Fermilab Today

	Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Subscribe \| Contact Us \| Archive \| Classifieds \| Guidelines \| Help	Search

Calendar

Have a safe day!

Tuesday, March 15
2 p.m.
LHC Physics Center Topic of the Week Seminar - WH11SE, Sunrise
Speaker: David Shih, Rutgers University
Title: Collider Signatures of (General) Gauge Mediation (I)
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Wednesday, March 16
2 p.m.
LHC Physics Center Topic of the Week Seminar - Sunrise (WH11SE)
Speaker: David Shih, Rutgers University
Title: Collider Signatures of (General) Gauge Mediation (I)
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker Adam Burrows, Princeton University
Title: A Key Role for Dimension in the Neutrino Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernova Explosions

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

Upcoming conferences

Campaigns

Take Five

Weather

Mostly cloudy
49°/29°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, March 15

- Bagel sandwich
- Tomato bisque soup
- Lemon pepper club
- Beef fajitas
- Korean garlic chicken
- Grilled chicken caesar salad wrap
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Rio Grande taco salad

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, March 16
Lunch
- Bourbon glazed salmon
- Brown rice medley
- Steamed broccoli
- Cold lemon soufflé/butter cookies

Friday, March 18
Dinner
- Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

Helping Japan

As the extent of the devastation in northern Japan has become clear, our thoughts remain with our Japanese colleagues and friends. Because of Fermilab's close connection to Japan, extending over more than 30 years of scientific collaboration, Fermilab employees may wish to donate to charities helping with the recovery efforts.

Two well-known, not-for-profit charities collecting donations are:

The American Red Cross, which is working with the Japanese Red Cross and accepting donations through its website earmarked to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami. People can also text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
The Salvation Army, which has been in Japan since 1895.

If you do decide to donate, be sure to check that the charity is legitimate. Scammers have historically used tragic events to entice people to open e-mail attachments or respond to solicitations for donations. Computer security experts are expecting a windfall of SPAM messages to arrive in users’ mailboxes, Twitter feeds and Facebook news feeds. These e-mails, tweets and posts will attempt to grab your attention with various subjects such as those indicating that unbelievable pictures or videos are available. They may also provide information on how you can donate money to the survivor and rebuilding causes.

You can prevent this by exercising caution before opening or responding to these messages, even if you recognize the sender and regardless of how enticing the subject seems. Read news updates from only reputable sites. A helpful resource to find out if your potential charity is legitimate can be found here.

Feature

First accelerator and NuMI upgrade magnet installed

Bradly Verdant, Jack Moore, Bill Markel and Jeff Duncan, the crew who installed the first magnet. Not pictured are Kyle Kendziora and Jerry Nelson. Photo: Marty Murphy

Although this month’s shutdown of the Accelerator Complex lasted only five days, it was enough time for Fermilab to get one step closer to turning on the NOvA experiment.

On Wednesday, March 9, Accelerator and NuMI Upgrade Coordinator Cons Gattuso led the safe and successful installation of the first dipole magnet in the 8 GeV tunnel for the new Booster to Recycler injection line, a necessary step to upgrade existing facilities for the NOvA running era.

Fermilab’s Accelerator Complex consists of a series of beamlines and accelerators that are used to deliver proton and antiprotons to various experiments. When the Tevatron shuts down and the collider program ends this year, the Recycler Ring, which is currently used to store antiprotons, will be recommissioned to serve as the pre-injector for the Main Injector Ring. This modification will allow roughly a factor of two increase in beam power while increasing the beam intensity in the Recycler and Main Injector. This change will bring bring the total beam power delivered to NOvA to 700 kilowatts. Currently, the Fermilab Accelerator Complex is capable of delivering 400 kilowatts of power to the NuMI beam.

NOvA will search for evidence of neutrinos changing from one type to another by comparing the composition of the NuMI beam as it leaves Fermilab and then again once it arrives in an underground laboratory in Minnesota.

