Always looking for a new trail to ride his bike on or an opportunity to catch a live show in town, Sajid Ali Syed is a research associate in computational science and AI for high-energy physics applications at Fermilab. Photo: Sajid Ali Syed
How long have you been at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory?
I joined Fermilab last October. It has been just over a year now.
How did you get interested in physics?
I did electrical engineering for my undergrad. When I first applied for the Ph.D., I thought I would be doing something related to condensed matter physics, but I changed to X-ray imaging. There, I worked on computational X-ray optics and the development of new techniques for nanoscale biological imaging.
Part of the consequences of the pandemic was that I dropped some of these plans for doing more computational work. Now, here at Fermilab I’m doing scientific computing mostly.
Please describe your work. What are the projects you’re working on now?
Currently, I am working on two projects for SciDAC, which is the U.S. Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program. One of them deals with a software that simulates how the accelerators work, specifically looking at how the beam interacts with itself or how the beam is shaped by the different kinds of accelerator elements. This will help provide understanding in how the accelerator will be upgraded in the future.
The other project that I’m working on aims to use [high-performance computing] resources to analyze [high-energy physics] data. Traditionally, HEP data is analyzed on grid computing resources, and now we are using HPC/supercomputers that are quite different. We are developing new ways to analyze data by leveraging novel software paradigms to reduce processing times.
What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
These frameworks that we use today are going to be useful for experiments that are yet to be undertaken. We ensure that our software is reusable, and our results are repeatable. This will enable researchers to build upon the work that we are doing in the future.
What is the most challenging part of your work?
While I was doing my Ph.D., I was mostly working by myself on a not-very-big team, and now it is really rewarding to see how everyone is working together when some people know physics and others don’t.
What do you like best about working at Fermilab?
I got my Ph.D. at Northwestern University and worked a lot at Argonne National Lab through my advisor, so I had experience working at national labs. Fermilab was quite similar but different when coming in.
What I like the most about Fermilab is how the scope of research is much bigger than what it could be if one were to work at an academic lab. I also like being part of a team that develops software tools that impact a wide variety of experiments.
What do you do outside the lab for fun? What do you like to do when you are not at work?
I like to bike, play board games and catch live music performances when possible.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The 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.
A new result from the MicroBooNE experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory probes the Standard Model — scientists’ best theory of how the universe works. The model assumes there are three kinds of neutrinos. Yet for more than two decades, a proposed fourth kind of neutrino has remained a promising explanation for anomalies seen in earlier physics experiments. Finding the theorized sterile neutrino would be a major discovery and radical shift in our understanding of the universe.
The new analysis compares the experiment’s data to a model with a fourth, sterile neutrino to test their compatibility. MicroBooNE scientists found no evidence of the long-sought sterile neutrino in the parameter range explored.
The possibility that sterile neutrinos caused the yet-unexplained anomalies reported by previous experiments still remains. These include measurements by the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab, and several radiochemical and nuclear reactor neutrino experiments.
MicroBooNE features state-of-the-art particle detection techniques and technology. The experiment studies neutrino interactions and is probing models of a theorized fourth neutrino called the sterile neutrino. Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab
“This is the first time we’ve checked whether our data fit a specific sterile-neutrino model,” said Matt Toups, a Fermilab scientist and co-spokesperson for MicroBooNE. “We’ve excluded large sections of the sterile neutrino parameter space allowed by LSND. But there are still corners where a sterile neutrino could potentially be hiding.”
While the most basic version of a sterile neutrino is becoming less likely, other, more subtle types of physics might be at play. For example, there could be a sterile neutrino working in combination with something else, such as dark matter. Or there could be completely different explanations for the anomalies. Unexplained physics related to the Higgs boson or other physics beyond the Standard Model could be the reason.
“In this work, we found an important interplay between the neutrino appearance and disappearance, which was not considered in the previous experimental work. This has important consequences in the search result,” said Xiangpan Ji, a postdoctoral researcher at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, who is one of the co-leaders of this analysis.
Like the 2021 results, the new finding uses only half of MicroBooNE’s dataset. Researchers will continue to look for potential sterile neutrino signals in future analyses. They also will expand their analyses to the full dataset.
“Neutrinos continue to be one of the strangest and most interesting particles out there. They are one of our best opportunities to study new physics beyond the Standard Model.” – Justin Evans
The 170-ton MicroBooNE neutrino detector collected data from 2015 to 2021. It recorded hundreds of thousands of spectacularly detailed 3D images of neutrino events. Close to 200 collaborators from 39 institutions in five countries built and ran the experiment and are now working on the data analysis. The collaboration expects to release the first results from the full dataset in 2023.
MicroBooNE is one of three particle detectors that make up Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program. ICARUS and the Short-Baseline Near Detector are the other two detectors. Together, they enable the detailed exploration of neutrino properties. In particular, they examine neutrino oscillations at low energies and short distances. Scientists hope that the combined measurements of these three detectors will completely resolve the anomalies in neutrino measurements seen by LSND and MiniBooNE.
