Have a safe day!

Monday, Nov. 19

THERE WILL BE NO PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK

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

THERE WILL BE NO ALL EXPERIMENTERS' MEETING THIS WEEK

Tuesday, Nov. 20

10:30 a.m.
Research Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Erik Ramberg, Fermilab
Title: Fundamentals of Global Climate Change Science

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.

Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab

Take Five

Extended forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Secon Level 3

Flags at half-staff

Monday, Nov. 19

- Breakfast: pancake sandwich
- Italian minestrone
- Philly chicken sandwich
- Spaghetti and meatballs
- Smart cuisine: herbed pot roast with vegetables
- Garden beef wrap
- Assorted pizza
- Creole jambalaya

Wednesday, Nov. 21
Lunch
- Cheese fondue
- Mixed-green salad
- Cold lemon soufflé

Friday, Nov. 23
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Fermilab Today

Director's Corner

Result of the Week

CMS Result

Physics in a Nutshell

Tip of the Week

User University Profiles

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Physics never sleeps

Physicists from all over the world work the night shift to guide the Large Hadron Collider and its particle detectors from sunset to sunrise. Take a peek into two of the five CERN control rooms that are staffed 24 hours a day. Photo: CERN

ATLAS Control Room, Meyrin, Switzerland

11:30 p.m., Nov. 4

It is half an hour into the night shift at the control room for the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector, and there is nothing to do. The LHC is not running.

"We can't do anything. We just have to wait," says shift supervisor Adrian Vogel.

The LHC lost its beams of particles at 2 p.m. due to a technical problem. The wait could stretch much longer. With such a complex machine, people are constantly fixing parts and making modifications. While they do this, no data can be taken. The nine people on duty in the ATLAS Control Room sit silently.

Around 11:50 p.m., a message appears on one of the monitoring screens projected on the wall:

"Problem with BOOSTER injection
seems to be solved
we will inject soon
Next: Fill for PHYSICS"

The LHC is about to come to life again.

1:30 a.m., Nov. 5

A synthetic whooshing noise fills the room. It ends with a dramatic—but fortunately equally artificial—explosion. Vogel explains there are a few different sounds to indicate the status of the LHC. The whoosh means the beams are stable and the experiments can soon begin taking data. When they lose the beams, they hear a toilet flushing.

In about an hour and a half, the LHC went from empty to colliding particles traveling at 99.999997 percent the speed of light. The process used to take much longer, but, after three years of operation, starting the world's largest particle collider is usually routine. Tonight is the LHC's 3265th running period.

The ATLAS Control Room becomes a bit livelier as people adjust the ATLAS detector to begin accepting and recording particle collisions. While the CERN Control Center focuses on maintaining beams in the Large Hadron Collider and its associated accelerators, the ATLAS Control Room monitors what happens once the particles reach their enormous detector. One of the main jobs is to adjust the trigger, which selects which collisions are recorded. With so many collisions happening at once, only a fraction can be kept for later analysis.

Everything goes smoothly and ATLAS begins taking data.

Read more

—Signe Brewster

Just hopped out of the bath

A mink cools off in the Tevatron cooling pond. Photo: Marty Murphy, AD

Quantum dots entangled with single photons

From Physics World, Nov. 14, 2012

Two independent teams of physicists are the first to have entangled a single photon with a single electron spin held in a quantum dot. Thanks to the ease with which quantum dots can be fabricated and controlled, the breakthrough could lead to practical quantum computers and quantum communication systems.

Entanglement is a quantum effect that allows particles such as photons and electrons to have a closer relationship than predicted by classical physics. For instance, a photon-electron pair can be created experimentally such that if the photon polarization is measured to be in the vertical direction, a measurement of the electron spin would find its spin pointing in the same direction. This occurs in spite of the fact that a measurement on the photon (or electron) alone will reveal a random value.

Winter weather: road closures and parking restrictions

These lime-green cones will mark the special no-parking areas during the winter.

Green cones will soon begin popping up in the parking lots—a sure sign that Fermilab is preparing for winter. It's time to take more care walking in parking lots and in choosing where to park. Just like last year, there will be some road closures.

Employees have suggested that we wait until the first significant snowfall to close roads. Based on their suggestions, we will close some roads starting with the first significant snowfall and then for the remainder of winter. These roads will reopen some time in late March, depending on weather forecasts. With the road closures, crews can maintain the same level of service in critical areas and extend the life of older roads.

North Eola Road from Batavia Road to Road C East and Wilson Road from McChesney to Road B will be closed. In addition, Main Ring Road will be closed to all traffic except emergency and service vehicles. Limited snow removal service in the Main Ring will provide access for only these vehicles. Service levels and access will not change in the F4/AZero and CZero areas.

Parking during the winter can also be more complicated. Every winter, FESS Roads and Grounds crews clear more than 85 parking lots across the Fermilab site.

In an effort to streamline parking lot plowing operations without jeopardizing safety, FESS Roads and Grounds, in cooperation with building managers, mark unneeded areas of about 25 parking lots that will not receive snow removal service. These areas are highlighted with lime-green safety cones.

The cones will designate the areas as no-parking zones throughout the winter season. They will remain in place until the second half of March. Fermilab security personnel will monitor the no-parking areas. Establishing these no-service areas will allow for better and more frequent snow removal efforts in high-priority snow removal locations while reducing overall cost. In addition, the use of less salt and less fuel will have a positive environmental effect.

It is important to focus our efforts in keeping the roads and walkways as clear as possible, as injuries resulting from falls while walking on snowy and icy surfaces continue to be one of our main winter concerns at Fermilab. With more than 400 building entrances on site, it is challenging for snow crews to keep every entrance snow- and ice-free all winter. Employees and users are encouraged to walk more slowly, to take smaller steps and to look closely for snow and ice. Uneven surfaces can complicate matters. Chunks of ice and snow or even coarse rock salt can cause normally smooth surfaces to become uneven. Expect the unexpected, wear footwear that provides traction on snow and ice, slow down and don't let yourself become distracted while walking in winter conditions.

If you have questions about parking during the winter season, please contact the building manager for your work area.

—Mike Becker, FESS

Free stability ball class - today

Deadline for UChicago Tuition Remission Program - Nov. 26

Environment, Safety & Health Fair - Nov. 29

C2ST screening of "A Beautiful Mind" - Dec. 6

Ruby course offered - Jan. 22-24

Windows 8 at Fermilab

Indoor soccer

Additional professional development courses

Fermilab employee discounts

Atrium work updates