabling subcontract. Dell will assume full responsibility for all services listed in its contract in June.
The managed-services contract scope with Dell has four major parts: end-user services, data-center services, printer and copier support services and expert on demand.
- End-user services is the portion that most Fermilab employees and computer users will interact with most. It includes the Service Desk, Level-1 Desktop Support, and networked printer and copier support and repair. We expect to use industry-wide standard metrics to monitor and evaluate these services.
- Data-center services installs, moves and changes servers, racks and power control units in our big data centers, including our Feynman and Grid Computing Center buildings. This portion of the contract also covers the repair of broken equipment that is registered for the service. All equipment currently covered in our current contract, not just Dell equipment, will also be covered by the new Dell contract.
- The printer and copier services will be rolled out over a longer period of time. We will assess all printers on site, and, based on that information, Dell will provide us with a roadmap for printer optimizations, including technology updates.
- The last portion of the managed service contract is expert on demand. This provides staff augmentation at fixed rates to address operational needs or strategic projects. However, we are not required to use Dell for this service. For any project that needs expert help, we have the option to send out the work for bid.
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ES&H weekly report, May 1
This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, contains three incidents. An employee had a severe contusion to his hand after it was caught between a chain sling and an angle plate on a mill table. The case is a DART. Another employee experienced back pain after stopping suddenly while driving a heavy load. He received first-aid treatment. Another employee was doused with sprinkler water while working at Argonne. Treatment was not needed.
Find the full report here. |
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Scattered thunderstorms
