dimensions volume 06 of particle physics symmetryA joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

issue 02

may 09 symmetryA joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

On the cover: Scientists can feel like they are swimming in a sea of names in modern collaborations of more than 1000 physicists, where you’re just one on a very long A-to-Z list of authors on published results. So how can individ- uals be recognized for their efforts and distinguished from others when it comes to promotion and tenure decisions? See story on page 20. Photo-illustration: Sandbox Studio; Photos: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 02 Editorial: Particle Physics Revitalized Particle physics feels like a different enter- prise compared with one year ago. Rapid scientific progress and a new budget scenario have enlivened the field.

03 Commentary: Pier Oddone “When questions arise about how the Higgs boson connects to buying another bag of groceries, we need to pay attention, because our fellow tax-paying citizens are the ones who pay the bills for US particle physics. They have a right to know what they are getting.”

04 Signal to Background The real world of Angels & Demons; CMS digs Roman history; sand and silence in Morocco; carpenters carve an ATLAS; battle of the buzzer at SLAC; what’s in your office?

08 symmetry breaking A summary of recent stories published online in symmetry breaking, www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking

Features 10 A New Leader for CERN In his first few months on the job,CERN 26 Gallery: Sergio Cittolin Director-General Rolf-Dieter Heuer opens A physicist sketches science in the style new lines of communication, oversees of Leonardo da Vinci. repairs to the Large Hadron Collider, and promotes a worldwide strategy for particle 30 Deconstruction: Standard physics based on a strong mix of global, Model Discoveries regional, and national projects. Sixteen elementary types of particles form the basis for the theoretical framework 14 Chasing Charm in China known as the Standard Model of funda- American scientists are flocking to the mental particles and forces. Here is Beijing Electron Positron Collider, whose a brief summary of 15 Nobel Prize-winning recent upgrades make it the premier discoveries closely connected to the place to study charm quarks and their kin. development of that model.

20 Credit Where Credit is Due 32 Essay: Lynn Hecht Schafran In the swirling sea of thousands of people “In August 2008 I built my summer vacation who contribute to a major particle physics around a trip to CERN, the European high- experiment, how can a young physicist pop energy physics laboratory near Geneva.” to the surface and get noticed? An inter- national committee offers ideas. C3 Logbook: Earth’s Radiation Belts James Van Allen barely had time to savor the launch of America’s first satellite, Explorer I, on January 31, 1958, when NASA scientists told him the Geiger tube cosmic-ray detector his team had built for the mission wasn’t working.

C4 Explain it in 60 Seconds: Charm Quark The charm quark is one of six quarks that, along with leptons, form the basic building blocks of ordinary matter. It is hundreds of times more massive than the up and down quarks that make up protons and neutrons. Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab from theeditor symmetry more than3percentofour the presidenthasdeclared,“We willdevote budget outline includes increases for science, and passed an were cancelledorpostponed. programs inparticlephysicstheUnitedStates research of variety a and workforce, its of cent Director PierOddonecomments(page10). Fermilab as desirable, is benefits economic of needs tobedoneonthatfrontandasolidstudy majority oftheirresearch funding.Morestill benefits clearer to thetaxpayers who provide the munity is currently working hard to make these of manyotherbenefits. The particlephysicscom- of long-term economic growth and the generator their research. icists, and scientists are keenly digging back into the sciencecommunity, includingparticlephys- for news positive very is This development.” symmetry (ISSN www.symmetrymagazine.org For go to subscription services mail 8780 840 fax 630 3351telephone 840 630 USA Illinois60510 Batavia 206 MS PO Box 500 Symmetry symmetry Allrightsreserved (c)Office ofScience. 2009 US DepartmentofEnergy Laboratory, funded by the SLAC National Accelerator Accelerator Laboratory and year byFermi National per times six published is cuts tosciencefunding,aproposed As wegotopress,the Investment in basic research is a strong driver @ symmetrymagazine.org FY 1 09 9 ) 31-8367 budget that restores many of the

revitalized physics Particle SLAC furloughs forallstaff, Fermilab to implement required budgets year, last lab time tight was ayearago?This it enterprise research same the ognizably Is particlephysicsrec- Michael Wall Lauren Schenkman Kristine Crane Interns Rhianna Wisniewski Kelen Tuttle Grim Kathryn Calla Cofield Elizabeth Clements WritersStaff Tona Kunz Editor Senior Kurt Riesselmann Managing Editor Glennda Chui Deputy Editor 650 9268580 David Harris Editor-in-Chief US GDP Congresshas laidoff15per- to research and FY 10

2 broke groundfortheconstructionof (page 14)recentlybeganoperation,Fermilab beams withrepairsprogressingsmoothly. neutrino experiment, anddesignsfor David Harris,Editor-in-chief and society. science both of benefit the for funds increased to demonstratethattheyareinvestingtheir the particleandacceleratorphysicscommunities frontiers hasrenewedvigor.Itisincumbenton experiments attheenergy, intensity, andcosmic such short,brightpulses. first X-ray laser with such high-energy X-rays in switched onastheworld’s Coherent LightSource Accelerator Complex ( facility are progressing quickly. The Japan Proton oping rapidly. the othersideofcountry. earth toward the Super-Kamiokande detector on ing abeamofneutrinosstraightthroughthe production ofX-ray lightand the for beams first its accelerated Germany in FACET Gabby Zegers, NIKHEF Gabby Zegers,NIKHEF Tongzhou Beijing Xu, IHEP Ute Wilhelmsen, DESY Tigner, Maury LEPP JINR Boris Starchenko, Kendra Snyder, BNL Yves Sacquin, CEA-Saclay Yuri Protvino Ryabov, IHEP Perrine Royole-Degieux, 2 IN Tim Meyer, TRIUMF Youhei KEK Morita, Silvia Giromini,LNF James Gillies,CERN Lynn Yarris, LBNL Kandice Carter, JLab Stefano Bianco,LNF Romeo Bassoli,INFN Peter Barratt,STFC Antolini,LNGS Roberta Contributing Editors Judy Jackson, FNAL Rob Brown,SLAC Publishers at Collider Hadron Large the Meanwhile, results. experiments produced a string of headline-making Fermilab set onerecordafteranother, andits at collider Tevatron the spring, This world. the ofmanynewfacilitiesaround imminent startups and recent the and improvements budget the to ticle physics with a renewed enthusiasm due CERN The upgraded Beijing Electron Positron Collider With the new funding, a whole catalog of of catalog whole a funding, new the With Other accelerator-basedprojectsaredevel- We exciting periodforpar- areenteringavery plasma wakefield particle acceleration acceleration particle wakefield plasma is moving closer to having first colliding DESY’ s P 3 J-PARC PETRA III PETRA Services Fermilab Visual Media Photographic Services Mike Acklin Web Programmer Alex Tarasiewicz Justin Dauer Karen Acklin Web Design Kevin Munday Web Architect Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois Xeno Media Web DesignandProduction Aaron Grant Andrea Butson Designers/Illustrators Michael Branigan Art Director Chicago, Illinois Sandbox Studio Print DesignandProduction ) just started send- ) juststarted synchrotron synchrotron SLAC’ SLAC’ s Linac NO s

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symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 commentary: pier oddone

So when questions arise about how the Higgs boson connects to buying another bag of groceries, we need to pay attention, because our fellow tax-paying citizens are the ones who pay the bills for US particle physics. They have a right to know what they are getting. Because the connection between particles and payrolls is not obvious to most Americans, we have a special responsibility to demonstrate how high-energy physics research does help fill grocery bags and pay mortgages, not just by pro- viding short-term relief in a time of economic crisis but by creating the scientific infrastructure that will lead to long-term economic strength. We should do this in several ways. We can show how the Recovery Act funding that we invest in scientific infrastructure at our labora- tories and universities creates immediate jobs Photo: Fred Ullrich Photo: Fred for engineers, construction workers, and others in our communities. We can show how it affects the bottom lines—and the payrolls—of high- Bosons and technology manufacturing firms that build the grocery bags components for our experiments. We need to be transparent in accounting for the ways we use In a March 1 Op-Ed piece in the New London Day, the funding we receive, and we need to tell the former Connecticut Congressman Bob Simmons human story of the people who benefit. We raised concerns about provisions of the can also describe the educational and research American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the opportunities that these investments create, so-called stimulus bill. awakening our youngsters’ interest in pursuing “How did Congress conclude,” Mr. Simmons scientific and technical careers. asked, “that spending hundreds of billions of our We can also strengthen the effort, in partner- tax dollars on thousands of pet projects will ship with the Department of Energy’s Office of stimulate our consumer economy? How much High Energy Physics, to go beyond anecdotal stimulus will result from funding a small group evidence and systematically characterize and of physicists working at the Fermi National document the long-term economic benefits of Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago? They high-energy physics research. The transformative are racing to find evidence of a hypothetical contributions of particle physics to medicine, particle called the Higgs boson before a com- industry, and communication are a much-too-well- peting team in Switzerland does—if they get kept secret. We need to communicate better. some ‘stimulus’ money…Can we buy another bag A DOE-sponsored conference later this year will of groceries, pay the mortgage or reduce accu- focus attention on the tangible economic bene- mulating bills if a handful of scientists in Chicago fits of accelerator-based physics research, both are able to prove the existence of something no historically and in the future. Through this and one has ever seen?” other efforts we must demonstrate to our fellow It would be tempting to dismiss Mr. Simmons’s citizens that investing in particles means concerns. Like most of our fellow citizens, he investing in the strength of our scientific enter- may not have had the opportunity to trace the prise and the strength, competitiveness, and connection between basic science and our well-being of our nation. global economic competitiveness. After all, quarks symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 and leptons don’t bring to mind immediate Pier Oddone is director of the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. technological breakthroughs and consumer prod- ucts, even though they are the fundamental blocks that build everything around us. And most people, even when they come into contact with accelerators such as those used in medical applications, don’t necessarily recognize them as by-products of the particle physics research that studies nature at a fundamental level.

