Discovery of rare decay narrows space for new physics

After a quarter of a century of searching, physicists have discovered a rare particle decay that gives them an indirect way to test models of new physics.

Researchers on the CMS and LHCb collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN announced today at the EPS-HEP Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, that their findings agreed closely with the Standard Model of particle physics, ruling out several models that predict new particles.

In this result, physicists showed for the first time enough evidence to declare the discovery of a decay of a particle made up of two kinds of quarks—anti-bottom quarks and strange quarks—into a pair of particles called muons.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory serves as the U.S. hub for more than 1,000 scientists and engineers who participate in the CMS experiment. DOE and the National Science Foundation support involvement by about 2,000 scientists and students from U.S. institutions in the LHC experiments CMS, ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE—the vast majority participating at their home institutions via a powerful broadband network that ships data from CERN.

“This is a victory for the Standard Model,” said CMS physicist Joel Butler of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “But we know the Standard Model is incomplete, so we keep trying to find things that disagree with it.”

The Standard Model predicts that the particle, called B-sub-s, will decay into two muons very rarely, only three times in every billion decays . However, the Standard Model assumes that the only particles involved in the decay are the ones physicists already know. If other, unknown particles exist, they might interfere, either making the decay happen more frequently than predicted or effectively canceling the decay out.

“This is the place to look for new physics,” said LHCb physicist Sheldon Stone of Syracuse University. “Small deviations from the predicted rate would firmly establish the presence of new forces or particles.”

What scientists found was a decay that followed the Standard Model’s predictions almost to the letter. This spells trouble for several models, including a number of models within the theory of supersymmetry, which predicts that each known particle has an undiscovered partner particle.

But the hunters of new particles have not lost hope; the result leaves room for other models of physics beyond the Standard Model to be correct.

The analysis is a tour-de-force for the two LHC experiments, which needed to eliminate an enormous amount of background information generated by other particle decays that mimic the decay they were looking for. The latest results from searches at the ATLAS experiment at CERN and the CDF and DZero experiments at Fermilab are consistent with the results from the LHCb and CMS experiments.

As much as scientists can learn from measuring this decay, they can learn even more if they compare it to the decay of another particle made of quarks: B-sub-d, which is made of an anti-bottom quark and a down quark. A B-sub-d particle should decay even more rarely into a pair of muons than a B-sub-s particle. Physicists did not have enough data to make a definitive statement about this decay in this analysis, but their work shows that they will be able to gather evidence of it after the LHC restarts in 2015 at higher energy.

Background:

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

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at http://www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.

The National Science Foundation supports the research activities of U.S. university scientists and students on the ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE experiments, as well as promoting the development of advanced computing innovations essential to address the data challenges posed by the LHC. For more information, please visit  http://www.nsf.gov.

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

Fermilab plans public celebration to welcome the ring home

For the past month, a 50-foot-wide circular electromagnet has been on a fantastic journey between two U.S. Department of Energy national labs: Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. On Friday, July 26, that voyage is expected to conclude. Fermilab is planning a party to celebrate the ring’s safe arrival, and everyone’s invited.

The magnet is the centerpiece of Fermilab’s new Muon g-2 experiment, which will study the properties of elusive subatomic particles called muons. The ring was built at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the 1990s for a similar experiment, one which found tantalizing hints of new physics beyond what scientists have observed. Fermilab will conduct a similar experiment with the most powerful beam of muons in the world, an experiment that could open up new realms of scientific discovery.

Moving the ring from New York to Illinois costs roughly 10 times less than building a new one. So the magnet – essentially three rings of aluminum with superconducting coils inside – has spent the last few weeks on a barge, heading down the east coast, around the tip of Florida, into the Gulf of Mexico and then up a series of rivers toward Lemont, Illinois.

It’s been a tricky voyage, because the 17-ton ring cannot be taken apart, or twisted more than a few degrees without irreparably damaging the coils inside.

