Dzero have released a diphoton plot as their first Higgs channel result using the full Tevatron dataset of 9.7/fb (Satish Desai Desai)

This is a companion to the equivalent plot from CDF published a month ago. At the LHC this is the most exciting channel but at the Tevatron it does not reach the sensitivity required to tell us anything about a standard model Higgs.

Slightly more interesting is this WW channel plot from CDF which improves on previous limits by about 10% (Richard StDenis). This is close to the sensitivity where some excess could have emerged but nothing is apparent.

The real interest for the Tevatron is the Higgs decay to two bottom quarks (bb channel) . For that and the combinations we are told to wait until next week which probably means Moriond.

ATLAS and CMS have not provided any new plots yet but ATLAS have reminded us that they still have to update WW, bb and ττ at 5/fb and we are also told to expect news at Moriond from them.

The ATLAS+CMS combinations previously expected for Moriond have apparently been abandoned. With the peak excesses from the two experiments in slightly different places the benefit of doing the combination may not justify the resources needed to produce it. Instead they look set to aim for independent discoveries from both ATLAS and CMS by the end of the year. This will not be an easy task as this plot at the bottom of the ATLAS talk shows (Junichi Tanaka) The 8 TeV energy improves the cross section by 30% and 3 sigma sensitivity is within easy reach with 2012 data, perhaps even in time for ICHEP, but 5 sigma discovery quality results require the full years run and some good luck. A run extension and a combination with 2011 data may be needed to polish it off. The same goes for CMS of course, and there is always the possibility that they will end the year with one team having better luck than the other.

In any case the arrow on this plot shows that they already know where the Higgs is

CMS also presented today (Josh Bendavid) but they have already given us everything they have for Higgs in 2011 data.

There’s news this week that the CDF experiment at the now-closed Tevatron has updated its result for a measurement of the same quantity, using the full CDF data set.  And they now find a very similar result to what LHCb found.   This is indicated on the slide shown below, taken from the talk given by Angelo Di Canto at the La Thuile conference (but edited by me to fix a big typo; I hope he does not mind.)  You see that while LHCb found a CP-violating asymmetry of -0.82%, with statistical and systematic uncertainties of 0.21% and 0.11%, CDF finds -0.62%, with almost identical uncertainties — a little closer to zero, but still well away from it.

A slide from the CDF presentation on its measurement of CP violation in D meson decays (with an edit by me to fix a glaring typo.) The CDF result is in orange at the top; the LHCb result is in black just below it. In the figure, the LHCb result is in blue, the CDF result in orange, and the traditional expectation for the Standard Model is very close to the point (0,0), the isolated red dot at dead center.

This lends support to LHCb’s result, and putting the two results (and a couple of other weaker ones) together makes their combination discrepant from zero by about 3.8 standard deviations.  That’s great, but not as great as it would have been if what theorists thought a few years ago was still considered reliable.  Back then, the relevant experts (and I should emphasize I am not one of them) would have told you that they were pretty darn certain that the Standard Model [the equations we use to describe the known particles and forces] could not produce CP violation of this type, and any observation of a non-zero signal would imply the existence of previously unknown particles.  But the experts  have been backing away from this point of view recently, worrying that maybe they know less about how to calculate this in the Standard Model than they used to think.  If we’re to be sure this is really a sign of new particles in nature, and not just a sign that theorists have trouble predicting this quantity, we’re going to need additional evidence from another quarter.  And so far, we haven’t got any.

Fermilab continues to be a great source of strength in the U.S. Basic Research Community.

Tona Kunz
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012

“Today, scientists from the CDF collaboration have unveiled the world’s most precise measurement of the W boson mass, based on data gathered at the Tevatron accelerator. The precision of this measurement surpasses all previous measurements combined and restricts the space in which the Higgs particle should reside according to the Standard Model, the theoretical framework that describes all known subatomic particles and forces.

The result comes at a pivotal time, just a couple of weeks before physicists from experiments at the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider in CERN plan to present their latest direct-search results in the hunt for the Higgs at the annual conference on Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories known as Rencontres de Moriond in Italy.

The CDF and DZero results for the W mass likely will be one of the long-lasting scientific legacies of the Tevatron.

Tevatron

See the full article here.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, for the French acronym) in Geneva, Switzerland, is the newest in a long succession of accelerators dating back to the mid 1920s. This was the era when quantum mechanics was first being developed by such notable physicists as Neils Bohr, Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger. The accelerators in those days were nothing like the circular colliders which are most commonly used today. A revolution in experimental quantum mechanics came about when beams of protons were pushed in opposite directions through magnets arranged in large circles and collided in detectors which would double the amount of energy converted to mass through Einstein’s equation E = mc². But it wasn’t until superconductors were invented that such an extravagant idea as the Large Hadron Collider could take shape.