3 signal to background

The real world of Angels & Demons; CMS digs Roman history; sand and silence in Morocco; carpenters carve an ATLAS; battle of the buzzer at SLAC; what’s in your office?

Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer and Ron Howard at CERN to promote the movie Angels & Demons. Photo: CERN

Physics lessons from research can do for the world. numbers of antimatter particles. Angels & Demons “When I saw this opportunity,” One of those volunteer lec- Reyna Pratt spends her days Pratt says, “I snagged it!” turers is David Goldstein, a preparing high school students The film, which stars Tom physicist studying acoustics at in Virginia for an increasingly Hanks, is a detective story about the Naval Research Laboratory. competitive world. They learn an ancient secret society that “If I can contribute to inspiring biology, algebra, English tries to destroy the Vatican with someone,” he says, “or clear composition, world history, and a bomb made of antimatter up some misunderstanding, or world cultures. stolen from a particle physics answer some questions in a “I would love to teach my stu- laboratory. Parts of the movie way that someone might not dents about nuclear and were filmed at CERN’s Large otherwise have access to, then particle physics,” says Pratt, Hadron Collider, the world’s so much the better.” a former theoretical nuclear largest and most complex sci- Find lectures near your town physicist. “There’s just no time entific venture. at www.uslhc.us/Angels_Demons. in the curriculum and schedule.” In reality, antimatter would Tona Kunz Now, thanks to Angels & be useless as a bomb or Demons, the big-screen adapta- energy source; it’s too hard to tion of Dan Brown’s best-selling produce and store. The book novel, her students and many misrepresents the production others will get a glimpse at those and storage of antimatter at scientific worlds, wrapped CERN and portrays the in Hollywood glitz and action. European laboratory as more The private girls’ school opulent than it really is. where she teaches is one of Nonetheless, dozens of sci- about 50 locations in the entists are seizing on the film United States, 10 in Canada, as a way to convey the truth and several in Europe and Asia about particle physics, using

scheduled to offer lectures lecture materials prepared by titlE location ANGELS & DEMONS OF THE 2103 CHAMBERLIN CERN LARGE HADRON COLLIDER HALL

spEakEr Da t E & tiME explaining the science behind CERN and Fermilab—the only PROFESSOR WESLEY SMITH MAY 4, 2009, 7:30PM

FOR MORE INFORMATION TICKETS the film, its factual inaccuracies, other place in the world that VISIT WWW.PHYSICS.WISC.EDU/AAD/ WWW.PHYSICS.WISC.EDU/AAD/TIX.PHP

and what high-energy physics produces and stores significant TM & © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

4 An LHC century. Later, between 50 and first coat, sanding down, second detector’s 45 BC, Julius Caesar founded coat, then finishing layer,” old Roman a Roman colony near the pres- Biegger recites. roots ent town of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, In the finished product, Particle physi- whose boundaries encompass bright-blue muon chambers sur- cists probe a large portion of CERN. The round the ATLAS detector like uncharted terri- ruins of Roman villas, as well as the planks of a wine barrel. Six tory for rem- coins, medals, silverware, aluminum magnet coils curve nants of the jewelry, and graves from that around the inner subdetec- early universe. period, have been found in tors, and a plastic workman bal- But that is supposed to occur the village, according to the ances on the outer beam pipe. after their experiments turn on. tourism office. The coil and the toy are the only In the case of the Compact Among the most notable non-wooden parts. Muon Solenoid experiment at things recovered in the CMS dig “We wanted to make every- CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, are coins minted in three thing as realistic as possible,” Photo courtesy of CMS the discovery of ancient relics areas, including sites near Rome Biegger says. “That’s why we began when workers started and London. chose aluminum for the coils; digging a cavern 100 meters “This proves the United no lacquer on wood could do deep to house the 12,500-metric- Kingdom, at least during the that job.”

ton detector. fourth century, was part of The model made its public symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 “The first thing we found was a single European currency,” debut in October and is now the last thing you would ever Evans jokes. touring the country, showcasing want in a construction site—a Tona Kunz the beauty of ATLAS and Roman farm from the fourth helping scientists explain how century AD,” says Lyn Evans, ATLAS shrunk it works. Requests for other LHC project leader. Carpenters working at particle models are already trickling in. Fortunately, the farm’s villa physics labs are used to jobs Barbara Warmbein

sat off to the side of the detector their colleagues in private indus- carpenters Photos courtesy of DESY shaft and building footprint, try wouldn’t dream of tackling. allowing CMS crews to continue But a request to build a work while archeologists toiled wooden replica of the world’s nearby for nearly two years. largest particle detector took During lunch breaks, workers on even the carpenters at the the CMS shaft wandered over German laboratory DESY by to watch pots, coins, and stone surprise. walls emerge from the dirt. Scientists asked them to “We had big earth movers, and build a model of the 7000-metric- they had tooth brushes,” says ton ATLAS detector from John Osborne, project manager CERN’s Large Hadron Collider for CMS civil engineering. “It at 1/25th actual size—two was quite interesting to see the meters wide and one meter difference in excavation.” in diameter. Eventually, all but the farm’s The intricate work took stone walls were removed seven months. and sent to a museum in France. To fit tools, paint, and their The walls aligned perfectly hands into the model, the crew with modern-day farm bound- had to assemble the model from aries. Unfortunately, they also sat the innermost layer outward. where the innards of the CMS “Sometimes we wished we detector hall were to rest. So could just weld things together workers carefully covered the as though it were the real ruins with layers of blankets, thing,” says head carpenter sand, gravel, and rock. Werner Biegger. “They are buried again,” The team of five had to work Osborne says. “But they are pro- out a complicated choreography tected so archeologists could of tasks to make sure every- return to excavate in the future.” thing could be reached and The CMS detector sits in the painted in just the right order. town of Cessy in eastern France, And that’s not just one coat of an area where the Romans paint: “Foundation, priming, more battled the Gauls in the third foundation, sanding down,

5 signal to background

Photos courtesy of Dave McGinnis interference byradiowaves. that needs to operate free from location for a radio telescope perfect a this making scarce, cell phones,signaltowersare Pasquinelli says. they did for hundreds of years,” “These people are living the way electricity, orrunningwater. no villages, government offices, herd goats and sheep. There are test equipment. of pounds 300 with loaded their four-wheel-drive vehiclefor suitable passages for foot on scout to had sometimes snow, andblowingsand, of Morocco. They endured rain, desert to the most remote regionSahara the of areas roadless Atlas Mountains and through the over traveled had Illinois says. McGinnis landscape lookhospitable,” had enteredadifferent world. Pasquinelli andDaveMcGinnis universe, Fermilab’s Ralph will makea that telescope a build to place the thirstofstrangers. crossing barren desert to quench herd holding a silver tea service It seemedlikeamirage:Ashep- no-cell-phone zone A desert quest for While local people do have have do people local While area the of inhabitants The The twoengineers from “That areamadetheMars In their search for a quiet quiet a for search their In 3D map of the the of map

