Warrenville student Kathleen Stanley receives scholarship from Fermilab Friends for Science Education

Batavia, Illinois – Kathleen Stanley of Warrenville, a graduating senior at Rosary High School in Aurora who hopes to major in chemical engineering in college, has been named the recipient of the Fermilab Science Award and scholarship, sponsored by the Fermilab Friends for Science Education and the Franklin Fund. The award and scholarship were presented Wednesday night, May 23 in a ceremony at Rosary High School.

The award is given annually to a high school senior in DuPage or Kane County, with considerations for academic achievement, participation in activities such as science clubs, academic competition, talent searches, original work and internships. The $1,000 scholarship, awarded this year for the first time, is provided by FFSE in partnership with Paul DesCouteaux, Geneva, of the Franklin Fund.

Ms. Stanley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Keith Stanley, participated in Rosary’s Math and Chemistry WYSE teams, representing the school in the Illinois State Finals in Champaign. She is president of the school’s National Honor Society chapter, and a member of both Mu Alpha Theta (National High School and Two-Year College Mathematics Honor Society) and the Foreign Language Honor Society. She is also a two-sport athlete, received the Coach’s Award in both soccer and basketball.

“Kathleen is a highly gifted scholar athlete and a well-rounded, respected person,” said Sr. Patricia Burke, O.P., Principal of Rosary High School. “She is a kind and supportive leader with a wonderful sense of humor. Despite her busy schedule, she makes time for others in need. Her generous spirit will take her far in the years ahead.”

In presenting the award to Ms. Stanley, FFSE President Marge Bardeen said: “Kathleen is a very strong science student, and we are sure her future will be bright.”

The Fermilab Friends for Science Education is a non-profit organization supporting education outreach programs at Fermilab. Information on the organization and membership is available here.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is the home of the Tevatron, the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator and a leader in the development of accelerator technology since the laboratory’s founding in 1967. Fermilab collaborates closely with laboratories around the world on R&D for the International Linear Collider and future accelerator facilities proposed for Illinois, including heavy ion acceleration and high intensity neutrino sources. Particle beams from Fermilab’s accelerator complex are used to treat cancer patients at Fermilab Neutron Therapy Facility. Fermilab is managed by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

CHICAGO, Ill. – In celebration of Particle Accelerator Day this weekend in Illinois, two U.S. Department of Energy Laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, have planned events at their respective accelerator facilities. This is the second year that the two labs are celebrating “Particle Accelerator Day”- a celebration that follows Governor Rod Blagojevich’s proclamation of April 21 as Particle Accelerator Day in Illinois.

“The technology of particle accelerators will translate into significant scientific and economic benefits for our state and our nation, so I am happy to once again declare April 21st ‘Particle Accelerator Day’ in Illinois and encourage everyone to learn more about the contributions of this incredible technology to our world,” said Gov. Blagojevich. “Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory work every day to advance important new technologies and discoveries and we look forward to continue supporting both federal labs in attracting even larger investments into these facilities.”

Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory are world leaders in the science, technology and operation of particle accelerators. Last year both labs formalized their intent to collaborate on accelerator technology through a Memorandum of Understanding making Illinois a global center of excellence in the development of accelerator technology, both for scientific discovery and for the security and economic competitiveness of the State of Illinois and the nation.

“These are exciting times for accelerator scientists,” says Argonne director Robert Rosner, “and we are delighted with Governor Blagojevich’s proclamation of ‘Illinois Particle Accelerator Day.’ Our state is home to one of the most diverse set of accelerators in the world, carrying out research in science areas as different as particle and nuclear physics to material science, biological and medical sciences and energy sciences, based on close collaborations between national labs, universities, and industry; and such collaborations position Illinois as a recognized leader in accelerator science.”

Argonne is celebrating “Illinois Particle Accelerator Day” today by hosting a class of honors chemistry students from the College of DuPage. These students have been using Argonne’s accelerator research facilities to perform experiments as a part of their class, and today will tour the Advanced Photon Source. Argonne scientists will give them a glimpse into the world of particle physics, and will discuss the role of accelerators in today’s world and the unique discoveries they make.

The Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will celebrate “Particle Accelerator Day” with Illinois high school students from Lincoln Park High School, who tour the laboratory on Monday. The students will also join Fermilab physicists for a discussion of the role of accelerators in the discovery of the fundamental nature of the universe. Scientists will share their own experiences as students and their excitement at the revolutionary discoveries that are unfolding in the field of particle physics.

Each year, some 20,000 students from middle school through university visit Fermilab to tour the facility and learn first-hand about science at a national accelerator laboratory.

“We thank Governor Blagojevich for his proclamation recognizing the role of particle accelerators in making the State of Illinois a center of scientific leadership,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. “We look forward to celebrating ‘Particle Accelerator Day’ with Illinois students at Fermilab. After all, ‘Accelerator’ is our middle name!”

The text of the Governor’s Particle Accelerator Day proclamation is available here.

About Argonne and Fermilab Argonne National Laboratory
The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Argonne operates the Advanced Photon Source, one of the world’s highest intensity x-ray light sources. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Fermilab is the home of the Tevatron, the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator and a leader in the development of accelerator technology since the laboratory’s founding in 1967. Fermilab collaborates closely with Argonne and with other laboratories around the world on R&D for the International Linear Collider and future accelerator facilities proposed for Illinois, including heavy ion acceleration and high intensity neutrino sources. Particle beams from Fermilab’s accelerator complex are used to treat cancer patients at Fermilab Neutron Therapy Facility. Fermilab is managed by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science.

Batavia, Illinois–Scientists of the CDF and DZero experiments at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory presented today (April 15) at the annual April meeting of the American Physical Society the latest results of intriguing measurements made with the Tevatron particle collider. Highlights of the presentations were the observation of rare particle processes never observed before and new constraints on the mass of the Higgs boson, which in principle make the observation of this elusive particle at the Fermilab Tevatron collider more likely. Based on the world’s best measurements of the top quark mass and the W boson mass, the new upper limit for the mass of the Higgs boson is now 144 GeV/c² with 95 percent probability.

More than 60 scientists working on the Tevatron experiments are presenting results at the APS meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. They are showing results for the rare production of single top quarks, one of the rarest collision processes ever observed at a hadron collider; a new measurement of the top quark mass; the first observation of events that simultaneously produce a W boson and a Z boson, an important milestone in the search for the Higgs boson; an update on measurements of bottom quarks, including B_s oscillations; and searches for new particles predicted by Supersymmetry and other theoretical models. These searches have led to more stringent constraints on the masses of supersymmetric particles and forces associated with such particles.

The steadily increasing number of collision events produced by the Tevatron as well as the innovative analysis methods employed by CDF and DZero scientists bode well for future discoveries. In particular, the direct experimental exclusion of a Higgs boson with a mass near 160 GeV/c² seems to be within reach while searches for a Higgs boson with lighter mass will require more data. The Tevatron experiments will collect 2-3 times more data in the next two years. This will give the two experiments access to extremely rare subatomic processes, including access to a significant region of the expected Higgs mass range.