The ring is expected to arrive in Lemont this weekend, and will be moved from the barge to a specially adapted truck, which will drive it along interstate routes and through suburban streets to Fermilab over three consecutive nights next week. The ring will move at night, using rolling roadblocks to close off intersections, and will utilize portions of I-355 and I-88, along with a series of local roads. Check http://muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove for a map and frequent updates.

The electromagnet is expected to arrive on the Fermilab site early Thursday or Friday morning, July 25 or 26.

“It’s been a very long journey, and it took a lot of work from dozens of people,” said Chris Polly, the project’s manager at Fermilab. “Now that it’s almost here, the excitement is building. We’re eager to get the magnet here and start the experiment.”

On the afternoon of July 26, the ring will move those last few miles across the Fermilab site. The public is invited to come celebrate the ring’s arrival along with Fermilab scientists and employees, starting at 5:30 p.m. at Wilson Hall. There will be hands-on activities for the whole family, and scientists on the Muon g-2 experiment will be on hand to answer questions.

When the ring arrives at Wilson Hall, the action will move outside. Attendees will be able to watch the ring roll past the reflecting pond in front of Wilson Hall, and they will have the opportunity to pose for a massive group photo with the magnet before it moves to its final destination.

“A 50-foot-wide electromagnet rolling down a road is really something to see,” said David Hertzog of the University of Washington, co-spokesman for the Muon g-2 experiment. “As excited as we are about the new physics this experiment may uncover, we’re equally thrilled to see the magnet making its last few steps home.”

Details of the Fermilab celebration are posted on http://muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove, along with a GPS-powered map that shows the location of the magnet on its journey. Updates will be posted to that site, both before and during the move along the Illinois roadways. The celebration could be delayed by inclement weather. Check the Big Move site for updates. For more information, call the Office of Communication at 630-840-3351.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit  science.energy.gov.

Department of Energy national laboratories collaborate to build the new magnets CERN needs to increase LHC luminosity by an order of magnitude

The U.S. LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP) has successfully tested a powerful superconducting quadrupole magnet that will play a key role in developing a new beam focusing system for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This advanced system, together with other major upgrades to be implemented over the next decade, will allow the LHC to produce 10 times more high-energy collisions than it was originally designed for.

Dubbed HQ02a, the latest in LARP’s series of High-Field Quadrupole magnets is wound with cables of the brittle but high-performance superconductor niobium tin (Nb3Sn). Compared to the final-focus quadrupoles presently in place at the LHC, which are made with niobium titanium, HQ02a has a larger aperture and superconducting coils designed to operate at a higher magnetic field. In a recent test at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), HQ02a achieved all its challenging objectives.

LARP is a collaboration among the U.S Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (Brookhaven), Fermilab, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), working in close partnership with CERN. LARP has also supported research at the University of Texas at Austin and Old Dominion University.

“Congratulation to all the LARP team for this brilliant result,” said Lucio Rossi, leader of the High Luminosity LHC project at CERN. “The steady progress by LARP and the other DOE supported programs clearly shows the benefits of long-term investments to make serious advances in accelerator technology.”

“In the context of the LARP magnet program, this marks the end of the R&D phase and the beginning of the focused development of the magnets that will be installed for the LHC luminosity upgrade,” said Eric Prebys of Fermilab who has served as director of LARP for the last five years. “However, the implications go well beyond that, in that it establishes modern niobium tin as a powerful superconductor for use in accelerator magnets. This success is a tribute to the skill, hard work, and collaborative spirit of all of the people involved.”

Toward future physics at the LHC

Last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson fulfilled one of the major goals of the LHC, arguably the most powerful and complex scientific instrument ever built. Yet precision measurements of the Higgs are still to be made, as well as explorations of new physics including supersymmetry, dark matter, extra dimensions, and other wonders. The LHC’s present complement of Interaction Region Quadrupole magnets, which focus the beams toward the collision points inside the experiments, will reach performance limits well below what’s required for this ambitious physics program. One of the primary goals of LARP is to support CERN’s plan to replace these focusing magnets in about 10 years as part of the High Luminosity LHC project.