Mellon University, Carnegie Fermilab, between be builtbyacollaboration could telescope million $25 to the universeisexpanding today. dark energycouldexplain why McGinnis says. Scientists believe darkenergy,”more about 3D fluctuations of the universe in fluctuations oftheuniversein were shapedbydarkenergy. through theearlyuniverse mic soundwaveswhosetravels reveal the frozen ripples of cos- should map resulting The dented precision and efficiency. galaxies atoncewithunprece- emissions ofhydrogeninmany collective the measure to project would use a new strategy , we can hope to understand The proposed$20million “By measuringthedensity The proposed telescope 6 CEA -Saclay -Saclay desert tosearch forradiowavesignals. wavesignals. to desert Moroccan the in out Engineers campout intheMoroccan the proposedexperiment. Left: Engineers the with interfere with could interfere that could that signals wave signals setequipment tosearch forradiowave up equipment to up search set for radio Engineers Right: hospitality. Right:Fermilab engineers ofalocalshepherd’sadvantage take Morocco in locations scouting Top: andteammembers Scientists Rhianna Wisniewski andlodging. breakfast offer hisone-roomhomefor custom, ancient to according greet themwithteaand, to site work their to kilometers three walked who shepherd sit on the grazing land of the ing businesses. structure andperhapsattract- in roads,water, andotherinfra- theireconomy,”bolster bringing to help really would “This says. in theirback yard,” Pasquinelli to havethisscientificinstrument Morocco, adevelopingcountry, to get fundingfromArabstates. hope Proponents telescope. the University,run which would Akhawayan Al Morocco’s and OrsaylabsinFrance, and The telescope mighteven for exciting really is “It

symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 An office servesserves asas a a homehome away away from from home. home. You You personalize personalize it. it.Make Makeit comfortable. it comfortable. Surround Surround yourself yourself with with keepsakes keepsakes from from your your family, friends,friends, and and career. career. In In a a physics physics lab, lab, these these office office mementos mementos often go far beyond the usualusual logo-emblazonedlogo-emblazoned coffeecoffee mugmug Call for or plaque. For instance, John John Cooper, Cooper, project project manager manager for for Fermilab’s Fermilab’s NO νNOA νA mementos! neutrino experiment,experiment, keeps keeps eight eight tubes tubes of of grey-and-pink grey-and-pink granite granite on a specially made made wooden wooden holder. holder. The The rock rock cores cores came came from from two two sites that competed toto hosthost thethe experiment’sexperiment’s undergroundunderground far-detector hall—includinghall—including thethe winner,winner, AshAsh RiverRiver inin Minnesota.Minnesota. Do you keepkeep remembrances remembrances from from experiments experiments in your in your office? office? Something that remindsreminds youyou ofof thethe camaraderie camaraderie of of a a collaboration collaboration or the success of a project? Send symmetry aa photophoto and and 100 100 words words describing describing the the memento, memento, its itssentimental sentimental meaning, meaning, and andits origin. its origin. We’ll runWe’ll the run best the of best the ofsubmissions the submissionsin a future issue. in a Send future email issue. to [email protected]

Bowling for science a really, really big trophy. Brooks said. “They asked me symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 On what should be a sleepy Sat- “I feel like I’m going to wake for a five-letter word meaning urday at SLAC National up any second now,” said ‘money taken illegally,’ and I said Accelerator Laboratory, the air Homestead senior Jan Wu. “It’s ‘bribe.’ They said it was wrong— is buzzing. It’s the SLAC been in my head for a while, they wanted ‘graft.’” The question Department of Energy Regional but I’m still like, ‘Oh my gosh, we eliminated Brooks’s team from Science Bowl, and in conference just won!’” the semi-finals, robbing them of rooms and auditoriums, 24 Students train for the event a chance at scholarship money. teams of four race to hit buzzers, with an intensity usually At the end of the long day, quiz-show style, in response reserved for football—poring enthusiasm was still high, even to rapid-fire questions about over scientific tomes, flipping among those who didn’t receive everything from gravitational through flashcards, and scrim- a medal from special guest lensing to butterfly hormones. maging other teams. Martin Perl. Homestead High’s After six hours of increasingly “These kids know things Lisa Yao, a senior planning to diabolical trivia, Homestead High about every branch of science,” major in biology, was in the School claimed its third con- said moderator Travis Brooks, throng that crowded the podium secutive victory, earning an all- who runs the SPIRES database to snag a photo with the SLAC expenses-paid trip to the at SLAC. “Even very good scien- Nobel laureate. Yao said she Washington, DC, Nationals in late tists have no chance at a lot enjoyed Perl’s speech, in which April. There the team would vie of these questions, because they he outlined the advances he with 67 other regional champs know just one field very well.” hopes to see this next genera- for a trip to Australia to attend This is Brooks’ fourth year tion of scientists achieve. “It just the International Science School, joining the 50 or so SLAC staff- shows how many doors are a $1000 grant for their ers volunteering as moderators, open for us right now,” Yao said. Photo: Lauren Schenkman, SLAC school’s science scorekeepers, and timekeepers. “That was really inspiring.” program, and He said he has a personal Lauren Schenkman reason to take his role seriously. “In high school, I got cheated once during this type of game,”

7 symmetrybreaking Source at Source ing, the Linac Coherent Light In a stunning piece of engineer- April 21,2009 switches on X-ray laser World’s first hard- Highlights from our blog the prairie.” surrounding the “laboratory on reveal somelittle-knownfacts big science happens. They also provide ahistoricalviewofhow high-energy particlephysics flagship laboratory for American who have spent years at the and Megascience, three women Fermilab: Physics,theFrontier With the release of a new book, April 21,2009 who shapedFermilab A storyofthepeople operated atsuch shortwave time thatanX-ray laserhas being switched on. It is the first laser lightimmediatelyafter of matterbutalsoitsdynamics. looking at not only the structure paves the path to a new way of and shortpulses.The laser lengths, withsuch brightness SLAC generatedX-ray

- DESY storagehalls DESY Manhunt inthe in Batavia, Illinois. in Batavia, National Accelerator Laboratory Tornado atFermiSeminar TomSkilling annual 29th the tornado spotters. It’s time for storm chasers, andwould-be buffs, weather all Calling April 13,2009 energy weather lab takes onhigh- High-energy physics acclaimed The humor. of sense a have seriously smart people can’t So much for the stereotype that April 14,2009 Nobel laureate comedy gets The BigBangTheory on the added tothetrainingprogram been has criminals Chasing April 15,2009 a confessed fan of the show. the of fan a confessed andNational Laboratory; physicist at Lawrence Berkeley California, Berkeley; research of University the at physics of professor Smoot, George 9— March on laureate Nobel a had aguestappearanceby comedy TheBigBangTheory Bonsai, andButch. professionals likePollo, Carlos, was child’s play for cold-nosed and sharp teeth. The training police departmenthavefourlegs trainees from theHamburg Hamburg. To be fair, though, the DESY CBS campus in in campus 8 prime-time prime-time

laboratory workers safe. to beundamagedandmost was appeared that the laboratory Antolini spokeswoman Roberta this morningfromlaboratory of L’Aquila. The preliminary word from thehard-hitmedievalcity drive hour’s an half about tain located intheheartofamoun- from the detector its observed firstevents gamma-ray sky frenetically twinkling New videoofthe The Sasso NationalLaboratory. Gran to home is morning this by amagnitude6.3earthquake The struck areaof centralItaly April 6,2009 region jolts Gran Sasso Devastating quake portion ofFermilab’s first The interact. particles sive its firstglimpseathowtheelu- A newneutrinodetector justgot April 3,2009 eyes toneutrinodata MINER Friday by of time-lapse movies released And now, thankstoaseries don. frenetic, twinklingwithaban- The gamma-rayskyisintensely April 6,2009 too can enjoy the frenzy. frenzy. the enjoy can too you collaboration, Telescope Telescope’s LargeArea Space Gamma-ray Fermi the and Energy, of Department Wednesday night. INFN N particle physics lab is particlephysicslabis NASA u ν MI A opens A opens neutrino beam , the MINER US

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symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 the worldofparticlephysics. around theglobeandacross set ofvisitingcontributorsfrom launched yesterdaywithanew blogs ofQuantumDiaries,freshly are underdiscussioninthe more Collider? These topics and complement theLargeHadron International LinearCollider the will How appeal? ciate musicforitsmathematical meltdown? Dophysicistsappre- held culpableinthefinancial being models physicists’ Are April 3,2009 is back Quantum Diaries atwww.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking Read the full text of these stories and more in Los Angeles. artist soft-sculpture a Peasley, Julie from one commission can you or collider, a particle from combing throughdata can spendmorethanadecade find asingletopquark. You to way one than more There’s March 24,2009 the palmofyourhand Single topquarkin coup atthelaboratory. a staged and accelerator the from free broke particles of Tuesday morningwhenabatch Tevatron operations early on Fermilab temporarilyhalted April 1,2009 lab takeover Particles attempt

and antiquarkstogether. known rules for fittingquarks which floutnature’s of all covered at otherlaboratories, handful ofXandYparticlesdis- how much itweighs.Itjoinsa based on how it is produced and called theparticleY have physicists The matter. form to combine can quarks that ways new reveal may whose curiouscharacteristics particle unexpected an of experiment have found evidence surprises physicists Particle oddball Fermilab’s March 13,2009 continues toshrink Higgs territory ofFermilab’s Scientists March 18,2009 glimpse oftheelusiveparticle. a yetcaught not have they But measurements. earlier by Higgs mass range established significant fraction of the allowed experiments haveexcluded a CDF 9 and ( 4140 DZ

