Fermilab Today

	Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010

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Calendar

Have a safe day!

Wednesday, Dec. 8
1:30 p.m.
Special Seminar - One West
Speaker: Amanda Petersen, Fermilab
Title: Visa Extensions - An Overview
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois
Title: Revisiting the Double Helix

Thursday, Dec. 9
2 p.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - FCC1
Speaker: Steve Timm, Fermilab
Title: The FermiCloud Project: Pilot Service Deployment and Future Plans
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Leandro Almeida, CEA-Saclay
Title: Jet Hunting with Templates
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR THIS WEEK

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Upcoming conferences

Campaigns

Take Five

Weather

Partly Sunny
20°/11°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, Dec. 8

- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- *Beef barley soup
- Gyros
- *Caribbean grilled salmon
- Stuffed peppers
- Beef and cheddar panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Grilled chicken bowtie w/ tomato cream

*carb restricted alternative

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Dec. 8
Lunch
- Swordfish w/ lemon butter sauce
- Spinach risotto
- Lemon Napoleon

Thursday, Dec. 9
Dinner

- Spinach & strawberry salad
- Lobster tail w/drawn butter
- Spaghetti squash w/green onions
- Sautéed pea pods
- White chocolate-raspberry crème brulée

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Retirements

Below is a listing of upcoming retirements. Please note the individual's last day at the lab and any associated retirement event. Fermilab Today will post the dates of additional retirement events as we become aware of them.

Larry Allen, AD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13.

Bill Bardeen, PPD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Kevin Cahill, AD, last day: Thursday, Dec. 9.

James Crisp, AD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10. Retirement event: Thursday, Dec. 9, 11:45 a.m., Riverview Banquets, 1117 N. Washington Ave., Batavia. Contact Lisa, x3674.

Ed Crumpley, FESS, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Robert Flora, AD, last day, Friday, Dec. 10. Retirement event: Thursday, Dec. 9, 11:45 a.m., Riverview Banquets, 1117 N. Washington Ave., Batavia. Contact Lisa, x3674.

Jeanmarie Guyer, PPD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13. Retirement event: Friday, Dec. 10, 5 p.m. at the User's Center. Contact: sweber@fnal.gov.

James Jablonski, TD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13. Retirement event: Friday, Dec. 10, at 1:30 p.m. in T157 (directly behind ICB).

Alan Jonckheere, PPD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Junior Jones, TD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13.

Anthony Kanyok, FESS, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Brian Kramper, AD, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Kathi Luedemann, WDRS, last day: Friday, Dec. 10. Retirement event: Friday, Dec. 10 from 2:30-3:30 p.m., WH 15 south crossover.

Bob Mau, AD, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Peter Mazur, TD, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Joel Misek, AD, last day: Thursday, Dec. 9.

Merle Olson, FESS, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Phillip Pfund, TD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Stanley Pruss, AD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

James Schwartz, AD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13.

Earl Shaffer, TD, last day: Monday, Dec. 13.

Vladimir Sirotenko, PPD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Jeannelle Smith, WDRS. Retirement event: Friday, Dec. 10 from 2:30-3:30 p.m., WH 15 south crossover.

Raymond Stefanski, PPD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Alan Wehmann, AD, last day: Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Roy Wickenberg, AD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Jacqueline Wilson, PPD, Tuesday, Dec. 14. Retirement event: Monday, Dec. 13 at 11:30 a.m., Portillo's 531 N. Randall Road, Batavia. RSVP and contact: Jamie Grado, x6618.

Paul Wise, ES&H, last day: Monday, Dec. 13.

John Yoh, PPD, last day: Friday, Dec. 10.

Feature

CMS observes new clues about early universe

This heavy-ion collision inside the CMS detector illustrates the jet-quenching phenomenon, an imbalance in energy between two jets that provides insight into the conditions of the universe at its birth.

This week the first heavy-ion run at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider concluded, giving the CMS experiment the perfect holiday gift: new clues about the conditions of matter in the very first moments of the universe.

The CMS collaboration, together with the ALICE and ATLAS experiments, presented their first heavy-ion results from this run in a seminar held at CERN last week on Dec. 2. CMS will publish a paper with its findings later this month.

When studying the early conditions of the universe, physicists rely on the basic building blocks of matter: quarks and gluons. The detector measures a jet of particles originating from these building blocks. In proton-proton collisions at the LHC jets come in pairs with approximately equal energy. In some fraction of heavy-ion collisions, however, the two jets are imbalanced, meaning one has more energy than the other. This energy difference occurs when one of the jets loses a significant amount of energy in the hot dense material created during the heavy-ion collisions of two beams of lead nuclei.

