In an educational turning of the tables, first- through fifth-graders evaluated Fermilab scientists’ abilities to illuminate and educate at their school’s first reverse science fair. Three competing groups of scientists demoed neutrino detection, muon precession and particle acceleration in fun, accessible ways, and the elementary school students got to decide who received the blue ribbon.
Fermilab has lost one of its giants. Award-winning engineer and physicist Alvin Tollestrup, who played an instrumental role in developing the Tevatron as the world’s leading high-energy physics accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and founding member of the Collider Detector at Fermilab collaboration, died on Feb. 9 of cancer. He was 95.
There are a lot of things scientists don’t know about dark matter: Can we catch it in a detector? Can we make it in a lab? What kinds of particles is it made of? Is it made of more than one kind of particle? Is it even made of particles at all? Still, although scientists have yet to find the spooky stuff, they aren’t completely in the dark.
From UChicago News, Feb. 6, 2020: Fermilab and University of Chicago scientist Brad Benson and colleagues use a different method to calculate the masses of distant galaxies: the polarization, or orientation, of the light left over from the moments after the Big Bang. In doing so, they demonstrate how to “weigh” galaxy clusters using light from the earliest moments of the universe — a new method that could help shed light on dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the cosmos.
From Kane County Chronicle, Feb. 5, 2020: Some people might think that Fermilab physicists are unapproachable eggheads, probing the deepest mysteries of science from their secluded laboratories without personal lives or connections to the rest of humanity. At their first reverse science fair, students at J.B. Nelson Elementary found out Fermilab scientists are just like everyone else — they aren’t geniuses. They just like science a lot.
The publication of the Technical Design Report is a major milestone for the construction of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, an international mega-science project hosted by Fermilab. It lays out in great detail the scientific goals as well as the technical components of the gigantic particle detectors of the experiment.
From Inside Science, Feb. 5, 2020: The next generation of particle physics just got a whole lot closer. Scientists at the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment have developed a revolutionary new process that, for the first time, makes a muon particle collider within reach. Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev comments on how muon ionization cooling is a linchpin in demonstrating the technical feasibility of muon colliders.
From Science News, Feb. 5, 2020: A new experiment raises prospects for building a particle accelerator that collides particles called muons, which could lead to smashups of higher energies than any engineered before. Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev comments on how scientists with the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment, or MICE, have cooled a beam of muons, a necessary part of preparing the particles for use in a collider, the team reports online Feb. 5 in Nature.
From Scientific American, Feb. 5, 2020: The best-laid plans of MICE and muons did not go awry: Physicists at the International Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment, or MICE, collaboration have achieved their years-long goal of quickly sapping energy from muons. The results are the first demonstration of ionization cooling, a technique which could allow researchers to control muons for future collider applications — an epochal achievement, according to Fermilab physicist Vladimir Shiltsev.
From the UKRI’s Science and Technology Facilities Council, Feb. 5, 2020: For the first time scientists have observed muon ionization cooling – a major step in being able to create the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. This new muon accelerator will give us a better understanding of the fundamental constituents of matter.