Here is a summary of the key results obtained by the Tevatron experiments, presented at a press conference at the APS conference in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 15:

I. The top quark and the Higgs, presented by Kevin Lannon, Ohio State University:

Combining their latest measurements, the Tevatron experiments find the value of the top quark mass to be 170.9 GeV/c², with an uncertainty of only 1 percent. This precision already exceeds the goal set for the entire duration of Tevatron Collider Run II, which is expected to continue until 2009. This new top quark mass value lowers the predicted range of allowed Higgs boson mass.
The DZero collaboration has observed the first evidence of single top quarks produced in a rare subatomic process involving the weak nuclear force. The result is an important test of predictions made by particle theory, such as the number of quarks that exist in nature. The measurement yields the first constraints on the electroweak parameter V_tb, which is related to the probability of the top quark decaying into bottom quark. The observation of single top quarks validates new analysis techniques that provide scientists with improved tools to search for the Higgs boson.

II. W and Z bosons and the Higgs, presented by Gerald Blazey, Northern Illinois University:

Both Tevatron experiments have recorded candidate events for the production of a pair of Z bosons in a single collision, with the CDF experiment reporting a first value of the cross section of this process. The ZZ process is the final step before reaching the even rarer process of a Higgs boson decaying into a pair of W bosons.
The CDF collaboration recorded 16 collisions that produced simultaneously a W boson and a Z boson, a milestone on the path to discovering the Higgs. The WZ cross section is one of the rarest ones ever measured.
The CDF collaboration has produced the world’s best individual measurement of the W mass, better than measurements made by any other single experiment, despite the large backgrounds that hadron colliders such as the Tevatron produce compared to the “cleaner” collision environments at lepton colliders. Combining the CDF result with other measurements worldwide leads to a lower average value of the W-boson mass of 80,398 +/- 25 MeV/c², representing a precision of 3 parts in 10,000.
The new upper limit for the mass of the Higgs boson based on the new values for the W boson mass and the top quark mass is 144 GeV/c² with 95 percent probability.
The experimental sensitivity for directly observing the Higgs boson is steadily improving. The Tevatron experiments are within reach of directly excluding a Higgs boson with mass near 160 GeV/c². Searches for a Higgs boson with lighter mass will require more data.

III. Searches for non-Standard Model Higgs bosons and exotic particles, presented by Ulrich Heintz, Boston University:

Scientists think that dark matter is made of particles not accounted for in the Standard Model of Particles and Forces. A leading candidate for dark matter particles are supersymmetric particles such as charginos and neutralinos. The Tevatron experiments have greatly extended the constraints on the properties of these particles.
The Tevatron experiments have set new limits on a variety of particles predicted by Supersymmetry and other beyond-Standard Model theories. For example, DZero and CDF set new lower limits on the mass of non-standard W and Z bosons of 965 and 923 GeV/c², respectively.

Notes for editorsFermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. CDF is an international experiment of 700 physicists from 61 institutions and 13 countries. DZero is an international experiment conducted by about 700 physicists from 90 institutions and 20 countries. The experiments are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation and a number of international funding agencies.

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BATAVIA, Illinois-Scientists of the MiniBooNE¹ experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermilab² today (April 11) announced their first findings. The MiniBooNE results resolve questions raised by observations of the LSND³experiment in the 1990s that appeared to contradict findings of other neutrino experiments worldwide. MiniBooNE researchers showed conclusively that the LSND results could not be due to simple neutrino oscillation, a phenomenon in which one type of neutrino transforms into another type and back again.

The announcement significantly clarifies the overall picture of how neutrinos behave.

Currently, three types or “flavors” of neutrinos are known to exist: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos. In the last 10 years, several experiments have shown that neutrinos can oscillate from one flavor to another and back. The observations made by the LSND collaboration also suggested the presence of neutrino oscillation, but in a neutrino mass region vastly different from other experiments. Reconciling the LSND observations with the oscillation results of other neutrino experiments would have required the presence of a fourth, or “sterile” type of neutrino, with properties different from the three standard neutrinos. The existence of sterile neutrinos would throw serious doubt on the current structure of particle physics, known as the Standard Model of Particles and Forces. Because of the far-reaching consequences of this interpretation, the LSND findings cried out for independent verification.

The MiniBooNE collaboration ruled out the simple LSND oscillation interpretation by looking for signs of muon neutrinos oscillating into electron neutrinos in the region indicated by the LSND observations. The collaboration found no appearance of electron neutrinos as predicted by a simple two-neutrino oscillation scenario.

“It was very important to verify or refute the surprising LSND result,” said Robin Staffin, DOE Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. “We never know what nature has in store for us. The MiniBooNE experiment was an important one to do and is to be complimented for a job well done.”

The MiniBooNE experiment, approved in 1998, took data for the current analysis from 2002 until the end of 2005 using muon neutrinos produced by the Booster accelerator at Fermilab. The MiniBooNE detector, located about 500 meters from the point at which the muon neutrinos were produced, looked for electron neutrinos created by the muon neutrinos. The experiment’s goal was either to confirm or to refute the startling observations reported by the LSND collaboration, thus answering a long-standing question that has troubled the neutrino physics community for more than a decade.

“Our results are the culmination of many years of very careful and thorough analysis. This was really an extraordinary team effort,” said MiniBooNE cospokesperson Janet Conrad of Columbia University. “We know that scientists everywhere have been eagerly waiting for our results.”

The MiniBooNE collaboration used a blind-experiment technique to ensure the credibility of their analysis and results. While collecting their neutrino data, the MiniBooNE collaboration did not permit themselves access to data in the region, or “box,” where they would expect to see the same signature of oscillations as LSND. When the MiniBooNE collaboration opened the box and “unblinded” its data less than three weeks ago, the telltale oscillation signature was absent.

“We are delighted to see that the work of the MiniBooNE team has led to the resolution of this puzzle,” said Marv Goldberg, Program Director for Elementary Particle Physics at the National Science Foundation. “We’re proud that our support yielded such an important breakthrough for neutrino physics and we look forward to additional results from this team of university and national laboratory scientists.”

Although the MiniBooNE researchers have decisively ruled out the interpretation of the LSND results as being due to oscillation between two types of neutrinos, the collaboration has more work ahead.

“We have been studying the bulk of our data for several years,” said Fermilab physicist Steve Brice, analysis coordinator for the MiniBooNE experiment, “but we have had access to these sequestered data for only a short time. There are remaining analyses that we are eager to do next. They include detailed investigation of data we observe at low energy that do not match what we expected to see, along with more exotic neutrino oscillation models and other exciting physics.”

At this time, the source of the apparent low-energy discrepancy is unknown.

“It is great to get the MiniBooNE results out,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. “It clears one mystery but it leaves us with a puzzle that is important to understand.”

The MiniBooNE collaboration will further analyze its data.

“As in many particle physics experiments, we have a result that answers some questions and raises others,” said MiniBooNE co-spokesperson William Louis, Los Alamos National Laboratory, who also worked on the original LSND experiment. “We live in interesting times.”

For its observations, MiniBooNE relies on a detector made of a 250,000-gallon tank filled with ultrapure mineral oil, clearer than water from a faucet. A layer of 1280 light-sensitive photomultiplier tubes, mounted inside the tank, detects collisions between neutrinos made by the Booster accelerator and carbon nuclei of oil molecules inside the detector. Since January 2006, the MiniBooNE experiment has been collecting data using beams of antineutrinos instead of neutrinos and expects further results from these new data.

: The observations made by the LSND experiment in the 1990s suggested the presence of neutrino oscillation in a neutrino mass region (blue shaded areas) vastly different from other experiments (which are outside the region shown in this plot, at much smaller values of Δ m2). The MiniBooNE experiment rules out the region to the right of the black and blue lines, ruling out the simple two-neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND data.

: The top plot shows the raw number of electron neutrino events recorded by the MiniBooNE experiment (black dots). The bottom plot shows the number of excess events observed after subtracting the background. The solid curves in the bottom plot show two examples (green and purple curves) of predictions made for electron neutrino excess according to the two-neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND results. The MiniBooNE data rule out such two-neutrino oscillation predictions.

: The MiniBooNE experiment relies on a 250,000-gallon tank filled with mineral oil, which is clearer than water from a faucet. Light-sensitive devices (PMTs) mounted inside the tank are capable of detecting collisions between neutrinos and carbon nuclei of oil molecules

: A close-up view of the MiniBooNE tank shows the inner layer of 1280 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) that detects neutrinos produced by Fermilab’s Booster accelerator. A second layer of 240 PMTs, still inside the tank but facing outward, detects signals caused by cosmic ray showers.

: Filling of oil into MiniBooNE Tank

: MiniBooNE Collaboration

: A neutrino signal observed by the MiniBooNE experiment.

: MiniBooNE cospokesperson Janet Conrad, professor of physics at Columbia University, holds one of the 1520 light sensors (called photomultiplier tubes) installed inside the MiniBooNE detector.

: MiniBooNE cospokesperson Bill Louis, here checking the MiniBooNE data acquisition system, is a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the 1990s, he worked on the LSND experiment, which triggered the idea for the MiniBooNE experiment.

: A close-up of the interior of the MiniBooNE tank, before it was filled with ultrapure mineral oil.

: The inside of the MiniBooNE tank is covered with 1280 inward-facing photomultiplier tubes. The picture shows a section of the upper hemisphere of the tank.

Take a virtual tour of MiniBooNE

Notes for editors:

Scientists of the MiniBooNE collaboration will present their results at the meeting of the American Physical Society in Jacksonville, Florida on April 16. Conference organizers have arranged for a press briefing at 1 PM (EDT) on April 16.

¹ The MinibooNE experiment, formally known as the Booster Neutrino Experiment, is an international collaboration of scientists involving 77 physicists from 17 institutions in the U.S. and the United Kingdom who conduct the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab. MiniBooNE physicists are supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

² Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 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 United States.

³ LSND is the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiment at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.

MiniBooNE institutions:

1. University of Alabama
2. Bucknell University
3. University of Cincinnati
4. University of Colorado
5. Columbia University
6. Embry Riddle Aeronautical University
7. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
8. Imperial College-London (UK)
9. Indiana University
10. Los Alamos National Laboratory
11. Louisiana State University
12. University of Michigan
13. Princeton University
14. Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
15. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
16. Western Illinois University
17. Yale University

Batavia, Ill. – Scientists of the US CMS collaboration joined colleagues around the world in announcing today (February 28) that the heaviest piece of the Compact Muon Solenoid particle detector has begun the momentous journey into its experimental cavern 100 meters underground. A huge gantry crane is slowly lowering the CMS detector’s preassembled central section into place in the Large Hadron Collider accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. At 1,950 metric tons, the section, which contains the detector’s solenoid magnet, weighs as much as five jumbo jets and is 16 meters tall, 17 meters wide and 13 meters long. Its descent is expected to take about 10 hours.

“This is a challenging feat of engineering, as there are just 20 centimeters of leeway between the detector and the walls of the shaft,” said CERN physicist Austin Ball, technical coordinator of CMS. “The detector is suspended by four massive cables, each with 55 strands, and attached to a step-by-step hydraulic jacking system, with sophisticated monitoring and control to ensure the object does not sway or tilt.”

Of the CMS collaboration’s approximately 1500 physicists, about one-third are U.S. scientists. The Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is the host laboratory for US CMS, and U.S. scientists have designed, built and delivered to CERN several key elements of the CMS detector. Currently, U.S. contributions to CMS are more than 98 percent complete. A U.S. team from Fermilab recently carried out a precision mapping of the magnetic field of the CMS solenoid magnet that is being lowered today. By observing the curvature of the paths of charged particles in the magnetic field, physicists will calculate the energy of particles flying out from billions upon billions of proton-proton collisions that will occur inside the detector.

“We are proud of our contribution to the extraordinary international scientific endeavor now taking shape at the LHC,” said Associate Director for High Energy Physics at DOE’s Office of Science Dr. Robin Staffin. “We applaud the engineering tour de force of today’s CMS milestone at CERN. Each step forward at the LHC experiments and the accelerator brings us closer to the start of scientific operations and to breakthroughs in our understanding of the physics of the universe.”

Experimenters have already lowered the first seven of 15 pieces of the CMS detector, with the first piece arriving in the experimental cavern on November 30, 2006. The giant section descending today marks the halfway point in the lowering process, with the last piece scheduled to make its descent in summer 2007. Particle detectors are typically assembled underground, where the accelerator tunnel is located. CMS has broken with tradition by starting assembly before completion of the underground cavern, taking advantage of a spacious surface assembly hall to preassemble and pretest the detector’s myriad components and systems.

“This is an impressive milestone in the complex installation of the CMS particle detector,” said Dr. Moishe Pripstein, Program Director at the National Science Foundation. “It augurs well for being ready for first beam collisions at the LHC. We are delighted that scientists from U.S. universities and from Fermilab are making substantial technical contributions to this grand international collaboration and look forward to exciting results in the next several years.”

Physicists are preparing the CMS detector and its sister detector, ATLAS, to take data at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where scientists predict that they will make fundamental discoveries about the universe, using very-high-energy proton collisions. Beyond revealing a new world of unknown particles, the LHC experiments could explain why those particles exist and behave as they do. They could discover the origins of mass, shed light on dark matter, uncover hidden symmetries of the universe, and possibly find extra dimensions of space.

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Notes for editors:

Photos and graphics are available at http://photo.cern.ch/testusers/index.php?dir=CMS%2028%2002%2007

A live Webcam transmission of the event is at http://cmsinfo.cern.ch/outreach/cmseye/cam8.html

For 7-8 minutes of video, send FTP server address and login information to Jacques.Fichet@cern.ch

The United States contributions to the CMS experiment and the Large Hadron Collider are funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. 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.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is the host laboratory for the US CMS Collaboration. Fermilab is a Department of Energy National Laboratory operated under a contract with DOE by the Fermi Research Alliance.

US CMS member institutions
(49 institutions, from 22 states and Puerto Rico)

California
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore
University of California, Davis
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara

Colorado
University of Colorado, Boulder
Connecticut
Fairfield University, Fairfield
Yale University, New Haven

Florida
Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
University of Florida, Gainesville

Illinois
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia
Northwestern University, Evanston
University of Illinois at Chicago

Indiana
Purdue University, West Lafayette
Purdue University Calumet, Hammond
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame

Iowa
Iowa State University, Ames
University of Iowa, Iowa City

Kansas
Kansas State University, Manhattan
University of Kansas, Lawrence

Maryland
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
University of Maryland, College Park

Massachusetts
Boston University, Boston
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Northeastern University, Boston

Minnesota
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Mississippi
University of Mississippi, Oxford

Nebraska
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

New Jersey
Princeton University, Princeton
Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Piscataway

New York
Cornell University, Ithaca
Rockefeller University, New York
State University of New York at Buffalo
University of Rochester, Rochester

Ohio
Ohio State University, Columbus

Pennsylvania
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

Puerto Rico
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Rhode Island
Brown University, Providence

Tennessee
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Vanderbilt University, Nashville

Texas
Rice University, Houston
Texas A&M University, College Station
Texas Tech University, Lubbock

Virginia
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg

Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin, Madison

BATAVIA, Illinois – Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (January 8, 2007) the world’s most precise measurement by a single experiment of the mass of the W boson, the carrier of the weak nuclear force and a key parameter of the Standard Model of particles and forces. The new W-mass value leads to an estimate for the mass of the yet-undiscovered Higgs boson that is lighter than previously predicted, in principle making observation of this elusive particle more likely by experiments at the Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab.

Scientists working at the Collider Detector at Fermilab measured the mass of the W boson to be 80,413 +/- 48 MeV/c², determining the particle’s mass with a precision of 0.06 percent. Calculations based on the Standard Model intricately link the masses of the W boson and the top quark, a particle discovered at Fermilab in 1995, to the mass of the Higgs boson. By measuring the W-boson and top-quark masses with ever greater precision, physicists can restrict the allowable mass range of the Higgs boson, the missing keystone of the Standard Model.

“This new precision determination of the W boson mass by CDF is one of the most challenging and most important measurements from the Tevatron,” said Associate Director for High Energy Physics at DOE’s Office of Science Dr. Robin Staffin. “Together, the W-boson and top-quark masses allow us to triangulate the location of the elusive Higgs boson.”

The CDF result is now the most precise single measurement to date of the W boson mass. Combining the CDF result with other measurements worldwide leads to an average value of the W-boson mass of 80,398 +/- 25 MeV/c².

Prior to the announcement of the CDF result, ALEPH, an experiment at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, held the record for the most precise W mass measurement. ALEPH and its three sister experiments at CERN, which operated until 2001, made significant contributions to the measurement of the W’s mass. The experiments relied on electron-positron collisions produced by the LEP collider at CERN. In contrast, CDF experimenters are analyzing proton-antiproton collisions produced by Fermilab’s Tevatron, the world’s most powerful particle collider.

“Compared to the electron-positron collisions at LEP, the proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron result in a ‘dirty’ environment experimentally,” said Jacobo Konigsberg, University of Florida physicist and CDF cospokesperson. “Every collision produces hundreds of particles along with the W boson that need to be properly accounted for. That’s why our analysis is so challenging.”

Now, having gained a much better understanding of their detector and the processes it records, CDF scientists are optimistic that they can further improve the precision of their W-mass result by a factor of two in the next couple of years.

“You have to sweat every detail of the analysis,” said Fermilab physicist and cospokesperson Robert Roser. “Our scientists cannot take anything for granted in an environment in which composite particles such as protons and antiprotons collide. We need to understand the many different subatomic processes and take into account the capabilities of our detector for identifying the various particles.”

In a talk at Fermilab on Friday, January 5, Ashutosh Kotwal, CDF collaborator and Professor of Physics at Duke University, presented the W-mass result to the scientific community. The result will be submitted in a paper to Physical Review Letters.

This W mass measurement is yet another major result of Tevatron Run II announced by scientists in the last year, indicating the progress that experimenters have made with both the CDF and the DZero experiments at Fermilab. As the two collaborations continue to take data, collaborators press the search for the Higgs boson as well as for signs of dark matter particles and extra dimensions.

“The CDF and DZero experiments have much more data to analyze, and they are observing more and more collisions at a faster and faster rate,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. “Our experimenters are now in a position to look for some of the rarest and most amazing phenomena that theorists have predicted, as well as to find the completely unexpected. This is a very exciting time.”

: In the Standard Model of particles and forces, the masses of the W boson, the top quark and the Higgs boson are connected. If one knows the mass of any two of the three particles, then the mass of the third particle can be calculated. This plot illustrates that relationship. It depicts the mass of the Higgs boson as a function of top quark and W-boson mass. Each diagonal line represents a single Higgs boson mass; examples chosen are MH = 114, 300 and 1000 GeV/c2. Based on theoretical constraints and direct experimental searches, scientists expect the mass of the Higgs boson to lie somewhere in the green-banded region. The new CDF measurement of the W-boson mass (see this press release) indicates that the W-boson mass is heavier than previously measured (worldwide average). Since the top quark mass did not change, a heavier W-boson mass indicates a lighter Higgs Boson. The blue ellipse shows the most likely values for the top quark and W-boson masses, based on all available experimental information, including the CDF result, at the 68 percent confidence level. The intersection of this ellipse with the green band indicates the most likely Higgs boson mass. This result can be compared to an older result (red ellipse), which did little to constrain the Higgs boson mass.

: CDF scientists used a blind analysis technique to determine the mass of the W boson in an unbiased fashion. CDF physicist Ashutosh Kotwal, Duke University, unveiled the result to his CDF colleagues at an internal meeting on December 14, 2006. The CDF collaboration made the result public with a press release on January 8, 2007.

: According to the Standard Model of particles and forces, the Higgs mechanism gives mass to particles. Measuring the mass of the top quark and the mass of the W boson, scientists can restrict the allowable mass range of the not-yet-observed 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 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 determine, for example, the mass of the W boson, the carrier of the weak nuclear force and a key parameter of the Standard Model of particles and forces

: The Fermilab accelerator complex accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light. The Tevatron, four miles in circumference, is the world’s most powerful proton-antiproton accelerator, producing collisions at the energy of 2 tera electron volts (TeV). Two experiments, CDF and DZero, record the particles emerging from billions of collisions per second. Each collision produces hundreds of particles.

Notes for editors:
Fermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. CDF is an international experiment of 700 physicists from 61 institutions and 13 countries. It is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation and a number of international funding agencies (the full list can be found at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/collaboration/Funding_Agencies.html). In 1995, the CDF and DZero experiments discovered the top quark, the final and most massive quark in the Standard Model.

CDF institutions:
1. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
2. Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois
3. Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies (IFAE-Barcelona), Spain
4. Baylor University, Waco, Texas
5. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
6. University of California at Davis, Davis, CA
7. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
8. University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA
9. University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
10. Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain
11. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
12. University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
13. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
14. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
15. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois
16. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
17. University of Geneva, Switzerland
18. Glasgow University, United Kingdom
19. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
20. University of Helsinki, Finland
21. University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
22. INFN, University of Bologna, Italy
23. INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Italy
24. INFN Sezione di Padova, Universita di Padova, Italy
25. INFN, University and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy
26. INFN, University di Roma I, Italy
27. INFN, Trieste, Italy, and Universita di Udine, Italy
28. IPP, Institute of Particle Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
29. University of Toronto, Canada
30. ITEP, Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
31. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
32. Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany
33. High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan
34. The Center for High Energy Physics(CHEP) Kyungpook National University, Seoul National University, and SungKyunKwan University, Korea
35. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Berkeley, California
36. University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
37. University College London, United Kingdom
38. CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
39. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts
40. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
41. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
42. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
43. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
44. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
45. Osaka City University, Japan
46. Okayama University, Japan
47. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
48. CNRS-IN2P3, LPNHE, Paris, France
49. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
50. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
51. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
52. University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
53. Rockefeller University, New York, New York
54. Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey
55. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
56. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
57. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
58. Waseda University Tokyo, Japan
59. Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
60. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
61. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Batavia, Ill.–Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced in a seminar at Fermilab on December 8, 2006 the first evidence of single top quarks produced in a rare subatomic process involving the weak nuclear force. The result is an important test of predictions made by particle theory, such as the number of quarks that exist in nature. In the longer term, the techniques employed in this analysis will allow scientists to search for an even more elusive particle, the Higgs boson.

“I am delighted by the DZero results and what they portend for the future,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone.

Starting from a million billion proton-antiproton collisions produced by Fermilab’s Tevatron, the world’s most powerful particle collider, the DZero collaboration used modern sophisticated analysis techniques to search for about 60 collisions, each containing a single top quark. Up to now, scientists had observed the top quark only in subatomic processes involving the strong nuclear force, which produces pairs of top and antitop quarks. Those observations, made by both the DZero and CDF experiments at Fermilab, led to the discovery of the top quark in 1995.

“Observing a few single top quarks in a sea of billions of particle collisions represents an extraordinary technical tour de force,” said Dr. Robin Staffin, Associate Director for High Energy Physics in DOE’s Office of Science. “The power and sophistication of experimental analysis techniques like those developed by the DZero experimenters augur well for exciting discoveries to come.”

Separating a handful of single-top events from two billion events recorded since 2002 allowed the DZero collaboration to determine one of the most important unmeasured parameters of the Standard Model of particles and forces, known as Vtb (pronounced “VTB”). This parameter determines the rate of single-top production: If there are only six quarks, as scientists have observed so far, theory predicts the magnitude of Vtb to be close to one. Departures from this magnitude would be a sign of new physics, indicating the existence of additional quarks or other fundamental particles. The DZero collaboration determined the magnitude of Vtb to lie within the range of .68 to 1.0 with a 95 percent probability, consistent with the Standard Model. Collecting more collision data and further refining the analysis will yield tighter constraints on the value in the upcoming months.

The signature of single-top events is easily mimicked by other subatomic processes that occur at much higher rates. To stand a chance of seeing the single-top signal, physicists at the DZero experiment had to develop sophisticated selection procedures. The first stage selected approximately 1,400 candidate events. Of these candidates, only about 60 single-top events were expected, and experimenters exploited every bit of information to unambiguously establish their presence. DZero scientists used three different techniques to combine some 50 discriminating variables to represent the results. These distributions allowed physicists to recognize the presence of single-top events-much like a mother’s uncanny ability to distinguish between identical twins. The results of the analysis will be submitted this week for publication in Physical Review Letters.

“This analysis is an important milestone in our continuing search for the Higgs boson, the missing keystone in the Standard Model,” said DZero cospokesperson Terry Wyatt, of the University of Manchester, UK. “The discovery of the Higgs boson would help explain why particles have mass. Observing the Higgs requires us to see very low rate signals in the presence of substantial backgrounds. The sophisticated analysis techniques we are honing in our current analyses will be directly applicable to our Higgs searches.”

DZero cospokesperson Dmitri Denisov, of Fermilab congratulated his fellow collaborators.

“This exciting result would not be possible without the tireless efforts of over 600 DZero scientists and the wonderful accelerator that produced all these collisions,” Denisov said. “Bravo to the Tevatron and the people who make the machine work. The search to understand the fundamental forces of nature is mankind’s timeless quest, and it has led us to the discovery of powerful physics laws, new technologies and benefits for society.”

Notes for editors:

DZero is an international experiment conducted by physicists from 90 institutions and 20 countries. Fermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated under contract by Universities Research Association, Inc.

InterAction Collaboration media contacts:

Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China: + 86 10 88233105, xutz@mail.ihep.ac.cn
DAPNIA CEA-Saclay, France: Yves Sacquin, + 33 01 69 08 60 81, sacquin@dapnia.cea.fr
IN2P3-CNRS, France: Alain de Bellefon, + 33 01 44 96 47 51, bellefon@in2p3.fr
NIKHEF, Netherlands: Gabby Zegers, + 31 20 592 5075, gabbyz@nikhef.nl
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia: Boris Starchenko, + 7 096 221 6 38 24, irinak@jinr.ru
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), United Kingdom: Peter Barratt, + 44 (0) 1793 442025, + 44 (0) 787 602 899 (mobile), peter.barratt@pparc.ac.uk
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA: Lynn Yarris, +1-510-486-5375, LCYarris@lbl.gov

DZero collaborating institutions:
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
LAFEX, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Instituto de Fisica Teorica, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil
University of Alberta, McGill University, Simon Fraser University and York University, Canada
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Charles University, Center for Particle Physics, Prague, Czech Republic
Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences, Center for Particle Physics, Prague, Czech Republic
Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire, IN2P3-CNRS, Universite Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, IN2P3-CNRS, Universite de Grenoble, Grenoble, France
CPPM, IN2P3-CNRS, Universite de la Mediterranee, Marseille, France
Laboratoire de l’Accelerateur Lineaire, IN2P3-CNRS et Universite Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
LPNHE, Universites Paris VI and VII, IN2P3-CNRS, Paris, France
DAPNIA/Service de Physique des Particules, CEA, Saclay, France
IPHC, IN2P3-CNRS, Universite Louis Pasteur Strasbourg, and Universite de Haute Alsace, France
Institut de Physique Nucleaire de Lyon, IN2P3-CNRS, Universite Claude Bernard, Villeurbanne, France
RWTH Aachen, III. Physikalisches Institut A, Aachen, Germany
Universitat Bonn, Physikalisches Institut, Bonn, Germany
Universitat Freiburg, Physikalisches Institut, Freiburg, Germany
Universitat Mainz, Institut fur Physik, Mainz, Germany
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Munchen, Germany
Fachbereich Physik, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
Delhi University, Delhi, India
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India
University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Korea Detector Laboratory, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
SungKyunKwan University, Suwon, Korea
CINVESTAV, Mexico City, Mexico
FOM-Institute NIKHEF and University of Amsterdam/NIKHEF, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Radboud University Nijmegen/NIKHEF, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino, Russia
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
Lund University, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University, and Uppsala University, Sweden
Physik Institut der Universitat Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Hochiminh City Institute of Physics, Hochiminh City, Vietnam
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
California State University, Fresno, California 93740, USA
University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA
Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, Indiana 46323, USA
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA
Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA
Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana 71272, USA
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677, USA
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
State University of New York, Buffalo, New York 14260, USA
Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA
State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma 73050, USA
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA
Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901, USA
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA

: This figure shows the total single top-quark production cross section measured by each of the three different analysis techniques applied to the DZero data sample. The red dots indicate the measured values and the red lines represent the uncertainty on each measurement. The blue band is the value predicted by the Standard Model.

: Fermilab’s DZero collaboration announced that it has found, for the first time ever, evidence for top quarks produced singly, rather than in pairs. Dugan O’Neil from Simon Fraser University presented the results at a seminar Friday, December 8.

: Fermilab’s DZero collaboration announced that it has found, for the first time ever, evidence for top quarks produced singly, rather than in pairs. Dugan O’Neil from Simon Fraser University presented the results at a seminar Friday, December 8.

: Dugan O’Neil presented the results to a group of Fermilab physicists Friday.

: Fermilab Director Pier Oddone and Deputy Director Young-Kee Kim at Friday’s presentation.

: These two ‘Feynman diagrams’ represent the processes that lead to the production of single quark events of the kind seen by DZero.

: These two ‘Feynman diagrams’ represent the processes that lead to the production of single quark events of the kind seen by DZero.

Batavia, Illinois – Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (October 23, 2006) the discovery of two rare types of particles, exotic relatives of the much more common proton and neutron.

“These particles, named Sigma-sub-b [Σ_b], are like rare jewels that we mined out of our data,” said Jacobo Konigsberg, University of Florida, a spokesperson for the CDF collaboration. “Piece by piece, we are developing a better picture of how matter is built out of quarks. We learn more about the subatomic forces that hold quarks together and tear them apart. Our discovery helps complete the ‘periodic table of baryons.'”

Baryons (derived from the Greek word “barys”, meaning “heavy”) are particles that contain three quarks, the most fundamental building blocks of matter. The CDF collaboration discovered two types of Sigma-sub-b particles, each one about six times heavier than a proton.

There are six different types of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top (u, d, s, c, b and t). The two types of baryons discovered by the CDF experiment are made of two up quarks and one bottom quark (u-u-b), and two down quarks and a bottom quark (d-d-b). For comparison, protons are u-u-d combinations, while neutrons are d-d-u. The new particles are extremely short-lived and decay within a tiny fraction of a second.

Utilizing Fermilab’s Tevatron collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, physicists can recreate the conditions present in the early formation of the universe, reproducing the exotic matter that was abundant in the moments after the big bang. While the matter around us is comprised of only up and down quarks, exotic matter contains other quarks as well.

The Tevatron collider at Fermilab accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light and makes them collide. In the collisions, energy transforms into mass, according to Einstein’s famous equation E=mc². To beat the low odds of producing bottom quarks–which in turn transform into the Sigma-sub-b according to the laws of quantum physics–scientists take advantage of the billions of collisions produced by the Tevatron each second.

“It’s amazing that scientists can build a particle accelerator that produces this many collisions, and equally amazing that the CDF collaboration was able to develop a particle detector that can measure them all,” said CDF cospokesperson Rob Roser, of Fermilab. “We are confident that our data hold the secret to even more discoveries that we will find with time.”

The CDF experiment identified 103 u-u-b particles, positively charged Sigma-sub-b particles (Σ⁺_b), and 134 d-d-b particles, negatively charged Sigma-sub-b particles (Σ^–_b). In order to find this number of particles, scientists culled through more than 100 trillion high-energy proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron over the last five years.

In a scientific presentation on Friday, October 20, CDF physicist Petar Maksimovic, professor at Johns Hopkins University, presented the discovery to the particle physics community at Fermilab. He explained that the two types of Sigma-sub-b particles are produced in two different spin combinations, J=1/2 and J=3/2, representing a ground state and an excited state, as predicted by theory.

Quark theory predicts six different types of baryons with one bottom quark and spin J=3/2 (see graphic). The CDF experiment now accounts for two of these baryons.

CDF is an international experiment of 700 physicists from 61 institutions and 13 countries. It is supported by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and a number of international funding agencies. (The full list can be found at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/collaboration/Funding_Agencies.html.) Using the Tevatron, the CDF and DZero collaborations at Fermilab discovered the top quark, the final and most massive quark, in 1995.

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Universities Research Association, Inc.

: The Fermilab accelerator complex accelerates protons and antiprotons close to the speed of light. The Tevatron, four miles in circumference, is the world’s most powerful accelerator, producing collisions at the energy of 2 tera electron volts (TeV). In a tiny volume, these collisions recreate the conditions of the early universe. Two experiments, CDF and DZero, record the particles emerging from billions of collisions per second.

: he 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, unveiling the secrets of the early universe. The detector surrounds the collision point and records the path, energy and charge of exotic, short-lived particles emerging from the collisions.

: The center of the upgraded CDF detector features a silicon vertex detector, installed in January 2001. The improved detector has taken data since March 2001. The vertex detector allows experimenters to record tracks of charged particles with utmost precision. Tracing the particle tracks back to their origin, scientists discover what processes take place at the core of proton-antiproton collisions.

: 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 has discovered exotic relatives of the proton and neutron, particles that include a bottom quark.

: Baryons are particles made of three quarks. The particles can exist in a ground state (J=1/2) and an excited state (J=3/2). The CDF experiment discovered the positively charged Sigma-sub-b and the negatively charged Sigma-sub-b in both spin configurations. The graphic shows the various three-quark combinations with J=3/2 that are possible using the three lightest quarks–up, down and strange–and the bottom quark. Past experiments discovered all of the baryons made of light quarks. The CDF discovery is the first observation of baryons with one bottom quark and spin J=3/2. Theory predicts four more such particles to exist. There are 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.

: In a scientific presentation on Friday, October 20, CDF physicist Petar Maksimovic, professor at Johns Hopkins University, presented the discovery to the particle physics community at Fermilab. He explained that the two types of Sigma-sub-b particles are produced in two different spin combinations, J=1/2 and J=3/2, representing a ground state and an excited state, as predicted by theory.

CDF institutions:
1. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
2. Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois
3. Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies (IFAE-Barcelona), Spain
4. Baylor University, Waco, Texas
5. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
6. University of California at Davis, Davis, CA
7. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
8. University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA
9. University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
10. Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain
11. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
12. University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
13. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
14. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
15. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois
16. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
17. University of Geneva, Switzerland
18. Glasgow University, United Kingdom
19. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
20. University of Helsinki, Finland
21. University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
22. INFN, University of Bologna, Italy
23. INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Italy
24. INFN Sezione di Padova, Universita di Padova, Italy
25. INFN, University and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy
26. INFN, University di Roma I, Italy
27. INFN, Trieste, Italy, and Universita di Udine, Italy
28. IPP, Institute of Particle Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
29. University of Toronto, Canada
30. ITEP, Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
31. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
32. Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany
33. National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan
34. The Center for High Energy Physics(CHEP) Kyungpook National University, Seoul National University, and SungKyunKwan University, Korea
35. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Berkeley, California
36. University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
37. University College London, United Kingdom
38. CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
39. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts
40. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
41. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
42. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
43. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
44. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
45. Osaka City University, Japan
46. Okayama University, Japan
47. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
48. CNRS-IN2P3, LPNHE, Paris, France
49. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
50. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
51. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
52. University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
53. Rockefeller University, New York, New York
54. Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey
55. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
56. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
57. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
58. Waseda University Tokyo, Japan
59. Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
60. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
61. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

IT MIGHT BE…IT COULD BE…IT IS!!!

Fermilab’s CDF scientists make it official: They have discovered the quick-change behavior of the B-sub-s meson, which switches between matter and antimatter 3 trillion times a second.

BATAVIA, Illinois – Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (September 25, 2006) that they have met the exacting standard to claim discovery of astonishingly rapid transitions between matter and antimatter: 3 trillion oscillations per second.

Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Undersecretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy, congratulated the CDF collaboration on the result.

“This remarkable tour de force details with exquisite precision how the antiworld is tied to our everyday realm,” Dr. Orbach said. “It is a beautiful example of how, using increasingly sophisticated analysis, one can extract discovery from data from which much less was expected. It is a triumph for Fermilab.”

The CDF discovery of the oscillation rate, marking the final chapter in a 20-year search, is immediately significant for two major reasons: reinforcing the validity of the Standard Model, which governs physicists’ understanding of the fundamental particles and forces; and narrowing down the possible forms of supersymmetry, a theory proposing that each known particle has its own more massive “super” partner particle.

The figure shows the CDF measurement of the B_s oscillation frequency at 2.8 trillion times per second. The analysis is designed such that possible oscillation frequencies have an amplitude consistent with 1.0 while those not present in the data will have an amplitude consistent with zero. Image courtesy CDF collaboration.

Many experiments worldwide have worked to perform high precision measurements of the behavior of matter and antimatter, especially as it pertains to strange, charm and bottom quarks. Scientists hope that by assembling a large number of precise measurements involving the exotic behavior of these particles, they can begin to understand why they exist, how they interact with one another and what role they played in the development of the early universe. Most importantly, they could also be the place in which to look for new physics beyond the Standard Model, which scientists believe is incomplete. Although none of these particles exists in nature today, they were, however, present in great abundance in the early universe. Thus, scientists can only produce and study them at large particle accelerators.

With a talk at Fermilab on Friday, September 22, Christoph Paus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, representing the CDF experiment, presented the discovery to the scientific community. The experimenters acquired their data between February 2002 and January 2006, an operating period known as Tevatron Run 2, where tens of trillions of proton-antiproton collisions were produced at the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator. The results have been submitted in a paper to Physical Review Letters.

This first major discovery of Run 2 continues the tradition of particle physics discoveries at Fermilab, where the bottom (1977) and top (1995) quarks were discovered. Surprisingly, the bizarre behavior of the B_s (pronounced “B sub s”) mesons is actually predicted by the Standard Model of fundamental particles and forces. The discovery of this oscillatory behavior is thus another reinforcement of the Standard Model’s durability.

“Scientists have been pursuing this measurement for two decades, but the convergence of capabilities to make it possible has occurred just now,” said CDF cospokesperson Jacobo Konigsberg of the University of Florida. “We needed to produce sufficient quantities to be able to study these particles in detail. That condition was met by the superb performance of the Tevatron. Then, with a process this fast, we needed extremely precise detectors and sophisticated analysis tools. Those conditions were met at CDF, along with the skill and contributions of a great team of people.”

CDF physicists have previously measured the rate of the matter-antimatter transitions for the B_s meson, which consists of the heavy bottom quark bound by the strong nuclear interaction to a strange antiquark. Now they have achieved the standard for a discovery in the field of particle physics, where the probability for a false observation must be proven to be less than about 5 in 10 million (5/10,000,000). For CDF’s result the probability is even smaller, at 8 in 100 million (8/100,000,000).

Christoph Paus of MIT announced the discovery at Fermilab.

“Everyone in Fermilab’s Accelerator Division has worked hard to create the number of collisions that were required to reach this impressive result,” said Fermilab Director Pier Oddone. “We’re glad that CDF has been able to put these efforts to such good effect. This is one of the signature measurements for Run II, and as we collect several times the data already on hand, I have great expectations for future discoveries.”

Determining the astonishing rate of 3 trillion oscillations per second required sophisticated analysis techniques. CDF cospokespersons Konigsberg and Fermilab’s Rob Roser explained that the B_s meson is a very short-lived particle. In order to understand its underlying characteristics, scientists have to observe how each particle decays to determine its true make-up.

“Developing the software tools to make maximal use of the information in each collision takes time and effort,” said Roser, “but the rewards are there in terms of discovery potential and increased level of precision.”

Many different theoretical models of how the universe works at a fundamental level will be now be confronted with the CDF discovery. The currently popular models of supersymmetry, for example, predict a much higher transition frequency than that observed by CDF, and those models will need to be reconsidered.

Marvin Goldberg, Division of Physics program director of the National Science Foundation, emphasized the collaborative role of the experimenters.

“This result reminds us that discoveries in particle physics require the coherent efforts of many people as well as advanced physical infrastructure,” Goldberg said. “By combining the luminosity of the Tevatron, the precision of the CDF detector and the intellectual prowess of the international CDF collaboration with sophisticated data analysis, this remarkable result from a remarkable effort will advance our understanding of the way the universe works.”

To further advance that understanding, Roser, Konigsberg and their colleagues continue to seek phenomena that are not predicted by the Standard Model. The prize would be a discovery of new physics.

“While the B_s oscillation discovery was one of the benchmark results that we wanted from the Tevatron,” said Roser, “we still have more than half the data from Run 2 waiting to be analyzed. We’re looking forward to more results, and we’re always hoping for surprises.”

CDF is an international experiment of 700 physicists from 61 institutions and 13 countries. It is supported by DOE, NSF and a number of international funding agencies (the full list can be found at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/collaboration/Funding_Agencies.html). With the Tevatron, the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator, in 1995 the CDF and DZero collaborations discovered the top quark, the final and most massive quark in the Standard Model.

Fermilab is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated under contract by Universities Research Association, Inc.

InterAction Collaboration media contacts:

Fermilab, US: Mike Perricone, 630-840-3351, mikep@fnal.gov
INFN, Italy: Barbara Gallavotti, + 39 06 6868162 (office), + 39 335 6606075 (cell phone), + 39 06 6868162 (fax), Barbara.Gallavotti@presid.infn.it
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Japan: Youhei Morita, + 81 029 8796047, + 81 029 8796049 (fax), youhei.morita@kek.jp
IN2P3-CNRS, France: Dominique Armand, + 33 01 44 96 47 51, darmand@admin.in2p3.fr
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia: Boris Starchenko, + 7 096 221 6 38 24, irinak@jinr.ru
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), United Kingdom: Peter Barratt, + 44 (0) 1793 442025, + 44 (0) 787 602 899 (mobile), peter.barratt@pparc.ac.uk
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA: Ron Kolb, + 1 510 486 7586, rrkolb@lbl.govCDF institutions:
1. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
2. Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois
3. Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies (IFAE-Barcelona), Spain
4. Baylor University, Waco, Texas
5. Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
6. University of California at Davis, Davis, CA
7. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
8. University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA
9. University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
10. Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
11. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
12. University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
13. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
14. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
15. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois
16. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
17. University of Geneva, Switzerland
18. Glasgow University, United Kingdom
19. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
20. University of Helsinki, Finland
21. University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
22. INFN, University of Bologna, Italy
23. INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Italy
24. INFN Sezione di Padova, Universita di Padova, Italy
25. INFN, University and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy
26. INFN, University di Roma I, Italy
27. INFN, Trieste, Italy, and Universita di Udine, Italy
28. IPP, Institute of Particle Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
29. University of Toronto, Canada
30. ITEP, Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
31. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
32. Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany
33. National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan
34. The Center for High Energy Physics(CHEP) Kyungpook National University, Seoul National University, and SungKyunKwan University, Korea
35. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Berkeley, California
36. University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
37. University College London, United Kingdom
38. CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
39. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts
40. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
41. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
42. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
43. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
44. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
45. Osaka City University, Japan
46. Okayama University, Japan
47. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
48. LPNHE and CNRS-IN2P3 – Paris, France
49. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
50. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
51. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
52. University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
53. Rockefeller University, New York, New York
54. Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey
55. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
56. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
57. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
58. Waseda University Tokyo, Japan
59. Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
60. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
61. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

NSF and DOE Office of Science join forces to support community cyberinfrastructure with $30 million in awards to empower scientific collaboration and computation.

BATAVIA, Illinois – Scientists on the track to discovery got good news this month when a powerful computing tool received critical government funding. A five-year, $30 million award to the Open Science Grid Consortium, announced by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, will operate and expand the Open Science Grid, a computing environment used by scientists to harness computing resources and scientific data from around the world.

Fermilab will receive $1.1 million each year, or $5.5 million over five years, to contribute across many of the activities of the OSG. Besides OSG Executive Director Ruth Pordes, OSG security officer Don Petravick, Gene Oleynik for storage deployments, and Ian Fisk, head of US CMS user facilities, will lead the contributions to the OSG effort.

“The OSG is an important part of the Computing Division’s strategy in support of global computing for the Fermilab scientific communities,” said Fermilab Computing Division head Vicky White.

The OSG will also play a critical role with Fermilab hosting USCMS, the US component of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment collaboration, when the Large Hadron Collider begins operations at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland in 2007.

“USCMS is pleased with this means to sustain the US distributed infrastructure from which we will extract our science,” said Fermilab’s Lothar Bauerdick, head of software and computing for USCMS. “The Fermilab USCMS community is also playing a leadership role in the OSG as a core piece of its worldwide data analysis system.”

Michael Strayer, Director of the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program and Associate Director for Advanced Scientific Computing Research in DOE’s Office of Science, noted that the ability to reliably share and analyze petabytes of data is critical to scientific discovery.

“This investment in sustaining and extending the Open Science Grid is an important component of the petascale science infrastructure,” said Strayer.

The OSG is built and operated by a unique partnership of universities, national laboratories, scientific collaborations and software developers that work together to create a common distributed computing environment, or grid, for scientific research. Computing resources from more than 50 sites in the United States, Asia and South America are shared through the OSG. These resources range from small clusters of ten computers to large facilities with thousands of processors and millions of gigabytes of data storage.

“The OSG has been operating since 2005 and has already had an impact on several areas of scientific research, from particle physics to biology,” said Joseph Dehmer, director of the NSF’s Division of Physics. “The NSF has partnered with the DOE’s Office of Science in support of the OSG’s efforts to empower scientific communities by providing them with effective and dependable access to an unprecedented distributed computing facility.”

Fifteen members of the OSG Consortium, including eleven U.S. universities and four national laboratories, will receive funding through the OSG award. Over the next five years, the consortium will reach out to more scientists and scientific collaborations, helping them to harness the power of grid computing for their research.

“OSG Consortium members contribute to and benefit from the OSG, making it a true community cyberinfrastructure,” says Fermilab’s Pordes. “Our computing services support diverse research groups, and developers of campus and regional grids – points of entry to the grid for university scientists and students – are beginning to use the OSG environment to provide access to their resources.”

Scientists from many fields, including astrophysics, bioinformatics, computer science, nanotechnology, nuclear science and particle physics, use the OSG infrastructure. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration will use the OSG to integrate its computing facilities and enable its search for gravitational waves. Two particle physics collaborations rely on the OSG to fully participate in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The U.S. particle physicists participating in the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC will depend on the OSG to connect them with the data when it starts flowing from CERN in 2008,” said Robin Staffin, Associate Director for High Energy Physics in the DOE’s Office of Science. “Scientists will use LHC data to address profound questions about the universe, such as the origin of mass and the nature of dark matter.”

Together with other grid computing projects, from computing grids on university campuses to large national and international grid projects, the consortium works to create a worldwide computing infrastructure for scientific research.

“Distributed computing and cyberinfrastructure have the capability to transform research, but these tools and methods remain challenging for most scientists,” says Miron Livny from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, OSG Facility Coordinator. “Efforts such as the OSG work to democratize computing by lowering the barrier to individual scientists using distributed computing facilities.”

Funding for the OSG from the DOE’s Office of Science will be provided through the second round of the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program. Funding support from the National Science Foundation is provided by the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, the Office of Cyberinfrastructure and the Office of International Science and Engineering.

For more information please visit http://www.opensciencegrid.org/

List of institutions that will receive funding through the OSG award:
Boston University
Brookhaven National Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Columbia University
Cornell University
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Indiana University
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
University of California, San Diego
University of Chicago / Argonne National Laboratory
University of Florida
University of Iowa
University of North Carolina/Renaissance Computing Institute
University of Wisconsin-Madison