Fermilab Today

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

Subscribe | Contact Fermilab Today | Archive | Classifieds Search Calendar Announcement Fermilab Result of the Week

Thursday, Sept. 25 "Atom Smashers" screening at The particle family tree 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. 4 p.m. today in Ramsey Pixels08 Conference - One West 11 a.m. Auditorium Theoretical Physics Seminar (NOTE Fermilab employees and TIME) - Curia II users can get an early look at Speaker: Antonio Delgado, University a PBS documentary on of Notre Dame Fermilab's race to find the Title: Higgs-Unparticle Interplay Higgs boson and other THERE WILL BE NO PHYSICS AND physics beyond the Standard DETECTOR SEMINAR THIS WEEK Model at 4 p.m. today. The 3:30 p.m. Chicago-based directors of DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd "Atom Smashers" will air their Flr X-Over 73-minute documentary in THERE WILL BE NO Ramsey Auditorium. The ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND Promotional poster from directors also will answer This figure illustrates the second-generation leptoquark TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY questions from the audience, 4 p.m. "Atom Smashers", a film parameters that DZero's search results can exclude. The focusing on Fermilab and such as why they chose to Atom Smashers documentary - search excludes masses up to 316 GeV for leptoquarks that CERN in the race for the spend 3 ½ years chronicling exclusively decay to a quark and charged lepton. Ramsey Auditorium Higgs. life at Fermilab and why they By studying historical records of past generations, Friday, Sept. 26 think the general public will find the quest for discovery genealogists piece together the lineage of families. In an 8:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. engrossing. effort to understand the history of the elementary particle Pixels08 Conference - One West Read more about the film generations, physicists at the Tevatron's DZero 12 p.m. experiment are finding they may have more in common Gallery Lecture Series - Curia II Feature with genealogists then they thought. Speakers: Lori Napoleon and Ed Wesly (Artists) Fabiola Gianotti to take helm of The historical record of our universe surrounds us. Title: Optics and Artists: Intersections Through careful studies of our world, particle physicists of Art and Science ATLAS collaboration have identified what they believe are the most basic 3:30 p.m. building blocks of matter. These 12 particles populate When Fabiola Gianotti first DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd two families (quarks and leptons) that are grouped into traveled to CERN as a young Flr X-Over three generations, each heavier than the last. Current post-doc in the early 1990s, she 4 p.m. theories do not explain why there are three generations, was overwhelmed by the Joint Experimental-Theoretical nor why the two families share similar patterns. Various laboratory’s international culture. Physics Seminar - One West theories speculate that an unobserved symmetry of the Speaker: Benjamin Grinstein, universe might explain the number and equality of quark Fabiola Gianotti Starting March 1, 2009, she’ll University of California, San Diego help lead that international and lepton generations. Such a symmetry would give Title: Lepton Flavor Violation community as the ATLAS collaboration’s new rise to a new particle that links the two families, just like spokesperson. an ancient relative connecting the genealogies. These Click here for NALCAL, new particles, called leptoquarks would provide a means a weekly calendar with “Clearly this is a role for which she has been training,” for quarks and leptons to interact with each other, but not links to additional said Fermilab theorist and colleague Chris Quigg. “From across generations unless they are very heavy. information. my perspective, the important characteristics in this Weather position are a good physics sense and an effective Finding evidence for manner with people. Fabiola has both. ATLAS has leptoquarks would bring a chosen well.” new understanding to the Sunny connections between the 80°/53° Gianotti, who has served as ATLAS physics coordinator families and generations of from 1999 to 2003 and has worked with the collaboration matter particles. These Extended Forecast since its inception, will take over from Peter Jenni, who proposed particles, however, Weather at Fermilab will step down after 15 years. are difficult to find. Because of their large mass, the file:///U|/wwwdocs/pub/v5_0/today/archive_2008/today08-09-25.html (1 of 4)9/25/2008 9:16:09 AM Fermilab Today

