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symmetry

A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

dimensions of particle physics

april 2013

Table of contents
Application: Semiconductors Explain it in 60 seconds: Spin Application: How particle physics improves your life Day in the life: Programmed for success Gallery: Cosmic open house draws curious crowd Breaking: NOvA neutrino detector sees first particles Breaking: BESIII collaboration catches new particle Breaking: OPERA snags third tau neutrino Breaking: Planck reveals new insight into universe Breaking: One step closer to the Higgs boson Breaking: LHCb studies particle tipping the matter-antimatter scales Breaking: Higgs-like particle still looking like the Higgs Signal to background: Astronomers give Dark Energy Camera rave reviews Signal to background: Great minds lauded at physics prize ceremony Signal to background: Meet 63 women in STEM, and counting Signal to background: Research with flair at FameLab 2013 Signal to background: A different spin Signal to background: Linear collider focus gets down to size

application April 02, 2013

Semiconductors
Accelerator-powered ion implantation proves key to advances in integrated circuits.
By Glenn Roberts Jr. Particle accelerators earned an important place on the semiconductor assembly line decades ago, and today their role in silicon wafer manufacturing processes continues to grow in complexity and scope. As a silicon wafer makes its way down the assembly line, it may pass through dozens of particle beams produced by accelerators in a process known as ion implantation. Born out of the national labs, this process embeds fast-moving particles in the wafer at specific locations, depths and concentrations, permanently changing the semiconductor's electrical qualities by selectively creating an abundance of electrons or electron vacancies at specific locations. These electron-rich or electron-depleted areas, in combination with other transistor components affixed to the regions, work like rivers of charge to guide electrons around a semiconductor in precisely controlled ways. Advances in ion implantation have helped manufacturers to pack more transitors into an integrated circuit, revolutionizing computing speed and power and reducing roomsized machines to pocket-sized devices. "Ion implantation is an absolutely necessary technology in the way we build devices, and its use has been growing," says Larry Larson, an engineering professor at Texas State University at San Marcos who previously worked for National Semiconductor, a Silicon Valley-based chip manufacturing firm acquired by Texas Instruments in 2011. "Every time a factory is built, they need some number of ion-implantation machines in the factory, and the number of machines per factory has grown over the years." Today there are an estimated 12,000 ion-implantation accelerators operating worldwide and an average of 300 new ones are purchased each year, with the lion's
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share purchased by the semiconductor industry. To meet manufacturing demands, the implanting processes become incrementally more exacting and elaborate each year, with researchers fine-tuning the number of particle beams a single wafer encounters and the angle at which each beam hits the wafer. The speed of the implantation process is also ramping up to meet manufacturing demand; today, the quickest implanters can process about 300 wafers an hour. Alexander Wu Chao, a professor at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and editor of the journal Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology, says that ion-implantation accelerators are essential to todaysand tomorrowsadvanced electronics. "They are becoming much more sophisticated and much more precise as required by modern semiconductors," he says. While ion implantation is often used to treat flat semiconductor surfaces, there are also applications that require implantation on the sides of raised, gridded surfaces, which pose far more challenges in achieving uniform doping. Accelerator advances in the semiconductor industry have contributed to the exponential growth of computing technology, Chao continues, saying that he expects "a continuing evolution of accelerator technology to meet the increasing demands in the years to come."

Above: A single silicon wafer, like the one seen here, is typically bombarded with ions of several different elements. Boron, arsenic and phosphorous are among the elements most commonly used in the semiconductor industry.

explain it in 60 seconds March 07, 2013

Spin
Objects as large as a planet or as small as a photon can have the property of spin. Spin is also the reason we can watch movies in 3D.
By Jim Pivarski, Fermilab Spin is the amount of rotation an object has, taking into account its mass and shape. This is also known as an objects angular momentum. All objects have some amount of angular momentum. A spinning coin has a little angular momentum; the moon orbiting the earth has a lot. Like energy, angular momentum is a conserved quantity: The total amount is constant, though it can flow from one object to another. When a spinning figure skater contracts her arms and rotates faster, her angular momentum is unchanged because a narrow object rotating quickly has the same angular momentum as a wide object rotating slowly. Particles, as far as we know, are infinitesimal points of zero size. Yet they have measurable amounts of angular momentum. Does the concept of rotation even make sense for a featureless speck? Angular momentum seems to be a more foundational concept than rotation itself. The angular momentum, or spin, of a single particle is restricted in strange ways. It can have only an certain values, and not all values are allowed for all particles. Electrons and quarks (particles of matter) can have a spin of 1/2 or +1/2; photons (particles of light) can have a spin of 1 or +1; and Higgs bosons must have a spin of 0. Though particle spins are tiny, they have an impact on our everyday world. The spin property of photons allows us to create 3D movies. A movie theater simultaneously projects two images, one with positive-spin photons and the other with negative-spin photons. One side of a pair of 3D glasses filters out the positive-spin photons, and the other filters out the negative-spin photons. We therefore see one image with each eye. Our brains combine them to create the illusion of depth. It is a fortunate accident of biology that humans have as many eyes as photons have
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spin states.

application March 26, 2013

How particle physics improves your life


From MRIs to shrink wrap, particle physics technology improves the world we live in.

Diapers Using particle accelerators, chemists were able for the first time to see the detailed wet structure of the superabsorbent polymer material used in diapers. That enabled them to adjust and improve the formula for the superabsorbent polymers until they had the perfect materialthe one thats used in all modern-day diapers.

