The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $75 million in funding for 66 university research awards on a range of topics in high-energy physics to advance knowledge of how the universe works at its most fundamental level. The projects involve scientists at 51 U.S. institutions of higher learning across the nation and include both experimental and theoretical research into such topics as the Higgs boson, neutrinos, dark matter, dark energy and the search for new physics.
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In a brightly lit clean room at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, engineers are building a car-sized digital camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. When it’s ready, LSST will image almost all of the sky visible from its vantage point on a Chilean mountain, Cerro Pachón, every few nights for a decade to make an astronomical movie of unprecedented proportions. Building the LSST means solving extraordinary technological challenges.
Members of the national laboratories, leaders from the Department of Energy and experts in advanced manufacturing converged at the third summit in DOE’s InnovationXLab Series. Fermilab had strong representation at the meeting, featuring particle physics technologies that have been adapted for use in our everyday lives. We connected to find ways to wield national laboratory resources to help launch new industries and rejuvenate manufacturing.
From Seeker, May 30, 2019: The LHC is the world’s largest particle collider, but has it hit its limit? This 13-minute video discusses how an international community of physicists are calling for a new CERN discovery machine that can reach even higher collision energies and potentially unlock the biggest mysteries of our universe.
From AIP’s FYI, May 27, 2019: The American Institute of Physics touts progress on the P5 plan with a photo of the ProtoDUNE detector and info on the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab.
The newest exhibit presented by Fermilab scientist Erik Ramberg and the Fermilab Archives gives the viewer a glimpse into the fascinating history of the study of electricity. Since 600 BC, scientists and philosophers have theorized on how electrical charge is transferred from one site to another. In the 18th century, experiments testing these theories took off. In the exhibit, see primary texts and early images of electricity at work.
Konstantinos Iakovidis was training in Greece’s Hellenic Army in May 2008 when his younger brother, George, was accepted into the CERN summer student program. When George told Konstantinos he had been invited to move to Switzerland for two months, he cried — and encouraged him to take the opportunity. Little did Konstantinos know that six years later, he would make his own journey to CERN and would eventually join his physicist brother on the same project, as a mechanical engineer.
A Michigan-based foundry was recently given an award for its casting of a prototype of a Fermilab particle accelerator component. Their method, which uses a 3-D-printed casting mold, allows for an economical approach to creating accelerator parts and could lead to significant cost savings in component fabrication.