Extreme Beam lectures open door to Intensity Frontier

The first lecture in the Extreme Beam lecture series will take place Thursday at Fermilab.

You've read about the Intensity Frontier in the P5 report, or maybe you've seen it mentioned in Fermilab Today.

Now, the Extreme Beam lecture series will explain what the Intensity Frontier is all about.

The lecture series, which will feature talks at Fermilab throughout 2009, will give in-depth information about the science and accelerator and detector technologies that will create a world-leading physics program at the Intensity Frontier.

The first lecture of the series takes place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 26, in One West. Junji Hisano, from the University of Tokyo's Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, will give a talk titled "Charged Lepton Flavor Violation."

"The Intensity Frontier presents many opportunities for future projects at Fermilab. This is an exciting time," said Fermilab Deputy Director Young-Kee Kim.

The Intensity Frontier offers a unique path to research areas unattainable by the LHC and a next-generation linear collider. Fermilab will play a leading role in creating advanced accelerator and detector technologies and putting them to work for intensity-frontier experiments, such as Project X, a high-intensity proton source at Fermilab that will connect to the proposed Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory in South Dakota, and other precision and flavor physics experiments.

Lectures will address topics including innovative accelerator and detector technologies and research into neutrino, muon and hadron physics. A reception will follow each lecture.

For more information on the Extreme Beam lecture series, visit the Web site: http://www.fnal.gov/ExtremeBeam/

The Extreme Beam lecture series will take place throughout 2009.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

"The Dark Side of the Universe" lecture tonight

The Chicago Council on Science and Technology presents a public lecture by astronomer Rocky Kolb, particle physicist Joe Lykken and cosmologist Michael Turner, who will discuss what we know about the nature of dark matter, dark energy and the role of particle accelerators and telescopes in solving the mystery of the unseen 96 percent of the universe The talk takes place tonight, at the Blackstone Hotel, Crystal Ballroom, 636 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Reception: 5:30 p.m. Presentation: 6:00 p.m. More information.

In Memoriam: Frank C. Shoemaker

Pioneer researcher at Fermilab dies

Frank C. Shoemaker

Frank C. Shoemaker, 86, of Hightstown, NJ, passed away on Feb. 11. He was a leader in the particle physics community and integral in the launching of Fermilab's initial collider experiments and bison herd as well as the subsequent operation of neutrino programs.

Shoemaker was professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University, where he worked 40 years and helped start the experimental particle physics group, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of Sigma Xi and of Phi Beta Kappa.

In 1968, he took a year-long leave of absence from Princeton to become the first head of the Main-Ring group at the National Accelerator Laboratory, which was to become Fermilab. He led the design and construction of that facility's 1-km radius main accelerator ring. He also suggested the introduction of the herd of bison.

Returning to Princeton in 1969, Shoemaker played critical roles in Princeton experiments conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and at Fermilab that provided confirmation of the new quantum chromodynamics theory of strong interactions and the unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions. He served as principal investigator from 1972-85. Following his retirement from teaching in 1989, he played a major role in the Booster neutrino experiment, MiniBooNE, at Fermilab, and was listed as a co-author on a paper published in 2008.

He is survived by loving daughters, Barbara Shoemaker and Mary Mittnacht, both of Santa Fe, NM, and a brother, Sydney Shoemaker, of Ithaca, NY. After nearly 57 years of marriage, his wife, Ruth Elizabeth Shoemaker, died in 2001.

The family does not plan a memorial service, but has designated two organizations to receive memorial gifts: SAVE, an animal rescue organization (900 Herrontown Rd., Princeton, NJ 08520), and the Princeton High School Performing Arts Center and High School Music Programs (Princeton Education Foundation, PO Box 176, Princeton, NJ 08542 - please specify the Music Programs and Arts Center as the purpose of any gifts).