2010 shutdown begins next week; power outage Tuesday

An alignment crew calibrated a newly replaced Tevatron magnet during the 2009 shutdown. This year's shutdown begins Monday.

Although many pieces of the Accelerator Complex and associated experiments shut down last week or over the weekend, the shutdown officially begins Monday.

The shutdown will last four weeks and will allow time for repairs, replacements and upgrades to the accelerator and detector components in order to keep the complex performing well. Projects will include a target replacement for NuMI, fixing leaks in Tevatron houses and connecting NOvA kicker magnets to the Main Injector.

This year's shutdown, which primarily takes place for maintenance reasons, is shorter than in previous years. That means less downtime for the Tevatron and AD hopes, less time for the accelerator to ramp back up. However, the shorter time allowance also challenges employees since it means less time to fit in work and address any problems that crop up, explained Bob Mau, head of Operations.

Power outages are necessary during the shutdown. An outage to the master substation will take place from 7-7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 20. The nearly site-wide outage will affect all buildings except for the Village buildings and the Main Injector. Please power down all personal electronics and computers before leaving work on Monday.

More information about the shutdown and future power outages will be available in Fermilab Today.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Today's Wine & Cheese lecture moved to Auditorium

Today's joint experimental-theoretical seminar, often called the Wine & Cheese lecture, will take place in the Auditorium. The lecture, which begins at 4 p.m., will include results presentations by both CDF and DZero scientists. The collaborations will present the same results at the International Conference on High Energy Physics.

The muon guys: On the hunt for new physics

From left: Jim Miller, Ron Ray, and Robert Bernstein think the Mu2e experiment may answer one of the fundamental riddles of particle physics.

Editor's note: This article is featured in the newest issue of symmetry magazine, now online.

Amid the sprawl of mysterious equipment in a workroom at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Gueorgui Velev and Alexander Makarov leaned over an elegant metal box the size of a single file cabinet. Suffused by a warm halo of late-afternoon sunlight, the two men, a physicist and an engineer, had the look of modern-day priests of industry gently handling a beloved reliquary.

Velev lifted the box top, revealing a thin slice of dark-gray ferrite-a ceramic compound used in powerful magnets. Although the ferrite was wired up like an intensive-care patient, for the moment it felt cool and deliciously smooth to the touch.

Velev and Makarov have been testing ferrites like this one for almost a year now, sending powerful currents through the compound, pushing the material to its limits. Far from being a relic of something dead, the ferrite is a symbol of resurrection for an experiment that could star in its own soap opera. Attempts to carry out this experiment have died two deaths on two continents over the course of two decades.

Velev and Makarov, along with a host of collaborators, are once again bringing it to life.

The experiment's newest name, in its incarnation at Fermilab, is Mu2e (pronounced Mew to E), which stands for muon-to-electron conversion; and it is a testament to the strength of the science behind this experiment that physicists are still fighting to do it. Scientists plan to break ground at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, in 2013 and begin taking data four years later.

The experiment will search for a phenomenon so incredibly rare that, according to the Standard Model of physics, humans could never build a machine sensitive enough to actually see it. Which is exactly why scientists want to build this experiment. Mu2e is on the hunt for new physics.

-- Andrea Mustain

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