Fermilab experiment weighs in on neutrino mystery

Scientists of the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (June 24) the results from a search for a rare phenomenon, the transformation of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos. The result is consistent with and significantly constrains a measurement reported 10 days ago by the Japanese T2K experiment, which announced an indication of this type of transformation.

The results of these two experiments could have implications for our understanding of the role that neutrinos may have played in the evolution of the universe. If muon neutrinos transform into electron neutrinos, neutrinos could be the reason that the big bang produced more matter than antimatter, leading to the universe as it exists today.

The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) at Fermilab recorded a total of 62 electron neutrino-like events. If muon neutrinos do not transform into electron neutrinos, then MINOS should have seen only 49 events. The experiment should have seen 71 events if neutrinos transform as often as suggested by recent results from the Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) experiment in Japan. The two experiments use different methods and analysis techniques to look for this rare transformation.

To measure the transformation of muon neutrinos into other neutrinos, the MINOS experiment sends a muon neutrino beam 450 miles (735 kilometers) through the earth from the Main Injector accelerator at Fermilab to a 5,000-ton neutrino detector, located half a mile underground in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota. The experiment uses two almost identical detectors: the detector at Fermilab is used to check the purity of the muon neutrino beam, and the detector at Soudan looks for electron and muon neutrinos. The neutrinos’ trip from Fermilab to Soudan takes about one four hundredths of a second, giving the neutrinos enough time to change their identities.

For more than a decade, scientists have seen evidence that the three known types of neutrinos can morph into each other. Experiments have found that muon neutrinos disappear, with some of the best measurements provided by the MINOS experiment. Scientists think that a large fraction of these muon neutrinos transform into tau neutrinos, which so far have been very hard to detect, and they suspect that a tiny fraction transform into electron neutrinos.

The observation of electron neutrino-like events in the detector in Soudan allows MINOS scientists to extract information about a quantity called sin² 2θ₁₃ (pronounced sine squared two theta one three). If muon neutrinos don’t transform into electron neutrinos, this quantity is zero. The range allowed by the latest MINOS measurement overlaps with but is narrower than the T2K range. MINOS constrains this quantity to a range between 0 and 0.12, improving on results it obtained with smaller data sets in 2009 and 2010. The T2K range for sin² 2θ₁₃ is between 0.03 and 0.28.

“MINOS is expected to be more sensitive to the transformation with the amount of data that both experiments have,” said Fermilab physicist Robert Plunkett, co-spokesperson for the MINOS experiment. “It seems that nature has chosen a value for sin² 2θ₁₃ that likely is in the lower part of the T2K allowed range. More work and more data are really needed to confirm both these measurements.”

The MINOS measurement is the latest step in a worldwide effort to learn more about neutrinos. MINOS will continue to collect data until February 2012. The T2K experiment was interrupted in March when the severe earth quake in Japan damaged the muon neutrino source for T2K. Scientists expect to resume operations of the experiment at the end of the year. Three nuclear-reactor based neutrino experiments, which use different techniques to measure sin² 2θ₁₃, are in the process of starting up.

“Science usually proceeds in small steps rather than sudden, big discoveries, and this certainly has been true for neutrino research,” said Jenny Thomas from University College London, co-spokesperson for the MINOS experiment. “If the transformation from muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos occurs at a large enough rate, future experiments should find out whether nature has given us two light neutrinos and one heavy neutrino, or vice versa. This is really the next big thing in neutrino physics.”

The MINOS experiment involves more than 140 scientists, engineers, technical specialists and students from 30 institutions, including universities and national laboratories, in five countries: Brazil, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Funding comes from: the Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Science Foundation in the U.S., the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the U.K; the University of Minnesota in the U.S.; the University of Athens in Greece; and Brazil’s Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

Fermilab is a national laboratory supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

For more information about MINOS and related experiments, visit the Fermilab neutrino website:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/science/experiments/intensity/

: The building blocks of matter include three types of neutrinos, known as electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino. For more than a decade, physicists have seen evidence that these neutrinos can transform into each other.

: The observation of electron neutrino-like events allows MINOS scientists to extract information about a quantity called sin²2θ₁₃. If muon neutrinos don’t transform into electron neutrinos, sin²2θ₁₃ is zero. The new MINOS result constrains this quantity to a range between 0 and 0.12, improving on results it obtained with smaller data sets in 2009 and 2010. The MINOS range is consistent with the T2K range for sin²2θ₁₃, which is between 0.03 and 0.28. According to the T2K data, the most likely value is 0.11. The MINOS result prefers a value of 0.04, and its data indicates that sin²2θ₁₃ is non-zero at the 89% confidence level.

: Neutrinos, ghost-like particles that rarely interact with matter, travel 450 miles straight through the earth from Fermilab to Soudan — no tunnel needed. The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) experiment studies the neutrino beam using two detectors. The MINOS near detector, located at Fermilab, records the composition of the neutrino beam as it leaves the Fermilab site. The MINOS far detector, located in Minnesota, half a mile underground, again analyzes the neutrino beam. This allows scientists to directly study the oscillation of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos or tau neutrinos under laboratory conditions.

: The MINOS far detector is located in a cavern half a mile underground in the Soudan Underground Laboratory, Minnesota. The 100-foot-long MINOS far detector consists of 486 massive octagonal planes, lined up like the slices of a loaf of bread. Each plane consists of a sheet of steel about 25 feet high and one inch thick, with the last one visible in the photo. The whole detector weighs 6,000 tons. Since March 2005, the far detector has recorded neutrinos from a beam produced at Fermilab. The MINOS collaboration records about 1,000 neutrinos per year.

: The 1,000-ton MINOS near detector sits 350 feet underground at Fermilab. The detector consists of 282 octagonal-shaped detector planes, each weighing more than a pickup truck. Scientists use the near detector to verify the intensity and purity of the muon neutrino beam leaving the Fermilab site. Photo: Peter Ginter

: Fermilab completed the construction and testing of the Neutrino at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam line in early 2005. Protons from Fermilab’s Main Injector accelerator (left) travel 1,000 feet down the beam line, smash into a graphite target and create muon neutrinos. The neutrinos traverse the MINOS near detector, located at the far end of the NuMI complex, and travel straight through the earth to a former iron mine in Soudan, Minnesota, where they cross the MINOS far detector. Some of the neutrinos arrive as electron neutrinos or tau neutrinos.

: When operating at highest intensity, the NuMI beam line transports a package of 35,000 billion protons every two seconds to a graphite target. The target converts the protons into bursts of particles with exotic names such as kaons and pions. Like a beam of light emerging from a flashlight, the particles form a wide cone when leaving the target. A set of two special lenses, called horns (photo), is the key instrument to focus the beam and send it in the right direction. The beam particles decay and produce muon neutrinos, which travel in the same direction. Photo: Peter Ginter

: More than 140 scientists, engineers, technical specialists and students from Brazil, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States are involved in the MINOS experiment. This photo shows some of them posing for a group photo at Fermilab, with the 16-story Wilson Hall and the spiral-shaped MINOS service building in the background.

: Far view The University of Minnesota Foundation commissioned a mural for the MINOS cavern at the Soudan Underground Laboratory, painted onto the rock wall, 59 feet wide by 25 feet high. The mural contains images of scientists such as Enrico Fermi and Wolfgang Pauli, Wilson Hall at Fermilab, George Shultz, a key figure in the history of Minnesota mining, and some surprises. A description of the mural, painted by Minneapolis artist Joe Giannetti, is available here.

Members of the DES collaboration will give an overview of the survey at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11, at a Special Session of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. Dark Energy Survey Director Josh Frieman will highlight the project and how it will advance our understanding of dark energy at a AAS press conference at 9 a.m. PST on Thursday, Jan. 13.

The international DES collaboration of physicists and astronomers has built the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera that will be mounted later this year on the 4-meter (158-inch) telescope at the National Science Foundation’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, operated by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

“The camera is now undergoing final tests on a specially built telescope simulator at Fermilab,” said Brenna Flaugher, Dark Energy Camera project manager and a Fermilab scientist.

Improved photo-sensors based on charged-coupled devices (CCDs) designed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will provide the camera with enhanced sensitivity to carry out the largest galaxy survey of its kind.

“The Dark Energy Survey data will be an unprecedented legacy for astronomers and will have unique scientific reach until the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope comes along at the end of the decade,” said DES Deputy Director Rich Kron of the University of Chicago.

The telescope has been improved in preparation for installing the camera this year.

“The Dark Energy Camera will be a remarkable facility for the astronomical community in addition to its use by the DES collaboration,” said CTIO astronomer Alistair Walker.

View a short time-lapse video of assembly at Fermilab of a replica front-end of the Blanco telescope in Chile on which the Dark Energy Camera will be mounted. Video: FermilabDuring five years of operation, DES will create deep, color images of one-eighth of the sky, or 5,000-square degrees, to measure 300 million galaxies, 100,000 galaxy clusters, and 4,000 new supernovae. It will construct the largest map of the cosmic web of large-scale structure traced by galaxies and by dark matter.

“The DES combination of survey area and depth will far surpass what has come before,” Frieman said.

DES will take advantage of the excellent atmospheric conditions in the Chilean Andes to deliver images with the sharpest resolution yet for such a wide-field survey. This will enable the team to probe dark energy using a technique called weak gravitational lensing, said Bhuvnesh Jain, a DES collaborator at the University of Pennsylvania.

DES will combine weak lensing with three other probes of dark energy – galaxy clusters, supernovae, and large-scale structure – the first time this will be possible in a single experiment. During the Tuesday session on DES, these measurements will be described by scientists Chris Miller of the University of Michigan, Masao Sako of the University of Pennsylvania, and Enrique Gaztanaga from the Catalan Institute of Space Studies in Barcelona.

Over the course of the survey, each part of the sky will be viewed multiple times through five different filters, creating a very large amount of data. The camera will capture more than 300 images a night, resulting in about 200 gigabytes of compressed, raw data, or roughly a million gigabytes of processed data by the end of the survey, said Joe Mohr of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. The data will be processed at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications in Urbana, Illinois, and delivered to collaboration scientists and to the public.

DES’s survey area is selected to overlap with other sky surveys that can provide additional data about the galaxies and clusters it views. These surveys include the South Pole Telescope, which sees galaxy clusters as cold spots in the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the European Southern Observatory’s Vista Hemisphere Survey, which will observe the same sky region in infrared light.

DES is supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, funding agencies in the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, and Germany, and the participating DES institutions.

About the Dark Energy Survey and Dark Energy Camera:

Astrophysicists assembled and are testing the Dark Energy Camera at Fermilab using a new state-of-the-art facility specially built for this purpose. The first parts have been shipped to Chile and the rest will be shipped this year as testing is completed. “First light” for the camera on the telescope is scheduled for late 2011.

The Dark Energy Survey will use the camera to understand why the expansion of the universe is accelerating and to probe the dark energy thought to be causing this cosmic speed-up. Dark energy, a mysterious source of anti-gravity that has been found to dominate the energy density of the universe, will determine the fate of the universe. If the expansion continues to speed up, in 100 billion years the observable universe could be nearly empty of galaxies.

The Dark Energy Camera will peer into space to trace the history of the universe roughly three-quarters of the way back to the time of the Big Bang, capturing images of 300 million distant galaxies about 10 million times fainter than the dimmest star you can see from Earth with the naked eye.

The Dark Energy Camera will have the largest optical survey power in the world. Its 2.2 degree field of view is so large that a single image will record data from an area of the sky 20 times the size of the moon as seen from earth. This wide field of view requires that DECam use a system of five lenses, each one uniquely shaped to correct a variety of optical aberrations, with the biggest of these lenses being almost 1 meter in diameter.

More information about the Dark Energy Survey, including the list of participating institutions, is available at the project website: http://www.darkenergysurvey.org.

About Fermilab:

Fermilab is a Department of Energy national laboratory operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in United States.

Fact sheet on the Dark Energy Survey and Dark Energy Camera

: Scientists build a prototype of the Dark Energy Camera, which will survey about one-tenth of the sky to measure 300 million galaxies and discover thousands of supernovae. Credit: Fermilab.

: An artist’s rendering of DECam inside the frame that will mount the camera to the Blanco telescope. DECam will have the largest optical survey power in the world. Credit: Fermilab/DES collaboration.

: The University of Bonn team displays the world’s largest shutter in front of the Schmidt telescope dome of the “Hoher List” Observatory. Members of the team are (from left to right) Franz-Josef Willems (mechanics) Philipp Müller (electronics design, head of the electronics lab) Martin Polder (mechanical design, head of the workshop) Klaus Reif (project management, head of the instrumentation group). Credit: Argelander-Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn.

: Optics for the Dark Energy Camera. Credit: DES.

: The Dark Energy Camera. Credit: DES.

: An artist’s rendering of the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera. Credit: Fermilab/DES collaboration.

: View a short time-lapse video of assembly at Fermilab of a replica front-end of the Blanco telescope in Chile on which the Dark Energy Camera will be mounted. Credit: Fermilab.

: A simulation of a photo of galaxy clusters taken by DECam. A single camera image captures an area 20 times the size of the moon as seen from Earth. Credit: DES.

: The Blanco telescope in Chile as seen at nighttime. Credit: T. Abbott and NOAO/AURA/NSF.

: The Blanco telescope in Chile as seen from the air. Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF.

: The Blanco telescope in Chile. Credit: T. Abbott and NOAO/AURA/NSF.

: The 4 meter Blanco telescope. The green circle marks the location of the prime focus cage where DECam will be mounted. Credit: CTIO/AURA/NSF.

: To test the design of DECam, collaboration member are building at Fermilab a two-story replica of the hardware that will mount the camera to the Blanco telescope in Chile and rotate it to take pictures of the sky. Credit: Fermilab.

: DECam will have the world’s largest camera filter seen here being unpacked at Fermilab for assembly onto the camera. Credit: Fermilab.

Batavia, Ill.—Officials at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today that the laboratory has started phase II of the construction of a pioneering facility to advance a technology that will be critical to the next generation of particle accelerators.

The new facility, which will occupy three buildings and host a 460-foot-long test accelerator, will be the first of its kind in the United States.

Fermilab is using $52.7 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to advance its Superconducting Radio-Frequency R&D program, which includes the construction of the SRF Accelerator Test Facility. Phase I of the construction began in March 2010 with the $2.8 million expansion of an existing building. For phase II, the laboratory has awarded a $4.2 million contract for the construction of two new buildings. Additional ARRA funds will go toward equipment and infrastructure needed for the building’s operation. Fermilab will use the facility to test superconducting radio-frequency components and validate the manufacturing capability of vendors from U.S. industry.

“Our future is going to involve accelerators that use superconducting radio-frequency technology,” said Jay Theilacker of Fermilab’s Accelerator Division. “Building this new SRF test facility is an important step forward.”

The structures operate inside containers known as cryomodules, which chill the cavities to -456 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature where they can conduct electric current without electrical resistance—hence the term “superconducting.”

Fermilab plans to use the facility to test cryomodules designed for two proposed future particle accelerators: Project X, which would be built at Fermilab, and the International Linear Collider, which could become the world’s next high-energy collider, designed and built through an international effort. The laboratory’s current flagship accelerator, the Tevatron, is scheduled to retire after 2011. It does not use SRF technology.

Michigan-based Barton Malow Inc. will do the civil construction for the SRF test facility, which will consist of three interconnected structures. One will house the SRF test accelerator; the second will accommodate the testing area for cryomodules, which are the building blocks of an SRF accelerator; and the third will house the equipment for a powerful new refrigerator that will cool the cryomodules in the test accelerator and the test area.

Scientists will also use the particle beam generated by the test accelerator to develop and design better instruments and advanced accelerator technology, which have applications in many fields, including medicine and industry.

Since March, Barton Malow subcontractors have hired about 200 Chicago-area tradespeople to work on the test facility expansion.

“There have been about 20 people here per week, all local,” said Barton Malow Project Manager Keith Wiederhold.

He expects that building the two new structures will require a similar number of workers. The company plans to finish the project by the fall of 2011.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory dedicated to research in high-energy physics and related fields. The Fermi Research Alliance LLC operates Fermilab under a contract with DOE.

: Superconducting radio-frequency cavities will be the technology of choice for the next generation of particle accelerators. The devices are made of pure niobium. They save energy by conducting electricity without resistance, making them a highly efficient technology for accelerators. Fermilab is partnering with U.S. industry and other research institutions to develop and build SRF cavities in cost-effective ways.

: When complete, the test accelerator at Fermilab will be 460 feet long. Scientists will test various accelerator components and systems by sending a beam of electrons through the accelerator.

: Fermilab has begun to install the first components of a superconducting prototype accelerator in its new test facility. When complete, the prototype accelerator will comprise six cryomodules. The first one was installed earlier this year (photo). Each cryomodule weighs about 8 tons and contains eight superconducting radio-frequency cavities that accelerate particles.

: During phase I of the construction of the test accelerator facility, contractors doubled the length of an existing building on the Fermilab site to make room for a 460-foot-long prototype accelerator. Phase II will include the construction of two additional buildings. They will house test facilities for accelerator components and a large cryogenic refrigerator that will provide liquid helium as coolant for the superconducting test accelerator.

: Electrician Stan Kramer spent the better part of 2009 unemployed. In March 2010, he received a call from Arlington Electric that he was needed for electrical work at the accelerator test facility at Fermilab, paid for with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Companies from Batavia, Aurora, St. Charles, Naperville, Elmhurst, Elk Grove Village, Wheeling and other locations are working on the project as subcontractors for Michigan-based Barton Malow Inc.

: Construction workers gather for a safety briefing in the Fermilab test accelerator facility. Since March 2010, about 200 Chicago-area tradespeople have worked on the test facility and its expansion. The test facility on the Fermilab campus in Batavia, Ill., will be the most advanced R&D center for SRF accelerator technology in the United States.

: The Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is building a pioneering accelerator test facility thanks to $52.7 million in funds received for R&D in superconducting radio-frequency technology through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The laboratory is working with U.S. industry to boost America’s capability in manufacturing acceleration devices known as SRF cavities. The technology has applications in medicine, nuclear energy and materials science.

Batavia, Ill.—New constraints on the elusive Higgs particle are more stringent than ever before. Scientists of the CDF and DZero collider experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab revealed their latest Higgs search results today (July 26) at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, held in Paris from July 22-28. Their results rule out a significant fraction of the allowed mass range established by earlier experiments.

The Fermilab experiments now exclude a Higgs particle with a mass between 158 and 175 GeV/c². Searches by previous experiments and constraints due to the Standard Model of Particles and Forces indicate that the Higgs particle should have a mass between 114 and 185 GeV/c². (For comparison: 100 GeV/c² is equivalent to 107 times the mass of a proton.) The new Fermilab result rules out about a quarter of the expected Higgs mass range.

“Fermilab has pushed the productivity of the Tevatron collider to new heights,” said Dennis Kovar, DOE Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. “Thanks to the extraordinary performance of Fermilab’s Tevatron collider, CDF and DZero collaborators from around the world are producing exciting results and are making immense progress on the search for the Higgs particle.”

At the ICHEP conference, CDF and DZero scientists are giving more than 40 talks on searches for exotic particles and dark matter candidates, discoveries of new decay channels of known particles and precision measurements of numerous particle properties. Together, the two collaborations present about 150 results.

The Higgs particle is the last not-yet-observed piece of the theoretical framework known as the Standard Model of Particles and Forces. According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson explains why some particles have mass and others do not.

“We are close to completely ruling out a Higgs boson with a large mass,” said DZero co-spokesperson Dmitri Denisov, one of 500 scientists from 19 countries working on the DZero experiment. “Three years ago, we would not have thought that this would be possible. With more data coming in, our experiments are beginning to be sensitive to a low-mass Higgs boson.”

Robert Roser, co-spokesperson for the 550 physicists from 13 countries of the CDF collaboration, also credited the great work of the CDF and DZero analysis groups for the stringent Higgs exclusion results.

“The new Higgs search results benefited from the wealth of Tevatron collision data and the smart search algorithms developed by lots of bright people, including hundreds of graduate students,” Roser said. “The CDF and DZero analysis groups have gained a better understanding of collisions that can mimic a Higgs signal; improved the sensitivity of their detectors to particle signals; and included new Higgs decay channels in the overall analysis.”

To obtain the latest Higgs search result, the CDF and DZero analysis groups separately sifted through more than 500,000 billion proton-antiproton collisions that the Tevatron has delivered to each experiment since 2001. After the two groups obtained their independent Higgs search results, they combined their results to produce the joint exclusion limits.

“Our latest result is based on about twice as much data as a year and a half ago,” said DZero co-spokesperson Stefan Söldner-Rembold, of the University of Manchester. “As we continue to collect and analyze data, the Tevatron experiments will either exclude the Standard Model Higgs boson in the entire allowed mass range or see first hints of its existence.”

The observation of the Higgs particle is also one of the goals of the Large Hadron Collider experiments at the European laboratory CERN, which record proton-proton collisions that have 3.5 times the energy of Tevatron collisions. But for rare subatomic processes such as the production of a Higgs particle with a low mass, extra energy is less important than a large number of collisions produced.

“With the Tevatron cranking out more and more collisions, we have a good chance of catching a glimpse of the Higgs boson,” said CDF co-spokesperson Giovanni Punzi, of the University of Pisa and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy. “It will be fascinating to see what Mother Nature has in her cards for us. We might find out that the Higgs properties are different from what we expect, revealing new insights into the origin of matter.”

Notes for editors:

Funding for the CDF and DZero experiments comes from DOE’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and numerous international funding agencies.

CDF collaborating institutions are at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/collaboration/index.html

DZero collaborating institutions are at http://www-d0.fnal.gov/ib/Institutions.html

: According to the Standard Model of particles and forces, the Higgs mechanism gives mass to elementary particles such as electrons and quarks. Its discovery would answer one of the big questions in physics: What is the origin of mass?

: Observed and expected exclusion limits for a Standard Model Higgs boson at the 95-percent confidence level for the combined CDF and DZero analyses. The limits are expressed as multiples of the SM prediction for test masses chosen every 5 GeV/c² in the range of 100 to 200 GeV/c². The points are joined by straight lines for better readability. The yellow and green bands indicate the 68- and 95-percent probability regions, in the absence of a signal. The CDF and DZero data exclude a Higgs boson between 158 and 175 GeV/c² at the 95-percent confidence level and show that the Tevatron experiments are beginning to be sensitive to a low-mass Higgs boson.

: In the last 15 years, the CDF and DZero experiments at Fermilab have discovered increasingly rare combinations of the electroweak force carriers — gamma, W and Z — emerging from proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron. With the Tevatron producing a record number of particle collisions, the CDF and DZero experiments might be able to catch a glimpse of the Higgs particle. The uncertainty in the predicted cross section for the Higgs boson reflects the range of Higgs masses not yet excluded by experiment.

: Scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations at DOE’s Fermilab have combined Tevatron data from their two experiments to increase the sensitivity for their search for the Higgs boson. While no Higgs boson has been found yet, the results announced today exclude a mass for the Higgs between 158 and 175 GeV/c² with 95 percent probability. Earlier experiments at the Large Electron-Positron Collider at CERN excluded a Higgs boson with a mass of less than 114 GeV/c² at 95 percent probability. Calculations of quantum effects involving the Higgs boson require its mass to be less than 185 GeV/c². The Fermilab experimenters will test more and more of the available mass range for the Higgs as their experiments record more collision data and as they continue to refine their experimental analyses.

: The DZero detector records particles emerging from high-energy proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron. Tracing the particles back to the center of the collision, scientists understand the subatomic processes that take place at the core of proton-antiproton collisions. Scientists search for the tiny fraction of collisions that might have produced a Higgs boson.

: The CDF detector, about the size of a 3-story house, weighs about 6,000 tons. Its subsystems record the “debris” emerging from each high-energy proton-antiproton collision produced by the Tevatron. The detector records the path, energy and charge of the particles emerging from the collisions. This information can be used to look for particles emerging from the decay of a short-lived Higgs particle. Med Res | Hi Res The DZero detector records particles emerging from high-energy proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron. Tracing the particles back to the center of the collision, scientists understand the subatomic processes that take place at the core of proton-antiproton collisions. Scientists search for the tiny fraction of collisions that might have produced a Higgs boson. For additional photos and B roll video footage, including video clips of the Tevatron collider experiments and aerials of the Fermilab site, visit the Fermilab Visual Media Services website. To obtain permission for the use of this additional material, please send an email to vismedsr@fnal.gov.

: The Fermilab accelerator complex accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light. The Tevatron produces about ten million proton-antiproton collisions per second, maximizing the chance for discovery. Two experiments, CDF and DZero, search for new subatomic particles and forces unveiled by the collisions.

: Listen to DZero physicist Michael Kirby, Northwestern University, as he explains in this 2-minute video how DZero collects and analyses collision data to find signs of the Higgs particle. Kirby is one of about 500 physicists from 80 institutions in 19 countries who work on the DZero experiment at Fermilab.

: Listen to CDF physicist Barbara Alvarez-Gonzalez, formerly a graduate student at the University of Oviedo and now a postdoctoral scientist at Michigan State University, as she explains in this 2-minute video the search for the Higgs particle with the CDF detector. Alvarez-Gonzalez is one of about 600 physicists from 63 institutions in 15 countries who work on the CDF experiment at Fermilab.

BATAVIA, Illinois-Scientists of the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator laboratory today (June 14) announced the world’s most precise measurement to date of the parameters that govern antineutrino oscillations, the back-and-forth transformations of antineutrinos from one type to another. This result provides information about the difference in mass between different antineutrino types. The measurement showed an unexpected variance in the values for neutrinos and antineutrinos. This mass difference parameter, called Δm² (“delta m squared”), is smaller by approximately 40 percent for neutrinos than for antineutrinos.

However, there is a still a five percent probability that Δm² is actually the same for neutrinos and antineutrinos. With such a level of uncertainty, MINOS physicists need more data and analysis to know for certain if the variance is real.

Neutrinos and antineutrinos behave differently in many respects, but the MINOS results, presented today at the Neutrino 2010 conference in Athens, Greece, and in a seminar at Fermilab, are the first observation of a potential fundamental difference that established physical theory could not explain.

“Everything we know up to now about neutrinos would tell you that our measured mass difference parameters should be very similar for neutrinos and antineutrinos,” said MINOS co-spokesperson Rob Plunkett. “If this result holds up, it would signal a fundamentally new property of the neutrino-antineutrino system. The implications of this difference for the physics of the universe would be profound.”

The NUMI beam is capable of producing intense beams of either antineutrinos or neutrinos. This capability allowed the experimenters to measure the unexpected mass difference parameters. The measurement also relies on the unique characteristics of the MINOS detector, particularly its magnetic field, which allows the detector to separate the positively and negatively charged muons resulting from interactions of antineutrinos and neutrinos, respectively. MINOS scientists have also updated their measurement of the standard oscillation parameters for muon neutrinos, providing an extremely precise value of Δm².

Muon antineutrinos are produced in a beam originating in Fermilab’s Main Injector. The antineutrinos’ extremely rare interactions with matter allow most of them to pass through the Earth unperturbed. A small number, however, interact in the MINOS detector, located 735 km away from Fermilab in Soudan, Minnesota. During their journey, which lasts 2.5 milliseconds, the particles oscillate in a process governed by a difference between their mass states.

“We do know that a difference of this size in the behavior of neutrinos and antineutrinos could not be explained by current theory,” said MINOS co-spokesperson Jenny Thomas. “While the neutrinos and antineutrinos do behave differently on their journey through the Earth, the Standard Model predicts the effect is immeasurably small in the MINOS experiment. Clearly, more antineutrino running is essential to clarify whether this effect is just due to a statistical fluctuation.”

The MINOS experiment involves more than 140 scientists, engineers, technical specialists and students from 30 institutions, including universities and national laboratories, in five countries: Brazil, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Funding comes from: the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation in the U.S., the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the U.K; the University of Minnesota in the U.S.; the University of Athens in Greece; and Brazil’s Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

: Scientists know that there exist three types of neutrinos and three types of antineutrinos. Cosmological observations and laboratory-based experiments indicate that the masses of these particles must be extremely small: Each neutrino and antineutrino must weigh less than a millionth of the weight of an electron.

: Neutrino oscillations depend on two parameters: the square of the neutrino mass difference, Δm², and the mixing angle, sin²2θ. MINOS results (shown in black), accumulated since 2005, yield the most precise known value of Δm², namely Δm² = 0.0024 ± 0.0001 eV²

: The oscillations of antineutrinos also depend on two parameters: the square of the antineutrino mass difference, Δm², and the antineutrino mixing angle, sin²2θ (shown in red). MINOS has found Δm² = 0.0034 ± 0.0004 eV². The MINOS neutrino results are show in blue for comparison. Theorists expected the values for neutrinos and antineutrinos to be the same.

: Neutrinos, ghost-like particles that rarely interact with matter, travel 450 miles straight through the earth from Fermilab to Soudan — no tunnel needed. The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) experiment studies the neutrino beam using two detectors. The MINOS near detector, located at Fermilab, records the composition of the neutrino beam as it leaves the Fermilab site. The MINOS far detector, located in Minnesota, half a mile underground, again analyzes the neutrino beam. This allows scientists to directly study the oscillation of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos or tau neutrinos under laboratory conditions.

: The MINOS far detector is located in a cavern half a mile underground in the Soudan Underground Laboratory, Minnesota. The 100-foot-long MINOS far detector consists of 486 massive octagonal planes, lined up like the slices of a loaf of bread. Each plane consists of a sheet of steel about 25 feet high and one inch thick, with the last one visible in the photo. The whole detector weighs 6,000 tons. Since March 2005, the far detector has recorded neutrinos from a beam produced at Fermilab. The MINOS collaboration records about 1,000 neutrinos per year.

: The 1,000-ton MINOS near detector sits 350 feet underground at Fermilab. The detector consists of 282 octagonal-shaped detector planes, each weighing more than a pickup truck. Scientists use the near detector to verify the intensity and purity of the muon neutrino beam leaving the Fermilab site. Photo: Peter Ginter

: Fermilab completed the construction and testing of the Neutrino at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam line in early 2005. Protons from Fermilab’s Main Injector accelerator (left) travel 1,000 feet down the beam line, smash into a graphite target and create muon neutrinos. The neutrinos traverse the MINOS near detector, located at the far end of the NuMI complex, and travel straight through the earth to a former iron mine in Soudan, Minnesota, where they cross the MINOS far detector. Some of the neutrinos arrive as electron neutrinos or tau neutrinos.

: When operating at highest intensity, the NuMI beam line transports a package of 35,000 billion protons every two seconds to a graphite target. The target converts the protons into bursts of particles with exotic names such as kaons and pions. Like a beam of light emerging from a flashlight, the particles form a wide cone when leaving the target. A set of two special lenses, called horns (photo), is the key instrument to focus the beam and send it in the right direction. The beam particles decay and produce muon neutrinos, which travel in the same direction. Photo: Peter Ginter

: More than 140 scientists, engineers, technical specialists and students from Brazil, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States are involved in the MINOS experiment. This photo shows some of them posing for a group photo at Fermilab, with the 16-story Wilson Hall and the spiral-shaped MINOS service building in the background.

: Far view The University of Minnesota Foundation commissioned a mural for the MINOS cavern at the Soudan Underground Laboratory, painted onto the rock wall, 59 feet wide by 25 feet high. The mural contains images of scientists such as Enrico Fermi and Wolfgang Pauli, Wilson Hall at Fermilab, George Shultz, a key figure in the history of Minnesota mining, and some surprises. A description of the mural, painted by Minneapolis artist Joe Giannetti, is available here.

Batavia, Ill.—Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday, May 14, that they have found evidence for significant violation of matter-antimatter symmetry in the behavior of particles containing bottom quarks beyond what is expected in the current theory, the Standard Model of particle physics. The new result, submitted for publication in Physical Review D by the DZero collaboration, an international team of 500 physicists, indicates a one percent difference between the production of pairs of muons and pairs of antimuons in the decay of B mesons produced in high-energy collisions at Fermilab’s Tevatron particle collider.

The dominance of matter that we observe in the universe is possible only if there are differences in the behavior of particles and antiparticles. Although physicists have observed such differences (called “CP violation”) in particle behavior for decades, these known differences are much too small to explain the observed dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe and are fully consistent with the Standard Model. If confirmed by further observations and analysis, the effect seen by DZero physicists could represent another step towards understanding the observed matter dominance by pointing to new physics phenomena beyond what we know today.

Using unique features of their precision detector and newly developed analysis methods, the DZero scientists have shown that the probability that this measurement is consistent with any known effect is below 0.1 percent (3.2 standard deviations).

“This exciting new result provides evidence of deviations from the present theory in the decays of B mesons, in agreement with earlier hints,” said Dmitri Denisov, co-spokesperson of the DZero experiment, one of two collider experiments at the Tevatron collider. Last year, physicists at both Tevatron experiments, DZero and CDF, observed such hints in studying particles made of a bottom quark and a strange quark.

When matter and anti-matter particles collide in high-energy collisions, they turn into energy and produce new particles and antiparticles. At the Fermilab proton-antiproton collider, scientists observe hundreds of millions every day. Similar processes occurring at the beginning of the universe should have left us with a universe with equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. But the world around is made of matter only and antiparticles can only be produced at colliders, in nuclear reactions or cosmic rays. “What happened to the antimatter?” is one of the central questions of 21st–century particle physics.

To obtain the new result, the DZero physicists performed the data analysis “blind,” to avoid any bias based on what they observe. Only after a long period of verification of the analysis tools, did the DZero physicists look at the full data set. Experimenters reversed the polarity of their detector’s magnetic field during data collection to cancel instrumental effects.

“Many of us felt goose bumps when we saw the result,” said Stefan Soldner-Rembold, co-spokesperson of DZero. “We knew we were seeing something beyond what we have seen before and beyond what current theories can explain.”

The precision of the DZero measurements is still limited by the number of collisions recorded so far by the experiment. Both CDF and DZero therefore continue to collect data and refine analyses to address this and many other fundamental questions.

“The Tevatron collider is operating extremely well, providing Fermilab scientists with unprecedented levels of data from high-energy collisions to probe nature’s deepest secrets. This interesting result underlines the importance and scientific potential of the Tevatron program,” said Dennis Kovar, Associate Director for High Energy Physics in DOE’s Office of Science.

The DZero result is based on data collected over the last eight years by the DZero experiment: over 6 inverse femtobarns in total integrated luminosity, corresponding to hundreds of trillions of collisions between protons and antiprotons in the Tevatron collider.

“Tevatron collider experiments study high-energy collisions in every detail, from searches for the Higgs boson, to precision measurement of particle properties, to searches for new and yet unknown laws of nature. I am delighted to see yet another exciting result from the Tevatron,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone.

DZero is an international experiment of about 500 physicists from 86 institutions in 19 countries. It is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and a number of international funding agencies.

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

: The DZero collaboration comprises about 500 scientists from 19 countries who designed and built the 5,500-ton DZero detector and now collect and reconstruct collision data. They research a wide range of Standard Model topics and search for new subatomic phenomena. Credit: DZero collaboration

: The DZero collaboration has found evidence for a new way in which elementary particles break the matter-antimatter symmetry of nature. This new type of CP violation is in disagreement with the predictions of the theoretical framework known as the Standard Model of particles and their interactions. The effect ultimately may help to explain why the universe is filled with matter while antimatter disappeared shortly after the big bang. Credit: DZero collaboration

: The DZero detector records particles emerging from high-energy proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron. For this measurement of CP violation, scientists analyzed 10 trillion collisions collected over the last eight years. Credit: Fermilab

: The Fermilab accelerator complex accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light. The Tevatron collider, four miles in circumference, produces millions of proton-antiproton collisions per second, maximizing the chance for discovery. Two experiments, CDF and DZero, record the collisions to look for signs of new particles and subatomic processes. Credit: Fermilab

: The DZero result is based on the comparison of the distributions of positively and negatively charged muons (μ+ and μ-) emerging from high-energy proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron particle collider. A strong magnetic field inside the DZero particle detector forces the muons that emerge from those collisions to travel along a curved path. Two muons with opposite charge follow paths that curve in opposite direction (see graphic). Scientists first compared the muon distributions when the the magnetic field inside the DZero detector pointed in one direction (configuration 1) and then compared their distributions when the magnetic field had been reversed (configuration 2). If the matter-antimatter symmetry were perfect, the comparison of the muon distributions in the two configurations would yield the same result. Instead, the DZero experiment observed a one-percent deviation, evidence for a matter-antimatter asymmetry. Credit: Fermilab

Batavia, IL and Upton, NY – The Large Hadron Collider has launched a new era for particle physics. Today at 6:06 a.m. CDT (1:06 p.m. Central European Summer Time) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, the first particles collided at the record energy of seven trillion electron volts (TeV). These collisions mark the start of a decades-long LHC research program, and the beginning of the search for discoveries by thousands of scientists around the world.

“Today’s first 7 TeV collisions are a great start for LHC science,” said Dr. Dennis Kovar, Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics at the U.S. Department of Energy. “We eagerly anticipate the work of the world’s physicists as they begin their search for dark matter, extra dimensions, and the ever-elusive Higgs boson.”

Today’s proton collisions were recorded by the LHC experiments’ particle detectors, known by their acronyms: ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. While the LHC accelerator brings the protons up to their maximum energy and steers them around the 16-mile ring into collision, the experiments use massive particle detectors to record and analyze the collision debris.

“The LHC experiments are the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments, and scientists from American universities and laboratories have made vital contributions to each of them,” said Dr. Edward Seidel, Acting Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation’s Directorate For Mathematical and Physical Sciences. “We wish all the LHC scientists success in their quest to solve some of the most profound mysteries of our universe.”

More than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 89 American universities, seven U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, and one supercomputing center helped design, build and operate the LHC accelerator and its four massive particle detectors. American participation is supported by the DOE’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Now, the real work begins for the LHC teams. Over the next 18 to 24 months, the LHC accelerator will deliver enough collisions at 7 TeV to enable significant advances in a number of research areas. As data begins to pour from their detectors, more than 8,000 LHC scientists around the world will sift through the flood in search of the tiny signals that could indicate discovery.

“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”

The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are the host laboratories for the U.S. groups participating in the ATLAS and CMS experiments, respectively. Scientists from American universities and laboratories, who comprise more than 20 percent of the ATLAS collaboration and 35 percent of CMS, have played major roles in the construction of both detectors, and join thousands of international colleagues as they operate the detector and analyze the collision data that will be collected in the coming years. In addition, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the host laboratory for U.S. groups participating in ALICE, with American scientists contributing 10 percent of the ALICE collaboration.

The United States is also home to major national and regional computing centers that, as part of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, enable scientists in the United States and around the world to access the enormous amount of data generated by the LHC experiments. Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, host to major “Tier-1” computing centers, are the first stop in the U.S. for data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments, respectively. The data are further distributed to smaller NSF and DOE-funded “Tier-2” and “Tier-3” computing centers across the country, where physicists will conduct the analyses that may lead to LHC discoveries.

Notes for editors:

Photos and video from today’s events are available at:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/lhc-first-physics/

For more information about American participation in the Large Hadron Collider, visit http://www.uslhc.us.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is operated and managed for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates and Battelle. Visit Brookhaven Lab’s electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom.

Fermilab is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory, operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the nation’s single-largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. Visit Fermilab’s website at http://www.fnal.gov.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

Full list of U.S. institutions participating in the Large Hadron Collider project

Arizona
University of Arizona

California
California Institute of Technology
California Polytechnic State University
California State University, Fresno
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz

Colorado
University of Colorado

Connecticut
Fairfield University
Yale University

Florida
Florida Institute of Technology
Florida International University
Florida State University
University of Florida

Illinois
Argonne National Laboratory
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Northern Illinois University
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Indiana
Indiana University
Purdue University
Purdue University Calumet
University of Notre Dame

Iowa
Iowa State University
University of Iowa

Kansas
Kansas State University
University of Kansas

Kentucky
University of Louisville

Louisiana
Louisiana Tech University

Maryland
Johns Hopkins University
University of Maryland (40)

Massachusetts
Boston University
Brandeis University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northeastern University
Tufts University
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Michigan
Michigan State University
University of Michigan
Wayne State University

Minnesota
University of Minnesota

Mississippi
University of Mississippi

Nebraska
Creighton University
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

New Jersey
Princeton University
Rutgers University

New Mexico
University of New Mexico

New York
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Columbia University
Cornell University
New York University
Rockefeller University
State University of New York at Albany
State University of New York at Buffalo
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Syracuse University
University of Rochester

North Carolina
Duke University

Ohio
Case Western Reserve University
Ohio State University
Ohio Supercomputer Center

Oklahoma
Langston University
Oklahoma State University
University of Oklahoma

Oregon
University of Oregon

Pennsylvania
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh

Puerto Rico
University of Puerto Rico

Rhode Island
Brown University

South Carolina
University of South Carolina

Tennessee
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
University of Tennessee
Vanderbilt University

Texas
Rice University
Southern Methodist University
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
University of Houston
University of Texas, Arlington
University of Texas, Austin
University of Texas, Dallas

Virginia
Hampton University
University of Virginia

Washington
University of Washington

Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Batavia, Ill. – On Tuesday, March 30, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland will make their first attempt to achieve record-breaking particle collisions of 7 trillion electron volts, signifying the start of the research program for the world’s most powerful accelerator.

Reporters are invited to see the record-breaking collisions at the LHC Remote Operations Center at the Department of Energy’s Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois. While scientists believe that the first 7 TeV collisions are likely to occur on March 30, this achievement could take hours or days.

On the day that the record-breaking collisions occur, live connections between CERN and Fermilab’s LHC Remote Operations Center will follow the action in Switzerland starting at 8:30 a.m. CDT . Reporters will have access to U.S. physicists involved in LHC research. Those physicists will explain the events and their significance for the field of particle physics. Fermilab will also show a live Webcast from CERN until 11:00 a.m. CDT.

If you would like to attend this event at Fermilab, please contact Elizabeth Clements (lizzie@fnal.gov) at 630-399-1777 or Rhianna Wisniewski (rhianna@fnal.gov) at 630-840-6733.

More information about U.S. participation in the LHC and its experiments is available at http://www.uslhc.us .

Read the CERN release:

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1029232

Batavia, IL, Berkeley, CA and Upton, NY – Particle beams are once again zooming around the world’s most powerful particle accelerator—the Large Hadron Collider—located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. On November 20 at 4:00 p.m. EST, a clockwise circulating beam was established in the LHC’s 17-mile ring.

After more than one year of repairs, the LHC is now back on track to create high-energy particle collisions that may yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe.

“The LHC is a machine unprecedented in size, in complexity, and in the scope of the international collaboration that has built it over the last 15 years,” said Dennis Kovar, U.S. Department of Energy Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. “I congratulate the scientists and engineers that have worked to get the LHC back up and running, and look forward to the discoveries to come.”

American scientists have played an important role in the construction of the LHC. About 150 scientists, engineers and technicians from three DOE national laboratories—Brookhaven Lab, Fermilab and Berkeley Lab—built critical accelerator components. They are joined by colleagues from DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin in ongoing LHC accelerator R&D. The work has been supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Circulating beams are a major milestone on the way to the ultimate goal: data from high-energy particle collisions in each of the LHC’s four major particle detectors. Over the next few months, scientists will create collisions between two beams of protons. These very first LHC collisions will take place at the relatively low energy of 900 GeV. They will then raise the beam energy, aiming for collisions at the world-record energy of 7 TeV in early 2010. With these high-energy collisions, the hunt for discoveries at the LHC will begin.

“It’s great to see beam circulating in the LHC again,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “We’ve still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we’re well on the way.”

In all, an estimated 10,000 people from 60 countries have helped design and build the LHC accelerator and its four massive particle detectors, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 97 U.S. universities and laboratories in 32 states and Puerto Rico supported by the DOE Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

# # #Notes for editors:

Photos and videos from today’s event are available at: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/lhc-first-physics/

Information about the US participation in the LHC is available at http://www.uslhc.us. Follow US LHC on Twitter at twitter.com/uslhc.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our News center at http://newscenter.lbl.gov.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates and Battelle. Visit Brookhaven Lab’s electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom.

Funds are part of more than $327 million in new Recovery Act funding to be disbursed by Department of Energy’s Office of Science

Batavia, Ill. – In the latest installment of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will receive an additional $60.2 million to support research toward next generation particle accelerators and preliminary design for a future neutrino experiment.

The new funds are part of more than $327 million announced by Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday from funding allocated under the Recovery Act to DOE’s Office of Science. Of these funds, $220 million will go toward scientific research, instrumentation and laboratory infrastructure projects at DOE national laboratories.

“The new initiatives will help the U.S. maintain its scientific leadership and economic competitiveness while creating new jobs,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The projects provide vital funding and new tools for research aimed at strengthening America’s energy security and tackling some of science’s toughest challenges.”

Taking the stimulus funds announced earlier this year into account, the Recovery Act provides more than $100 million in funding to Fermilab.

Fermilab is investing the funds in critical scientific infrastructure to strengthen the nation’s global scientific leadership as well as to provide immediate economic relief to local communities. Out of the additional $60.2 million, the laboratory will devote $52.7 million to research on next-generation accelerators using superconducting radio frequency technology. This technology provides a highly efficient way to accelerate beams of particles with potential applications in medicine, energy and material science. Fermilab will use the remaining $7.5 million for preliminary design for a future neutrino experiment.

With this final round of projects, the Obama Administration has now approved projects covering the full $1.6 billion that the DOE Office of Science received from Congress under the Recovery Act.

“The Recovery Act funding will put our neighbors and fellow Americans to work,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. “We are investing the funds in local firms and other U.S. companies who will be our partners in strengthening the nation’s scientific leadership.”

More information about Fermilab and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is available at http://www.fnal.gov/recovery/

DOE’s news release is available at http://www.energy.gov/news2009/7737.htm

: The steel shell for the addition to Industrial Building 3 marks the future location of Fermilab’s new materials laboratory space. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is providing $4.9 million for the project, including approximately $3 million to cover initial construction costs. The remaining budget will fund furnishings and several building upgrades, as well as construction management and a budgeted reserve to account for unplanned costs.

: Fermilab has awarded to R.C. Wegman Construction Co. a $3.5-million contract for the expansion of the MI-8 building. The construction project, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is giving a boost to local companies and will provide much-needed space to the technicians who support Fermilab’s neutrino program.

: Construction crews are altering the existing New Muon Building to make the facility capable of producing and testing key components for superconducting radio frequency technology. They are building an underground enclosure and support housings. Technical beamline equipment will occupy the length of the existing facility and the 202-foot extension. The project will also include work inside the existing building to relocate the loading dock to accommodate the new tunnel enclosure.

: In April, crews finished blasting a hole measuring about 50 by 70 by 350 feet in the granite at the site of the NOvA detector facility in Ash River, Minn. They recently completed the roof of the service building for the NOvA experiment and began pouring the concrete base for the structure in May. Photo: Dan Traska of Einarson Flying Service

: Fermilab received more than $50 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for research and development of superconducting radio frequency technology. The technology will be used to build a test area for components needed for the next-generation particle accelerator. Superconducting radiofrequency technology aims to increase the efficiency of transferring particle energy and the amount of energy, speed and mass the particles can acquire.

: Fermilab will receive more than $50 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for superconducting radio frequency technology. Some of those funds will be used to build a test area for next-generation particle accelerator components, such as the 9-cell 1.3 GHz superconducting radio frequency cavity shown here.

: Irina Kubantseva, a technician in FermilabÃs Particle Physics Division, will help test the wavelength shifters in the Fermilab chemistry lab when the first shipment arrives in September. Scientists use the chemicals to change the wavelength of particles of light, called photons, into the required range for the experiment.

: Officials break ground at the entrance to the future site of the NOvA detector facility in Ash River, Minnesota on May 1. Fermilab will receive $14.9 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for NOvA, a new neutrino experiment that will seek to explore the mystery of how matter came to dominate antimatter in the universe.

: A construction crew began clearing and leveling roads at the NOvA site in Ash River, Minnesota on June 1. Construction of the facility is expected to generate 60 to 80 jobs plus purchase of materials and services from U.S. companies. Fermilab will receive $14.9 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for the NOvA project.

: Jim’s Ash Trail Store in Ash River, Minnesota featured the NOvA Project meal special during the groundbreaking ceremony in May.

: This rendering depicts the future NOvA detector facility on the property in Ash River, Minnesota, about 40 miles southeast of International Falls. Rendering by Holabird & Root

: A rendering of the entrance to the NOvA detector facility. Physicists will use the NOvA experiment to analyze the mysterious behavior of neutrinos sent through the Earth from Fermilab in Illinois to the NOvA detector in Ash River, Minnesota. Rendering by Holabird & Root

: Ash River near the future site of the NOvA detector facility. Photoa; William Miller, NOvA installation manager