The number of useful physics events generated by a collider can be calculated from a parameter called integrated luminosity. For the past decade, CERN has anticipated a series of upgrades that will increase the LHC’s integrated luminosity 10-fold – the goal of the High Luminosity LHC project, consistently recognized as a top priority for the worldwide particle physics program. This goal presents extraordinary challenges, requiring a global effort to push the state of the art in a number of critical technologies.

The most specific need is for more powerful magnets to focus the proton beams at the interaction points. Not only must the magnets produce a stronger field, they will also require a larger temperature margin and have to cope with the intense radiation, which comes hand in hand with the planned increase in the rate of energetic collisions. These requirements go beyond the capabilities of niobium titanium, the material on which all previous accelerator superconducting magnets have been based.

Modern niobium tin is an advanced superconducting material that can operate at a higher magnetic field and with a wider temperature margin than niobium titanium. Unfortunately, niobium tin is brittle and sensitive to strain – critical factors where intense electrical currents and strong magnetic fields create enormous forces as the magnets are energized.

Large forces can damage the fragile conductor or cause sudden displacements of the superconducting coils, releasing energy as heat and possibly resulting in a loss of the magnets’ superconducting state, called a “quench.” When combined temperature, field, and current density cross a critical boundary into ordinary conductivity, the enormous flood of electrons that previously rushed unimpeded through the superconductor slams into a wall of electrical resistance.

Accelerator magnets are designed to withstand these disruptive and potentially damaging events. Nevertheless, the ability to reach the operating level with few or no quenches is an essential performance requirement.

In order to address these challenges, LARP adopted a mechanical support structure based on a thick aluminum shell, pre-tensioned at room temperature using water-pressurized bladders and interference keys. This design concept, developed at Berkeley Lab under the DOE General Accelerator Development program, was compared to the traditional collar-based clamping system originally used in Fermilab’s Tevatron and all subsequent high energy accelerators, and scaled-up to 4 m length in the LARP Long Racetrack and Long Quadrupoles. The HQ models further refined this mechanical design approach, in particular by incorporating full coil alignment.

LARP’s HQ02a is designed like all LHC magnets to operate in superfluid helium at temperatures close to absolute zero. However, it has a larger beam aperture than the present focusing magnets – 120 millimeters in diameter compared to 70 millimeters – and the magnetic field in the superconducting coils that surround the magnet reaches 12 Tesla, 50 percent higher than the present 8 Tesla. The corresponding field gradient, the rate of increase of field strength over the aperture, is 170 Tesla per meter.

Another key objective of the HQ02a design is to minimize any deviations from the precise magnetic field patterns required to focus the beams at the interaction point, and to maintain this high field quality during ramping up to full magnetic field strength. To address these requirements, the LARP High-Field Quadrupole program incorporated a newly designed cable to minimize induced currents, plus precise alignment at all phases of coil fabrication, assembly and magnetic excitation.

“The desired performance characteristics were clearly demonstrated by the test recently completed at Fermilab,” says Berkeley Lab’s GianLuca Sabbi, who directed the HQ02 development. “The magnet quickly achieved its design field gradient with low sensitivity to ramp-rate effects. This result was made possible by the expertise and dedication of many scientists, engineers, and technicians at all the collaborating laboratories.”

As the last step in a decade-long progression of niobium-tin technology advancements by LARP, the sterling performance of HQ02a has reaffirmed the key design elements for focusing magnets that will meet the needs of CERN’s High Luminosity upgrade.

“This is a major step forward in reaching our ultimate goals,” said Bruce Strauss, LARP program manager at DOE’s Office of Science. “It should not be regarded as a single accomplishment but rather the realization of a significant number of individual goals in the design, construction, and testing of Nb 3Sn beam-line magnets.”

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Notes:

The development of HQ02a was a major collaborative undertaking involving the LARP laboratories and their industrial partners. The superconducting niobium-tin wire was manufactured by Oxford Superconducting Technology of New Jersey, cabled at Berkeley Lab, and insulated with a fiberglass sleeve by New England Electric Wire. The coils were wound at Berkeley Lab with parts designed and procured by Fermilab, then sent to Brookhaven Lab for high-temperature reaction and impregnation with epoxy resin. Magnet assembly was performed at Berkeley Lab and the test was performed at Fermilab. Additional tests at Fermilab and CERN are expected in the next months.

Among the key contributors are Dan Dietderich, Arup Ghosh and Arno Godeke for the development, fabrication and characterization of the new cable; Mike Anerella, Franck Borgnolutti, Rodger Bossert, Dan Cheng, Helene Felice, Abdi Salehi, Jesse Schmaltzle, and Miao Yu for the HQ02 magnet design, fabrication, and assembly; Maxim Martchevsky and Prabir Roy for the improved electrical instrumentation and high voltage testing; Guram Chlachidze for planning and execution of the test, together with Joe DiMarco, Darryl Orris, Tiina Salmi, and Xiaorong Wang; Giorgio Ambrosio for contributions to the coil analysis and revision process as the leader of the Long High-Field Quadrupole program; and Ezio Todesco for his support and advice as the magnet work package coordinator in the High Luminosity LHC project.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.

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The following press release is being issued today by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, which manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, has been selected to become the next director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. A suite of new projects awaits Lockyer at Fermilab, which is America’s premier laboratory for particle physics research.

University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer made the announcement today in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The appointment was approved by the University of Chicago and Universities Research Association, Inc., partners in Fermi Research Alliance, which operates the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. The appointment concludes a nine-month international search conducted by a 15-member committee led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO and member of the URA Board of Trustees Norman Augustine.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz expressed his strong support for Lockyer’s candidacy after meeting with him early this week in Washington, D.C.

“Nigel Lockyer will be a terrific leader to guide the Fermilab in this era,” said Secretary Moniz. “He brings to the laboratory a truly impressive record of excellence as both a scientist and an administrator. His significant contributions to high energy physics are widely recognized, and he has also made his mark in other fields, including nuclear medicine. We expect Fermilab to benefit greatly from the depth and breadth of his scientific vision and his long, successful experience leading and managing scientific institutions and collaborations. I very much look forward to working with Nigel.”

Said Zimmer, “Nigel Lockyer is an outstanding particle physicist of varied scientific interests that complement and reinforce Fermilab’s own multi-pronged research portfolio. His scientific rigor and accomplishments and his ability to manage large teams make him our choice to lead Fermilab into a new era of scientific research and discovery.”

“I also wish to express my gratitude to Pier Oddone for his eight years of tireless, dedicated and outstanding leadership of Fermilab. We will continue to build on the foundation that he leaves us.”

Also approving Lockyer as Fermilab director was the Board of Trustees of the Universities Research Association, Inc.

“We are delighted that Nigel Lockyer will take the reins of America’s particle physics laboratory,” said Steven Beering, executive chair of URA’s Board of Trustees. “Nigel has shown the kind of forward-looking leadership that we are confident will result in a new round of compelling scientific discovery and innovation at Fermilab and advance the interests of the national and global particle physics communities.”

An experimental particle physicist, Lockyer, 60, has directed TRIUMF since May 2007. Under his leadership, TRIUMF formulated a vision for ascending the world stage in nuclear physics using rare-isotope beams to address some of the most fundamental questions in science.

The flagship of the plan is the $100 million Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL), built around a world-class electron accelerator that employs next-generation superconducting radio frequency technology.

During Lockyer’s tenure at TRIUMF, the laboratory’s operations expanded by 25 percent, earning him a reputation as a national leader and team-builder. While at TRIUMF he developed a strong working partnership among Canada’s major science laboratories, as well as building international collaborations , securing Canada’s first accelerator-science cooperative research agreements with Japan, India, China and Korea.

Long history with Fermilab

He has become well acquainted with Fermilab while serving in a variety of capacities dating back more than 25 years. Lockyer performed research for many years at the Collider Detector at Fermilab experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron, serving as the experiment’s co-spokesperson from 2002 through 2004. He also was a Fermilab guest scientist from 2002 until 2005, co-head of CDF operations and guest scientist in 2001 and 2002, and a visiting scientist during the summers of 1987 and 1988.