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Higgs particle. the for search ongoing the for significance has discovery The quarks. top single found lider, twoteamsofscientists produced bytheTevatron col- cess. Inparticlecollisions anewsubatomicpro- observed atFermilab haveScientists March 9,2009 rare singletopquark experiments discover Fermilab collider of Edinburgh. Informatics attheUniversity Ken Currie, in the School of artists, best-known Scotland’s of one by painting a of he hasappearedintheform now but everywhere, up ing the formofman)areturn- (in sightings TalesHiggs of March 4,2009 in paint everywhere, this time Higgs turning up

symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 A new leader for CERN By Katie Yurkewicz

Photos: CERN 10 In his first few months on the job, CERN Director- General Rolf-Dieter Heuer opens new lines of communication, oversees repairs to the Large Hadron Collider, and promotes a worldwide strategy for particle physics based on a strong mix of global, regional, and national projects. On January 1, German particle physicist Rolf-Dieter Heuer began a five-year term as the director-general of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Heuer takes the helm at a singularly challenging time for the European particle physics laboratory. He faces the immediate tasks of repairing and restarting the Large Hadron Collider and rebuilding the laboratory’s aging infrastructure, all in the framework of a worldwide financial crisis. He is also likely to guide the laboratory through the years in which a decision will be made on the next big particle physics project after the LHC. Alongside all of this, he hopes to advance an ambitious agenda to reshape the future of particle physics research—not just at CERN, but worldwide. Heuer is not a stranger to CERN or to the complexities of the international particle physics community. He was on the staff of the laboratory for 14

years, ascending to the post of spokesperson for the OPAL experiment at symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 CERN’s Large Electron-Positron collider. In 1998 he left CERN for the University of Hamburg, and in 2004 became research director for particle physics and particle astrophysics at the German laboratory DESY. There he shaped DESY’s—and the country’s—role in global particle physics, in the process setting the stage for many of the ideas he is now pushing forward at CERN in the areas of communication, cooperation, expansion, and innovation.

11 Breaking news astrophysics as well as particle physics, or offer- When asked to name the biggest change he has ing CERN’s expertise with coordinating large, introduced in his first months atCERN , Heuer multinational projects to particle astrophysics immediately identifies his policy of clear and fast projects that are themselves becoming larger communication to CERN’s staff and the users and more international. of its experimental facilities. Within weeks of his CERN is also making plans to expand its parti- arrival, CERN’s weekly bulletin began to publish cle physics program. The lab will create a new LHC repair updates, and Heuer’s office began center for the analysis and interpretation of LHC emailing major news to staff—even late on Friday data and hold a workshop in May to gather new evenings, when needed. Following in the foot- ideas for CERN’s fixed-target experimental pro- steps of many a chief executive, Heuer has also gram, in which particle beams slam into stationary remarked on his hope of reducing the distance targets rather than colliding head-on with other between the CERN management and staff as beams. much as possible, by showing his presence In the area of geographic expansion, Heuer around the laboratory. says nothing is off the table—which has other Clear and open communication with govern- regions of the particle physics world following the ments, laboratories, and institutes around the study group’s work very carefully. In his first world is also critical for a laboratory that is funded address to the CERN community, he stated that and run by 20 member countries, has agreements CERN’s founding Convention says nothing about with more than 40 others, and counts 111 nationali- membership being restricted to European coun- ties among its staff and users. To provide a conduit tries, leaving the door open to the possibility of for such communication, and to strengthen the more CERN members from other world regions. laboratory’s relationship with other particle physics Other options for geographic expansion could institutes, Heuer established a new External include additional CERN sites or additional types Relations unit at CERN. This unit will also play a of CERN partnerships. key role in Heuer’s bolder, and potentially more “One could imagine all kinds of different models, controversial, ideas for the future of the laboratory. and it will be the challenge for the CERN Council to come up with something which is interesting A broad vision enough for CERN but also for the other regions,” Heuer’s vision for CERN is to reshape it from a says Heuer. “We definitely need to get input from European laboratory toward a truly global labora- the other regions into the process.” tory, building on a trend that started long before his appointment. Building a global strategy The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, Heuer has plans not only for the future of CERN, soon to become the world’s highest-energy but also for the future of worldwide particle phys- particle accelerator, now boast more than 7000 ics. In a climate of increasing financial pressure on scientist collaborators—roughly half the world’s particle physics and greater overlap between parti- particle physicists. In 2006 the CERN Council, the cle physics and related fields, he is convinced that laboratory’s governing body, took on the responsi- all the countries involved in this research—and all bility of leading European particle physics strategy. the agencies that fund it—need to come together And in December 2008 the Council approved to plan a concrete strategy. the creation of a study group to examine the geo- The response from colleagues “has been graphical and scientific enlargement ofCERN . essentially only positive,” he says. “I think they all Heuer is quick to note that the laboratory won’t appreciate the statement that we should be be making any radical changes in scientific open and make the process more global. Now direction. “CERN’s raison d’etre is accelerator- we have to see how to do it. That’s really the based particle physics,” he explains. “This is the tricky thing.” strength of CERN, and this is where we have The new strategy would go beyond previous world experts. I see scientific enlargement, in a efforts to plan cooperatively, with a goal of main- very careful way, mainly in the direction of particle taining particle physics expertise and ensuring astrophysics.” A field at the intersection of particle long-term support for particle physics in all world physics, astronomy, and cosmology, particle astro- regions. physics is the study of elementary particles that “I am personally convinced that particle originate in space, and would be the most natural physics needs national, regional, and global extension for CERN. projects,” says Heuer. “We cannot survive with only a global project; I think it’s nonsense. We Expansion plans have to have other projects which complement A major particle astrophysics program is not imme- the physics, but we don’t need the same proj- diately in the works, however. First steps toward ect in all countries or all regions. We need to expansion could include encouraging CERN theo- somehow find the best distribution of regional rists to work in the areas of theoretical particle projects. I don’t exclude that one does similar

12 The Globe of Science and Innovation is the departure point for tours of CERN. A gift from the Swiss gov- ernment, it’s made entirely of wood.

things, but we have to do it consciously, some- CERN will dodge the bullet for 2009, as mem- how, together.” ber countries’ financial contributions were agreed The first steps toward implementing this vision upon before the crisis began, but may be hit in were taken at the February meeting of the 2010. Heuer pins his hopes for increasing funding International Committee for Future Accelerators, on identifying good physics projects and improv- where Heuer met informally with Fermilab ing CERN’s transfer of knowledge and technology Director Pier Oddone and Atsuto Suzuki, director- to its member countries and the rest of the general of Japan’s KEK laboratory. world. CERN’s Knowledge and Technology “I’m delighted Rolf is advocating an approach Transfer group—just Technology Transfer before that coordinates the programs in the most effective his arrival—has an increased profile and is charged way between the three regions, recognizing that with first measuring, then increasing and better for any one region to remain strong in the long communicating such transfers. term, all regions must be strong,” says Oddone. “We have to somehow quantify, for example, the The LHC is becoming the first truly global knowledge transfer, which is very difficult,” he project, and a decision on its successor is likely acknowledges. “We can also try to have more proj- within five years. If the next big particle physics ects with applied research. I don’t want to move project is also sited in Europe, what will happen CERN into an applied physics lab, but I think we to expertise in other regions? can do a little bit more in applying what we Heuer notes that this is difficult to judge, but develop. People are very motivated to do that; they points to astronomy as an example. just need a little more seed resources.” “You do the work at home, but your telescope Heuer adds that science remains the driver of is where you have the best view of the sky, innovation, and that he hopes governments around be it in Namibia, Argentina, or Chile,” he explains. the world will recognize that fact and continue to “Nonetheless people participate. Why shouldn’t invest in basic research: “Maybe the crisis opens this be possible also for particle physics? Only their eyes and they realize that the future is because we are used to having our machines in shaped by research. And CERN is a fantastic our backyards. It means rethinking.” place for research, not only in particle physics but symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 also in technology. If they realize this then hope- Driving innovation fully they realize that we need our budget.” Heuer comes to CERN with grand goals for the When asked to picture CERN in 2013, at the laboratory and for his field, but will have to pursue end of his five-year term, Heuer concludes, “I those goals in the framework of a global economic would hope that the LHC has delivered first dis- meltdown. “Surviving the financial crisis with coveries that at least give us the path at the a budget that is adequate for our science and for energy frontier we have to take, and that we have the survival of CERN” is the biggest challenge he taken the first few steps toward a global particle names for the coming years. physics strategy.”

