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Only a fraction of collision events that look like they produce a Higgs boson actually produce a Higgs boson. Luckily, it doesn’t matter.

From EurekAlert!, March 6, 2020: Caltech and JPL have designed a practical, high-rate, high-fidelity quantum communication system over fiber and free space. The team is on track to deploy, commission and demonstrate both concepts, including a free-space, municipal quantum link between JPL and Caltech, in 2020-21. They will also establish a space-based quantum optical connection between the Caltech-JPL quantum network and quantum networks in the Midwest, including Fermilab’s FQNET and IEQNET, together with Argonne National Laboratory.

From HPC Wire, March 2, 2020: Fermilab scientists are collaborating with researchers at Argonne, where they’ll run simulations on high-performance computers. Their work will help determine whether instruments called superconducting radio-frequency cavities, also used in particle accelerators, can solve one of the biggest problems facing the successful development of a quantum computer: the decoherence of qubits.

From the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Brazil, March 6, 2020: On March 5-6, Brazil and the United States held the fifth meeting of the Brazil-U.S. Joint Commission on Science and Technology Cooperation in Brasilia to deepen collaboration in key priority areas for the benefit of both countries. FAPESP and Fermilab signed an MOU to deepen scientific and technical cooperation in high-energy physics, and UNICAMP and Fermilab signed a cooperative agreement for a state-of-the-art LBNF cryogenics system.

From CERN Courier, March 6, 2020: Physicist George Zweig writes a remembrance of Fermilab scientist and National Medal of Technology and Innovation winner Alvin Tollestrup.

From News at South Dakota State, Feb. 25, 2020: Two South Dakota State University professors are part of an international team of scientists and engineers working to uncover details about how the universe was formed. Stephen Gent and Greg Michna are using SDSU’s high-performance computing cluster to predict how argon circulates within the particle detectors to be constructed one mile beneath the earth’s surface. The detectors are for Fermilab’s Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility/Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which will be installed in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota.

What if you want to capture an image of a process so fast that it looks blurry if the shutter is open for even a billionth of a second? This is the type of challenge scientists on experiments like CMS and ATLAS face as they study particle collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. An extremely fast new detector inside the CMS detector will allow physicists to get a sharper image of particle collisions.

From Physics World, Feb. 24, 2020: The editor of Physics World lists the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility as one of the top 10 facilities to watch in the coming decade.

Those who study particle physics will find that every step of the journey offers a new perspective and new set of responsibilities. Symmetry chats with scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider to hear about differences between seven different rungs on the academic career ladder.

From Interactions.org, Feb. 24, 2020: In view of progress toward the realization of the International Linear Collider in Japan, the International Committee for Future Accelerators encourages the interested members of the high-energy physics community, laboratories and nations to support and participate in these preparations aimed at the successful establishment of the ILC.