Imagine a tunnel deep underground whose ten foot diameter is crammed with elaborate equipment including miles of wire, tubes of liquid hydrogen, millions of dollars worth of magnets, and a narrow path to traverse around its 17 mile circumference. The magnets used to accelerate protons to 99.999999% the speed of light would not be capable of doing so if it weren’t for an intrinsic characteristic to shed all resistivity, the tendency to resist the flow of electrons. Liquid hydrogen is used to cool the magnets to absolute zero, -273 ºC or 0K (Kelvin). Cooling the magnets with something as cold as liquid hydrogen is potentially dangerous. If it were to leak into the warm air in the tunnel, the extremely cold liquid would expand as it evaporates, thus decreasing the concentration of oxygen to the point where a person would suffocate. In a tunnel 300 feet below the surface, the last thing one would want is to be without a supply of breathable air. This very thing happened on the first test run by the LHC in 2008 after several preliminary delays, which brought many scientists to believe that some twist of fate might be inhibiting their progress for a reason. However, it was repaired and, in the last few years, has begun the slow power up procedure to reach its maximum potential of 14.0 TeV (teraelectron volts, a unit of energy in electricity). With that much energy being input into the system (imagine their electric bill!) and all of the technology required in the detectors, the LHC is the largest and most complex machine ever built by man.

Experimental physics wasn’t always so complicated. In fact some of the oldest accelerators were no more complex than a refrigerator. These particular machines were responsible for verifying the existence of electrons, protons, and neutron. When more intricate accelerators were developed, such particles as neutrinos and bosons were discovered.

Gauge bosons may sound like a confusing scientific concept, but the one which is most commonly referred to is the photon. Einstein theorized the existence of such a particle as far back as 1905, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that the field he helped inadvertently to invent, Quantum Mechanics, could verify why such a phenomenon as the dual nature of waves as particles was true. And it has to do with gauge bosons, the force-carrying particles. Think about it this way. There are four fundamental forces: gravitation, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Each force has a specific range of influence based on its mass and has its own defining characteristics. Gravity acts upon a wide scale and attracts mass to mass. Electromagnetism has infinite reach, creates the spectrum of light, and is responsible for electricity and magnetism. The strong nuclear force holds quarks together to assemble hadrons (protons and neutrons) and acts over a very short distance, less than a third the radius of a proton. And the weak nuclear force has the same range as the strong force, but, as its name implies, is nowhere near as strong, which is what accounts for the decay of radioactive material and the process of fusion which powers stars. Each of these forces has its own gauge boson which traverses between everything in the universe to convey the force. Think of them as ambassadors. Without bosons, there would not be interactions between different particles and, thus, no matter.

The Higgs Boson, however, is different. As far as scientists know, there are only four fundamental forces. How then would a fifth boson come into this zoo of particles? Whether or not the Big Bang Theory holds true is irrelevant. Its implications, on the other hand, have to hold true in order for the universe to exist at all. Matter condensed from somewhere. That is a fact. In the aftermath of the Big Bang, or so the current theory says, the four fundamental forces split from a single universal force which existed previously. As the universe cooled from its superheated state, different particles materialized out of the molten mess, which led to the formation of atoms, the forces which govern them, and their constituent bosons. Yet in this inconceivably energetic phase of matter’s history, there was something else lingering behind the scenes that is only now becoming apparent. This ethereal construct is what Peter Higgs theorized back in 1964: The Higgs Field. Vector fields in general describe the interaction of particles which have different magnitude and direction assigned to different locations in space. Think of magnetic field lines which surround magnets and you have the basic idea. Let us not delve into the complexities of vector fields, but just the implications of this specific one. According to the theory, the Higgs Field is everywhere. It encapsulates everything in the universe by interacting with matter through nothing less than the Higgs Boson and instills the intrinsic characteristic of mass to the particles it touches.

The theory of the Higgs Field/Boson has had such an effect on the physics community as to its inherent possibilities that it has gained the nickname the “God Particle.” Leon Lederman, director of Fermilab’s particle accelerator in Batavia, Illinois, even wrote a book of that very title. In his book, Lederman explains that while his beloved accelerator, the Tevatron, had helped him to discover various other particles and earn a Nobel Prize, it would never be able to find the Higgs Boson. The energy requirement needed to create such an energetic particle as the Higgs is too great for the Tevatron’s meager (yet record breaking in its day) 2.2 TeV. He then expresses hope that the current project (in 1993) in Waxahachie, Texas, would offer the opportunity to extend the knowledge of physicists beyond their wildest dreams. While the ideal accelerator would have the circumference of the Milky Way Galaxy and could, ideally, recreate the conditions of the Big Bang itself to such a scale that every scientist dreams of, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), that was being built in Texas at the time, would suffice. Its monumental status as the largest collider ever constructed, being 54 miles in circumference and offering a mind-blowing 40 TeV per collision, would be matched only by the extreme disappointment at the withdrawal of government funding, thus ending the project before it was even a third finished. For nearly ten years, the fate of experimental particle physics seemed dire, until CERN announced its intent to rebuild its Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP). When the Large Hadron Collider was completed and first powered up, a short in a wire caused an explosion which caused a serious delay. Now, however, the problems seem to be fixed and the search is back on to finding the Higgs Boson. It would prove an insurmountable testament to the coincidences and careful calculations of modern physics that Einstein’s goal was to “know the mind of God” and now scientists at CERN are searching for the aptly named “God Particle.”

While the Higgs still proves to be elusive, the hunt is on with renewed vigor. The next few years will prove to be a wonderful era in the realm of particle physics. Every hundred years or so, an esteemed physicist makes the mistake of saying that everything has been discovered and there are only a few loose ends to tie down. However, it is those few loose ends which eventually lead to a whole new branch of physics and the focus of the next hundred years. This very thing happened in 1897 before the electron was discovered, and again in the modern era when Stephen Hawking himself decreed that there cannot be much more to discover in physics. It will eventually prove false if the notion of the Higgs Boson is confirmed and may lead to a new revolution in our ideas of the universe around us. The physicists at the LHC are hard at work interpreting scatter plots and probabilities of decay reflections within the detectors and will find something in the mess of particle decays. What they discover may be something completely unanticipated. The only thing that is certain is that the universe exists and we are here to think about it. Realizing that we exist is only the beginning, and as Leon Lederman wrote, “If the universe is the answer, what is the question?”

List of Sources

Halpern, Paul. Collider: The Search for the World’s Smallest Particles. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, New Jersey, 2010. Print.

Lederman, Leon, and Dick Teresi. The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? Mariner Books, 1996. Print.

Quigg, Chris., “Higgs boson,” in AccessScience. McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008. Web.

Ridgen, John S., ed. “Higgs Boson.” in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics, vol. 1. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996. Print.

Map of Fermilab's accelerator complex. Image: Fermilab

Fermilab plans for a future of discovery

The only laboratory in the United States dedicated entirely to particle physics recently released its plan for the next two decades.

According to the document:

The keys to Fermilab’s long-term future are two facilities that could be operating in the 2020s: the Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment and Project X.

LBNE will take the next major step in the quest to measure and understand the properties of neutrinos and determine their connection to the observed excess of matter over antimatter in the universe.

The Project X accelerator complex will be unique in the world in its ability to simultaneously deliver high-intensity proton beams in different formats to multiple experimental areas. Project X experiments using neutrinos, muons, kaons and nuclei will provide new windows on phenomena not accessible at particle colliders, and will be essential to break through to a deeper understanding of nature and the origins of matter.

Fermilab has proposed building detectors for LBNE at Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, South Dakota. The laboratory hopes to construct Project X on its campus.

In the near future, Fermilab will upgrade its accelerator complex to double the intensity of its proton beams, which scientists use to create beams of other particles such as neutrinos.

Read the full document, “A Plan for Discovery.”

Read more

Fermilab is an enduring source of strength for the US contribution to scientific research world wide.

DECEMBER 21, 2011
MIRIAM BOON

Part I

“Few laypeople think of computing innovation in connection with the Tevatron particle accelerator, which shut down earlier this year. Mention of the Tevatron inspires images of majestic machinery, or thoughts of immense energies and groundbreaking physics research, not circuit boards, hardware, networks, and software.

Yet over the course of more than three decades of planning and operation, a tremendous amount of computing innovation was necessary to keep the data flowing and physics results coming. In fact, computing continues to do its work. Although the proton and antiproton beams no longer brighten the Tevatron’s tunnel, physicists expect to be using computing to continue analyzing a vast quantity of collected data for several years to come.”

A night-time view of the Tevatron. Photo by Reidar Hahn.

See the full article here.

MICHIO KAKU

This is copyright protected, so just enough to get you interested.

“Physicists around the world have something to celebrate this Christmas. Two groups of them, using the particle accelerator in Switzerland, have announced that they are tantalizingly close to bagging the biggest prize in physics (and a possible Nobel): the elusive Higgs particle, which the media have dubbed the “God particle.” Perhaps next year, physicists will pop open the champagne bottles and proclaim they have found this particle.

Finding this missing Higgs particle, or boson, is big business. The European machine searching for it, the Large Hadron Collider, has cost many billions so far and is so huge it straddles the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. At 17 miles in circumference, the colossal structure is the largest machine of science ever built and consists of a gigantic ring in which two beams of protons are sent in opposite directions using powerful magnetic fields.

The collider’s purpose is to recreate, on a tiny scale, the instant of genesis. It accelerates protons to 99.999999% the speed of light. When the two beams collide, they release a titanic energy of 14 trillion electron volts and a shower of subatomic particles shooting out in all directions. Huge detectors, the size of large apartment buildings, are needed to record the image of this particle spray.”

See the full article here.

Unfortunately, there is little background information about the U.S. contribution to the work at the LHC, or what preceded it here in the U.S.

What preceded it is forty years of Higgs hunting by the Tevatron at Fermilab, Batavia Illinois.
In fact, at the range now left for study, 115-130GeV, Fermilab, with tons of data still to sift, might just come up with Higgs before the LHC.

There are some 1600 U.S. scientists attached in some way to the LHC. Approximately 1000 scientists are attached top the CMS Collaboration remote location at Fermilab, one of only three such remote locations in the world. Another approximately 600 scientists are attached to ATLAS at Brookhaven Lab on Long Island, NY. These numbers are approximate. These are doctoral candidates and “post-docs” also affiliated with universities, and other U.S. D.O.E. labs.

Both Fermilab and Brookhaven Lab made significant contributions to the design, engineering, and construction of the LHC.

Please do read Michio Kaku’s piece.

From the Wall Street Journal

The article is here: Physicists Close In on a Universal Puzzle

Particles collide at an exhibit at CERN, whose scientists hope to discover the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that could explain how the universe is built. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Gautam Naik

“Scientists are making tantalizing progress in the hunt for the elusive Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that could explain how the universe is built, though their data aren’t robust enough yet to claim a conclusive discovery.

On Tuesday, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, said that data from two independent experiments had narrowed the range of the would-be particle’s likely mass”

From The New York Times

The article is here: Data Hints at Elusive Particle, but the Wait Continues

From left, Rolf Heuer, the director general of CERN — the European Organization for Nuclear Research — and Guido Tonelli, the spokesman for the Compact Muon Solenoid team of researchers, at a presentation at CERN about developments in the search for the Higgs boson. Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE, via Associated Press

“Physicists will have to keep holding their breath a while longer.
Two teams of scientists sifting debris from high-energy proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research outside Geneva, said Tuesday that they had recorded tantalizing hints — but only hints — of a long-sought subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson, whose existence is a key to explaining why there is mass in the universe. By next summer, they said, they will have enough data to say finally whether the elusive particle really exists.”

So, what’s missing? The United States of America is missing. The reason I started this blog is because the U.S. contribution to basic scientific research world wide in almost invisible in our standard press.
The WSJ article fails to even mention the 40 year history of the Tevatron at Fermilab. In actual fact, with Higgs limited to about 115-135 GeV, the Tevatron still has a shot. There is tons of data to be sifted in Batavia, IL.

Also missing is any reference whatsoever to the Superconducting Super Collider, a project to have been built in Texas with a 52 mile ring. This collider would have reached about 50TeV, far greater than the LHC’s 7Tev, and far more likely to find Higgs. But, our (Democratic) Congress killed the collider project in 1993, as having no immediate economic value.

And, finally, there is absolutely no mention of the 1600 U.S. scientists working on LHC projects, both in Geneva and at U.S. universities and D.O.E. labs. About 1000 people are based at Fermilab National Accelerator Lab in a “remote center” one of three in the world – for the CMS collaboration. Most of the rest of the 1600 are assigned to the ATLAS project, which has a base in the U.S. at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY.

Also, both Fermilab and Brookhaven made significant contributions to the design, engineering, and construction of the LHC.

Because I follow Quantum Diaries for this blog, I know that there are also scientists, doctoral candidates, post-docs, etc., at other sites, like Cornell UIniversity, NYU, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin, Berkeley Lab, and many other august U.S. institutions and univerities.

Regarding Dennis Overbye’s article, there is noted the work at Fermilab and its “now defunct Tevatron”. But again, nothing about the debacle in Congress in 1993, nor any comment concerning the contributions of U.S. scientists or U.S. D.O.E laboratories. Mr. Overbye is a great science writer. Check the link I gave: Mr. Overbye graduated from M.I.T with a degree in Physics. He knows his stuff.

I believe the information that I see missing from both articles is important because it sets a background context for the U.S. contribution to the search for Higgs.

Please visit the complete articles. They are really quite worthwhile, despite the shortcomings I cite.

Tona Kunz
December 13th, 2011

“Today physicists at CERN on the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider announced an update on their search for the Higgs boson. That may make you wonder ( I hope) what is Fermilab’s role in this. Well, glad you asked.

Fermilab supports the 1,000 US LHC scientists and engineers by providing office and meeting space as well as the Remote Operation Center. Fermilab helped design the CMS detector, a portion of the LHC accelerator and is working on upgrades for both. About one-third of the members of each of the Tevatron’s experiments, CDF and DZero, are also members of the LHC experiments.

Participants in Quantum Diaries:

Fermilab

Triumf

US/LHC Blog

CERN

Brookhaven Lab

KEK

The end of this year is approaching, LHC gathered data at higher luminosity but it is since the end of August that no news is around about the status of the search of the Higgs particle. Of course, a frenzy of activity is going around at CERN and finally, something seems to move. On Monday a new conference will begin in Paris (see here). No relevant novelties are expected with respect to this talk but DG of CERN asked for updates in the mid of December (see here for other information). Besides, rumors are spreading around blogosphere that a group at CERN asked at the conference organizers a further slot to give an announcement. All this is giving the flavor that, for the end of this year, some relevant news about Higgs will come out. It could be possibly a matter of days.

I would like to resume here the situation. Latest measurements seem to exclude a standard model Higgs for almost all the range from the LEP limit of 114 GeV to near 600 GeV. At about 600 GeV ATLAS is seeing an excess. Similarly, it is possible that Higgs particle is hiding at around 140 GeV but all the excesses seen so far are no more high than so that, a no Higgs scenario is gaining support. Tevatron appears to confirm this situation. The excess at 600 GeV, if confirmed, will imply a relevant re-analysis of the standard model as, in this case, we will enter into the realm of a strongly coupled quantum field theory. I provided mathematics for this (see here and here) but it is not widely accepted by the scientific community and, in general, other methods to work with this case are not known and most of our understanding relies on lattice computations. A heavy Higgs has also been forecast by Paolo Cea and Leonardo Cosmai (see here and here) having approximately the mass near the ATLAS excess. This would make the situation quite dramatic but really exciting and will provide a strong evidence for the existence of supersymmetry. Besides, in this case, a whole spectrum of excited states of this heavy and strongly coupled Higgs will also be observed.

In view of this near approaching dates, we wish the best of luck to people at CERN and thank them for their excellent work.

Marco Frasca (2010). Mass generation and supersymmetry arXiv arXiv: 1007.5275v2

Marco Frasca (2010). Mapping theorem and Green functions in Yang-Mills theory PoS FacesQCD:039,2010 arXiv: 1011.3643v3

P. Cea, & L. Cosmai (2011). The trivial Higgs boson: first evidences from LHC arXiv arXiv: 1106.4178v1

P. Cea, & L. Cosmai (2011). The Trivial Higgs at LHC arXiv arXiv: 1109.5922v1

The wheat pastes of Farewell Tevatron were arranged as a call and response: the top piece responded to the legacy of Fermilab’s particle accelerator, while the bottom piece asked Batavia residents to share their feelings on the shut down.

Overall, residents displayed a variety of emotions, mainly sadness, anger, optimism, and acceptance. The most impressive response was a woman who took down several fliers, scanned them, printed out new ones, and made her own shrine to the Tevatron on a telephone pole, complete with chalked hearts and a white bow.

Other responses were:

• “Well the probability that we will find something before the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] is low, so we have to move on to new and better things. Muon Collider FTW”

The Muon Collider is a yet to be realized particle accelerator that speeds up muons. Fermilab is a possible future site for the collider.

• “I’m angry. We should still conduct research here no matter the ring size.”

• ”A part of me just died, but another part has just been born”

To view images of that response and all the rest, click here.
To learn more about the project, click here.

The End of a Legend...

As since the 1980s, the  Chicago based Fermilab has been the leader of high-energy physics, in large part thanks to the Tevatron which was the first machine which reached the energies to discover the last quark in the elusive Standard Model.  However the Tevatron has come to the end of its life as at 2pm on Friday September 30th, it will be shut down for the last time.

This move will shift the focus of physicists’ to across the Atlantic, and on  the new darling being the shiny Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. As the LHC is likely to enjoy a long life at the top of the particle physics heap, however in time it too will be superseded by the next big thing.  However what is it that might come next?

With any luck the now unemployed Fermilab scientists might get their way as particle physics could migrate from the world of hadrons to that of muons.  Yet the path to getting there will take not only time, along with serious research, but also one of my favorites being the application of time-dilating relativity.

However as enticing this may be, it has been preceded by a series of bad options starting with the cancellation of the American Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in the 1990s which gave particle physics here the states a solid kick in the man jewels.  As even with CERN taking the lead,  It still took over a decade for the next big accelerator (LHC) to be built.  Yet even when it reaches the ability to operate at maximum power, it still won’t reach the energies once planned for the mighty SSC.

Additionally the LHC is also fundamentally restricted as its built in tunnels originally designed for an earlier collider and required financial input from just about every country with a physics program to speak of.  Which leaves us with  the harsh question which is whether any machine more powerful than the LHC can or will ever be built.

Yet necessity is also the mother of invention as It has also forced scientists to ponder other new and interesting ways to get particles up to high energies using approaches which are out of the box from the ones used by their forefathers.

Yet all of this is still well off into the future and if it took over a decade to build the world’s largest machine (LHC) then should America want to jump back in with the SSC, it would not be seen in the life time of many reading this post.  However you know what this means?  Yes we are now a “follower”, we are no longer a leader as over the past several decades we have let go of our leadership reins.  While yes you can’t always be the leader all the time, and in everything.  However as a world leader you must be a leader in many things and often (this is what makes you a leader).

Also Mr. Obama, science is the great economic engine of a country, not road construction, or public welfare programs as yes a project like the SSC comes with a major price tag!  However it also comes with major returns as this will lead to high paying domestic job growth, which will lead to foreign investment as they won’t want to be left out of the discoveries, which means money coming back to American shores as Mr. Obama this is why capitalism works and socialism fails as those who do are reward and those don’t and sit on the obese backside to enjoy the Jerry Springer show should not…

Its 4-mile circumference may not sound impressiv today but until CERN’s Large Hadron Collider came along in 2008, it was the world’s largest particle accelerator. The discovery of top quark in 1995 was one of Tevatron’s many contributions to particle physics.

The shutdown process will take a few months, according to Fermilab. According to Slate (I am still looking for other sources), a section of Tevatron will be open to public in the future. I will have to put Batavia, Illinois on my list.

R.I.P Old Friend

Here it is guys.  One more step towards the destruction of US lead futuristic technology and development.  However, the application and development of 100+ years of an increasingly conscious Liberal Progressivism in all facets of American life is standing strong in the form of the Department of Energy.  The department which was designed to get us energy independent back in the 70’s is now partly responsible for ruining the economy, ensuring that our children will live in a third world country where they cook food over burning dry cow patties and the department is also responsible for rape…

Good luck trying to visit the past or future while on holiday now…  China simply outlawed time travel. Well here in the good ol’ US of A we’ve physically made it impossible by shutting down the Tevatron program.  Now the Frogs, the Clog Fuckers, the Limey Fog Breathers, the Armpit Hair Loving Arians , the Wap Marinara Shitters and the fine men and women from Switzerland will be closest to the research.  According to some of the latest articles some similar research will still be taking place inside the US but on a much smaller scale and focusing on groups of particles rather than singling out individual particles.  The real breakthrough shit, like understanding what the fuck is wrong with women, will now happen over seas.  I would have to imagine that we’ll be able to travel freely between 3 or 4 parallel dimensions before that happens though.  So there’s a little ways to go first.

If you’re interested in reading more about the destruction of Tevatron read more here: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-tevatron-closure-20111001,0,7261924.story?page=2&track=icymi 

 Space PALS news:

- We will soon be sharing topics on why Titanium Jaguar and Star Burst don’t like posting information for their fans and the homosexual relationship between the two PALS creators. 

-The fast approaching PALS-Cast which if you were wondering why we advertised a Space PALS podcast months ago and then never delivered… well it’s because we’ve all been teamed up with a renegade band of ex-special forces mercenaries securing stolen US space technology from the Turnip Sucking Russians.  Milk Boy was stuck in the rear with the gear and that’s why he’s been able to post a little throughout the summer.  SB & TJ were whining like little bitches the whole time while I was leading men in covert operations.  Never send children to do a mans job. 

Stay sharp,

Blade

“But why”, I hear you ask, “should I care? What has the Tevatron ever done for me?”

The Tevatron is where we proved the existence of the top quark. For non-physicists, the top-quark is one of the fundamental particles of the universe, just one step below the up and down quarks which make up protons and neutrons. This makes it a pretty big deal: the top and bottom quarks are key to the stability of the standard model – physics’ equivalent of the periodic table. It’s like shutting down the laboratory that  first discovered hydrogen.

Mendeleev certainly thinks so.

OK, maybe it’s not quite that dramatic. More like scandium and germanium.

Even so, science seems to be being hit harder than I would like. Or maybe I’m just still reeling from the library cuts here in the UK, and our cavalier attitude to universities.

All I know is that if anyone ever tried to shut down the LHC for funding reasons, I’d be looking for blood. I don’t see why the Tevatron is any different.

—

And here, for no good reason is a picture of the standard model. FUCK YEAH!

Fermilab streamed the last moments of the Tevatron, where they walked through the shutdown process at the main control room and their two detectors, CDF and DZero. To terminate the Tevatron, the team fabricated two big buttons, pushed by Helen Edwards, who led the effort to design and build the Tevatron. The first button dropped the beams of protons and anti-protons and another turned off the accelerator magnets.

It was a bittersweet event. While I didn’t work on the Tevatron, in high school, I spent two summers working at Fermilab — the start of my journey into becoming an engineer.

Even though the Tevatron just ran its last beam, that doesn’t mean that Fermilab is done. There are still other ways to probe in the realm of particle physics, and I’m sure they’ll stay at the forefront of this field.

Fermilab is an enduring source of strength for the US contribution to scientific research world wide.

“Frontiers of Particle Physics

Three frontiers: energy, intensity and cosmic
At Fermilab, a robust scientific program pushes forward on three interrelated frontiers. Each frontier has a unique approach to making discoveries, and all three are essential to answering key questions about the laws of nature and the cosmos. Some questions can only be addressed by experiments at one frontier, but others require investigation on multiple fronts to create a complete picture.

Energy Frontier
At the Energy Frontier, scientists build advanced particle accelerators to explore the fundamental constituents and architecture of the universe. There they expect to encounter new phenomena not seen since the immediate aftermath of the big bang. Subatomic collisions at the energy frontier will produce particles that signal these new phenomena, from the origin of mass to the existence of extra dimensions.

Intensity Frontier
At the Intensity Frontier, scientists use accelerators to create intense beams of trillions of particles for neutrino experiments and measurements of ultra-rare processes in nature. Measurements of the mass and other properties of the neutrinos are key to the understanding of new physics beyond today’s models and have critical implications for the evolution of the universe. Precise observations of rare processes provide a way to explore high energies, providing an alternate, powerful window to the nature of fundamental interactions.

Cosmic Frontier
At the Cosmic Frontier, astrophysicists use the cosmos as a laboratory to investigate the fundamental laws of physics from a perspective that complements experiments at particle accelerators. Thus far, astrophysical observations, including the bending of light known as gravitational lensing and the properties of supernovae, reveal a universe consisting mostly of dark matter and dark energy. A combination of underground experiments and telescopes, both ground- and space-based, will explore these mysterious dark phenomena that constitute 95 percent of the universe.
These scientific frontiers form an interlocking framework that addresses fundamental questions about the laws of nature and the cosmos.

Research at the Three Frontiers
Research at Fermilab explores the fundamental physics of the world around us at each of the three frontiers of particle physics. Scientists from across the country and around the world [have]collaborate[d] on the CDF and DZero experiments at the Tevatron collider. Fermilab hosts a remote operations center, an analysis center and a computing center for more than 1,000 U.S. physicists collaborating on the CMS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Fermilab produces the world’s most intense high-energy beam of neutrinos for experiments to lay bare the secrets of these enigmatic particles. Fermilab is a leader in the search for dark matter and dark energy at both underground detectors and ground-based telescopes. Most of Fermilab’s 10 accelerators will continue to operate after the Tevatron shuts down. Fermilab is constructing new facilities and conducting R&D for next-generation tools for the particle physics research of tomorrow.

Experiments at the Energy Frontier

At the Energy Frontier high-energy particle collisions reveal new phenomena. The Tevatron [has] produce[ed] the world’s highest-energy proton-antiproton collisions until the 26-year-old collider shuts down in 2011 [today]. The physicists of the CDF and DZero collaborations will continue to search the Tevatron data for signals of new particles and phenomena. Fermilab serves as host laboratory for more than 1,000 U.S. scientists on the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Accelerator scientists at Fermilab, who helped construct the LHC accelerator, will push the boundaries of accelerator R&D for the LHC upgrades.

Experiments at the Intensity Frontier

Fermilab’s accelerator complex produces the world’s most intense beam of neutrinos, whose unique properties appear to be at the crux of many questions about the universe. The MINOS experiment uses a high-energy beam of neutrinos and underground detectors at Fermilab and in Minnesota to measure the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation. The MiniBooNE experiment uses a lower-energy neutrino beam to study neutrino mass. The MINERvA experiment explores nuclear and particle physics through neutrino scattering.

MINOS

MiniBooNE Detector

MINERvA experiment

Fermilab scientists are now building the next generation of neutrino experiments. The NOvA experiment will study the morphing of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos and aims to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. NOvA detectors are now under construction at Fermilab and in Soudan, Minnesota. R&D is underway for the MicroBooNE experiment, which will use liquid-argon technology to measure low-energy neutrino phenomena and investigate anomalies observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. A group of scientists and engineers is developing plans for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment, or LBNE.

NOvA experiment looking north

MicroBooNE experiment

Ongoing R&D prepares Fermilab to break new ground in research on revelatory rare phenomena with the muon-to-electron conversion, or Mu2e, and g-2 experiments. Accelerator R&D at Fermilab and the construction of a test accelerator help develop the technologies needed for the next generation of accelerators.

Mu2e

g-2

Experiments at the Cosmic Frontier

Fermilab physicists bring the perspectives and technologies of particle physics to the search for dark matter and dark energy, and to the construction and operation of large-scale ground and space telescopes. Fermilab plays a prominent role in the study of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays through the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. Fermilab led the construction of the Dark Energy Camera for the Dark Energy Survey [DES]. In 2011, DES will begin to install the digital camera, among the world’s largest, on a telescope in Chile to explore the nature of dark energy. Using the largest optical survey power in the world, DES will map about one-tenth of the sky and carry out the largest galaxy survey to date.

Dark Energy Camera

The CDMS experiment looks for particles of dark matter using a germanium-crystal detector in a mine in Minnesota, while COUPP uses an underground bubble chamber in Canada’s SNOLAB. Pioneering Fermilab R&D will develop critical zero-background technology for future dark-matter detectors.

CDMS detector

Physicists of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics conduct R&D for future experiments, including a Holographic Interferometer, or Holometer, to test a particular idea about how matter, energy, space and time behave on the smallest scales.
• 2012-2014

New experiments at the Frontiers

From 2012 to 2014, Fermilab’s primary research focus will shift from the Energy Frontier to the Intensity Frontier, with the construction of new experiments and preparation for new large-scale projects. In 2012, the laboratory will upgrade several of its 10 detectors. At the Cosmic Frontier, the search will continue for dark-matter particles and the origins of dark energy. Fermilab will also pursue R&D for future particle accelerators and detectors to advance technology, enable future experiments and create innovations for the benefit of society.

Making discoveries at the Energy Frontier

During the next several years, scientists on Fermilab’s CDF and DZero experiments will continue to analyze Tevatron data, searching for signs of the Higgs boson and matter-antimatter asymmetries. Fermilab will also remain a strong partner for U.S. collaborators on the Large Hadron Collider experiments at CERN. Fermilab’s Remote Operations Center and Grid Computing Center provide access to the LHC’s collision data for U.S. scientists.

Advancing research at the Intensity Frontier

Certain particle physics experiments require particle beams with incredibly large numbers of particles:
The Intensity Frontier.

To prepare for new experiments at the Intensity Frontier, Fermilab will upgrade its accelerator complex in 2012. Scientists will retool the complex to create intense particle beams for experiments such as NOvA and MicroBooNE that will explore neutrino interactions and rare subatomic processes.

When the accelerator upgrades are complete, Fermilab will use the world’s most intense neutrino beam for the NOvA experiment, a 15,000-ton detector under construction in Minnesota. NOvA scientists expect to record the first neutrino data in 2013. Simultaneously, physicists are advancing the MicroBooNE experiment. It will use a liquid-argon detector to study neutrinos at lower energy than NOvA. Scientists expect construction of the MicroBooNE detector to begin in 2013 and to have first data in 2015.

Exploring the Cosmic Frontier

Using the cosmos as a laboratory, Fermilab scientists will continue to investigate dark matter and dark energy with underground experiments and ground-based telescopes. In 2012, Fermilab will start up the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera, mounted on a telescope in Chile. Scanning about 12 percent of the southern sky, the camera will seek the origins of dark energy by photographing galaxies when they were only a few billion years old. The Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina will continue to search for the origin of the highest-energy cosmic rays.

Operating particle detectors deep underground, Fermilab scientists will continue to search for dark matter. Scientists working on the CDMS experiment at the Soudan Mine in Minnesota will upgrade its detector, making the experiment more sensitive to dark-matter particles. Meanwhile, members of the COUPP collaboration will start operating a 60-kg bubble chamber at Canada’s SNOLAB to look for dark-matter particles.

Creating next-generation accelerator technology

Future Fermilab accelerator R&D will focus on superconducting radio-frequency technology[SRF]. Fermilab will break ground in fall 2011 for the Illinois Accelerator Research Center, a state-of-the-art facility where scientists and engineers from Fermilab, Argonne and Illinois universities will work side by side with industrial partners to research and develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and translate them into applications for the nation’s health, wealth and security. In 2013, the laboratory will complete an SRF accelerator test facility, the first of its kind in the United States. In collaboration with industry and other DOE national laboratories, scientists will use SRF components to accelerate a particle beam in this facility. By 2014, Fermilab plans to complete the technical design for the proposed Project X, a linear accelerator that would use SRF technology to explore new physics at the Intensity Frontier.

Illinois Accelerator Research Center

Fermilab’s research program for 2015 and beyond

New facilities at Fermilab, the nation’s dedicated particle physics laboratory, would provide thousands of scientists from across the United States and around the world with world-class scientific opportunities. In collaboration with the Department of Energy and the particle physics community, Fermilab is pursuing a strategic plan that addresses fundamental questions about the physical laws that govern matter, energy, space and time. Fermilab is advancing plans for the best facilities in the world for the exploration of neutrinos and rare subatomic processes, far beyond current global capabilities. The proposed construction of a two-megawatt high-intensity proton accelerator, Project X, would enable a comprehensive program of discovery at the Intensity Frontier and spur the development of accelerator technology for future energy-frontier accelerators. The proposed LBNE neutrino project [see above], which would use the world’s highest-intensity neutrino beam, would allow scientists to explore the role that neutrinos played in creating a universe of matter. And a new muon experiment, Mu2e, would aim to find out whether muons morph into electrons the way that quarks and neutrinos can transform into each other, with transformational implications for particle physics.

LBNE neutrino project

Project X

High-intensity particle beams

The proposed Project X accelerator would allow scientists to conduct a series of experiments at the Intensity Frontier with a 2-megawatt particle beam. The half-mile-long accelerator would accelerate a proton beam with almost seven times the beam intensity of Fermilab’s best accelerator performance in 2010. The beam would provide particles for kaon, muon, nuclear and neutrino experiments that would address key questions of 21st-century physics: How did the universe come to be? What happened to the antimatter? Do all the forces unify? These intensity-frontier measurements would open a doorway to realms of ultra-high energies beyond those that any particle collider could ever directly achieve.

The best neutrino experiment in the world

Are neutrinos the reason we exist? The roughly 300 scientists of the LBNE collaboration are advancing plans for the world’s best neutrino and proton decay experiment. It would send a high-intensity neutrino beam from Fermilab to a particle detector in South Dakota. Construction of the experiment, which received stage-one approval by DOE in 2010, could be underway in 2015. The experiment’s capabilities would far exceed those of the NOvA neutrino experiment, which will take data until 2019. Located underground, the LBNE detectors would determine whether neutrinos break the matter-antimatter symmetry, which could be the long-sought explanation for the dominance of matter over antimatter across the universe. Scientists also would use the ultra-sensitive detector to search for signs of proton decay, a phenomenon predicted by models for a Grand Unified Theory.

Using muons to look beyond the Standard Model

Physicists have found that quarks and neutrinos are notorious violators of flavor symmetry—a fundamental symmetry of the Standard Model of particles. So far, though, experiments have failed to observe flavor violation by electrons and muons. The Mu2e experiment [above], awarded first-stage approval by DOE in 2009 for a possible construction start by 2015, would search for the rare transformation of a muon into an electron, a clear signal of flavor symmetry violation—and unmistakable evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model.

The next-generation particle collider

In collaboration with industry and DOE national laboratories, Fermilab is developing superconducting acceleration technologies. These SRF technologies have future proton and electron beam applications, including Project X and next-generation energy-frontier particle colliders. Scientists are developing proposals for several future colliders, including the International Linear Collider and a muon collider (see animation). Discoveries at CERN’s LHC will soon determine which direction will best advance energy-frontier research. Beyond 2015, U.S. scientists will continue to make crucial contributions to the CMS experiment at the LHC thanks to Fermilab’s Grid Computing Center and LHC Remote Operations Center.

Research at the Cosmic Frontier

Ninety-five percent of the universe consists of unknown dark matter and dark energy. Fermilab conducts some of the world’s most advanced cosmic-frontier experiments to discover their nature and plans to remain a leader in the next generation of world-class projects. In 2015, the Dark Energy Survey will be in the middle of its initial 5-year run, and Fermilab scientists are planning upgrades to extend the operation of the Dark Energy Camera for an additional five years. The CDMS and COUPP collaborations are developing plans for larger-scale underground experiments, much more sensitive to dark-matter particles than any currently operating experiment. Fermilab scientists will work on the LSST collaboration to build a wide-field optical survey telescope to observe more than half the sky every four nights. The LSST identified as a top priority in the 2010 decadal study of the National Research Council, will explore dark energy, supernovae and time-variable phenomena.”