13 Illustrations: Sandbox Studio

Illustrations: Sandbox Studio

14 Chasing charm inCHINA symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09

American scientists are flocking to the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, whose recent upgrades make it the premier place to study charm quarks and their kin. By Kelen Tuttle

15 The flight plan of today’s particle physicist can be “This was a good deal for all,” says University of a dizzying thing. Like migratory creatures, research- Minnesota Professor Ron Poling, whose group ers circle the globe in search of the best data, was one of the first in this new wave of American working on one experiment for several years and collaborators. “Beijing had an upgraded acceler- then moving on to the next, all in the hope of ator and a new detector, and we had physics answering fundamental questions about the way we wanted to do on just such a machine—but the world works. nowhere to do it. We couldn’t have made this One of particle physics’ most recent migrations transition more seamless if we had planned it from involves researchers from the United States. For the beginning.” several years, scientists with Cornell University’s CLEO-c experiment in New York studied charm Cranking out the charm quarks produced in collisions of electrons with About 200 miles northwest of the buzz of New positrons. Yet just as they began to find intriguing York City, the CLEO-c detector operated at a hints of the unexpected, CLEO-c reached the low hum from 2005 to 2008. The machine’s energy end of its allotted funding and shut down. was tuned to produce particles containing charm Now the researchers are refocusing their work quarks against a limited background of other pro- on the Beijing Electron Spectrometer, located cesses, allowing for very precise studies of charm at China’s Beijing Electron Positron Collider. When quark decays. These decays offer researchers the machine ramps up to full strength after a a means to test the Standard Model of particle recent upgrade, it will be the world’s premier instru- physics, which describes the interaction of all ment for studying particles that contain a charm visible matter in the universe. The Standard Model quark, as well as for many other types of physics. has been validated in many experiments; by look- This is not the first time Americans have ing at exceedingly precise data like that from migrated to Beijing collider experiments. They CLEO-c, researchers check whether the model have come and gone over the facility’s two holds true there, too. decades, although in recent years it was more Charm factories like those at Cornell and of the latter, with all of the American collabora- Beijing tend not to make front-page discoveries tors—except a core group from the University of as often as their high-energy cousins, such as Hawaii—leaving Beijing to join experiments in Fermilab’s Tevatron. Charm factories don’t operate the United States. But recently, as US electron– at energies high enough to produce never-before- positron colliders shut down, the Americans seen, super-heavy particles. But despite their lower have returned. profiles, charm factories do groundbreaking work.

16 for morethanadecade. explain the interaction between quarks and gluons explain theinteractionbetween quarks andgluons within themeson, andsohavefoundawayto the worldaround them,rightdowntothechaos and disappearintheblinkofan eye. but also that particles in this dynamic mix appear never know precisely where a particle is located, cles, which meansnotonlythatresearchers can quantum mechanics governthisswarmofparti- make thingsevenmorecomplicated,thelawsof To gluons. other exchange constantly gluons those and gluons exchange constantly Quarks place. tumultuous a is meson a of inside The together. them bind help that particles mentary a quark,anantiquark,andsomegluons,theele- Mesons are subatomic particles that each contain Hint ofnewphysics charm quarks. containing new decays physics of was mesons by observing Modelandsearched forthis tested theStandard Hennessy, whoworkedonthe ProfessorUniversity ofMinnesota DanCronin- Model,it’sevidenceofnewphysics,”Standard says large rate or you see something forbidden by the even discovernewlow-massparticles. minuscule secondary effects of new physics, and tories can very accurately test theories, see the precisemeasurements,charm fac- very By taking One ofthewaysthatresearchers at Nonetheless, researchers strive to understand “If arareprocessshowsupatanabnormally to thenatureofsubatomicprocessesandparticles,includingcharmclues quarkanditskin. meters around.The BeijingSpectrometer detector recordsthosecollisions,which offer clues around. The Beijing Electron Spectrometer detector electrons andpositronsinjectsthemintoanundergroundstoragering,left,records thatis240 those collisions, which offer 200-meter-long linearaccelerator, beneaththelong,skinnybuildingonright,accelerates At the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, the real action takes place in shielded tunnels. The CLEO experiment CLEO -c -c 17 17 or using the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics, physicists canapply grid-world, this of simulations computer running indiscretewith timeticking clicks. forward By only ontheverticesofathree-dimensionalgrid, but in finite increments—as if the particles existed within spaceandtimeasweexperience them, or a method called lattice quantum chromodynamics, a highdegreeofprecision. with calculations these make to impossible even the world’s most powerful computers find it exceedingly complex—so complex, infact,that are meson a within play at energies lower the at on goes exactly what of calculations but of newphysics?Aflawinthe data inthespringof2008. data tions andmakeincreasinglyprecisepredictions. observed decayofD observed the and predictions those between agreement for Before they could answer these questions, funding A timelyswitch Or nothingmorethanablipinthedata? of Rochester Professor Ed Thorndike, whohas and ourgoalsare notyet fullymet,” saysUniversity the accelerator performance that we had hoped, QCD LQCD CLEO So So researchers simplify those dynamics with “ At At CLEO CLEO forshort. . Itenvisionsparticlesinteractingnot -c was very successful, but we didn’t get -c dried up. The machine stopped taking -c, researchers didfindasmall dis- QCD QCD s works well at high energies, workswellathighenergies, mesons.Was thisproof tolower-energysitua- LQCD simulations? simulations?

symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 worked on data from a series of collider experi- the original accelerator tunnel and infrastruc- ments at Cornell for more than two decades. ture, but replaced nearly everything else. Instead “We very much want to repeat these measurements of accelerating single electron and positron at another machine to see what’s going on.” bunches inside one storage ring, the new machine China’s accelerator offers just such an accelerates 93 electron and 93 positron bunches opportunity. at a time inside two storage rings. A pristine Just about the time that CLEO-c started run- superconducting magnet, the first of its kind built ning, the Chinese Institute of High Energy in China, combines with the shiny new BES-III Physics started major improvements to the Beijing detector to more precisely measure particles’ collider and began to construct a new Beijing energies and speeds. And an innovative calibra- Spectrometer detector, BES-III. tion system involving a diode laser built by the “When we started the upgrade construction, we University of Hawaii ensures that the time-of- were hoping that more US groups would get flight detector system, which identifies particles, involved,” Yifang Wang, spokesman for BES-III, is performing as designed. These and other says. “There’s a complementary function between improvements make collisions at the Beijing accel- BES-III work and CLEO-c work. It’s beneficial erator the best in the world for studying physics to the physics and to the community when we can in this energy region. collaborate in this way.” “ BES has a long history of very important physics,” says University of Hawaii Professor Fred Ten times more data Harris, who served as co-spokesperson of BES-II The goal of the upgrade was to increase the and continues that role for BES-III. In its previous detector’s sensitivity and the collider’s luminosity, incarnations, the Beijing detector made ground- a measure of the number of particles in each breaking precision measurements of the tau collision. To do this, the Chinese institute retained particle mass and the R value, which measures

The charm quark is one of 16 types of elementary particles observed by experimenters.

18 the likelihood that electron–positron collisions will is at play. If, on the other hand, the LQCD calcula- create particles made of quarks. The R value tions prove accurate, researchers will know that helped refine the prediction of the mass of the they understand the intricacies of the chaos within Higgs, the as-yet-unseen particle thought to the meson well enough to predict how it behaves. lend elementary particles their mass. “Understanding this is an essential ingredient With a design intensity 100 times that of the for particle physics,” Poling says. original Beijing Electron Positron Collider, Harris says, the upgraded accelerator “promises A multipurpose tool even more significant contributions.” While testing the CLEO-c results is one of the Once the upgraded machine reaches full major goals of the Americans who moved to luminosity—which should happen in two to three Beijing to work with the new detector, it is not years—it will produce significantly more data by any means the only physics that will be of the type sought by the CLEO-c physicists. The done there. new detector is noticeably more sensitive than The upgraded Beijing collider operates in an BES-II and when commissioning is complete, will exciting energy range called the tau/charm region. produce collisions at a rate more than 10 times Here, electron–positron collisions are energetic higher than at CLEO-c, thanks in large part to the enough to form the charm quarks that interest new storage rings. This increase in power and the CLEO-c researchers. But by changing the sensitivity should lead to a better understanding of beam energy in this region, scientists can also the disagreement previously glimpsed at CLEO-c. produce very large numbers of J/psi particles as “With limited statistics, you can find a hint that well as excited forms of J/psi called psi' and psi" maybe something is going on,” Thorndike says. (pronounced “psi prime” and “psi double prime”). “But with ten times more data you can see if it’s By observing the decays of these particles, BES just a fluctuation or if it’s a real effect and you’ve collaborators from around the world will continue found something exciting.” their explorations of many unresolved topics in physics, including searches for gluons bound Forging new partnerships into a difficult-to-observe particle called a glue- In July 2008, just a few months after CLEO-c shut ball—something predicted by QCD but not yet down, the new BES detector recorded a beam unambiguously seen. Researchers will also look for from the upgraded collider for the first time. The new physics within the decays of the J/psi, psi' Americans were ready and waiting; with encour- and psi". And, as with charm quarks, they will use agement from University of Hawaii researchers these three particles to test LQCD calculations. and BES management, the universities of Binding together this varied research is the Minnesota, Florida, and Rochester and Carnegie desire to understand the minute workings of the Mellon University had officially joined the collab- physical universe and the knowledge that, as oration earlier that year. the years pass, fewer and fewer facilities around The newcomers are now working to integrate the world will offer researchers the opportunity themselves into the collaboration. For instance, to perform these studies. the University of Minnesota repurposed a com- “What’s nice is that you can do many types of puting farm, originally built to run simulations physics at a single machine,” Cronin-Hennessy for CLEO-c, to serve as a North American data says. “We’re approaching this in different ways, hub for BES-III. Now the university will serve but we have the same final goal: to understand as a middleman, importing large chunks of data the fundamental forces of nature.” from Beijing and making it available to US Right now, the Beijing accelerator is focused researchers, who will analyze data with this same on churning out psi’ particles, and has already computing farm. recorded the world’s largest sample of psi’ data “Working remotely has always been difficult, ever produced at an electron–positron collider. but it’s getting easier,” Carnegie Mellon Professor Once researchers have tripled that data set, they Roy Briere says. “Spotty connections make trans- plan to move on to other energy ranges and ferring data from China rather difficult; instead other particles. In two to three years, the collab- of every group trying to transfer the data oration plans to begin producing the Ds mesons and run the software individually, we do it in one that will allow researchers to continue the research symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 centralized location.” begun at CLEO-c. With the Beijing data, US scientists will dive “Thanks to the Chinese, we may be able to back into much of the research they conducted at answer some of the most compelling questions in CLEO-c, searching for new physics and testing particle physics,” Poling says. “The Chinese have LQCD. If researchers confirm the earlierCLEO -c built it, and we have come.” results that seemed to disagree with theory, theo- rists will have a lot of thinking to do; it would mean that either the LQCD calculations are flawed, or some sort of physics beyond the Standard Model