The newly installed magnet is the fourth in a new string of magnets. This string will eventually make up an new injection line that will connect the existing 8 GeV beamline to the Recycler Ring.

The early installation of the magnet gave the group a chance to test their installation procedures and the stands that hold the magnets, which are different from any stand designs used before at Fermilab. The crew will meet next week to discuss what worked and what didn’t.

“We’ve tested this on the surface, but this short shutdown gave us a chance to test and measure everything in true tunnel conditions,” Gattuso said. “Doing the installation now allows us to make modifications to whatever didn’t work so that we can work on that ahead of time.”

NOvA is still in the fabrication and design stages. The bulk of the upgrades and installations necessary for the experiment to begin operating will take place during an expected year-long shutdown in 2012.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

In the News

CERN particle collisions resume

From Reuters, March 14, 2011

CERN scientists said Monday they staged their first speed-of-light particle collisions of the year at the weekend, resuming their probes into the origins of the cosmos in the centre's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

"It started up well, with stable beams. We are even a little ahead of schedule after the winter break," spokesman James Gillies told Reuters.

Oliver Buchmueller, a leading physicist on the $10 billion project, said top priority in 2011 and 2012 would be finding evidence of super-symmetry, extra dimensions, dark matter, black hole production and the elusive Higgs boson.

These concepts and ideas are at the new frontiers of science research as it pushes into the realms of what was once science fiction, giving a new impulse to cosmology and theorizing on whether the known universe is alone, or one of many.

Director's Corner

Solidarity

Pier Oddone

It is impossible to write a column this week on anything other than the grave tragedy that has occurred in Japan. Our hearts and prayers go to all our friends and colleagues in Japan in these difficult hours. Our high-energy physics community is tightly knit. Over the years we’ve made many friends in the Japanese physics community as we have worked together on very challenging projects. Last year we celebrated a remarkable 30 years of collaboration across a broad front of activities under the US-Japan Agreement on High Energy Physics.

What started decades ago with the participation of Japanese institutions in experiments at US accelerators has evolved into a much richer collaboration program using facilities in the US, Japan and the Large Hadron Collider. Japan has two major accelerator facilities for high-energy physics that have attracted many US and international institutions. The B factory in KEK has been enormously successful and is now being upgraded into a super-B factory with much increased luminosity. The J-PARC facility has started its program to study neutrinos and rare decays with significant US participation, especially in T2K, a very large international collaboration using a high-intensity neutrino beam from the J-PARC facility to the 50-kiloton Super Kamiokande detector. These facilities are likely to suffer some delays but we very much hope they will recover quickly. They are a major component of the world’s high-energy physics program.

Communication with our Japanese colleagues, which was nearly impossible right after the earthquake, has improved significantly over the last couple of days. It does appear that the staff members at both J-PARC and KEK are safe, that J-PARC did not suffer damage from the tsunami and that the damage from the earthquake both at KEK and J-PARC will take some time to be assessed. You can check the status of KEK here. In the meantime we will find ways in which we can be of assistance to our colleagues in the recovery process.

Special Announcement

Additional support this week for Windows 7 upgrades

The Computing Division has launched a phased effort to upgrade all Fermilab computers that use Windows to the Windows 7 operating system. Local support team members will be on hand to answer your questions about Windows 7 at the doctor booth in the Wilson Hall atrium during lunch hours on Wednesday, March 16, and Thursday, March 17.

For more information about Windows 7, including a tentative deployment schedule, check the website.

Accelerator Update

March 11-14

- Three stores provided ~20.75 hours of luminosity
- Main Injector repaired transductor problem
- Antiproton Source power supply replaced
- The Tevatron quenched during shot setup due to another kicker problem
- Tevatron repaired higher order power supply problem
- Instrumentation technician repaired Tevatron BPM Front End
- Store 8571 lost due to a quench
- Tevatron sector B0 cryo system compressor failed

* The integrated luminosity for the period from March 7-14 was 6.18 inverse picobarns. NuMI is off for target replacement.

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements