New measurements from Fermilab’s MINOS experiment suggest a difference in a key property of neutrinos and antineutrinos

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

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 the nation and helps ensure U.S. world leadership across a broad range of scientific disciplines.

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

Congressman Bill Foster will announce today that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will provide Fermilab with an additional $60.2 million to support research toward next-generation particle accelerators and preliminary design for a future neutrino experiment. Foster will make the announcement in Fermilab’s Industrial Center Building. All media are invited to attend.

Media representatives wishing to attend should contact Elizabeth Clements at 630-840-3351, lizzie@fnal.gov or Kurt Riesselmann at 630-840-3351, kurtr@fnal.gov. To allow for a prompt start for the press conference, media are asked to arrive at the Industrial Center Building no later than 11:45 a.m.

Directions to the Industrial Center Building:

From the west, enter Fermilab on Pine Street and continue going straight on the road, driving past Wilson Hall. The Industrial Center Building will be on the left in a complex of five buildings about a quarter mile past Wilson Hall. A sign will be in front of the building, and security guards will provide directions and parking information .

From the east, enter Fermilab on Batavia Road. Drive past Eola Road and the buffalo barn. The Industrial Center Building will be on the right in a complex of five buildings. A sign will be in front of the building, and security guards will provide directions and parking information .

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

: 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

BATAVIA, IL and UPTON, NY – The world’s largest computing grid has passed its most comprehensive tests to date in anticipation of the restart of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The successful dress rehearsal proves that the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) is ready to analyze and manage real data from the massive machine. The United States is a vital partner in the development and operation of the WLCG, with 15 universities and three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories from 11 states contributing to the project.

The full-scale test, collectively called the Scale Test of the Experimental Program 2009 (STEP09), demonstrates the ability of the WLCG to efficiently navigate data collected from the LHC’s intense collisions at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, all the way through a multi-layered management process that culminates at laboratories and universities around the world. When the LHC resumes operations this fall, the WLCG will handle more than 15 million gigabytes of data every year.

Although there have been several large-scale WLCG data-processing tests in the past, STEP09, which was completed on June 15, was the first to simultaneously test all of the key elements of the process.

“Unlike previous challenges, which were dedicated testing periods, STEP09 was a production activity that closely matches the types of workload that we can expect during LHC data taking. It was a demonstration not only of the readiness of experiments, sites and services but also the operations and support procedures and infrastructures,” said CERN’s Ian Bird, leader of the WLCG project.

Once LHC data have been collected at CERN, dedicated optical fiber networks distribute the data to 11 major “Tier-1” computer centers in Europe, North America and Asia, including those at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. From these, data are dispatched to more than 140 “Tier-2” centers around the world, including 12 in the United States. It will be at the Tier-2 and Tier-3 centers that physicists will analyze data from the LHC experiments – ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb – leading to new discoveries. Support for the Tier-2 and Tier-3 centers is provided by the DOE Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

“In order to really prove our readiness at close-to-real-life circumstances, we have to carry out data replication, data reprocessing, data analysis, and event simulation all at the same time and all at the expected scale for data taking,” said Michael Ernst, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Tier-1 Computing Center. “That’s what made STEP09 unique.”

The result was “wildly successful,” Ernst said, adding that the U.S. distributed computing facility for the ATLAS experiment completed 150,000 analysis jobs at an efficiency of 94 percent.

A key goal of the test was gauging the analysis capabilities of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 computing centers. During STEP09’s 13-day run, seven U.S. Tier 2 centers for the CMS experiment, and four U.S. CMS Tier 3 centers, performed around 225,000 successful analysis jobs.

“We knew from past tests that we wanted to improve certain areas,” said Oliver Gutsche, the Fermilab physicist who led the effort for the CMS experiment. “This test was especially useful because we learned how the infrastructure behaves under heavy load from all four LHC experiments. We now know that we are ready for collisions.”

U.S. contributions to the WLCG are coordinated through the Open Science Grid (OSG), a national computing infrastructure for science. OSG not only contributes computing power for LHC data needs, but also for projects in many other scientific fields including biology, nanotechnology, medicine and climate science.

“This is another significant step to demonstrating that shared infrastructures can be used by multiple high-throughput science communities simultaneously,” said Ruth Pordes, executive director of the Open Science Grid Consortium. “ATLAS and CMS are not only proving the usability of OSG, but contributing to maturing national distributed facilities in the U.S. for other sciences.”

Physicists in the U.S. and around the world will sift through the LHC data in search of tiny signals that will lead to discoveries about the nature of the physical universe. Through their distributed computing infrastructures, these physicists also help other scientific researchers increase their use of computing and storage for broader discovery.

-30-Notes for editors:

Grid computing and Large Hadron Collider images are available at http://www.uslhc.us/Images. More information about U.S. computing for the LHC, including a list of U.S. institutions involved in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, is available at http://www.uslhc.us/The_US_and_the_LHC/Computing.

U.S. support for LHC participation
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested a total of $531 million in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS and CMS detectors. DOE provided $200 million for the construction of critical LHC accelerator components, $250 million for the design and construction of the ATLAS and CMS detectors, and continues to support U.S. scientists’ work on the detectors and accelerator R&D. NSF has focused its support on funding university scientists who have contributed to the design and construction of CMS and ATLAS ($81 million). In addition, both agencies promote the development of advanced computing innovations to meet the enormous LHC data challenge. More than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 94 U.S. universities and laboratories participate in the LHC and its experiments. (A full list is available here.)

LHC Computing Grid participants
Signatories to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, India, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taipei, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the United States of America.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates. Visit Brookhaven Laboratory’s electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more.

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

The Open Science Grid is a national distributed computing grid for data-intensive research, supported by the Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, High Energy Physics, and Nuclear Physics within the DOE Office of Science, and the National Science Foundation. Visit www.opensciencegrid.org.

At a recent physics seminar at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Fermilab physicist Pat Lukens of the CDF experiment announced the observation of a new particle, the Omega-sub-b (Ω_b). The particle contains three quarks, two strange quarks and a bottom quark (s-s-b). It is an exotic relative of the much more common proton and has about six times the proton’s mass.

The observation of this “doubly strange” particle, predicted by the Standard Model, is significant because it strengthens physicists’ confidence in their understanding of how quarks form matter. In addition, it conflicts with a 2008 result announced by CDF’s sister experiment, DZero.

The Omega-sub-b is the latest entry in the “periodic table of baryons.” Baryons are particles formed of three quarks, the most common examples being the proton and neutron. The Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab is unique in its ability to produce baryons containing the b quark, and the large data samples now available after many years of successful running enable experimenters to find and study these rare particles. The observation opens a new window for scientists to investigate its properties and better understand this rare object.

Combing through almost half a quadrillion (1000 trillion) proton-antiproton collisions produced by Fermilab’s Tevatron particle collider, the CDF collaboration isolated 16 examples in which the particles emerging from a collision revealed the distinctive signature of the Omega-sub-b. Once produced, the Omega-sub-b travels a fraction of a millimeter before it decays into lighter particles. This decay, mediated by the weak force, occurs in about a trillionth of a second. In fact, CDF has performed the first ever measurement of the Omega-sub-b lifetime and obtained 1.13 +0.53-0.40 (stat.) ±0.02(syst.) trillionths of a second.

In August 2008, the DZero experiment announced its own observation of the Omega-sub-b based on a smaller sample of Tevatron data. Interestingly, the new CDF observation announced here is in direct conflict with the earlier DZero result. The CDF physicists measured the Omega-sub-b mass to be 6054.4 ±6.8(stat.) ±0.9(syst.) MeV/c², compared to DZero’s 6165±10(stat.)±13(syst.) MeV/c². These two experimental results are statistically inconsistent with each other leaving scientists from both experiments wondering whether they are measuring the same particle. Furthermore, the experiments observed different rates of production of this particle. Perhaps most interesting is that neither experiment sees a hint of evidence for the particle at the other’s measured value.

Although the latest result announced by CDF agrees with theoretical expectation for the Omega-sub-b both in the measured production rate and in the mass value, further investigation is needed to solve the puzzle of these conflicting results.

The Omega-sub-b discovery follows the observation of the Cascade-b-minus baryon (Ξ_b), first observed at the Tevatron in 2007, and two types of Sigma-sub-b baryons (Σ_b), discovered at the Tevatron in 2006.

The CDF collaboration submitted a paper that summarizes the details of its discovery to the journal Physical Review D. It is available online at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3123

CDF is an international experiment of about 600 physicists from 62 institutions in 15 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.

: Six quarks–up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top–are the building blocks of matter. Protons and neutrons are made of up and down quarks, held together by the strong nuclear force. The CDF experiment now has observed the Omega-sub-b particle, which contains two strange quarks (s) and one bottom quark (b).

: Once produced, the Omega-sub-b (Ωb) particle travels about a third of a millimeter before it disintegrates into two intermediate particles called J/Psi (J/ψ) and Omega-minus (Ω-). The J/Psi then promptly decays into a pair of muons. The Omega-minus baryon, on the other hand, can travel several centimeters and occasionally be measured in the CDF silicon vertex detector. The particle decays into an unstable particle called a Lambda (Λ) baryon along with a long-lived kaon particle (K). The Lambda baryon, which has no electric charge, also can travel several centimeters prior to decaying into a proton (p) and a pion (π). Credit: CDF collaboration.

: Baryons are particles made of three quarks. The quark model predicts the combinations that exist with either spin J=1/2 (this graphic) or spin J=3/2. The graphic shows the various three-quark combinations with J=1/2 that are possible using the three lightest quarks–up, down and strange–and the bottom quark. The CDF collaboration observed the Omega-sub-b, highlighted in the graphic. There exist additional baryons involving the charm quark, which are not shown. The top quark, discovered at Fermilab in 1995, is too short-lived to become part of a baryon.

: The CDF collaboration has observed 16 Omega-sub-b candidates in the data collected through October 2008. The mass of the Omega-sub-b is measured to be 6054.4 ± 6.8 MeV/c2. The lifetime of the Omega-sub-b is measured to be 1.13 ± 0.53 picoseconds. Credit: CDF collaboration.

: The Fermilab accelerator complex accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light. Converting energy into mass, the Tevatron collider can produce particles that are heavier than the protons and antiprotons that are colliding. The Tevatron produces millions of proton-antiproton collisions per second, maximizing the chance for discovery. Two experiments, CDF and DZero, search for new types of particles emerging from the collisions.

: The CDF detector, about the size of a 3-story house, weighs about 6,000 tons. Its subsystems record the “debris” emerging from high-energy proton-antiproton collisions. The detector surrounds the collision point and records the path, energy and charge of the particles emerging from the collisions. This information can be used to find and determine the properties of the Omega-sub-b particle.

: Some of the 600 scientists of the CDF collaboration in front of Wilson Hall at Fermilab.

CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer, Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman and Fermilab physicist Boris Kayser answer questions about antimatter, the Large Hadron Collider and particle physics research

The U.S. National Science Foundation invites you to join a live media briefing on the science behind the motion picture Angels & Demons on May 19 at 1:00 p.m. EDT (12 noon CDT; 7:00 p.m. CEST). This blockbuster film, which gives particle physics a moment on the red carpet, hits movie screens around the world this week. The briefing will feature three world-renowned physicists from the European particle physics laboratory CERN and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Based on Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, Angels & Demons focuses on a plot to destroy the Vatican using a small amount of antimatter. That antimatter is made using the Large Hadron Collider and is stolen from CERN. Parts of the movie were filmed at CERN.

The briefing, a live video teleconference, will feature Rolf Heuer, director-general at CERN, Leon Lederman, Nobel laureate and director emeritus at Fermilab, and Boris Kayser, Fermilab physicist and chair of the American Physics Society’s Division of Particles and Fields. To watch and ask questions during the briefing, visit the Science 360 Web site (http://www.science360.gov/live/). Journalists should send an email to lisajoy@nsf.gov to obtain a call-in number and passcode. Anyone can submit questions any time to webcast@nsf.gov.

This media briefing is part of a larger worldwide event: “Angels & Demons Lecture Nights: the Science Revealed.” More information about the series, including a list of lectures and local contacts, is available at www.uslhc.us/Angels_Demons.

* U.S. participation in the Large Hadron Collider project is supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

* 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.

* Fermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science 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 the nation and helps ensure U.S. world leadership across a broad range of scientific disciplines.