Shrink wrap If you buy a Butterball turkey, you have particle accelerators to thank for its freshness. For decades now the food industry has used particle accelerators to produce the sturdy, heat-shrinkable film that Butterball turkeysas well as fruits and vegetables, baked goods, board games and DVDscome wrapped in.

Cargo scanning More than 2 billion tons of cargo pass through ports and waterways annually in the United States. Many ports are now turning to high-energy X-rays generated by particle accelerators to identify contraband and keep ports safe. These X-rays penetrate deeper and give screeners more detail about the nature of the cargo.

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MRI The life-saving medical technology known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging makes detailed images of soft tissue in the body. Unlike X-rays, MRIs can distinguish gray matter from white matter in the brain, cancerous tissue from noncancerous tissue, and muscles from organs, as well as reveal blood flow and signs of stroke. Key aspects of this important technology emerged from particle physics research.

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Workforce development Many of the people trained in particle physics move on to jobs in industry, medicine, computing or other fields where their skills are in high demand. You might find an expert on particle detectors exploring for oil or an accelerator scientist working on cancer treatments.

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Heart valves Physicists are improving the safety of artificial heart valves by designing a new material bombarded with silver ions from a particle accelerator. The treated surface of the material keeps the body from identifying the valve as an invader and surrounding it with potentially dangerous extra tissue.

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Intense light for research Circular particle accelerators bend the paths of speeding electrons, causing the electrons to emit light. This light is a powerful research tool with many applications. Dedicated synchrotron accelerators known as light sources allow scientists to control the intensity and wavelength of light for research thats led to better batteries, greener energy, new high-performance materials, more effective drug treatments and a deeper understanding of nature.

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Grid computing The World Wide Web isnt the only computing advancement to come out of particle physics. To deal with the computing demands of the LHC experiments, particle physicists have created the world's largest Grid computing system, spanning more than 100 institutions in 36 countries and pushing the boundaries of global networking and distributed computing.

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Furniture finish For a quarter of a century, companies around the world used beams of electrons from particle accelerators to make scratch- and stain-resistant furniture. The surfaces of these treated desks, shelves and tables look like wood but are nearly impossible to scuff.

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day in the life March 19, 2013

Programmed for success


Former particle physicist John Mansour still creates analytic solutionsthese days, for retail clients.
By Heather Rock Woods John Mansours professional life has zigged and zagged like a bright green line on an oscilloscope, always centered on a love of physics. As a kid, I was always reading about space travel and astronomycouldn't get enough of it. So I pretty much knew I was going into physics from a very early age, Mansour says. Now in his early 50s, he is vice president and leads the development team in the Advanced Solutions Group of Nielsen in Schaumburg, Illinoisnot far from Fermilab, where he conducted his PhD thesis experiment. When I was at Fermilab, 90 percent of my work was programming or building hardware, he says. At Nielsen, our group writes a variety of custom programs to process and analyze large amounts of data for the consumer packaged goods industry, mostly food and beverages. We get very challenging and interesting projects to work on, and the people I work with are smart and hardworking, very similar to Fermilab. So not much is really changed. Mansour has made some adjustments over the years, however, including during his graduate studies at the University of Rochester, where he had intended to study optics. The first career turning point arrived when he crossed paths in the hall one day with University of Rochester Physics Professor Tom Ferbel. He asked me if I wanted to work with his team at Fermilab for the summer, Mansour says. Well after that summer, I was hooked. I loved the work, the people and the environment. Mansour joined Fermilabs E706, an experiment that observed the production of photons in the interactions of quarks and gluons. With Ferbel as his advisor, he measured a major source of experimental background noise for his thesis.
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Fellow Rochester and E706 grad student Nikos Varelas became a close friend, and the two still meet often to discuss physics news and life. The experience John had in high-energy physics provided a very good background to bridge the gap between statistical methodology, application development and analysis of business needs, says Varelas, now a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And although he left physics 18 years ago, he is still keeping up with the developments and discoveries in the field. Mansour scans articles on preprint and science sites and reads books to stay current, but claims, My physics is a bit rusty; Nikos shows a lot of patience. Nonetheless, Mansour says that he continues to draw on many of the skills he developed during his physics training. The switch to Nielsen in 1995, for example, required knowledge of Fortran, C and multivariate regressionso I was a good fit, he says. Its been a happy match for Nielsen and Mansour. Today, Mansour says, a good understanding of the math and programming helps bring ideas generated in our group to production. In addition, the ability to analyze and solve problems is huge. His group helps clients enhance their marketing and promotion strategies, which in turn can benefit consumers with better prices. The group also does pro bono projects; recently, they helped a nonprofit agency more efficiently distribute food where it was most needed. Like his clients, Mansours colleagues welcome his physics-based capabilitiesas well as his views on topics like the Higgs boson. John approaches his job as a scientist, leveraging methods from many scientific fields, says Mitch Kriss, a Nielsen senior vice president of research and development. I have not found an analytical business problem that he was unable to solve.

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gallery March 29, 2013

Cosmic open house draws curious crowd


Kids of all ages flocked to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to learn about the universe and have fun doing it.
By Lori Ann White Last Sunday, 350 of the closest friends and neighbors of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology streamed onto the SLAC campus to help celebrate the institutes 10th birthday. Instead of gifts, the guests brought something better: curiosity and enthusiasm. KIPAC's open house, meant to share the discoveries made during a decade of research, included more "eyes-on" and "minds-on" activities than hands-on onesfitting for an institute that focuses on finding new and better ways to learn about our universe from the scant photons it sends our way. Several KIPAC scientists were kicked out of their offices for the day and replaced by booths. Favorite stops included a small, simple bubble chamber that drew a perpetual crowd of visitors. Peering into the tank, guests saw the tracks of cosmic rays appear and then fade away like particle ghosts. The Visualization Lab, where KIPAC scientists screened large-scale simulations of the birth of the universe and the behavior of dark matter haloes in three dimensions, revealed the utter beauty of science. And the "make your own pulsar" booth drew kids of all ages: A lump of clay wrapped around two red LED bulbs linked by a watch battery might not sound enticing, but spin it on the end of a string and the resemblance to a pulsar becomes immediately apparent. KIPAC science took center stage in auditorium-filling talks on topics including the two "darks" (matter and energy), black holes and the institute's current flagship project, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Researchers were also on hand to explain the cosmic microwave background,
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gravitational lensing (including a "lens yourself" version of a photo booth), and the taxonomy of galaxies. Guests could take advantage of the sunny spring weather to peer through solar telescopes set up on the lawn. Sadly, it was a "boring day for the Sun," as one of the KIPAC postdocs on duty admitted, with only a few prominences and a lone sun spot visible. They could also learn more about what the telescopes couldn't tell them at the exhibit showcasing the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a project with significant KIPAC involvement. One booth, "The Physics of Star Trek," seemed particularly popular with the older crowd. Stubborn baby boomers argued for the feasibility of warp drives and transporters and made their preferences for time travel quite clear. But even though KIPAC studies physics, not fiction, they still packed their party with a sense of wonder. Really, the only thing missing was the cake.

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breaking March 27, 2013

NOvA neutrino detector sees first particles


The NOvA neutrino detector, currently under construction, has already begun to take data from cosmic rays.
By Kathryn Jepsen What will soon be the most powerful neutrino detector in the United States has begun recording its first images of particles. The NOvA detector is still under construction in Ash River, Minn. However, using its first completed section, scientists have begun collecting data from cosmic raysparticles produced by a constant rain of atomic nuclei falling on the Earths atmosphere from space. The detector takes three-dimensional images of the particles' tracks as they pass through it. Its taken years of hard work and close collaboration among universities, national laboratories and private companies to get to this point, says Pier Oddone, director of the Department of Energys Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Fermilab manages the project to construct the detector. The active section of the detector is about 12 feet long, 15 feet wide and 20 feet tall. When complete, the full detector will measure more than 200 feet long, 50 feet wide and 50 feet tall. Ultimately, the scientists' goal is to discover properties of mysterious fundamental particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are as abundant as cosmic rays in the atmosphere, but they have barely any mass and interact much more rarely with other matter. Many of the neutrinos around today are thought to have originated in the big bang. The more we know about neutrinos, the more we know about the early universe and about how our world works at its most basic level, says NOvA co-spokesperson Gary Feldman of Harvard University.
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Later this year, Fermilab, outside of Chicago, will start sending a beam of neutrinos 500 miles through the earth to the NOvA detector near the Canadian border. When a neutrino interacts in the NOvA detector, the particles it produces leave trails of light in their wake. The detector records these streams of light, enabling physicists to identify the original neutrino and measure the amount of energy it had. When cosmic rays pass through the NOvA detector, they leave straight tracks and deposit well-known amounts of energy. They are great for calibration, says Mat Muether, a Fermilab post-doctoral researcher who has been working on the detector. Everybody loves cosmic rays for this reason, Muether says. They are simple and abundant and a perfect tool for tuning up a new detector. The detector at its current size catches more than 1000 cosmic rays per second. Naturally occurring neutrinos from cosmic rays, supernovae and the sun stream through the detector at the same time. But the flood of more visible cosmic-ray data makes it difficult to pick them out. Once the Fermilab neutrino beam starts, the NOvA detector will take data every 1.3 seconds to synchronize with the Fermilab accelerator. Inside this short time window, the burst of neutrinos from Fermilab will be much easier to spot.

This 3D image shows a cosmic-ray muon producing a large shower of energy as it passes through the NOvA detector in Minnesota. Courtesy of: NOvA collaboration Fermilab released a version of this text as a press release.

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breaking March 26, 2013

BESIII collaboration catches new particle


A new particle spotted at Chinas Beijing Electron Positron Collider raises more questions than it answers.
By Kelen Tuttle The plot has thickened for scientists studying a recently discovered particle at the Beijing Electron Spectrometer. For the past three months, the BESIII collaboration has studied the Y(4260) particle, discovered in 2005, to try to understand why this anomalous creature refuses to conform to scientists understanding of similar particles. Surprisingly, the first result from these studies is the observation another new, unexpected and mysterious particle named the Z_c(3900). The Y(4260), originally discovered by the BaBar collaboration, is a bit of an odd duck. Other particles with similar characteristicscalled charmoniumare composed of a charm quark and an anti-charm quark held together by the strong force. Yet the Y(4260) doesnt seem to fit this model and its building blocks remain unclear. In an attempt to better understand the Y(4260), researchers collided electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, at the Beijing Electron Spectrometer using just the right energy to produce more than 1000 observed Y(4260) decays. By seeing how these Y(4260) particles decay into other particles, researchers seek to clarify their internal structure. Yet, so far, what theyve seen is even more mysterious than the question they set out to answer. In addition to more common particles, the Y(4260) also decays into the newly discovered Z_c(3900) particle, which also does not fit into the charmonium box. While standard charmonium particles are neutral, the Z_c(3900) is charged. Both the Y(4260) and the Z_c(3900) appear to be members of a new class of particles called the XYZ mesons. Further studies will seek to reveal the building blocks of both the Y(4260) and the Z_c(3900).
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"We are very excited about this," says Yifang Wang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics at Beijing, in a press release issued by the institute. "With our Beijing collider, we can accumulate a lot more data that will permit more comprehensive investigations of the nature of this unusual, electrically charged charmonium state. When all of these results are used as inputs to theory, we may begin to open the door toward a fuller understanding of the XYZ particles discovered in recent years."

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breaking March 26, 2013

OPERA snags third tau neutrino


For the third time since the OPERA detector began receiving beam in 2006, the experiment has caught a muon neutrino oscillating into a tau neutrino.
By Kathryn Jepsen For the third time ever, scientists have seen the particle transformation that explains the mystery of the missing neutrinosparticles we expect to rain down from the Sun and Earths atmosphere at higher rates than observed. Neutrinos are light particles that come in three types, or flavors, each associated with a different subatomic particle: an electron, a muon or a tau. One of the biggest surprises that came with the discovery of neutrinos was that they could change from flavor to flavor. Members of the OPERA experiment announced today the observation of a muon neutrino that had switched flavors to a tau neutrino. OPERA scientists, based at Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, have caught this rare event only twice before, once in 2010 and once in 2012. The new observation is an important confirmation of the two previous observations, says Giovanni De Lellis, head of the international research team, in a statement released by INFN. The OPERA experiment is a fast-moving, long-distance game of catch, with CERN laboratory at the border of France and Switzerland pitching a concentrated beam of neutrinos toward the 1,250-ton OPERA detector. The neutrino is a difficult ball to snag; it interacts so rarely with matter that it can zip unflinchingly through an entire planet. The OPERA experiment is the first neutrino experiment to examine a manmade beam of muon neutrinos in search of this type of oscillation. It will continue to take data for the next two years.

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breaking March 21, 2013

Planck reveals new insight into universe


The first cosmology results from the Planck satellite reveal an older universe populated with less dark energy and more matter than expected.
By Kelen Tuttle This morning, scientists on the Planck space mission released the most detailed map yet of the afterglow of the big bang. It reveals that our universe is about 100 million years older, is expanding slower and contains less dark energy and more matterboth normal and darkthan previously thought. The Planck map is the sharpest such map ever produced, says Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at NASA, which participated in the European Space Agency-led mission. Its as if weve gone from a standard television to a high-definition television. The map shows the geography of the cosmic microwave background, the light released as the first atoms formed when the universe was about 370,000 years old. For the past 15 months, Planck scanned the full visible sky, taking the most detailed measurements to date of what the universe looked like at this early age. These measurements have implications for many areas of particle physics and cosmology.

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This Planck map shows the oldest light in our universe, revealing what the universe looked like 13.8 billion years ago. Courtesy of: ESA and Planck Collaboration The map reveals that dark matter makes up about 26.8 percent of our universe, an increase from the previously measured 24 percent, while normal matter makes up 4.9 percent rather than 4.6 percent. The results also indicate that dark energy makes up 68.3 percent of the universe rather than the 71.4 percent previously estimated. The Planck data also reveals that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and is expanding at about 67.15 kilometers per second per megaparsec. (A megaparsec is about 3 million light-years.) This makes the universe 100 million years older than previously thought and reveals that its rate of expansion is less than previously determined by data from space telescopes. In addition, the map suggests an apparently random distribution of matter across the universe, suggesting that when the universe expanded at great speed in the inflationary epoch, random processes ruled the day. This discounts some of the more complex theories describing inflation and gives credence to the simpler ones. Although the big picture from Planck agrees well with our cosmological models, the level of detail is astounding, says Marc Kamionkowski, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the research. Theorists throughout physics and cosmology will be kept awake at night for quite some time thinking about this. Planck continues to view the sky today; the missions complete results will be released in 2014. These full results are expected to have implications on additional areas of particle physics and cosmology, including the number of neutrino species in the universe. Stay tuned!

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breaking March 14, 2013

One step closer to the Higgs boson


In analyses of a fundamental characteristic of the newly discovered Higgs-like particlethe ways in which it decaysscientists see even more Higgs-like behavior.
By Kathryn Jepsen and Ashley WennersHerron Scientists at the Rencontres de Moriond physics conference have released a second set of updates showing that the particle that scientists at the Large Hadron Collider discovered last year looks even more like the Higgs boson. Last week, the study of two properties of the particle, its spin and its parity, also hinted that scientists had caught the Higgs particle predicted in the Standard Model of particle physics. But this is still not the final word. "We're working on measuring different ways the particle is produced and decays," says Tim Adye, a physicist from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory who presented the ATLAS experiments measurements of the Higgs-like boson's properties. "It's becoming harder and harder to believe this could be something besides the Standard Model Higgs boson." When protons smash together in the LHC, their energies convert for a limited time into mass, bringing into being particles not involved in the collision. Those particles decay into lighter, more stable particles, often before particle detectors even get a chance to see them. In the case of the Higgs-like boson, scientists do not observe the particle directly. Instead, they observe the sets of lighter particles into which it decays. Physicists have
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precisely predicted how often a Higgs will decay into different combinations of other particles. In todays update, scientists showed that, with more data and updated analysis, the particle they discovered is continuing to follow predicted decay patterns. "This particle is remarkably consistent with the Standard Model Higgs boson," says Andrew Whitbeck, the doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University who presented the CMS experiments measurements. "There are still large error margins, but everything is lining up for the Standard Model. It's pretty spectacular." Only timeand more datawill tell whether the physicists have really found the Higgs they were looking for.

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breaking March 12, 2013

LHCb studies particle tipping the matter-antimatter scales


The LHCb experiment at CERN reports precise new measurementsbut leaves open the question of why our matterdominated universe exists.
By Kelly Izlar Today, scientists from CERNs LHCb experiment announced new results in the study of the evolution of our matter-dominated universe. The face-off between matter and antimatter was supposed to be a fair fight. The big bang should have created equal quantities of matter and antimatter, which are identical to one another but with some opposite properties such as charge. As matter and antimatter interacted over the past 13 billion or so years, they should have annihilated each other, stripping our young universe of its potential and leaving it a void. But scientists think something happened in those first moments to upset the balance, skewing the advantage slightly toward matter. Over the past several decades, scientists have found that some particles decay into matter slightly more often than they decay into antimatter. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts a certain amount of this imbalance, called charge parity violation. However, the points this wins for matter cant account for the amount of it left over in our universe. In fact, calculations suggest that its not enough for even a single galaxy. Since there may be as many as 500 billion galaxies in our universe, something is missing. We think there has to be another source of CP violation that you dont see in the Standard Model, says Sheldon Stone, group leader of Elementary Particle Physics at Syracuse University and a member of LHCb. The source of this CP violation can be new forces carried by new particles, or even extra dimensions.
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Physicists are looking beyond the Standard Model for another source of CP violation that gave rise to galaxies, stars, planets and, eventually, us. Between 1964 and 2012, physicists found that several types of mesonsparticles made up of quarks and antiquarksdecayed into matter more often than antimatter. But one particle seemed different. In 2011, LHCb analysis hinted that the CP violation in D mesons went beyond the amount predicted in the Standard Model, a possible sign of new physics in the works. But in results presented today at the Rencontres de Moriond physics conference in Italy, those hints of new physics have melted away, reinforcing the predictions in the Standard Model of particle physics and leaving us with the mystery of why our universe is made of so much matter. If we look at it as the glass being half empty, we could be disappointed that the hint for something exciting isnt confirmed, says Tim Gershon, LHCb physics coordinator and professor at the University of Warwick. On the other hand, there was a lot of theoretical work suggesting models to explain effects weve seen. New results constrain the models and tell us something about nature.

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breaking March 06, 2013

Higgs-like particle still looking like the Higgs


Scientists have started to exclude some of the more exotic scenarios for the Higgs-like boson.
By Kathryn Jepsen The Higgs-like boson discovered in 2012 is looking more Higgs-like, scientists on experiments at the Large Hadron Collider said in presentations at the Rencontres de Moriond physics conference today. On July 4, 2012, scientists first announced the discovery of a new particle that could be the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is, or was, the last undiscovered particle in the Standard Model, a menu of the particles and forces that serve as the building blocks of the universe. Final judgment of whether the new boson is the predicted Higgs particle will likely have to wait until sometime after the LHC resumes running at higher energies in 2015. But things look good so far for those rooting for a Standard Model Higgs. Continuing studies of the properties of the boson are beginning to exclude some scenarios that would strip the particle of its title. The evidence is accumulating just as it should if it is the Standard Model Higgs boson, says Fermilab theorist Chris Quigg. Once scientists discovered the new particle, they could begin checking on a whole collection of its predicted properties, such as how often it would decay into certain combinations of other particles. Theyre getting closer to determining two properties called spin and parity. The Standard Model Higgs boson must have 0 spin and even parity, written as 0+. When a particle breaks down into lighter particles, the spin and parity of a particle
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affect the angles at which those lighter particles fly. Scientists from the ATLAS and CMS experiments studied a well-understood decay pattern of the Higgs-like particle: into a Z boson and a virtual Z boson, which then decay into two pairs of another type of particles, leptons. By studying the angles at which the decay products move away during this process, scientists can figure out the spin and parity of the particle. If the Higgs-like particle did not have a spin-parity of 0+, it would be something other than the Standard Model Higgs boson. That would be an exciting prospect for physicists who would like a brand new mystery to solve. But, from what scientists have seen so far, the Higgs-like boson is behaving the way the Standard Model Higgs boson is supposed to behave. With further analysis and data from higher-energy collisions, though, the Higgs-like particle will have many more chances to step off its expected path. LHC scientists will continue to give updates to their analyses at the Rencontres de Moriond meeting next week.

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signal to background March 27, 2013

Astronomers give Dark Energy Camera rave reviews


Even before the Dark Energy Survey begins, the Dark Energy Camera is exceeding expectations in the astrophysics community.
By Andre Salles Astronomer Daniel Kelson is part of a team working to answer an intriguing question about our universe: Why are fewer and fewer stars being created over time? Hes been collecting data for years, but one piece of the puzzle eluded him. That is, until December of last year, when he spent two nights in Chile observing the sky with the new Dark Energy Camera. Kelson came away from his observing session with the information he needed to complete his research, and with a healthy dose of respect for what he calls the super camera, installed at the southern hemisphere station of the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory. It was beautiful to use, Kelson says. Its impressive that the various teams could come together and make such a phenomenal camera. Hes not alone in his appreciation. The 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camerathe worlds most powerful digital imaging device, built at Fermilab and installed on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chilewas constructed for the Dark Energy Survey, a five-year effort to map a portion of the southern sky in unprecedented detail. Since the camera was turned on in November, the DES has spent 50 nights completing the science verification phase of the experiment. When DES members are not operating the camera, its available for other astronomers like Kelson to use. Since last December, 19 other groups of scientists from institutions including Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of California at Berkeley have signed up for nights with the Dark Energy Camera. Some teams searched
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for asteroids while some examined the properties of galaxies. David Silva, Director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, has been pleased with the cameras ability to tackle a wide range of astronomical problems of pressing interest to US astronomers. After almost a decade of anticipation, it has been extremely gratifying to see the diversity of astronomical research problems being enthusiastically investigated so early in the lifetime of a major new instrument by astronomers from the US and abroad, Silva says. Kelson, who has been with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena since 2000, is interested in the evolution of galaxies. Specifically, his research probes whether there is something about galaxies themselves, or their environments, that can account for the reduction in new stars over the past 10 billion years. To understand the process, we collected spectra for a couple hundred thousand galaxies over the last several years, he says. We hope to understand how the evolving galaxy environments affect changes in star formation. Kelsons research group targeted three specific areas of the sky, thinking that good optical images had been taken in all three. But two of the fields, he said, had not been photographed in the detail required. So he and five other Carnegie Institution scientists used the Dark Energy Camera in December to take the images they needed. The camera was still in the commissioning phase, in what is called shared risk time. Using a complex piece of machinery during shared risk time, Kelson says, often leads to glitches, crashes and other setbacks as the devices are fine-tuned. But, he says, his time with the Dark Energy Camera was smooth. It was impressive that it worked so well so early, he says. It didnt crash on me once, and it worked beautifully. Anja von der Linden had a similar experience. An astronomer with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at SLAC and Stanford, von der Linden spent 10 nights with the camera at the end of January and the beginning of February measuring the masses of clusters of galaxies. Von der Linden's team used a technique called weak gravitational lensing, one of the specialties of the Dark Energy Camera. The camera can capture quality images over a large field of view, allowing astronomers to observe many galaxies at once, measuring their distortion due to lensing effects of foreground clusters. The camera has been working great. It is certainly set up to make observing very efficient, she says, praising the cameras auxiliary charged coupled devices, which aid in focusing the telescope, and its on-the-fly image processing, allowing users to quickly estimate the quality of the picture being taken. She noted one of the many tweaks still being made to the camera and the telescope during her time therea new chiller to cool down the mirror during the day, to prevent the slight washing out of the images partially due to temperature changes in the mirror. Von der Lindens team shared observation nights with the Dark Energy Survey, and she says the collaboration members were extremely helpful to her before, during and after her observation time. I have asked many DES members many questions, and they have been extremely
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forthcoming in providing insights, she says. Community time with the Dark Energy Camera is booked through mid-March, when the observation season ends. The Dark Energy Survey will officially begin in September 2013 and will spend 525 nights over the next five years searching for the secrets behind dark energy. And during the other 400 or so nights, when the astrophysics community gets to use the camera for other experiments, who knows what wonders will be discovered?

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signal to background March 22, 2013

Great minds lauded at physics prize ceremony


A crowd full of stars from the field of particle physicsalong with one from Hollywoodcelebrated recent achievements.
By Ashley WennersHerron You can think of this as the Oscars, but instead of movie stars, youre with the greatest minds in the world, said actor Morgan Freeman at an award ceremony on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland. The comment garnered laughter from the hundreds of scientists who had forgone their normal uniforms of jeans and sneakers for tuxedos and ball gowns. It takes a lot for some physicists to trade comfort for fashion, but the opportunity to celebrate work accomplished over the past five decades was too good to pass up. The crowd had gathered for the presentation of the Fundamental Physics Prize, an annual award established by Russian billionaire and physics enthusiast Yuri Milner to recognize outstanding achievements in physics. Last December, a selection committee made up of previous winners announced five semi-finalists in the running for this year's prize. The committee also gave special awards to British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, for his discovery of Hawking radiation, the emission of which causes black holes to lose energy and mass; and to seven scientists from the Large Hadron Collider, for their contributions to the search for the Higgs boson. Hawking took the stage as his daughter, Lucy, accepted the award on his behalf. As a result of a disorder that causes muscle weakness called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Hawking uses a speech-generating device and a motorized wheelchair. I would like to thank Yuri Milner for establishing the foundation to recognize work that may never be recognized by the Nobel committee, since much of it is impossible to prove
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experimentally, said Hawking in the computerized voice that has become his own. I never thought my discovery would be confirmed or recognized. He summarized the theory of a no-boundary universe, proposed with fellow theorist James Hartle, which suggests that time didnt exist prior to the big bang. Since then, he said, time has existed, but in an unlimited wayevery timeline of every possibility exists in different branches of the universe. I have a sense of achievement to make these contributions despite having ALS, he said, adding new meaning to the name of his theory: My motto is there are no boundaries. Freeman then introduced the physicists recognized for their contributions at the Large Hadron Collider. Physicists on two experiments, CMS and ATLAS, announced in summer 2012 that they had discovered a new particle that is likely the theorized Higgs boson that physicists had been hunting since 1964. The special award was shared among seven physicists (shown in the slideshow at the bottom of the page):

Lyn Evans, who led the construction of the LHC Peter Jenni, ATLAS spokesperson from 1994 to 2009 Fabiola Gianotti, ATLAS spokesperson from 2009 to early 2013 Michel Della Negra, CMS spokesperson from 1992 to 2006 Tejinder Jim Virdee, CMS spokesperson from 2007 to 2010 Guido Tonelli, CMS spokesperson from 2010 through 2011 Joe Incandela, CMS spokesperson since 2012 Each recipient said the $3 million award and recognition belonged to the thousands of physicists involved in the work. When the time came to reveal the winner of the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize, Alan Guth, one of the 2012 laureates, took the stage with the unopened envelope. During Hawkings discussion of no-boundary theory, Hawking had referred to wave function collapse, a phenomenon in quantum mechanics in which a superposition of several possible states is narrowed to a single reality after interaction with an observer. Alan, will you please collapse the wave function? Freeman joked. Guth took the opportunity to mention that, according to the no-boundary theory, there exist realities in which every laureate is the winner of the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize. But the winner in this branch of the universe, he announced, is Alexander Polyakov, a theorist known for his work with field theory and string theory. Concluding the ceremony, Freeman said that the work of fundamental physics is not done. There is more to explore and more to discover. It will be difficult and not always appreciated, but our laureates will not rest on their laurels, Freeman said. As 2012 award-winner Andrei Linde said earlier in the program, I tell students, If you can avoid being a physicist, do it. But its like if youre a poet. You cant stop writing poetry. Itll hurt.
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signal to background March 20, 2013

Meet 63 women in STEM, and counting


In celebration of Womens History Month, the US Department of Energy is recognizing some of the many women who make a difference in science and technology innovation.
By Kelen Tuttle Across the US Department of Energys national laboratories, field offices and headquarters, thousands of women dedicate their days to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Now, on a website launched this week, 62 of them share their stories, revealing what prompted them to pursue science careers and how theyve made a difference in the years since. Their stories vary, but one constant is the presence of mentors and role models. Dana Thayer, for example, grew up near Fermilab and was introduced to particle physics at a young age through mentors at the labs Saturday morning physics programs. Thayer quickly became enthralled by the fields huge machines and hasnt looked back since. She now leads the data acquisition team for SLACs Linac Coherent Light Source. As she started her career, Thayler says, I learned the most from working with and learning from other people. Good ideas really benefit from different perspectives and the best work is never done in a vacuum. Likewise, when Kawtar Hafidi was a young student in Morocco, her fatherwho himself hadnt graduated from high schoolencouraged her to study science because he felt it would be useful to their country. Hafidi did, and says she loved every minute of it. Hafidi recounts that one day her teacher asked her why she hadnt done her math homework problems. I said, I don't want to. He asked me why, and I said, Because
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I'm afraid they will be finished! We didn't have many books at that time, she says, so I'd find one book and do just one problem a day, like eating a cake, you knowyou don't want to be finished. These days, Hafidi has plenty of problems to solve as an experimental physicist at Argonne National Laboratory. There, she studies how quarks and gluons, two fundamental particles, come together to form nucleons and nuclei. The quest for knowledge and discovery excites me, she says. The more we understand, the more we can do. Aliya Merali wholeheartedly agrees. As science educator at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Merali often calls on her training in plasma research, work on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, and NASA collaborations that resulted in several microgravity flights aboard the Weightless Wonder (pictured above). In her current role, she coordinates events and activities to encourage students to consider science careers. I believe that our country needs to make the STEM fields more accessible to the youth, she says. A strong stigma exists about the scienceswe often present them to our students through media and society as fields that only the elite few are capable of. Ultimately, I believe that if we change the way we present the sciences to the youth by highlighting the underrepresented and non-stereotypical members of the STEM fields, the social stigma will deteriorate. Read more about Aliya Merali, Kawtar Hafidi, Jana Thayer and 59 other women in STEM on the Department of Energys website.

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signal to background March 20, 2013

Research with flair at FameLab 2013


Young scientists presented their research in three entertaining minutes at this years Swiss semifinal round of Famelab 2013, hosted by CERN.
By Kelly Izlar And now presenting our next contestant on Swiss Idol, Piotr Traczyk, said University of Michigan physicist and temporary Master of Ceremonies Steve Goldfarb. A young man with long hair and with a red electric guitar slung across his shoulder strode across a stage in front of an audience gathered on March 16 at CERN laboratory, located on the border of Switzerland and France. Wait This isnt Swiss Idol, Goldfarb said with mock chagrin. This is FameLab! Can you talk about science? Traczyk displayed his guitar to the audience so they could see an ornate mosaic of puzzle pieces forming the image of the CMS detector pasted across its front. Well I happen to be a physicist, too, said Traczyk, a member of the CMS collaboration. So I bet I can think of something to say. FameLab, a blend of science fair and talent show, was launched in 2005 by Cheltenham Festivals in partnership with the UKs National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, to find and nurture scientists and engineers with a knack for communicating science. Competitions are held in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America and so far have attracted more than 3800 researchers. Traczyk, a Polish postdoctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, was one of 20 young researchers who participated in the Swiss semifinal round of FameLab 2013. He won second place with his talk, which used puzzle pieces to explain
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how scientists at the Large Hadron Collider search for missing bits of the Standard Model of particle physics. The first-place winner, Divya Ail from the University of Zurich, used humor and props to explain how using Viagra can affect a persons vision. This is a way to foster the interaction between scientists and the public, says Antonella Del Rosso, member of the CERN Communication Group and organizer of this years Swiss FameLab semifinal. They are only given three minutes, so its a challenge. But they are eager to explain their research and how important it is. Contestants for this round of FameLab work at universities or institutions across Switzerland. Participants enchanted and educated their live audience, online spectators and a panel of judges by presenting on issues including how to fight cancer with physics and why birds fly in a V-shaped formation. I think its important to communicate science to the general public, says Nazim Hussain, a contestant and University of Oxford physicist from the LHCb experiment at CERN. People are interested, but they might be intimidated by what they see in the media. Its easy to dismiss something because its complicated. Of the 20 contestants, 10 were selected to go on to the Swiss FameLab Finals in Zurich on May 24. Winners from that round will continue on to the FameLab International Festival in Cheltenham in June.

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signal to background March 15, 2013

A different spin
In physics, spinors are used to plot the spin properties of elementary particles. In Stanford's recreational softball league, it's a whole different story.
By Glenn Roberts Jr. Sporting both physics and physique, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory employees field a slow-pitch, co-ed softball team each year, the Spinors, in a Stanford University recreational league. Although their competitors are a mostly younger bunch of graduate students and staff, the SLAC team likes to think they have physics in their favor. In physics, spinors are used to plot the spin properties of elementary particles. First described by French mathematician lie Joseph Cartan in 1913, spinors have a range of applications in modern physics and mathematics. They also share a pronunciation with spinnersbaseball slang that describes curveballs and sliders, which are pitches thrown with heavy spin on the ball. The teams logo even features two softballs smashing together, with smaller spheres bursting out of the impactpaying homage to the labs particle collider experiments. Softball traditions run deep at SLAC; physics faculty and students engaged in annual softball championship games on the Stanford campus as far back as the 1950s, even before the 1962 groundbreaking for the labs two-mile-long linear accelerator. Since then, an annual softball game remains an unbroken tradition. Team manager Mike Woods, a 21-year Spinors veteran, says that since the Spinors first formed in 1991, the team has evolved to include a representative slice of SLACs workforce: men and women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s, who trade hits and runs with teams that are often quite a bit younger. Woods describes the Stanford recreational league as very laissez faire, very socialweve never even had hired umpires. Based on work schedules and availability,
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its common for a different set of players to show up to each game. And although the Spinors havent yet won the league championship, theyll be back again next year for another try.

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signal to background March 11, 2013

Linear collider focus gets down to size


In a display of timing worthy of a blockbuster movie, a multinational team of accelerator physicists focused a beam of electrons down to the tiny size needed for a future linear collider the same week that the linear collider board formed.
By Lori Ann White In late 2012, Toshiaki Tauchi clicked the send button on an email with the subject line 70nm achieved at ATF2! It signaled a major success for Tauchi, an accelerator physicist at KEK, and his colleagues at the Japanese labs Accelerator Test Facility 2: They had shown they could focus a beam of electrons down to the tiny size required by a future linear collider. Tauchi is a member of the executive committee overseeing the global design effort for the International Linear Collider, and the timing of his announcement could not have been better. Just the day before, Fermilab Director Pier Oddone, in his role as chair of the International Committee for Future Accelerators, announced the formation of a Linear Collider Board to shepherd the global effort to build a linear collider capable of pushing back the frontiers of high-energy physics revealed by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. With Japan expressing interest in hosting such a facility and the even more recent formation of a Linear Collider Collaboration to coordinate and advance global plans, momentum seems to be building for the construction of the giant electron-positron collider. Coaxing particle beams to a tight, accurate focus is vital for any collider, says Glen White, an accelerator physicist from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory who has been racking up frequent flier miles to Japan since late 2008 to work at ATF2. The test facility contains a prototype of an advanced optics design intended for use at the ILC, and
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researchers have been using it to squeeze down the electrons in the beam into tighter bunches. Packing electrons into smaller bunches helps maximize particle collisions, and maximizing collisionsalong with maximizing the energy of the colliding particlesmaximizes the science. That relationship holds for all colliders. We are very dependent upon novel beam focusing schemes, such as the one we use at ATF2, to get the very small beam spot sizes required to deliver the promised physics, White says. This means ATF2 is a prototype of the final focus for any future linear collider, and not just for the ILC in its current design incarnation as captured by the Technical Design Review, also completed last December. In addition to prototyping the optics for focusing the beam, the ATF2 team needed diagnostic instruments capable of telling them whether or not the optics were working correctly. Old diagnostic instruments arent much good tracking beams smaller than a micrometer in size, White says. So the team assembled a whole new suite of instruments, including making significant improvements to a beam size monitor that made its debut at the Final Focus Test Beam, the ATF2s precursor, at SLAC. Called the interaction point beam size monitor, this equipment uses laser interferometry to measure the diameter of the beam at its most important location: the interaction point where particle bunches collide. But an accelerator is more than its components, and the ATF2 needed to prototype more than the optics to focus the beams and the diagnostic instruments to track them. Two stated goals of the ATF2 project were to prototype the operation of a complex accelerator in an international setting and to educate the next generation of accelerator physicists and operatorswhatever their country of origin. The facility is an international test facility for linear colliders and instrumentation, says White. Its a big global communityanother requirement for any future linear collider. ATF2 met those goals, says White, thanks to a final eight-week push to reach the 70-nanometer spot size. The extra time spent learning the accelerators idiosyncrasies proved vital, especially when an elusive problem with the accelerator blocked further progress near the end of commissioning. We shut down the beam at about 10 p.m. and we basically tore the machine apart, White says. From the most senior physicist to the youngest student, Everyone grabbed a wrench and headed for the accelerator. By three in the morning we had the whole machine laid out on the floor. He smiles. That was a great bit of international collaboration, he says, and one that paid off handsomely. The problem-solvers used what theyd learned in the previous several weeks to rebuild the machine, swapping around parts and testing the resulting electromagnetic fields. When they fired the beam up, lo and behold, the beam stabilized. But achieving the small beam size is just the start. Its a two-stage program here, White says. First we make the small beam size and then we maintain it. In the next few years well learn a lot of valuable information about how the ILC will perform.

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Copyright 2013 symmetry

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