Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012
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Have a safe day!

Tuesday, Oct. 9

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

4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Vladimir Shiltsev, Fermilab
Title: Space Charge Compensation: From Idea to Test

Wednesday, Oct. 10

2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE DATE) - Curia II
Speaker: John Terning, University of California, Davis
Title: A Light Composite Stop

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

4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Ian Fisk, Fermilab
Title: LHC Computing: The First Run and Beyond

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, Oct. 9

- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Minnesota chicken and rice
- Chicken quesadilla
- Chicken curry
- Smart cuisine: pork picatta
- California turkey panini
- French-bread pizza
- Refreshing summer salad

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Oct. 10
Lunch
- Baked cornish hens with mustard sauce
- Broccoli and rice
- Pumpkin pie with spiced cream

Friday, Oct. 12
Dinner
- Coquille St. Jacques
- Pork tenderloin with porcini sauce
- Cauliflower gratin
- Green bean amandine
- Apple pie with vanilla bean ice cream

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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From symmetry

Nobel committee honors research by particle trappers

Serge Haroche (left) and David Wineland, who opened a new era of research by building particle traps and experimenting with individual particles without destroying them, were honored today with the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. Photos courtesy of CNRS Photothèque (left) and NIST (right)

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics to two scientists who developed groundbreaking experimental methods that are the first steps toward building a new type of supercomputer known as a quantum computer. Their research has also led to the construction of extremely precise clocks that may replace present-day atomic clocks.

Serge Haroche and David Wineland opened a new era of research by building particle traps and experimenting with individual particles without destroying them. Together with their research groups, Haroche and Wineland developed two different techniques to create, measure and manipulate particles and their fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible by direct observation. The winners will share prize money of about $1.2 million.

Whether Haroche or Wineland will follow in the steps of Nobel laureate George Smoot and appear on the TV show The Big Bang Theory remains to be seen.

Haroche, a professor at the Collège de France in Paris, is the first Nobel laureate born in Morocco. Wineland, born in Milwaukee, is a group leader at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado. They now are among the 194 laureates who have received the Nobel Prize in physics since 1901.

Wineland's group explores the nature of quantum systems by keeping ions—electrically charged atoms—inside a trap by surrounding them with electric fields. To isolate the particles and their interactions from external forces, scientists keep the particles in a vacuum and perform their measurements at extremely low temperatures.

Haroche and his colleagues employ a different method. They use mirrors to trap photons—particles of light. The mirrors, about three centimeters apart and cooled to almost absolute zero, are so shiny that a single photon can bounce back and forth many times and travel more than 10,000 kilometers before it is lost.

Scientists are optimistic that this research will lead to the construction of new, more powerful types of computers. Last month, an Australian research group announced a major breakthrough and pointed out that the construction of a quantum computer might be feasible within the next decade.

Nobelprize.org offers a detailed description and several graphics on the research carried out by the two Nobel Prize-winning groups.

Kurt Riesselmann

Read more

Photo of the Day

Obelisk and orb

The sun peeks from behind the obelisk sculpture one morning last week. Photo: Patrick Sheahan, AD
In the News

French and U.S. scientists win Nobel physics prize

From The New York Times, Oct. 9, 2012

Two physicists who developed techniques to study the interplay between light and matter on the smallest and most intimate imaginable scale won the Nobel Prize in Physics Tuesday. They are Serge Haroche, of the College de France in Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure, and David Wineland, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado.

They will split 8 million Swedish Kroners and receive their award in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

Read more

In the News

Colorado argon will be at the heart of dark matter experiment

From The Denver Post, Oct. 7, 2012

CORTEZ — In a sand-colored metal building in remote southwest Colorado, the quest to unravel one of the most perplexing questions about the nature of the universe looks like this: a bedroom-sized tangle of pipes, gauges, wires and cylinders along with two computers, a stepladder, a big fan and several crates of canary yellow tanks.

This is a no-frills, low-thrill but very important part of a potentially universe-shaking project called Darkside-50.