19 In the swirling sea of thousands of people who contribute to a major particle physics experiment, how can a young physicist pop to the surface and get noticed? An international committee offers ideas.

20 symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09

21 Physicists around the world know the name Timo scientists will consult the report when crafting Aaltonen. policies for future experiments. The Finnish graduate student has yet to com- plete his PhD. But since April 2007, members of The shiniest apple in a crate of oranges the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, collabo- The current, decades-old system of including every ration have credited almost all of their publications collaboration member as an author was designed to “T. Aaltonen et al.” to give individuals an incentive to contribute to Particle physicists know that Aaltonen did not, every aspect of the experiment. It helps large in fact, write all of those papers. CDF publications groups of people who may never meet face-to- list as authors every one of the collaboration face to feel like a team, says David Saxon, spokes- members—all 602 of them—in alphabetical order. man for the ZEUS collaboration in Hamburg. Before Aaltonen came along, the first author “If you’re not going to drink a beer with some- was “A. Abulencia.” body, you’re going to have to find other ways The author list does not distinguish between to promote cohesiveness in the collaboration,” the senior scientists who come up with ideas, he says. the hardware specialists who helped design and But to find out how each person added to the build the machine and the grad students who collective effort, outsiders have few clues. put in long hours analyzing results. Some of Contributors’ names are buried in a list of authors those on the list might not have even read the that can run longer than the article itself. paper because they are busy working on some Trends in university hiring have raised concern other part of the experiment. about the difficulty of standing out in such a “I don’t know anything about physics,” Aaltonen large crowd. jokes when people recognize him. “My boss Universities try to keep job candidate searches only took me into the group to get someone from as narrow as possible, says Robert Wald, chair Helsinki as a first author.” In fact, he studies of the University of Chicago’s physics department. b-jets in search of Higgs decays and spends “It would be very hard to compare a high-energy most of his time processing raw data for physics physics collider experimentalist with a condensed groups in the collaboration. matter experimentalist,” he says. In the early days of high-energy physics, But some universities try to broaden their researchers conducted experiments in small applicant pools, in part to reach larger numbers groups or even individually. Now they often of women and members of minority groups, says work with much larger, more complex machines Daniel Gauthier, chair of the physics department and detectors, in groups of collaborators that at Duke University. may number in the hundreds—or even thousands, Pitted against scientists in other disciplines for in the case of the Large Hadron Collider, the teaching positions, particle physicists find them- 27-km particle accelerator situated at the border selves at a disadvantage, as scientists in other of Switzerland and France. fields often work in smaller groups and are With the LHC experiments poised to produce more likely to land spots on author lists a line papers that list as many as 3000 authors, a or two long. working group from the International Union of Lost in a sea of authors, a young experimental Pure and Applied Physics Commission on physicist seeking a position or tenure at a uni- Particles and Fields has developed voluntary versity may have trouble proving his or her worth, guidelines for crediting contributors fairly while says Gregor Herten, a physicist at Freiburg maintaining the collaborative spirit. University in Germany and former chair of the The group called for collaborations to clarify IUPAP commission. their authorship rules and to find ways to publicly “When I was trying to promote a young person acknowledge the work of individual members for a position, [the university] had to trust me,” through additional record-keeping or awards. It he says. recommended they consider using two-tiered author lists to recognize those who made special Kick-starting careers contributions. Graduate students at the beginning of their careers And it advised individuals to list on their cur- have expressed the most dissatisfaction with the riculum vitae only the publications to which they alphabetical author list. But a survey on authorship made significant contributions. at an experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator The group does not expect current collabora- Laboratory proved that they’re not the only ones. tions to adopt many of these recommendations, Of 235 members of the BaBar collaboration who says current commission Chair Patty McBride of participated in the 2006 survey, 58 percent Fermilab’s computing division. favored changing the alphabetical author list in “It’s hard to impact a collaboration that’s been some way. Of the 48 graduate students who around for 10 years,” she says. replied to the survey, 73 percent were unhappy Instead, the group is more hopeful that with the status quo.

22 Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab

Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab

Honorable mention A list of all the people who Standing out from the crowd can be difficult for researchers in large col- contribute to a modern par- laborations. The Commission on Particles and Fields of the International ticle physics experiment from conceptionconception through through Union of Pure and Applied Physics has recommended seven ways to help design, construction, opera- highlight individual achievements. tion and data analysis can be very, very long. Collaborations should: • writeWrite clear,clear, publiclypublicly availableavailable rulesrules regardingregarding whowho isis anan eligibleeligible authorauthor forfor each publication. • releaseRelease a a public public WebWeb pagepage withwith supportingsupporting notesnotes and details about individual contributions for each publication. • publishPublish scientific and technicaltechnical notes written by small groups of authors. • keepKeep aa publicpublic recordrecord ofof waysways membersmembers havehave contributedcontributed byby takingtaking responsibilities such as writing refereed internal notes, speaking at con- ferences and holding leadership positions inside the collaboration. • considerConsider usingusing aa two-tieredtwo-tiered author list to emphasize special contributionscontributions to publications without cutting out other contributors.

Collaboration members should: • includeInclude a list of “most relevant publications”—those to which they made the largest contributions—on their curriculum vitae, rather than simply listing symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 all publications on which they are named as authors.

Organizations and collaborations should: • awardAward moremore prizesprizes forfor individualindividual achievementsachievements inin particleparticle physics.physics.

23 Some of the IUPAP commission’s suggestions always the ones who do the analysis and the for addressing this concern were uncontroversial. writing of the articles and the technical and ser- For example, it’s difficult to argue with the idea vice work.” that collaborations should make authorship rules clear and public. Alternatives to alphabetical Many representatives of high-energy physics The frustration of appearing as the 400th name experiments who reviewed the report also liked on an alphabetic list after weeks or months the idea of keeping track of people who had held of labor has fueled many a lunch-table vent- positions of authority inside the collaboration. ing session. The only problem is that no one can remember As a partial solution, the Belle collaboration who did what over years or decades of research, uses a unique system to slim its author lists. says Dmitri Denisov, spokesman for Fermilab’s Rather than including everyone automatically, it DZero experiment, which started in 1984. requires each potential author to opt in. “We were looking forward,” Denisov says. “We “I think there was a consensus that the collab- didn’t keep detailed track of the past.” oration members should at least be aware of McBride says collaborations may be reluctant papers,” Kinoshita says. “People should have at to take on additional record-keeping responsibili- least have read a paper, understood the result, ties in the future: “It’s work to set up and maintain and made some decision on whether they agree.” records and make them public.” Kinoshita says she signs about two-thirds of Listing everyone in the collaboration as authors the Belle papers, which come out at a rate of recognizes that without their help, there would two or three per month. “If I have time to read be no experiment, says University of Cincinnati a paper and think it’s pretty good, I’m happy to physics professor Kay Kinoshita, who works with sign,” she says. the Belle collaboration, based in Japan. But small University of Warwick physicist Tim Gershon, subgroups are usually responsible for writing who has also worked on Belle, says the rule the code, running the jobs, and making the plots changed attitudes toward publications. “I did find necessary to produce papers. that it encouraged a very vibrant atmosphere “There’s usually one person writing,” Kinoshita within the collaboration in which the latest results says. “Like writing code, writing a cohesive were discussed,” he says. piece of prose is very difficult to do with more The collaboration also highlights a paper’s than one person.” main authors at the top of the list, as long as no The people doing that writing are more often one objects to the names proposed. than not graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, says Gabriele Simi, a postdoc at the Lingering doubt University of Maryland who works with the In the year before releasing its recommendations, BaBar collaboration. the IUPAP commission’s working group sought “The higher-level professors do a lot of the feedback from major collaborations. But some thinking and reviewing and the very important task concerns remain. of managing and choosing the right people for Rob Roser, spokesperson for the CDF collab- the right job,” he says. “But in the end, they’re not oration at Fermilab, says he worries that the