He was an early leader of efforts to construct a test facility at Fermilab for advanced particle accelerator technology that would be used to power the International Linear Collider. Such a test facility for high-gradient superconducting cavities has since been built at Fermilab in partnership with national and international institutions.

As Fermilab director, Lockyer also will oversee operations of a powerful complex of newly upgraded particle accelerators and sophisticated experiments to study the nature of matter, energy, space and time. Thousands of scientists from around the world use Fermilab facilities for their research. The largest of Fermilab’s new projects is the NOvA Neutrino Experiment under construction at Fermilab and in Ash River, Minn. NOvA will investigate neutrino oscillations, a phenomenon that could hold important clues to the evolution of the early universe. Fermilab is also the U.S. hub for research into the Higgs boson and other phenomena using the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

“Nigel emerged as a front-runner for the Fermilab directorship following an intense and broad-based international search process involving the evaluation of dozens of candidates,” said Norman Augustine, the Search Committee Chair. “We believe that FRA has found in him a visionary and experienced leader who will serve Fermilab and the scientific community extremely well in the years to come.”

“I am flattered and sobered in accepting this tremendous honor, following in the footsteps of Wilson, Lederman, and now Oddone,” Lockyer said. “I’ve benefitted enormously from my time at TRIUMF and I know that laboratory is in great hands. There is a tremendous team at Fermilab and we are at a pivotal moment in the progress of particle physics; we will make a tremendous impact.”

Anticipated innovations in medicine, manufacturing, energy

Lockyer has a long-standing interest in medical-physics projects, including proton therapy for cancer patients, which he initially pursued in collaboration with colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. TRIUMF and Fermilab both have strong connections to medical physics.

TRIUMF historically had engaged in nuclear-medicine research and development at a modest level. Building on his personal experience, Lockyer redoubled the laboratory’s efforts in this area even before the global medicine-isotope supply crisis made nuclear medicine a national issue in Canada. With his guidance TRIUMF became synonymous with “isotopes for science and medicine” and secured new support from two Canadian government agencies to develop and deploy a technical solution that is based entirely on particle accelerators.

Lockyer’s medical-physics background meshes well with a new R&D center that Fermilab is building in partnership with the State of Illinois. This center will be dedicated to accelerating the transfer of technologies developed for particle physics research to other sectors of society, including medicine, manufacturing and energy.

Lockyer is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the society’s 2006 Panofsky Prize for his leading research on the bottom quark.

He was born in Scotland, raised in Canada and received his graduate education in the United States. He earned his B.S. in physics from York University and his Ph.D. in physics from the Ohio State University.

Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, where he was a spokesperson of the Mark II Collaboration, in 1984 he began his 23-year career as a physics faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lockyer’s term as Fermilab director will begin September 3. Fermilab Chief Operating Officer Jack Anderson will serve as interim director starting July 1, following Oddone’s retirement.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov .

Fermi Research Alliance, LLC operates Fermilab under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. FRA is a partnership of the University of Chicago and Universities Research Association, Inc., a consortium of 86 research universities.

Follow the ring’s journey from New York to Illinois online at muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove

How do you move a 50-foot-wide, circular electromagnet from Long Island to the Chicago suburbs in one piece without flexing or twisting it? Very, very carefully.

On Sunday, June 16, the electromagnet will begin its 3,200-mile land and sea voyage to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, where it will become the centerpiece of a new experiment called Muon g-2 (pronounced gee-minus-two).

This experiment will study the properties of muons, subatomic particles that live only 2.2 millionths of a second, and its results could open the door to new realms of particle physics.

The magnet was built at the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York in the 1990s, where it was used in a similar experiment. The ring is constructed of aluminum and steel, with superconducting coils inside, and it cannot be taken apart or twisted more than a few millimeters without irreparably damaging those coils.

Transporting the electromagnet from Brookhaven to Fermilab will cost 10 times less than building a new one. The magnet will remain inert, exhibiting no magnetic properties, until it is plugged in at Fermilab.

The Muon g-2 team has devised a plan that involves loading the ring onto a specially prepared barge and bringing it down the East Coast, around the tip of Florida and up a series of rivers to Illinois. Once it arrives in late July, the ring will be attached to a truck built just for the move and driven to Fermilab, traveling over two consecutive nights and using rolling roadblocks to temporarily close sections of the roads.

Road closings and detours will be coordinated with public safety agencies in both states.

The trip begins Sunday morning, as the ring will be moved across the Brookhaven site to a staging area just inside its main gate. On the evening of Monday, June 17, it will be driven down the William Floyd Parkway to the Smith Point Marina, where it will be loaded onto the barge.

Members of the public can follow along on the ring’s journey on a new web page launched this week at muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove. The page includes a GPS-powered map that will trace the path of the ring in real time, and a blog that will be updated with images, videos and the most current information about the move.

Public events are also in the planning stages to celebrate the ring’s arrival at Fermilab.

“It’s not often our neighbors get a ringside seat for something this complex and interesting,” said Chris Polly, Muon g-2 project manager for Fermilab. “We’re excited to get this move under way.”

For more information on the experiment, visit muon-g-2.fnal.gov.

Download an animation simulating the truck transporting the 50-foot-wide Muon g-2 storage ring through the streets of Illinois. Credit: This video is copyright Emmert International. It is available for reporters to download and use.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit  science.energy.gov.

It’s one thing for kids to try to envision particles zipping around underground when learning about the science at Fermilab. It’s another thing entirely for them to pretend to be particles charging along an accelerator path, revealing new physics as they fly by.

This week the Fermilab Education Office celebrated the completion of its new Run Like A Proton accelerator path for middle- and high-school-age visitors to the laboratory.

Located at the Lederman Science Center, the path is an aboveground, scaled-down version of the routes a particle can take through Fermilab’s accelerator complex. While running along the path, kids can act like they are the particles of the lab’s physics program zipping through underground tunnels.

“Kids have different modes of learning,” said Spencer Pasero of Fermilab’s Education Office. “They can learn about the work of the lab with our indoor exhibits, but now they can also learn about it through our new outdoor playground.”

It’s a playground with a physics lesson. Kids playing the parts of protons and antiprotons “collide” by high-fiving each other as they run along the accelerator path. Signs along the path guide them in the right direction, whether they want to follow the path a proton would take as it circles the Main Injector or assume the flight of a neutrino headed toward Minnesota.

Kids won’t be limited to playing the part of particle. If they want a role as someone who sets the particles in motion, they can learn about how an operator interacts with the accelerator complex as she works with her controls on the playground.

At more than 100 feet across – longer than a basketball court – the path gives kids plenty of space to let loose in their particle impressions.

The accelerator path is the first stage in the laboratory’s long-term plan to build a larger physics playground.

The Fermilab Education Office has already taken the Run Like A Proton accelerator path for a test drive with a few student groups, and the new outdoor feature has been a hit.

“Students run like a proton around the accelerator path, and afterward when they go on a tour of Fermilab, the docents ask them, ‘Remember when you were running like a proton?’” said Marge Bardeen, head of the Education Office. “And they remember! What a great way to learn.”

The Run Like A Proton accelerator path is made possible by a grant from the Kane County Riverboat Fund and a contribution from an anonymous donor, both through the Fermilab Friends for Science Education, which supports innovative programs at Fermilab. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the playground was held on Tuesday, May 21, at the Lederman Science Center.