The process that causes this imbalance is called jet quenching. CMS directly observed this phenomenon for the first time during this heavy-ion physics run.

“We could see the imbalance very clearly when the run first began in early November,” said MIT physicist Bolek Wyslouch, who presented the CMS results at last week’s seminar.

CMS physicists expected to find jet quenching in the heavy-ion collisions, based on earlier observations from Brookhaven’s RHIC collider. CMS and ATLAS, working directly with jets and not single particles, observed this phenomenon for the first time. CMS scientists attribute their observation in part to the LHC's unprecedented energy and the CMS experiment's advanced measuring capability, which allowed them to build on the data from RHIC.

Wyslouch credits mainly the CMS calorimeters for allowing them to make the direct observation. In CMS, the calorimeters completely cover the volume surrounding the collision. Past heavy-ion experiments only partially covered the collision.

“The CMS calorimeters allowed us to capture all of the energy from the jets,” Wyslouch said. “We benefited greatly from the experience of high-energy physicists studying jets in proton-proton collisions on CMS.”

The CMS heavy-ion group has roughly 100 scientists from institutions around the world. The next heavy-ion run is scheduled for November 2011.

CMS statement about jet quenching

CERN press release

CMS has about 100 scientists in its heavy-ion group. Roughly half of them are at CERN now analyzing the new data.

- Elizabeth Clements

Director's Corner

Navigation

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone

Somebody could get rich translating our adventures at Fermilab into a fast-paced video game called LAB. We have all the elements: a cast of creative and colorful personalities, the possibility of great discoveries, a semi-infinite set of rules to live by, multiple institutions ranging from our national and international partners to the DOE, Office of Management and Budget and Congress all trying to help us. We have a set of diverse activities in our site comparable to those of a small city. And besides all these, we have a great sense of suspense that comes both from the surprises that science serves us and from the dragons that jump out at us from the most unexpected places. Getting to the brass ring before "game over" is quite a challenge. While this might make for an exciting video game, though, it probably does not make for optimal management of a scientific enterprise.

Last week one of those dragons jumped into our path. On Dec. 2 the National Science Board's Committee on Program and Plans voted not to recommend the proposed DUSEL bridge funding award. The award funds the DUSEL team that is creating the Preliminary Design Report and working in South Dakota maintaining safe access and carrying on operations in the existing facility. The bridge funding is necessary to keep the UC Berkeley and South Dakota teams at work until a formal decision on DUSEL by the National Science Board takes place. The present action by the CPP is very narrow and makes no statement about the merits of the science to be carried out at DUSEL. Nevertheless, it could have a devastating effect on the project if the issue of bridge funding is not resolved in a relatively short time.

In a message to the DUSEL team, Graham Fleming, the Vice Chancellor for Research at the UC Berkeley campus stated: “At this point, all of the major top‐level stakeholders are actively and personally engaged in finding ways to maintain the momentum that has been established.” Certainly on my trip earlier this week to D.C. to present Fermilab’s long-range plans to DOE I witnessed the strong efforts that some of these stakeholders are making to address the issue and participated in discussions to devise possible solutions. We hope their efforts will quickly resolve the huge uncertainty now plaguing our colleagues and partners in South Dakota and Berkeley—and our own scientific game plan.

Milestone

Death

Fermilab scientist Muzaffer Atac, ID 269 died Dec. 7. A memorial service will take place at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, in the sanctuary of The Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, 110 S. 2nd St., Geneva, IL. A reception will follow. Fermilab Today will include additional information on Atac's life and work in a future issue.

Special Announcement

Full-day NEPA training course offered to employees Dec. 9

Fermilab offers all employees who wish to learn more about the National Environmental Policy Act and its implementation a comprehensive, full-day training course from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 9, in One West. The course will provide critical, high-level information that is necessary to implement the NEPA process correctly, effectively and efficiently. No pre-registration is required. More information and an hour-by-hour schedule of the training session is available in the ES&H database.

Special Announcement

Education Office to hold annual holiday sale Dec. 8-9

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone wears one of the Fermilab silk ties available at the Education Office.

Prepare for the winter holidays with Fermilab gear. From 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 8 and 9, stock up on winter clothing, science toys and more at the Education Office's Super Science Stocking Stuffer Sale. The Education Office is holding the sale next to One West. All major credit cards are accepted.

Safety Update