24 process of singling out those who have made the role. According to the American Physical Society, most important contributions is too subjective. a scientist must make several key contributions “We all have our own definition of what an ideal such as conceptualizing the project; collecting, physicist is,” Roser says. “I don’t see why a analyzing, or interpreting the data; or writing person who made this final plot is more important the publication to be considered a primary author. than the person who made the detector the For his part, Aaltonen says he does not worry whole analysis was predicated on.” about author lists. “If I look for a job in physics,” Researchers in the ATLAS collaboration at he says, “people know the story of the author list. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider fear that using If I look for a job outside the science community, two-tiered author lists would recognize physi- then people are probably more interested in my cists who perform analysis at the expense of hands-on experiences than in papers.” those who are hardware-oriented, says ATLAS CDF’s Roser says that most of the time what Deputy Spokesperson Steinar Stapnes. Many really counts is how candidates present them- physicists and engineers have put in a decade selves and what others say about them. of work at the LHC. “Recommendations get you the interview. You “It would be incredibly unfair to put in the front get yourself the job,” he says. “In the end the the people who have done the final steps of the cream does rise to the top. People know who they analysis,” Stapnes says. “They may not have even are, and they figure out a way to be successful.” participated in the construction.” Even if they have to swim through an ocean Others also worry that honoring some people of names to get there. over others through awards or abridged author lists might cause unhealthy competition, ZEUS physicist Saxon says. “There’s a danger of rivalry, people not sharing information,” he says. “It can be destructive of the collaboration. As collaborations have got larger, the need to work hard on cohesion has increased.”

Beyond the authors’ list As important as publications are, they are only one

part of a physicist’s credentials. symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 Particle physicists applying for tenure at Duke University need to demonstrate their contribu- tions to publications during their time as faculty members, Gauthier says. But a typical particle physicist coming up for tenure might have 200 publications. So Gauthier asks candidates to identify 10 pub- lications for which they have played a primary

25 gallery: sergio cittolin

Channeling da Vinci Sergio Cittolin is first and foremost a physicist in search of answers to the mysteries of the A physicist sketches science in the style universe. Yet he also has an artistic bent, and his of an old master. talent for drawing has woven itself nicely into his 30 years of work at CERN. The result is a By Lisa McCarthy collection of Leonardo da Vinci-style illustrations that brighten CERN hallways, a book, and the covers of a number of technical documents. Cittolin has been an incessant doodler since his early years in Vittorio Veneto, Italy. He has sketched his way through school lectures and Below: Particle events depicted as books. The few stacked professional meetings. Now in charge of trigger neatly in piles are events selected by the CMS high- and data acquisition for the Compact Muon level trigger system for further study; more than 99 Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, percent have been rejected and tossed in a pile. Facing page: Like a body on the anatomy table, the detector he tends to chair meetings rather than just is dissected to extract information about particle events. attend them; “This has made it more difficult to find the time to sketch,” he admits.

26 In 1992 the first of Cittolin’s da Vinci-style message. She promptly presented him with the drawings appeared on the cover of a CMS requested bottle of wine. experiment design report. With collider operations Paris Sphicas, physics coordinator for the CMS still years away and key technologies not yet experiment, says of Cittolin’s artwork, “The invented, “I thought that the Leonardo style was graphics are amazing in numerous ways. Foremost suitable to give the feeling of anticipation of is the depiction of modern-day systems and new ideas,” he says. “Da Vinci was the father of actions in terms of medieval elements: the tons all engineers and described many of his inventions of data are drawn as piles of books; lasers a long time before technology was ready to become oil lamps; complicated systems, typically realize them.” electronic, find mechanical analogs which are As a naturalist, da Vinci probed, prodded, and ingeniously conceived. Second, all these elements symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 tested his way to a deeper understanding of are combined in a way that the drawing gives, how organisms work and why, often dissecting literally, a very short summary of what takes his object of study with this aim. “I thought, why about 500 pages to describe. Third, it’s the art not present the idea of data analysis to the world itself: it’s all drawn in the da Vinci style. From within the naturalist world of Leonardo?” the text—which, of course, reads backwards and Cittolin says. In the drawing below, the CMS can only be deciphered in front of a mirror—to detector is the organism to be opened; the parti- the line technique, the drawings look and feel like cles passing through it and the tracks they genuine works of Leonardo himself.” leave behind are organs exposed for further Even with 10 technical manual covers to his investigation. credit, having his illustrations published in The Cittolin brings a sense of humor to his work. Particle Odyssey by Oxford University Press, and For example, after betting CMS colleague Ariella seeing his artwork exhibited on the walls of Cattai that he could produce a quality drawing CERN, Cittolin is all about the physics. “The big- for the cover of the CMS tracker technical gest pleasure is to complete what I’ve started proposal by a given deadline, he included in the and see it working at the LHC,” he says. “It is drawing a secret message in mirror-image a real adventure to build something so unique writing—which was also a favorite of da Vinci’s. and maybe fundamental.” The message jokingly demanded a particular As for his drawings, Cittolin modestly insists reward for his hard work. The completed picture that they are “just pictures,” adding, “Maybe I will was delivered on time and within a few hours find more time to draw in retirement.” Cattai cleverly spotted and deciphered the

27 gallery: sergio cittolin

Below: In the first stage of sifting particle events to find the most interestinginteresting ones,ones, algorithmsalgorithms in in a a two-dimen 2D matrix- sionalare used matrix to identify are used electrons, to identify jets electrons, and muons. jets and Right: muons. One Right:slice of One the sliceCMS of detector the CMS is cutdetector away isto cutexpose away the to exposemagnet thecoil. magnet Facing coil. page: Facing A drawing page: Aof drawing the innermost of the innermostpart of the partCMS of detector, the CMS bristling detector, with bristling silicon withtiles, tooksilicon inspiration tiles, took frominspiration the nine from circles the nine of circleshell in ofDante hell Alighieri’sin Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy Divine. BelowComedy that,. Below the CMS that, detectorthe CMSis lowered detector into isthe lowered experimental into the hall. experimental hall.

28 symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09

29 deconstruction: standard model discoveries

elementary types of particles form the basis for the theoretical framework known as the Sixteen Standard Model of fundamental particles and forces. J.J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1897, while scientists at Fermilab saw the first direct interaction of a tau neutrino with matter less than 10 years ago. This graphic names the 16 particle types and shows when and where they were discovered. These particles also exist in the form of antimatter particles, with the same mass and the opposite electric charge. Together, they account for about 300 subatomic particles observed in experiments so far. The Standard Model also predicts the Higgs boson, which still eludes experimental detection. Experiments at Fermilab and CERN could see the first signals for this particle in the next couple of years. Other funda- mental particles must exist, too. The Standard Model does not account for dark matter, which appears to make up 83 percent of all matter in the universe.

1968: SLAC 1974: Brookhaven & SLAC 1995: Fermilab 1979: DESY u c t g

up quark charm quark top quark gluon

1968: SLAC 1947: Manchester University 1977: Fermilab 1923: Washington University* d s b γ down quark strange quark bottom quark photon

1956: Savannah River Plant 1962: Brookhaven 2000: Fermilab 1983: CERN

νe νμ ντ W electron neutrino muon neutrino tau neutrino W boson

1897: Cavendish Laboratory 1937 : Caltech and Harvard 1976: SLAC 1983: CERN e μ τ Z electron muon tau Z boson

*Scientists suspected for several hundred years that light consists of particles. Many experiments and theoretical explana- tions have led to the discovery of the photon, which explains both wave and particle properties of light.

