Friday, Jan. 25, 2013
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Have a safe day!

Friday, Jan. 25

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

4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Phil Adamson, Fermilab
Title: Measuring the Neutrino Velocity with MINOS

Saturday, Jan. 26

7 p.m.
Fermilab Arts Series - Auditorium
Tomas Kubinek: Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible
Tickets: $22/$11

Monday, Jan. 28

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

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab

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Secon Level 3

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Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, Jan. 25

- Breakfast: strawberry-stuffed French toast
- Cream of butternut squash
- Blazin' buffalo wings
- Creamy tuna noodle casserole
- Smart cuisine: stir-fry beef and vegetables
- Honey mustard ham and Swiss panini
- Assorted pizza
- Chicken fajitas

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
Chez Leon

Friday, Jan. 25
Dinner
- Roasted-red pepper soup
- Halibut with champagne butter sauce
- Lemongrass rice
- Sautéed sugar snap peas
- Pineapple coconut cake

Wednesday, Jan. 30
Lunch
- Chicken satay with peanut sauce
- Pea pods
- Jasmine rice
- Coconut flan

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Wellness Feature of the Month

February wellness offerings, fitness classes and discounts

Wellness offerings include wellness and fitness classes, club information and employee discount information for February.

Wellness class:

Weekly Qi Gong, Mindfulness and Tai Chi Easy for Stress Reduction
Wednesdays, 7 to 8 a.m., and Fridays, noon to 12:45 p.m., Ramsey Auditorium.

Fitness class:

Kyuki-do
Mondays and Wednesdays, Jan. 7 to Feb. 13, 5 to 6 p.m., Fitness Center
$60/person

Employee club information:

Barnstormers Delta Dart Night
Wednesday, Feb. 13, 5:30 to 8 p.m., Kuhn Barn

Delta Darts are small rubber-band-powered airplanes that can be built in less than an hour and flown indoors. Anyone can build and fly one of these airplanes. All required materials will be provided. Competition flying starts at 7 p.m. If you plan to compete, please be at Kuhn Barn by 6 p.m. to start construction. Open to Fermilab Community and their families.

Employee discounts:
Vaughan Athletic Center
USA Athletic Club and Spa

For more information, contact Jeanne Ecker in the Wellness Office at x2548 or at jecker@fnal.gov.

In Brief

Financial and procurement systems down Feb. 6-11

Fermilab will soon upgrade to a major new release of the Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), release 12.1.3. This software supports much of our budget, purchasing and financial operations at Fermilab. Most of us at the laboratory do not interact directly with EBS, but we want to make sure you are aware of several important items related to the EBS upgrade transition:

  1. Tuesday, Feb. 5, at noon
    This is the last time purchase requisitions can be entered into the EBS system before the upgrade to a newer version. After that the system will be closed for procurement, and you will need to wait until the upgraded version is available. We recommend that you submit your reqs well before this time. Any req that need approvals at the associate director level or above needs to be in its queue by noon on Monday, Feb. 4, or there is a very large risk that the req will not be approved before the EBS system is taken down.
  2. Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 4 p.m.
    All of your reqs in EBS must be approved by this time. Your reqs must be approved through the entire approval chain. If they are not, then they will be rejected during the upgrade process. After 4 p.m. users will not have access to any EBS functions or data, including Web queries and reports. If there is an urgent need for this access, please contact your field financial manager.
  3. Monday, Feb. 11, at 8 a.m.
    The upgraded system will be available and new reqs can be entered.

A more detailed e-mail on this topic was sent to field financial managers and other EBS users.

If you have any questions or issues related to the EBS system, contact the Fermilab Service Desk on the Web or by calling x2345.

Photo of the Day

Shades of winter

Visitor Alan Amati captures Fermilab on a quiet, still evening last weekend.
In the News

Twitter reveals how Higgs gossip reached fever pitch

From New Scientist, Jan. 21, 2013

Anyone who fondly remembers the heady days in early July 2012 when the discovery of the Higgs boson was hotly anticipated, and eventually announced, can now relive the thrilling experience thanks to an analysis of Higgs-related traffic on Twitter.

Read more
In the News

Fermi telescope may change to dark matter hunting

From BBC News, Jan. 18, 2013

The Fermi space telescope, designed to catch gamma rays, has seen hints of evidence for dark matter in high-energy gamma rays seen at the galaxy's centre.

The Fermi team is now opening a call for ideas on changing how it observes.

That may focus efforts on those early hints, opening the possibility to solve one of physics' greatest mysteries.

Read more
Frontier Science Result: CMS

Experiments on quark matter

Far more Upsilon-2S and 3S particles disappear in the droplet of quark matter than Upsilon-1S, as can be seen in this plot from the CMS experiment.

Last week's Physics in a Nutshell described how lead nuclei melt when they collide in the LHC. The molten nuclei form a new kind of fluid, one made of the random motions of quarks and gluons rather than atoms or molecules. But this quark matter exists for only a few trillionths of a trillionth of a second—how can CMS scientists learn anything about it?

The droplet is far too small and short-lived to poke it with any instruments, so scientists must rely on probes that are created along with it. Fortunately, the high-energy collision of two nuclei creates a lot of particles that are understood from previous studies. Upsilon mesons, for instance, are particles made of two unusually heavy quarks, discovered at Fermilab 35 years ago. The swarm of quarks and gluons in the fluid hit the Upsilons, sometimes enough to break them apart and absorb their quarks into the mix. The exact rate of this "meson melting" yields key insights into the temperature and nature of the droplet.

Not all Upsilons are alike: Upsilon-1S mesons are the smallest and least massive, while Upsilon-2S and -3S are more massive and larger. The Upsilon-3S is the biggest target and is therefore the easiest to hit and break apart. In a recent experiment, CMS scientists clearly observed fewer surviving Upsilon-2S and -3S relative to Upsilon-1S, a phenomenon known as sequential melting.

The plot above shows what this looks like: The particles observed in the aftermath of the collision can be identified by their masses (the horizontal axis). Collisions without quark matter (orange peaks) make about half as many Upsilon-2S as Upsilon-1S, but collisions with quark matter (pink peaks) result in far fewer Upsilon-2S and almost no Upsilon-3S. Since the only difference between the control and the experiment is the presence of a quark-gluon fluid, the heavy Upsilons must have been gobbled up by the fluid.

This effect was first seen by CMS scientists in an early run, but subsequent data have made it much more clear. The data sets are now large enough to see how the effect depends on the exact way that lead nuclei collide and to see it with particles other than just Upsilons. This experiment is one example of how familiar particles can be used as tools to explore a new state of matter.

—Jim Pivarski

The U.S. physicists pictured above helped to measure the temperature of quark matter by studying sequential Upsilon melting.
After a successful term as co-head of the Fermilab LHC Physics Center, Ian Shipsey is stepping down. Meenakshi Narain is joining Rick Cavanaugh to helm the LPC. LPC heads serve for overlapping two-year terms.
Death

In memoriam: Nancy Theis

Fermilab retiree Nancy Theis passed away Jan. 18. A memorial service for Theis will be held on Saturday, Jan. 26, from 2 to 5 p.m. at Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home, 44 S. Mill Street, in Naperville.

Theis worked as an administrative assistant in the Technical Division. Read her obituary.

Announcements

Artist reception - today

Fermilab Arts Series - Tomas Kubinek - Jan. 26

Budgeting Basics for 2013 - Jan. 30, Feb. 2

Service Desk Web interface upgrade - Jan. 31

January 2013 float holiday for timecard use

UChicago panel discussion on Higgs discovery - Feb. 7

URA Visiting Scholars Program deadline - Feb. 25

2013 FRA scholarship applications accepted until April 1

Professional development courses

Abri Credit Union - member appreciation

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings in Kuhn Barn

International Folk Dancing Thursday evenings in Kuhn Barn

Indoor soccer

Employee discounts

Classifieds
Find new classified ads on Fermilab Today.