Monday, July 14, 2014
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Have a safe day!

Monday, July 14

8:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m.
ICFA Workshop on High Order Modes in Superconducting Cavities - One West
Register in person
Registration fee: $169

PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS WILL RESUME IN THE FALL

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

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

Tuesday, July 15

8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.
ICFA Workshop on High Order Modes in Superconducting Cavities - One West
Register in person
Registration fee: $169

Noon
Undergraduate Lecture Series - Curia II
Speaker: Don Lincoln, Fermilab
Title: The Higgs Boson and the LHC

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

THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR TECHNOLOGY AND PHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK

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Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, July 14

- Breakfast: blueberry crepes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Philly-style cheesesteak with peppers
- Smart cuisine: chicken creole
- Blackened salmon
- Spicy Asian chicken wrap
- Stir fry sensations
- Corn chowder
- Texas-style chili
- Assorted pizza by the slice

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, July 16
Lunch
- Chipotle chicken taco salad
- Banana dulce de leche pie

Friday, July 18
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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From symmetry

U.S. reveals its next generation of dark matter experiments

Together, three experiments will search for a variety of types of dark matter particles. Photo: NASA

Two U.S. federal funding agencies announced [Friday] which experiments they will support in the next generation of the search for dark matter.

The Department of Energy and National Science Foundation will back the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search-SNOLAB, or SuperCDMS; the LUX-Zeplin experiment, or LZ; and the next iteration of the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment, ADMX-Gen2.

"We wanted to pool limited resources to put together the most optimal unified national dark matter program we could create," says Michael Salamon, who manages DOE's dark matter program.

Second-generation dark matter experiments are defined as experiments that will be at least 10 times as sensitive as the current crop of dark matter detectors.

Program directors from the two federal funding agencies decided which experiments to pursue based on the advice of a panel of outside experts. Both agencies have committed to working to develop the new projects as expeditiously as possible, says Jim Whitmore, program director for particle astrophysics in the division of physics at NSF.

Physicists have seen plenty of evidence of the existence of dark matter through its strong gravitational influence, but they do not know what it looks like as individual particles. That's why the funding agencies put together a varied particle-hunting team.

Both LZ and SuperCDMS will look for a type of dark matter particles called WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. ADMX-Gen2 will search for a different kind of dark matter particles called axions.

Read more

Kathryn Jepsen

In Brief

Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program - apply by Sept. 24

The DOE Office of Science is now accepting applications for its Graduate Student Research Program, or SCGSR.

The SCGSR program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to pursue part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE laboratory in several areas, including theoretical and computational research in high-energy physics and advanced technology research and development in high-energy physics.

Awardees conduct part of their thesis research in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist. The award period for the proposed research project may range from three months to one year.

Applications to the SCGSR program are due by Wednesday, Sept. 24. For more information, visit the SCGSR website.

In the News

Global cooperation is key to U.S. high-energy physics strategy

From Physics Today, July 2014

The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) unanimously endorsed the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report when it was released on 22 May. Now the U.S. particle-physics community hopes that NSF and the Department of Energy, the funding agencies that requested the 10-year prioritization strategy, can use the report to help stanch the decline in funding the field has suffered in recent years.

Read more

In the News

The quiet search for dark matter deep underground

From ars technica, July 8, 2014

One of the quietest, darkest places in the cosmos isn't out in the depths of space. It's at the center of a tank of cold liquid xenon in a gold mine deep under the Black Hills of South Dakota. It needs to be that quiet: any stray particles could confuse the detectors lining the outside of the tank. Those detectors are looking for faint, rare signals, ones that could reveal the presence of dark matter.

The whole assembly — the container of liquid and gaseous xenon, the water tank enveloping that, and all the detectors — is called the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment. So far, LUX hasn't found anything, but the days of its operation are just beginning: the detector was installed and started operations just last year.

Read more

Tip of the Week: Cybersecurity

Security in the cloud

Cloud services have many attractions, but we cannot forget to pay attention to security. Photo: Hindrik

Many IT services that formerly ran on site are now moving to the cloud, a remote collection of computing resources that run the same services for large numbers of customers.

Cloud services offer a number of advantages over on-site applications. First, there are significant economies of scale in providing services to so many customers. We also realize FTE savings since employees do not need to become experts in running and supporting these services. Finally, we are able to take advantage of using the latest hardware and software without having to spend time on upgrades.

However, running services in the cloud can present security challenges. How do we protect our sensitive information from unauthorized access? How do we ensure that the cloud provider keeps their services patched and protected against common security vulnerabilities? How can we ensure that we will always have access to these services and to our data?

The short answer is that cloud service providers could not stay in business unless they could assure their customers that they are operating securely and robustly. As we do for our own services, they obtain certifications from third-party auditors for their systems' security and can provide formal detailed security plans for their customers. They also have backup systems to guarantee data is always available. And unlike Fermilab, whose default paradigm is the wide sharing of scientific information, their fundamental strategy is keeping information secret and protected.

Before using a cloud provider, Fermilab conducts an assessment to evaluate potential security risks and ensure that the cloud will be at least as secure as if the service operated on site. We sign agreements with the vendor with guarantees of uptime and ensure that necessary security controls are documented in purchase orders.

Our newest cloud-based service is FermiWorks. While it may initially seem scary for information about all employees to be trusted to the cloud, we are confident that our information is at least as well protected as it has been on our own systems (and considerably better protected than in many government and retail data repositories). We are assured that the FermiWorks vendor, Workday, will protect our information so we can enjoy the many benefits this modern electronic service will bring to us.

Our enterprise strategy is to continue to take advantage of cloud services when appropriate. Individual users should not casually move services to the cloud without early involvement of teams from both the Core Computing Division and the cybersecurity team.

Irwin Gaines

Photo of the Day

Spike!

Fermilab staff serve, pass and block during an energetic pickup volleyball game at the Village sand courts. Pickup volleyball games take place on Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. throughout the summer. All are welcome to join the fun. Bring comfortable clothes and shoes. Photo: Joseph Brown, AD
Announcements

Today's New Announcements

Deadline is today for fall 2014 & spring 2015 onsite housing requests

AZero construction update

Fermilab prairie plant survey - July 23, Aug. 9

Scottish country dancing Tuesday evenings in Ramsey Auditorium

International folk dancing Thursday evenings in Ramsey Auditorium

Outdoor soccer

Fermi Days at Six Flags Great America

Employee Appreciation Day at Hollywood Palms Cinema