Tuesday, July 31, 2012
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Tuesday, July 31
Noon
Undergraduate Lecture Series - One West
Speaker: Theresa Shaw, Fermilab
Title: Electrical Engineering at Fermilab

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Wednesday, Aug. 1
2 p.m.
LHC Physics Center Topic of the Week Seminar - WH10NW
Speaker: Oliver Buchmueller, Imperial College London
Title: Supersymmetry: Post Discovery of a New (Higgs?) Boson

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, July 31

- Breakfast: bagel sandwich
- Chicken & rice soup
- Meatball sub
- Smart cuisine: beef stroganoff
- Smart cuisine: chicken stew w/ dumplings
- Peppered beef
- Assorted calzones
- Nachos supreme

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Chez Leon

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Lunch
- Bloody Mary chopped salad w/ shrimp
- Cold lime soufflé

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Feature

Vellidis takes over as new CDF co-spokesperson

Costas Vellidis

On July 1, Costas Vellidis became the new CDF co-spokesperson, taking over for scientist Rob Roser. He joins current co-spokesperson Luciano Ristori in leading CDF’s transition from active experiment to data preservation center.

Vellidis previously worked on CERN’s ATLAS experiment and has worked at CDF for the past five years. He led the top quark analysis group and was involved in the search for the Higgs boson and its associated Monte Carlo simulations. He said his experience with the experiments will help him fulfill his goals for CDF in the coming years.

“It gives me perspective on how to go into a new phase of the CDF collaboration,” Vellidis said.

Ristori said Vellidis’ expertise in computing is a major asset that complements his own skills.

“He brings enthusiasm and commitment, which is what we need in this phase of CDF to get the maximum out of the Tevatron data,” Ristori said.

Preserving and maximizing the legacy of the Tevatron is Vellidis’ main priority. He has set a series of short-, mid- and long-term goals to reach that objective, starting with publishing CDF’s remaining results on Higgs physics.

“It’s an important piece of information that is complementary to what CERN has done,” Vellidis said. “Corroborating evidence for a Higgs boson from a different laboratory in a different experiment on a different continent is very important.”

Another longer-term goal is updating the mass of the W boson, should the physics community require a more precise measurement.

“The most precise measurement in the world of this aspect of the Standard Model comes from us,” he said. “It’s one of the Tevatron legacies.”

Vellidis said there is still a large data set that still needs to be analyzed, with luminosities going up to 10 inverse femtobarns.

“It’s a huge task, and it isn’t easy,” he said, adding that there is plenty of data to keep CDF scientists busy for years to come.

The collaboration's distant goals are to preserve the data and to transition the work of the CDF collaboration to a full-time analysis of the data.

CDF co-spokespersons are elected every two years. Rob Roser will focus on his role as head of the Scientific Computing Division, although, Vellidis said, Roser will support CDF in the process of data preservation.

Joseph Piergrossi

In Brief

Tevatron experiments publish evidence for Higgs boson

On Friday, July 27, the journal Physical Review Letters accepted for publication the CDF and DZero paper detailing Tevatron evidence for the Higgs boson.

The collaborations found evidence for a particle produced in association with weak bosons and decaying to a bottom-antibottom quark pair in Higgs boson searches at the Tevatron. The paper is currently available on the arXiv and on the Tevatron Higgs working group website.

Photo of the Day

Indian government minister visits Fermilab

Honorable Vayalar Ravi, Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, visited Fermilab on Friday. Here he talks with Fermilab Director Pier Oddone about the future of Fermilab. He is accompanied by, from left: N.J. Gangte, Acting Consul General, Indian Consulate, Chicago; Mr. Thampi, Secretary to the Minister; Aarthi Krishna, Advisor, India Development Foundation of Overseas Indians; and Prashant Raghuvamsam, journalist. Photo: Reidar Hahn
In the News

Physicists mine cosmic answers deep underground

From The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2012

At 7:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, about a dozen scientists pulled on steel-toed boots and filed into a steel cage that once ferried hundreds of gold miners to work.

