Friday, Nov. 8, 2013
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Friday, Nov. 8

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

4 p.m.
Joint Experimental-Theoretical Physics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Tiziano Camporesi, CERN
Title: CMS: Where We Are and Where We Are Heading

Saturday, Nov. 9

8 p.m.
Fermilab Arts Series - Auditorium
Stars of Dance Chicago
Tickets: $28/$14

Monday, Nov. 11

2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar (NOTE TIME, LOCATION) - One East
Speaker: Martin White, University of California, Berkeley
Title: Cosmic Sound, Near and Far

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

4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Friday, Nov. 8

- Breakfast: cherry-stuffed French toast
- Breakfast: chorizo and egg burrito
- Breakfast burger
- Seafood linguine
- Barbecue pork spare ribs
- Turkey and cucumber salad wraps
- Chipotle rice bowl with chicken or beef
- Manhattan skyline clam chowder
- Texas-style chili

Wilson Hall Cafe menu
Chez Leon

Friday, Nov. 8
Dinner
Closed

Saturday, Nov. 9
Dinner
- French onion soup
- Filet with blue cheese sauce
- Roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary
- Sauteed green beans
- Chocolate pecan pie

Wednesday, Nov. 13
Lunch
- Herb roasted cornish hens
- Sage and onion stuffing cups
- Roasted broccoli
- Pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

CMS detector upgrades move ahead

Planned upgrades to parts of the CMS detector at CERN recently received Critical Decision 1 approval from the U.S. Department of Energy. This picture shows a mock-up installation of the upgrade forward pixel prototype modules in the current CMS detector, testing alignment fixtures and cable routing. Photo: Greg Derylo, PPD

The U.S. Department of Energy recently approved the conceptual design and cost range for the US CMS collaboration's proposed upgrades to the CMS detector, which will begin towards the end of 2014 and will continue to the end of 2017. This approval stage, called Critical Decision 1, is the second part of a five-step process DOE follows to manage and fund experiments.

The proposed upgrades will prepare the experiment for the next run of the Large Hadron Collider, during which proton-proton collisions will occur at almost twice their previous luminosity.

"The LHC is going to have a much higher collision rate once they finish the LHC upgrades," said Joel Butler, US CMS program manager. "We need to prepare the detector for this new luminosity, which is higher than the CMS detector was originally designed for."

The US CMS collaboration is planning upgrades for three parts of the CMS detector: the forward pixel detector, the hadron calorimeter and parts of the level-one trigger system. Although the engineering and design of these particular upgrades have been spearheaded by U.S. collaborations, the actual process of building and integrating the new technology into the detector will be an international effort, according to Butler.

Currently, US CMS collaborators are finishing research and development for the upgrades and building prototypes of the different parts they wish to integrate into the detector. The next big step for the project is reaching CD-2 and CD-3, which will allow them to start building large quantities of the new parts.

"We hope to reach CD-2 during the summer of 2014 and be in full production by next October," said Steve Nahn, recently appointed US CMS upgrade project manager.

Once the US CMS collaboration finishes planning and prototyping the different component parts, they will start the production phase. Butler expects they will complete the entire upgrade construction by the end of 2017.

Sarah Charley

Photo of the Day

Autumn waterfall

Julie Kurnat, Technical Division, drew this chalk drawing of an autumn scene. It is on display in the common area in Trailer 157, behind ICB. Drawing: Julie Kurnat, TD
From Computing Bits

Ghost hunting with the NOvA DAQ

Data concentrator modules (with their blue front panels), a component of the data acquisition system, are installed in the NOvA far detector in Minnesota. Photo: Reidar Hahn

The NOvA experiment uses Fermilab's NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam to study the mysterious neutrino. Known as "ghost particles" because they can pass through dense substances over long distances, neutrinos come in three flavors and can morph from one to another as they travel. NOvA will look at the change from muon to electron neutrinos to provide a more fundamental understanding of neutrinos' role in the universe.

Experiment terminology evokes images of scientists peering into tubes, watching tiny explosions as particles ricochet off each other and scatter debris into the detector. The reality is more complex, requiring specialized technology to "see" the events and make them available for analysis.

When a particle interacts in a detector, the resulting energy turns into a photon, perceived by sensitive electronics. This electronic signal is digitized and funneled to the data acquisition (DAQ) component.

"The DAQ's job is to collect all that information, package it in a useful format and store it," said Rick Kwarciany, an engineer in the Fermilab DAQ Timings and Control group, part of the NOvA DAQ team. "Then later, physicists can reconstruct what happened, looking for tracks and identifying particles." From the DAQ's data, they will simulate graphical displays to "see" the particles.