Current Security “It is a big honor and big responsibility. Peter has given production of leptoquarks Status the most crucial contributions to develop and shape the would have ceased when the collaboration,” Gianotti said. universe began to cool as it Secon Level 3 aged and expanded. By Jenni plans to get back to more hands-on physics, studying the Tevatron's Wilson Hall Cafe including helping to run the detector. proton/anti-proton collisions, which recreate conditions just Gianotti was selected out of three candidates because of Thursday, Sept. 25 after the Big Bang, scientists her competence and leadership qualities. “She listens to - Tomato florentine can turn back the universe's people and is an excellent physicist,” Jenni said. - *Pork BBQ sandwich clock to the time of possible - Smart cuisine: olive & artichoke Twelve particles that make Gianotti’s physics career stems from a love for leptoquark production. paella up the building blocks of philosophy and life’s great questions. - Smart cuisine: chicken marsala matter are grouped into Physicists from the DZero - Smoked turkey melt three generations, as experiment designed an “At some point, I figured that I needed to decide what to shown above. - Assorted Slice Pizza do with my life, and I thought that physics was a more analysis to search for - SW chicken salad w/roasted corn practical way to address these questions,” Gianotti said. leptoquarks that interact with the second generation of salsa matter particles (muon, muon neutrino, charm & strange Gianotti received her Ph.D. in experimental physics from quarks). In one inverse femtobarn of data, they searched *Carb restricted alternative the University of Milano. Her thesis was on data analysis for two leptoquarks that were created at the same time, for the UA2 experiment. and having final states of two muons plus two quarks or Wilson Hall Cafe menu a muon, a neutrino and two quarks. They did not find Chez Leon Gianotti began working on liquid-argon calorimetry at the evidence for new physics, so their work sets the LHC in 1990 and continued that work for ATLAS when Tevatron's tightest mass limits for second-generation Wednesday, Sept. 24 the collaboration began in 1992. Gianotti also worked on leptoquarks. Though this leaves some mystery Lunch LEP2’s supersymmetry search between 1996 and 2000. surrounding the families of matter particles, the DZero - Southwest cornish hens scientists will continue their genealogical studies. With - Chipotle sweet potatoes She is excited for her new role, which coincides with an more data being delivered daily by the Tevatron, they - Orange carmel flan exciting era of physics. may still bring these families together.

Thursday, Sept. 25 “This is the first step in a very long and exciting path,” Read more Dinner she said. - Closed -- Rhianna Wisniewski

Announcement Chez Leon menu Call x4598 to make your reservation. Archives Pajama Party patches available Fermilab's Pajama Party patches Fermilab Today are back by popular demand. If you'd like a patch, please stop by the Office of Communication to Result of the Week pick one up or e-mail Barb Kronkow at [email protected].

Safety Tip of the Week Iron-on patches for the A group of DZero collaborators made primary contributions to LHC first beam Pajama this analysis. Not pictured: Yuriy Merekov of the Joint Institute Party of Nuclear Research (JINR), Russia. ILC NewsLine In the News

Info

Fermilab Today is online at: www.fnal.gov/today/

Send comments and suggestions to: [email protected]

DZero's Jet/MET identification team provides the algorithms that find the signatures of quarks and neutrinos in the DZero file:///U|/wwwdocs/pub/v5_0/today/archive_2008/today08-09-25.html (2 of 4)9/25/2008 9:16:09 AM Fermilab Today

Big Bang or Big Bounce?: New data. Their work is essential for a broad range of DZero theory on the universe's birth physics, such as the analysis presented here. From Scientific American, October 2008 Accelerator Update

