For the first time, scientists have observed muon ionization cooling — a major step toward the realization of the muon collider. If built, a future muon collider could provide 10 times the discovery reach of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
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To some degree, scientists on all of today’s particle physics experiments share a common challenge: How can they pick out the evidence they are looking for from the overwhelming abundance of all the other stuff in the universe getting in their way? Physicists refer to that stuff — the unwelcome clamor of gamma rays, cosmic rays and radiation crowding particle detectors — as background. They deal with background in their experiments in two ways: by reducing it and by rejecting it.
This year’s events will feature the Great Neutrino Hunt, the Mr. Freeze Cryogenics Show, live physics demonstrations, a physics carnival developed and presented by local high school students, tours of the Linear Accelerator Gallery and the Muon g-2 experiment, and a driving tour of the site.
Representatives from UK Research and Innovation and the U.S. Department of Energy signed an agreement that outlines £65 million worth of contributions that UK research institutions and scientists will make to the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and related projects hosted by Fermilab.
The USCMS collaboration has received approval from the Department of Energy to move forward with final planning for upgrades to the giant CMS particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The upgrades will enable it to take clearer, more precise images of particle events emerging from the upcoming High-Luminosity LHC, whose collision rate will get a 10-fold boost compared to the collider’s design value when it comes online in 2027.
Continuing the yearly induction of a new artist-in-residence each year, Fermilab is welcoming a pair of artists and the lab’s first guest composer to the lab in 2020.
For the first time, a team of scientists has used the orientation of light left over from the early universe to detect gravitational lensing from galaxy clusters – the bending of light around these massive objects. Using gravitational lensing data taken by the South Pole Telescope and the Dark Energy Camera, Fermilab scientist Brad Benson and colleagues have demonstrated a new way to “weigh” galaxy clusters and ultimately shed light on dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the cosmos.
Fermilab scientists have reached the lowest temperature ever achieved at Fermilab, testing a refrigerator for the SuperCDMS dark matter experiment. The fridge, which operates at close to absolute zero, is now one step closer toward installation at SNOLAB in Canada.
The Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers names Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev an IEEE fellow. The honor is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest.
Fermilab scientist Joel Butler has been elected vice chair of its Executive Committee. He will begin as vice chair on Jan. 1, 2020, rotating to chair-elect in 2021 and chair in 2022.