Next year, MicroBooNE scientists also expect to report on sterile neutrino models using data from two beams of neutrinos with different energies, a unique feature of the Fermilab accelerator complex. So far, this MicroBooNE result has relied on neutrinos provided by Fermilab’s Booster Neutrino Beam, produced by protons with energy of 8 billion electron volts (GeV). But the MicroBooNE detector also recorded interactions of neutrinos from Fermilab’s Main Injector accelerator, produced by 120-GeV protons.
MicroBooNE’s advanced liquid-argon technology enables researchers to capture detailed images of particle tracks. This electron neutrino event shows an electron shower and a proton track. Image: MicroBooNE collaboration
“Our ability to explore sterile neutrinos and rare interactions will be enhanced when we add in the data from Fermilab’s Main Injector neutrino beam,” said Hanyu Wei, professor of physics at Louisiana State University and a co-leader of the sterile-neutrino analysis. “The interplay between the two beams’ data will be interesting, not just more statistics.”
In addition to weighing in on the sterile neutrino question, MicroBooNE will also search for other phenomena beyond the Standard Model and provide precision measurements of how neutrinos interact with matter.
“Neutrinos continue to be one of the strangest and most interesting particles out there. They are one of our best opportunities to study new physics beyond the Standard Model,” said Justin Evans, scientist at the University of Manchester and MicroBooNE co-spokesperson. “There is so much incredible neutrino physics that MicroBooNE can do. We’re excited to see what else is waiting for us in the data.”
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The 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.
Editor’s note: This press release was originally published by National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab. It highlights research made possible thanks to the unique observing capabilities of the Dark Energy Camera, which was built and tested at Fermilab for the Dark Energy Survey.
An international team using the Dark Energy Camera, called DECam, mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, has discovered three new near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, hiding in the inner solar system, the region interior to the orbits of Earth and Venus. This is a notoriously challenging region for observations because asteroid hunters have to contend with the glare of the sun.
By taking advantage of the brief yet favorable observing conditions during twilight, however, the astronomers found an elusive trio of NEAs. One is a 1.5-kilometer-wide asteroid, called 2022 AP7, which has an orbit that may someday place it in Earth’s path. The other asteroids, called 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27, have orbits that safely remain completely interior to Earth’s orbit. Also of special interest to astronomers and astrophysicists, 2021 PH27 is the closest known asteroid to the sun. As such, it has the largest general-relativity effects of any object in our solar system and during its orbit its surface gets hot enough to melt lead.
“Our twilight survey is scouring the area within the orbits of Earth and Venus for asteroids,” said Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science and the lead author of the paper describing this work. “So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer across, a size that we call ‘planet killers.’”
Twilight observations with the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, have enabled astronomers to spot three near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, hiding in the glare of the sun. These NEAs are part of an elusive population that lurks inside the orbits of Earth and Venus. One of the asteroids is the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years. Image: DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine
“There are likely only a few NEAs with similar sizes left to find, and these large undiscovered asteroids likely have orbits that keep them interior to the orbits of Earth and Venus most of the time,” said Sheppard. “Only about 25 asteroids with orbits completely within Earth’s orbit have been discovered to date because of the difficulty of observing near the glare of the sun.”
Finding asteroids in the inner solar system is a daunting observational challenge. Astronomers have only two brief 10-minute windows each night to survey this area and have to contend with a bright background sky resulting from the sun’s glare. Additionally, such observations are very near to the horizon, meaning that astronomers have to observe through a thick layer of Earth’s atmosphere, which can blur and distort their observations.
Discovering these three new asteroids despite these challenges was possible, thanks to the unique observing capabilities of DECam. The state-of-the-art instrument is one of the highest-performance, wide-field CCD imagers in the world, giving astronomers the ability to capture large areas of sky with great sensitivity. Astronomers refer to observations as “deep” if they capture faint objects. When hunting for asteroids inside Earth’s orbit, the capability to capture both deep and wide-field observations is indispensable. DECam was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and was built and tested at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
“Large areas of sky are required because the inner asteroids are rare, and deep images are needed because asteroids are faint and you are fighting the bright twilight sky near the Sun as well as the distorting effect of Earth’s atmosphere,” said Sheppard. “DECam can cover large areas of sky to depths not achievable on smaller telescopes, allowing us to go deeper, cover more sky, and probe the inner Solar System in ways never done before.”
As well as detecting asteroids that could potentially pose a threat to Earth, this research is an important step toward understanding the distribution of small bodies in our solar system. Asteroids that are further from the Sun than Earth are easiest to detect. Because of that these more-distant asteroids tend to dominate current theoretical models of the asteroid population.
Detecting these objects also allows astronomers to understand how asteroids are transported throughout the inner solar system and how gravitational interactions and the heat of the sun can contribute to their fragmentation.
“Our DECam survey is one of the largest and most sensitive searches ever performed for objects within Earth’s orbit and near to Venus’s orbit,” said Sheppard. “This is a unique chance to understand what types of objects are lurking in the inner solar system.”
“After 10 years of remarkable service, DECam continues to yield important scientific discoveries while at the same time contributing to planetary defense, a crucial service that benefits all humanity,” said Chris Davis, NSF program director for NOIRLab.
DECam was originally built to carry out the Dark Energy Survey, which was conducted by the DOE and the U.S. National Science Foundation between 2013 and 2019.