Our universe may have started not with a big Sept. 22-24 bang but with a big bounce—an implosion that - Two stores provided ~27 hours and 19 minutes of triggered an explosion, all driven by exotic luminosity quantum-gravitational effects - TeV quenched during shot setup - MIRF watchdog trips Atoms are now such a commonplace idea that it is hard to remember how radical they used to seem. When Read the Current Accelerator Update scientists first hypothesized atoms centuries ago, they Read the Early Bird Report despaired of ever observing anything so small, and many View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts questioned whether the concept of atoms could even be Announcements called scientific. Gradually, however, evidence for atoms accumulated and reached a tipping point with Albert Einstein’s 1905 analysis of Brownian motion, the random Have a safe day! jittering of dust grains in a fluid. Even then, it took Classroom presenter kickoff party another 20 years for physicists to develop a theory Monday explaining atoms—namely, quantum mechanics—and Anyone interested in becoming a classroom presenter another 30 for physicist Erwin Müller to make the first can join the Education Office for a kickoff party from microscope images of them. Today entire industries are 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 29, at Kuhn Barn. based on the characteristic properties of atomic matter. Come and meet others who have presented and view Physicists’ understanding of the composition of space the presentation material and new van. RSVP to Nancy and time is following a similar path, but several steps Lanning at [email protected] by 5 p.m. today. Visit the behind. Just as the behavior of materials indicates that presentation Web site for more information. they consist of atoms, the behavior of space and time suggests that they, too, have some fine-scale structure— Fermilab Art Gallery Exhibit opens either a mosaic of spacetime “atoms” or some other Friday filigree work. Material atoms are the smallest indivisible Join your colleagues for an Arts Series lecture in Curia II units of chemical compounds; similarly, the putative from 12-1 p.m. on Friday to mark the opening of the space atoms are the smallest indivisible units of Gallery's newest exhibit, "Intersections: the Art and distance. They are generally thought to be about 10–35 Science of Light experiments in Holography, meter in size, far too tiny to be seen by today’s most Photography and Mixed Media." The exhibit features powerful instruments, which probe distances as short as works by Lori Napoleon, Ed Wesly and Todd Johnson. 10–18 meter. Consequently, many scientists question An artist reception will take place from 5-7 p.m. in the Art whether the concept of atomic spacetime can even be Gallery. Check the Art Gallery Web site or e-mail called scientific. Undeterred, other researchers are Georgia Schwender for more information. coming up with possible ways to detect such atoms indirectly. Kids can become prairie rangers Your child can become a junior prairie ranger. Children in The most promising involve observations of the cosmos. fourth and fifth grades can become prairie stewards by If we imagine rewinding the expansion of the universe joining the Fermilab Junior Prairie Rangers. Rangers will back in time, the galaxies we see all seem to converge learn about the biodiversity of the prairie and how they on a single infinitesimal point: the big bang singularity. At can help it thrive. Choose one of the Saturday meetings: this point, our current theory of gravity—Einstein’s Sept. 27 or Oct. 18, from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Rangers will general theory of relativity—predicts that the universe wear a new ranger cap while harvesting seeds on one of had an infinite density and temperature. This moment is the seed harvest days, Oct. 4 or Nov. 1, from 10 a.m. - 1 sometimes sold as the beginning of the universe, the p.m. Throughout the year, rangers will participate in birth of matter, space and time. Such an interpretation, other prairie activities. More information is available on however, goes too far, because the infinite values the calendar for kids. indicate that general relativity itself breaks down. To explain what really happened at the big bang, physicists International Folk Dancing Thursday must transcend relativity. We must develop a theory of International Folk Dancing will take place in the Kuhn quantum gravity, which would capture the fine structure Village Barn on Thursday, Sept. 11. Dancing begins at of spacetime to which relativity is blind. 7:30 p.m. with teaching and children's dances earlier in the evening and request dancing later. For more The details of that structure came into play under the information, call (630) 584-0825 or (630) 840-8194 or e- dense conditions of the primordial universe, and traces mail [email protected]. file:///U|/wwwdocs/pub/v5_0/today/archive_2008/today08-09-25.html (3 of 4)9/25/2008 9:16:09 AM Fermilab Today

of it may survive in the present-day arrangement of matter and radiation. In short, if spacetime atoms exist, it will not take centuries to find the evidence, as it did for Additional Activities material atoms. With some luck, we may know within the coming decade.

Read more

file:///U|/wwwdocs/pub/v5_0/today/archive_2008/today08-09-25.html (4 of 4)9/25/2008 9:16:09 AM