Read more

Clementine Jones

In the News

Synopsis: Planet search finds no dark matter black holes

From Physics, Oct. 31, 2013

Dark matter remains such a mystery that we're still unsure whether it's made of microscopic particles or macroscopic bodies. On the "macro" side, dark matter could consist of relatively small black holes that formed in the early Universe. We might detect one of these so-called primordial black holes as gravitational lenses of background stars. A new analysis of data from the Kepler mission's search for Earth-sized planets finds no black hole lensing events. From this nondetection, the researchers, reporting in Physical Review Letters, rule out part of the mass range previously thought still available for dark matter black hole candidates.

Read more

Frontier Science Result: CMS

Unexpected bumps

While the Standard Model is a fantastic description of the world in which we live, the universe still has a surprise or two for us. Physicists are still finding particles that have not yet been explained using our best theories.

You know your house pretty well. You've lived in it a long time — five, 10 years, maybe more — and it probably doesn't offer you many surprises anymore. But suppose one day while dusting your bedroom, you unexpectedly found a little door that led to another world, one with fairies, dragons and calorie-free, Häagen-Dazs-quality ice cream. Sounds unlikely, right?

Particle physics has some commonalities with that scenario. The Standard Model of particle physics has been around for a long time — at least 40 years — and we scientists always talk about how it explains all the phenomena we've discovered thus far and how it's nearly complete. But the Standard Model still has some tricks up its sleeve.

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the model of the strong nuclear force. It says that particles called quarks and gluons can be found bound together into particles called mesons and baryons. Over the last 40 years or so, we've looked for all the predicted combinations and found most of them.

However, in 2003, the Belle experiment at KEK laboratory in Japan found what appeared to be a new particle that couldn't be explained using traditional QCD knowledge. Over the years, other evidence has come in for even more particles that suggested that there were some undiscovered doors in the wall of the Standard Model. This didn't mean that QCD was wrong. It means that QCD is a mathematically difficult theory and scientists hadn't worked out all of the implications of the model yet.

In 2009, the CDF experiment reported evidence for another new particle they called Y(4140). Belle looked for confirming evidence, but didn't find anything. Then the LHCb experiment at CERN also looked and couldn't confirm it either. CMS had found evidence that suggested maybe CDF was right, but some of the people were on both the CMS and CDF groups, which could have meant that the two experiments were making a common mistake. CMS also saw a second structure, which could mean that maybe they were seeing not one particle but two. However, other interpretations of the second structure are possible. A little over a month ago, the DZero experiment claimed that they were seeing two particles, just as CMS was.

CMS has now submitted a paper for publication, making a firm claim of a new and unexpected particle that confirms the CDF publication. They further show strong evidence for a second structure that could be a new particle or could have a different interpretation (a "reflection" for those who follow this physics). The other experiments are taking another look at their data.

You might think this is a messy state of affairs, and it is — a gloriously, wonderful, exhilarating, messy state. This is science in action. Rarely is a discovery as simple as finding a quarter in the street. It's a lot of work, and if someone misses some evidence, that just means it's hard and the universe doesn't make it easy. It also means that there are still some mysteries hiding in the Standard Model. More data will permit the sophisticated analysis needed to pin down the interpretation of these two peaks and learn some of QCD's little secrets.

Don Lincoln

These US CMS scientists contributed to this analysis.
These physicists played important roles in the validation and characterization of the QIE10 integrated chip that will be used in the upgrade of the front-end electronics of the CMS hadron calorimeter.
Announcements

FCC access limited this week

SharePoint maintenance - Nov. 8-11

Stars of Dance Chicago - Fermilab Arts Series - Nov. 9

Barn Dance - Nov. 10

Kidney Pond pedestrian bridge under repair - Nov. 11

Veterans Day luncheon in Kuhn Barn - Nov. 11

Kyuki-Do martial arts begins Nov. 11

Yoga begins Nov. 12

CSADay 2013 training opportunities - Nov. 12

Butts & Guts begins Nov. 13

Physics Slam 2013 - Fermilab Arts & Lecture Series - Nov. 15

Artist reception for Fermilab Photography Club exhibit - Nov. 20

Labwide party - Dec. 6

Cisco AnyConnect client upgrade

Springer e-books available sitewide

Message regarding Windows 8.1

Scottish country dancing returns to Kuhn Barn Tuesday evenings

International folk dancing returns to Kuhn Barn Thursday evenings

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