Have a safe day!

Thursday, March 7

2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Martin Bauer
Title: The Flavor Problem in Strongly Coupled Theories

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

THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Friday, March 8

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

4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Manuel Franco Sevilla, University of California, Santa Barbara
Title: Evidence for an Excess of B → D^* Tau Nu Decays and Implications for Two Higgs Doublet Models

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a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

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Secon Level 3

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Thursday, March 7

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Friday, March 8
Dinner
- Pasta carbonara
- Stuffed filet of sole with crab
- Sautéed spinach
- Pecan rum cake

Wednesday, March 13
Lunch
- Enchilada de mole with chicken
- Spanish rice
- Refried beans
- Lemon mousse

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Save the date: DASTOW 2013 set for Friday, June 21

Save the date: The annual Daughters and Sons to Work Day at Fermilab will take place on Friday, June 21. DASTOW '13 will offer many of the always-popular events included in previous years. Look for more information in the coming months in Fermilab Today.

Folk Dance group’s 25th anniversary has members on their feet

International Folk Dance group members perform a dance at Kuhn Barn Saturday night. Photo: Mady Newfield

It was a festive scene Saturday night at Kuhn Barn where folk-dance enthusiasts of all ages shuffled, twirled and stomped their feet to tunes such as the Salty Dog Rag, Irish Stew and Russian Round Dance.

It was the celebration of the Fermilab International Folk Dance group’s 25th anniversary. Around 60 lab employees and local residents came out to enjoy a night of dinner and dancing.

“I am very pleased with the turnout,” said founder Mady Newfield. “It’s been great to just get together, dance and enjoy each other’s company.”

Newfield, who has danced for much of her life, started the group in 1988 after her husband, Rob Plunkett, accepted a job at Fermilab. They found no nearby dance groups to join when they moved to the Batavia area.

Now the group has around 20 regular participants, and many have attended since its inception. But some events attract nearly 50 people, Newfield said.

The group’s repertoire is truly international, with dances from Europe, Asia and North and South America.

Folk dancing can be daunting at first, said long-time member Mark Fischler. But once you recognize similar steps in every dance, it gets easier.

“There is such a large number of dances that we do, but there are only around 100 different steps,” Fischler said. “It’s easy to pick up a dance once you understand how to put the different steps together.”

The chance to learn these dances attracts people of all ages, Newfield said.

“We have 18-year-old kids who started coming 10 years ago. With traditional art forms, if you don’t have the younger generation to do them, they don’t get passed down,” Newfield said.

The group meets every Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. in Kuhn Barn and is open to all ages and skill levels. Those looking for more information on the group can e-mail folkdance@fnal.gov or visit the Fermilab International Folk Dancing Web site.

—Sarah Khan

Winter wonderland

Snow covers the walkway between Wilson Hall and the Lederman Science Center. Photo: Elliott McCrory, AD

Is it THE Higgs boson? Can't say yet

From NBC News, March 6, 2013

The subatomic particle discovered last year at Europe's Large Hadron Collider is looking more and more like the fabled Higgs boson, the one fundamental piece that's been missing from the theory that governs particle physics. But at a widely anticipated conference in Italy, physicists said they can't yet confirm 100 percent that this is the particle they're looking for.

Ever since the "Higgs-like particle" was detected, researchers at the LHC have been trying to determine whether this is the one true Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model, or whether it's just one of several subatomic particles that play a role in imparting mass to other particles. There's even a chance that this particular particle something completely different, possibly linked to the way gravity works, said James Gillies, a spokesman for the CERN particle physics center on the French-Swiss border.

High-energy physics is still a worthwhile investment

From The Atlantic, March 5, 2013

What do shrink wrap on turkeys, fast-drying ink on cereal boxes, and the targeted radiation of tumors have in common? They come from technology first developed by physicists for a far less practical purpose. High-energy physicists use beams of accelerated particles to hunt for what might sound like science fiction -- Higgs bosons, extra dimensions, dark matter, and other exotic particles -- but these days, accelerated beams are strengthening shrink wrap too.

Rarest B_s decays: the final word from CDF

A comparison of current limits from ATLAS, DZero, CMS, CDF (this paper) and LHCb at 95 percent confidence limit. The SM prediction, at 68 percent confidence limit, is shown as a gray vertical band.

You may remember the excitement in July 2011 surrounding searches by CDF for extremely rare decays of B_s mesons. B_s mesons are composed of an anti-b quark and an s quark. Their decays into pairs of muons (B_s → μ⁺μ^-) are predicted in the Standard Model to be so infrequent that only a couple of them would be detected in the 500 trillion proton-antiproton collisions that occurred in Run II of the Tevatron.

This makes for an ideal testing ground for new physics theories like supersymmetry because new particles could allow this decay to happen more frequently. The CDF experiment pioneered searches for evidence of B_s → μ⁺μ^- decays back in Run I (data taken in 1992-93, results published in 1996). More recently, both CDF and DZero, as well as the LHC experiments, have been trying to shed light on these important decays. The results from 2011 revealed a slight excess in the data compared to the Standard Model, maybe the first hints of this elusive decay.

CDF physicists have now updated their results using the full CDF data set of 10 inverse femtobarns. The measured decay rate is slightly larger than, but not inconsistent with, the Standard Model prediction. It is also consistent with other results, for example, the most recent measurement by the LHCb experiment at CERN. These measurements indicate that there is no strong enhancement of this decay rate, which puts very tight constraints on many new physics theories.

The CDF result is the culmination of a program spanning nearly 20 years. The sensitivity for our search is better than the pioneering measurement by more than a factor of 800! This impressive achievement is the product of the ingenuity and perseverance of many people—not only at CDF, but also in the Accelerator Division and throughout the laboratory. Thank you, Fermilab!

Learn more

—edited by Andy Beretvas

These physicists were responsible for this analysis. Top row from left: Douglas Glenzinski (Fermilab), Matt Herndon (Wisconsin), Walter Hopkins (Cornell). Second row from left: Teruki Kamon (Texas A&M/Kyungpook National University, Korea), Dae Kong (Kyungpook National University, Korea), Slava Krutelyov (University of California, Santa Barbara). Bottom row from left: Chang-Ju Lin (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Julia Thom (Cornell), Satoru Uozumi (Kyungpook National University, Korea).

Muscle toning class - Begins today

Deadline for UChicago Tuition Remission Program - Today

Fermilab Natural Areas: Hawk Talk: Raptors at Fermilab - March 9

Fermilab Chamber Series: Arianna String Quartet - March 10

Barn dance - March 10

Extended network outage at Wilson Hall - March 10

FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) seminar - March 12

Fermilab Lecture Series: The Believers (documentary) - March 15

Fermilab Arts & Lecture Series: ScrapArtsMusic - March 23

DOEGrids certificates to be decommissioned - March 23

Nominations open for 2013 Tollestrup Award - through April 1

2013 FRA scholarship applications accepted until April 1

Writing for Results: E-mail and More - May 3

Interpersonal Communication Skills course offered in May

Fermilab Management Practices courses now available for registration

Scottish country dancing meets Tuesday evenings in Kuhn Barn

Indoor soccer

Employee discounts