30 Nobel awarded:2008 Discovery made:1973 the prizewithYoichiro Nambu) and Toshihide Maskawa(sharing Laureates: MakotoKobayashi containing astrangequark metry-violating behaviorofparticles and topquarkstoexplain thesym- Nobel work: Nobel awarded:1957 Discovery made:1956 Chen NingYang Laureates: Tsung-Dao Lee and as welldecayofstrangeparticles decay signaturesinbeta experimental mirror symmetry, which leadsto weak nuclearforceviolatesparity, or Nobel work: 1988 Nobel awarded:1988 Discovery made:1962 andJack Steinberger Schwartz, Laureates: Leon Lederman, Melvin thereby discoveringthemuonneutrino at are least two types of neutrinos, Nobel work:showingthatthere Nobel awarded:1979 Discovery made:1960s Abdus Salam,andSteven Weinberg Laureates: SheldonLee Glashow, mitted by photons) andtheweakforce(trans- electromagnetic force(transmittedby troweak theory that explains both the Nobel for:developingaunifiedelec- Nobel awarded:1968 Discovery made:1959–1964 Laureate: Luis Alvarez detection andanalysistools new of development the through achieved particles, of number Nobel work:discoveringalarge ν u For more information, visitnobelprize.org.Text: DavidHarrisandKurtRiesselmann to the development of the Standard Model, beginning with the “particle explosion” in the 1950s. explains a steadily increasing number of subatomic phenomena. Modelemerged.Ithasbroughtordertotheparticlezooand patterns. SlowlytheStandard experiments. By morethan100particleswereknownandphysicistsbegantofind 1960, The 1950s saw a proliferation of particle discoveries, thanks to the advent of accelerator-based γ s t μ Here is a brief summary of15 Here isabrief summary W b d W and predicting the bottom predicting that the the that predicting Z s Z bosons)

tral Nobel work:discoveringthatneu- 1980 Nobel awarded:1980 Discovery made:1964 Val Fitch Laureates: JamesCroninand known asCP matter-antimatter symmetry strange quark,violatethefundamental 1995 Nobel awarded:1995 Discovery made:1956 (sharing theprizewithMartinPerl) Laureate: Frederick Reines neutrino Nobel work: Nobel awarded:1969 1964 Discovery made:1953,1961, Laureate: MurrayGell-Mann of strangeness andquarks by introducingtheconcepts zoo particle observed experimentally the Nobel work:classifying 1999 Nobel awarded:1999 Discovery made:1971 Martinus Veltman Laureates: Gerardus‘tHooftand structure oftheelectroweaktheory foundation, elucidating the quantum on afirmermathematical ics theory Nobel work: placing particle phys- Nobel awarded:1995 Discovery made:1976 prize withFrederick Reines) Laureate: MartinPerl (sharingthe particles generation ofelementary third the to belongs that cle lepton, the first observation of a parti Nobel work: discovering the tau W ν u τ s Nobel Prize-winning discoveries e K mesons, which contain a mesons,which contain Z d detecting thefirst 31 s

-

Nobel awarded:1976 Discovery made:1974 Samuel Ting Laureates: Burton Richter and inexperiments fourth quarkobserved discovery of the charm quark, the Nobel work: Nobel awarded:2002 Discovery made:1980s prize withRiccardoGiacconi) Masatoshi Koshiba (sharingthe and Davis Raymond Laureates: ing thefieldofneutrinoastronomy - by supernovaexplosions, thusstart and sun the by produced neutrinos, Nobel work: Nobel awarded:2004 Discovery made:1973 Politzer, andFrank Wilczek Laureates: DavidGross, ated bytheexchange ofgluons. due tothestrongnuclearforce,medi- together they remaintightlybound quarks move away from each other 1984 Nobel awarded:1984 Discovery made: 1983 Simon vanderMeer Laureates: CarloRubbiaand Nobel work: first direct observation ofthe first directobservation the to led that project the to Nobel work:makingcontributions Nobel awarded:1990 Discovery made:1968 Kendall,Henry andRichard Taylor Laureates: JeromeFriedman, blocks: quarks building smaller of made are evidence thatprotonsandneutrons first the Nobel work:finding Z W bosons ν u g c e closely connected closelyconnected Z d discovering that as two discovering thatastwo detecting cosmic pioneering work in the pioneering workinthe W

and

symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 | may 09 essay: lynn hecht schafran

a definite departure from the days when I left the Bronx High School of Science at the start of my junior year for fear that having to take physics and chemistry simultaneously would destroy my grade-point average. Although I understood only a scintilla of what I read, I was fascinated. As the LHC start date neared, I found myself clipping more and more articles about it and feeling personally dismayed by the delays. I knew I would be following the news from CERN closely and wanted a concrete sense of the place from which it was emerging; hence my summer vacation. Our tour was far more than I anticipated in every way: more than three hours long, with three CERN physicists leading the way. I now understand why visitors must be limited to one tour a year. Back home I look with awe at the photographs in my CERN 2008 calendar and listen to my “Particle Physics for Non-Physicists” DVD series in the hope of understanding a bit more of what is being investigated there. I am among the myriad fans saddened that the LHC will not be Vacationing at the LHC operational until later in 2009, but I am comforted by something I learned from the physicist who In August 2008 I built my summer vacation around led our official tour group. a trip to CERN, the European high-energy He explained that the amount of data the LHC Photo: David Schafran physics laboratory near Geneva. I am a women’s will produce is so staggering that even on the rights lawyer and a former art historian, and it eve of activation, CERN physicists were still trying might seem unusual that someone so totally out- to determine how to best decipher which data side the field would consider that fun. were old news that should be discarded and which My CERN visit actually culminated a ten-year showed something new. So, painful as the delay interest in the Superconducting Super Collider. may be, it provides more time to meet this chal- In the late 1980s, my real estate-developer hus- lenge and perhaps, in the end, will prove a boon. band wanted to participate in the Super Collider Congratulations to everyone involved in this project, then planned for Waxahachie, Texas. He extraordinary project. I cannot wait to see what bought land adjacent to the site, intending to you discover. build an industrial park that would service con- struction and maintenance of the collider. Lynn Hecht Schafran is senior vice president of Legal Momentum and director of the organization’s National Judicial Obviously there was an economic interest at play, Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and but what attracted him to this location, as opposed Men in the Courts. She and her husband, Larry, live in New to others, was the thrilling scientific enterprise York City. expected to take shape there. Then we watched in disbelief as Congressional funding for the project floundered and finally died in 1993. To us the cancellation seemed so short-sighted. How could Congress cede America’s primacy in particle physics? How could symmetry | volume 06 | issue 02 may 09 it toss the chance to uncover wonders with a Super Collider vastly more powerful than what would be possible in Europe? Over the next years we watched plans emerge for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile ring beneath the Swiss-French border that will produce particle collisions seven times more energetic than ever before achieved. I began reading more and more about particle physics—

32 logbook: earth’s radiation belts

barely had time to The handwritten entry from Van Allen’s journal, made James Van Allen savor the launch on Dec. 13, 1957, shows his schematic for the transmis- of America’s first satellite, Explorer I, on Jan. 31, 1958, when sion of data gathered by his cosmic-ray detectors as well scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory told him the as by temperature sensors and micrometeorite gauges Geiger tube cosmic-ray detector his team had built wasn’t designed by other labs for Explorer I and III. working. The instrument kept blanking out, leaving baffling Particle detectors on Pioneer spacecraft in 1958 and gaps in the data transmitted to radio stations on Earth. 1959 allowed Van Allen to map a cross section of two The University of Iowa astrophysicist set his sights on radiation zones that reached thousands of miles into space. solving this mystery. His graduate student, George Ludwig, Below is the drawing he made for one of his first was already refining a smarter counter with a miniature science articles about them, indicating altitude in multiples tape recorder, and it launched aboard Explorer III on of the Earth radius and showing the contours of the March 26, 1958. zones based on radiation levels. The line crossing through Van Allen received the first data from Explorer III while the zones shows the trajectory of Pioneer 4. in Washington, DC. He bought a ruler and paper and The radiation zones, which contain high-energy charged plotted graphs in his hotel room until 3 a.m. He found what particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field, became he was looking for: the detector stuttered to a halt each known as the Van Allen radiation belts. On May 4, 1959, time Explorer III’s irregular orbit ventured into an area Van Allen and his cosmic-ray detector made the cover more than 500 miles above ground. He and his colleagues of Time magazine. now had proof for a high-radiation zone that had satu- Abigail Foerstner, Northwestern University rated and silenced the instruments. The first discovery of the space age, made just a few months after the Soviets FoerstnerAbigail Foerstner is the author is the of author James of Van James Allen: Van The Allen: First The Eight First Billion Eight Miles , publishedBillion Miles in ,2007 published (University in 2007 of (UniversityIowa Press). of Iowa Press). launched Sputnik, had been hiding in the gaps.

Earth Images: University of Iowa Libraries and Dept. Physics Astronomy Images: University of Iowa Libraries and Dept. Physics Astronomy explain it in 60 seconds

is one The charm quark of six quarks that, along with leptons, form the basic building blocks of ordinary matter. It is hundreds of times more massive than the up and down quarks that make up protons and neutrons. Theorists had predicted the existence of the charm quark to explain the absence of an expected particle interaction. When the charm quark did turn up, it was as a constituent of the J/psi particle, whose discovery in 1974 finally con- vinced physicists that quarks were real. Particles containing a charm quark are known as either “charmed particles” or “charmonia.” They have only a fleeting existence before decaying into more conventional particles. Many experiments have studied their properties. At facilities known as “charm factories,” large numbers of charm-containing particles can be produced with little contamination from other types of par- ticles. An electron-positron collider in Beijing, for example, is expected to ultimately produce 10 billion J/psi decays in one year’s running time. This level of production allows scientists to observe subatomic processes with great preci- sion, and may reveal subtle signs of new physics phenomena predicted by theorists. Frederick A. Harris, University of Hawaii

Symmetry A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication PO Box 500 MS 206 Batavia Illinois 60510 symmetryUSA