The Lederman Science Center is open to the public Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We hope this playground will activate kids’ imaginations and that they immerse themselves in the physics we’ve been doing at the lab for 30 years,” Pasero said.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

Massive device will travel from New York to Illinois by barge and truck this summer

Scientists from 26 institutions around the world are planning a new experiment that could open the doors to new realms of particle physics. But first, they have to bring the core of this experiment, a complex electromagnet that spans 50 feet in diameter, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York to the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

The experiment is called Muon g-2 (pronounced gee-minus-two), and will study the properties of muons, tiny subatomic particles that exist for only 2.2 millionths of a second. The core of the experiment is a machine built at Brookhaven in the 1990s, and the centerpiece of that machine is a circular electromagnet made of steel and aluminum, 50 feet wide, with superconducting cable inside.

“It costs about 10 times less to move the magnet from Brookhaven to Illinois than it would to build a new one,” said Lee Roberts of Boston University, spokesperson for the Muon g-2 experiment. “So that’s what we’re going to do. It’s an enormous effort from all sides, but it will be worth it.”

While most of the machine can be disassembled and brought to Fermilab in trucks, the massive electromagnet must be transported in one piece. It also cannot tilt or twist more than a few degrees, or the complex wiring inside will be irreparably damaged. The Muon g-2 team has devised a plan to make the 3,200-mile journey that involves loading the ring onto a specially prepared barge and bringing it down the East Coast, around the tip of Florida and up the Mississippi River to Illinois.

The ring is expected to leave New York in early June, and land in Illinois in late July. Once it arrives, the ring will be placed onto a truck built just for this purpose, and driven to Fermilab in Batavia, a suburb of Chicago. The land transport portions on both the New York and Illinois ends of the trip will occur at night — to minimize traffic delays — and the truck will only travel, at most, 10 miles per hour. On the New York end, the trip from Brookhaven Lab’s gate to the departure port should take one night. The complete trip from the Illinois port to Fermilab should take two consecutive nights.

“The transport of the ring from Brookhaven to Fermilab is a great example of the cooperation that exists between national laboratories,” said James Siegrist, associate director of science for high-energy physics with the U.S. Department of Energy. “The Muon g-2 experiment is an important component of the future of particle physics in the United States.”

Once at Fermilab, the storage ring will be used to hold muons created in the laboratory’s accelerators. Muons “wobble” when placed in a magnetic field, and based on what we know about the universe, scientists have predicted the exact value of that wobble. An experiment using the same machine at Brookhaven in the 1990s saw evidence for – though not definitive proof of – a departure from that expected value.

“Fermilab can generate a much more intense and pure beam of muons, so the Muon g-2 experiment should be able to close that margin of error,” said Chris Polly, project manager for Fermilab. “If we can do that, this experiment could indicate that there is exciting science awaiting beyond what we have observed.”

The experiment is scheduled to begin taking data in 2016.

“The ring is a wonder of scientific engineering,” said William Morse of Brookhaven. “We’re extremely proud of it, and excited to see it used in this next-generation experiment.”

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov   and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit  science.energy.gov.

Scientists this week heard their first pops in an experiment that searches for signs of dark matter in the form of tiny bubbles.

Scientists will need further analysis to discern whether dark matter caused any of the COUPP-60 experiment’s first bubbles.

“Our goal is to make the most sensitive detector to see signals of particles that we don’t understand,” said Hugh Lippincott, a postdoc with the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory who has spent much of the past several months leading the installation of the one-of-a-kind detector in a laboratory a mile and a half underground.

COUPP-60 is a dark-matter experiment funded by DOE’s Office of Science. Fermilab managed the assembly and installation of the experiment’s detector.

The COUPP-60 detector is a jar filled with purified water and CF3I—an ingredient found in fire extinguishers. The liquid in the detector is kept at a temperature and pressure slightly above the boiling point, but it requires an extra bit of energy to actually form a bubble. When a passing particle enters the detector and disturbs an atom in the clear liquid, it provides that energy.

Dark-matter particles, which scientists think rarely interact with other matter, should form individual bubbles in the COUPP-60 tank.

“The events are so rare, we’re looking for a couple of events per year,” Lippincott said.

Other, more common and interactive particles such as neutrons are more likely to leave a trail of multiple bubbles as they pass through.