Their destination: a new laboratory 11 minutes and a mile beneath the earth's surface that could deliver answers to some cosmic questions.

While scientists at CERN in Europe have been grabbing headlines recently by using an enormous accelerator in a hunt for the Higgs boson particle, the team here at the Sanford Underground Research Facility have lofty goals of their own but a very different approach.

They are betting on the power of the quiet, sheltered darkness of the former Homestake gold mine to, among other things, help find dark matter, the so-far invisible particles that are believed to make up as much as 25 percent of the universe's mass.

Read more
Director's Corner

Update on SRF and NML

Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone

The development of the superconducting 1.3-GHz radio-frequency test facility at NML, which would comprise three cryomodules and an electron beam to test them, suffered a setback earlier this year with the zeroing out of funds for the International Linear Collider. The U.S. ILC R&D program will end in June 2013 when the worldwide Global Design Effort completes their technical design report and thus its mission. As I explain in more detail below, while NML will continue to operate as a cryomodule test facility despite the zeroing out of ILC funds, it can also support a broader program in advanced accelerator R&D. The laboratory is committed to pursuing all avenues that will allow us to complete this program.

While the ILC was the principal motivation to create a test facility at NML it was quickly recognized that the facility could provide enduring value for a much broader scope of accelerator R&D that would benefit our laboratory, other national and international laboratories and broader society. NML will continue to operate as a test facility for Project X pulsed linac cryomodules and will increase our ability to be of service across the national laboratory system by developing superconducting linacs such as the one required by the proposed Next Generation Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

NML can also support a very strong program of advanced accelerator R&D for scientific research purposes and industrial and medical applications. Fermilab is actively pursuing avenues of support for this broader program. The test facility at NML will be an important element of Fermilab's ability to contribute to the use of accelerator technology in industrial applications once we open the Illinois Accelerator Research Center, which will be a portal into Fermilab facilities for our collaborators.

The superconducting radio-frequency technology and advanced accelerator R&D programs at Fermilab are, of course, much broader than the activities at NML. The development of SRF components for Project X in collaboration with Indian institutions remains a high priority. We want to be fully ready for Project X later in the decade, with all components prototyped before the start of construction. Furthermore, if a global facility such as the International Linear Collider develops to study the Higgs boson, we want to be ready to make important contributions. The efforts of Fermilab in the last few years have brought us to a leading position in the world of SRF. We are committed to continue the development of the technology both for particle physics research and in support of the broader DOE mission.

Construction Update

Putting together blocks for the NOvA far detector

Workers laid down the first layer of Block 0 for the NOvA far detector in Ash River, Minn. Photo: Ron Williams, University of Minnesota

On July 26, a construction crew working on the NOvA far detector in Ash River, Minn., began putting in place the detector's first block, called Block 0.

Blocks are made up of 32 layers of PVC tubes, each filled with oil. The tubes will detect the faint light that neutrinos create when smashing into atoms in the oil.

When completed, the detector will comprise 30 200-ton blocks.

Watch workers assemble the prototype blocks for the NOvA far detector.

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Summer interns group picture - Aug. 1

URA Visiting Scholars Program deadline - Aug. 27

Ecology Lunch Bus Tour - today

ANSYS courses offered in July and August

Martial Arts classes - begin Aug. 6

Muscle Toning classes - begin Aug. 7

Heartland Blood Drive - Aug. 13-14

Drawing to win palm tree - Aug. 15

University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program deadline - Aug. 17

Howard Levy & Chris Siebold - Aug. 18

Project Management Introduction class - Sept. 10-14

Fermilab Management Practices Seminar - begins Oct. 4

Interpersonal communication skills training - Nov. 14

Outdoor soccer - Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 p.m.

Bristol Renaissance Faire employee discount

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