U.S. Department of Energy and Princeton University scientists are harvesting argon gas here in the middle of a Kinder Morgan compressor plant linked to wells that dot this area. They hope it is going to be the medium that might finally "show" particle physicists the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of our universe.

Read more

Director's Corner

2012 Community Planning Meeting

Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone

From Thursday through Saturday this week we will welcome many of our colleagues from across the country to Fermilab for the 2012 Community Planning Meeting (CPM2012), organized by the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society. This meeting is the first preparatory meeting for next year's extensive Community Summer Study, where we will develop and articulate the opportunities for particle physics for the long-term future. CPM2012 follows the successful organization of DOE's 2011 Intensity Frontier workshop.

The summer of 2013 is an ideal time to take stock of all the physics we will have learned in the previous couple of years, especially with the tremendous flow of new data from the LHC, including the discovery of the Higgs-like particle at 125 GeV and the important new measurements of neutrino oscillations by reactor and beam-based experiments, which have confirmed the highest hopes for neutrino physics. Furthermore, both the European and Japanese communities are engaged in equally extensive planning processes, and the near-simultaneity of these efforts offers the hope of coordinating a truly global program.

Fermilab is committed to working closely with the particle physics community in understanding the most exciting opportunities in our field and implementing a powerful program of discovery. Such a program has to be flexible enough to fit within the fiscal realities of our age, but should have the potential to grow successfully and take advantage of future investment in the physical sciences.

Working together with the community, our laboratory has transitioned from a program primarily based on the Tevatron to a broad program at the three frontiers of particle physics: multiple leading experiments at the Intensity Frontier, based initially on existing accelerators at Fermilab but afterward to be greatly enhanced with a future high-intensity source, Project X; exploiting the great opportunities at the LHC, building upgrades to the accelerator and CMS, and performing R&D for future accelerators such as electron-positron linear colliders and muon colliders at the Energy Frontier; and leading projects at the Cosmic Frontier for the study of dark energy and the discovery of dark matter particles. This broad foundation for our field is necessary for a healthy program. Monoculture is as dangerous in particle physics as it is in agriculture.

During CPM2012, we will outline the principal opportunities for our field and plan for the work that will continue through winter and spring toward the comprehensive summer study to follow. There will be three conveners for each of the various topics: an experimentalist, a theorist and an "observer." At present the working groups cover the following areas:

  • Energy Frontier
  • Intensity Frontier
  • Cosmic Frontier
  • Instrumentation
  • Frontier facilities
  • Computing frontier
  • Education and outreach

We will also develop and articulate the opportunities and benefits that our field brings to society to help ensure continued public interest and support. The recent great discoveries have highlighted the strong public interest in our discipline, giving us a great opportunity to explain our work and the potential for new discoveries.

Construction Update

Continuing steel and metal construction at IARC

Workers erect the 2nd- and 3rd-floor steel and metal decks of the IARC OTE building. Photo: Cindy Arnold

Barton Malow, together with their subcontractor Chicago Steel, have made significant progress on the steel erection for the IARC Office, Technical and Education building. The size and form of the OTE building can readily been seen with erection of the 2nd- and 3rd-floor steel and metal deck. These floors will provide approximately 140 office units as well as a two-story lunch area on the west end. While this work is proceeding outside, mobilization has begun inside the CDF building for the installation of the interior bridge, which will connect the OTE offices with the existing CDF offices.

You can view more photos of IARC construction progress at the IARC OTE Facebook page.

Announcements

Today's New Announcements

Wilson Hall west lot asphalt repair - Oct. 10

Heartland Blood Drive - today

Blood drive needs

DNS appliance software upgrade - today

NALWO bulb and plant exchange event - Oct. 11

C2ST public lecture: Exploring the Universe - Oct. 11

The Eerie Silence: E.T., Where Are You? - Oct. 12

In the Footsteps of Django - Oct. 27

Prescription safety eyewear notice

Applications being accepted for Wilson Fellowship

Abri Credit Union - money just got cheaper

Muscle Toning class

Winter volleyball begins soon

Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle update

Mac users: upcoming changes to VPN client software

Professional development courses

Atrium work updates

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