Over the next few months, scientists will analyze the bubbles that form in their detector to test how well COUPP-60 is working and to determine whether they see signs of dark matter. One of the advantages of the detector is that it can be filled with a different liquid, if scientists decide they would like to alter their techniques.

The COUPP-60 detector is the latest addition to a suite of dark-matter experiments running in the SNOLAB underground science laboratory, located in Ontario, Canada. Scientists run dark-matter experiments underground to shield them from a distracting background of other particles that constantly shower Earth from space. Dark-matter particles can move through the mile and a half of rock under which the laboratory is buried, whereas most other particles cannot.

Scientists further shield the COUPP-60 detector from neutrons and other particles by submersing it in 7,000 gallons of water.

Scientists first proposed the existence of dark matter in the 1930s, when they discovered that visible matter could not account for the rotational velocities of galaxies . Other evidence, such as gravitational lensing that distorts our view of faraway stars and our inability to explain how other galaxies hold together if not for the mass of dark matter, have improved scientists’ case. Astrophysicists think dark matter accounts for about a quarter of the matter and energy in the universe. But no one has conclusively observed dark-matter particles.

The COUPP experiment includes scientists, technicians and students from the University of Chicago, Indiana University South Bend, Northwestern University, Universitat politècnica de València, Virginia Tech, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and SNOLAB.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

It’s that time of year again.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory welcomes the public to come see the latest additions to its herd of American bison, commonly known as buffalo. Three calves have been born in the past few days, increasing the herd size to 25, and at least eight more calves are expected by early June.

Visitors, including families with young children, can enter the Fermilab site through its Pine Street entrance in Batavia or the Batavia Road entrance in Warrenville. Admission is free, but you will need a valid photo ID to enter the site. Summer hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.

Fermilab’s first director, Robert Wilson, established the bison herd in 1969 as a symbol of the history of the Midwestern prairie and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the frontiers of particle physics. The herd remains a major attraction for families and wildlife enthusiasts. Today, the Fermilab site also boasts 1,100 acres of reconstructed tall-grass prairie as well as seven particle accelerators. The U.S. Department of Energy designated the 6,800-acre Fermilab site a National Environmental Research Park in 1989.

Visitors can learn more about nature at Fermilab by hiking the Interpretive Prairie Trail, a half-mile-long trail located near the Pine Street entrance. The Leon Lederman Science Education Center offers exhibits on the prairie and hands-on physics displays. The Lederman Center hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For up-to-date information for visitors, please visit www.fnal.gov or call (630) 840-3351.

To learn more about Fermilab’s bison herd, please visit our website at www.fnal.gov/pub/about/campus/ecology/wildlife/bison.html.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at http://www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.

Batavia, IL – What does a scientist actually do all day? How difficult is it to be a mechanical engineer? What is the daily life of a computer technician really like? How much and what type of math is used in these types of careers?

On Wednesday, April 10, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will offer high -school students a valuable opportunity to ask those questions in person. The annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Career Expo, held in the atrium of Wilson Hall, will put these students face to face with people actually doing the kinds of jobs they will be applying for in the coming years.

In addition to Fermilab scientists and engineers, the STEM Career Expo will feature professionals of several local companies and research organizations, on hand to explain what they do. But this is not a college or job fair and is not about recruiting, according to organizer Susan Dahl of the Fermilab Office of Education.

Rather, she said, this is a chance for students to talk one-on-one with professionals working in their fields of interest. The expo will also include five panel discussions on STEM-related topics, with an opportunity for students to ask questions.

“We hope students come away with a new view of the possibilities of finding careers in these fascinating fields and a more realistic idea of the individuals working in these very relevant and fascinating jobs,” Dahl said.

The STEM Career Expo is free and open to all high -school students. The event is a collaborative event organized by the Fermilab Education Office and educators and career specialists from Kane and DuPage county schools. Sponsors include Fermilab Friends for Science Education, Batavia High School, Geneva Community High School and Northern Kane County Region EFE 110.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and is operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov, and follow Fermilab on Facebook at www.facebook.com/fermilab and on Twitter @FermilabToday.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.