tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9546456981281357452024-03-13T20:39:45.172+01:00Stephanie Majewskiis at CERNStephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-1446160036344041392010-01-06T22:25:00.000+01:002010-01-06T22:25:58.749+01:00A new rap from Alpinekat... on black holes! Brought to you by the famed rapper of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM">Large Hadron Rap</a>, which now has <b>over 5 million</b> views on YouTube.<br />
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My favorite part is the end:<br />
<blockquote><i>The last issue that I<br />
feel the need to address<br />
is this idea that CERN physicists<br />
are wholly obsessed<br />
with finding answers -- so much<br />
that they'd gamble the planet,<br />
their lives, friends, families<br />
and all else that's on it.<br />
They're all people!<br />
And despite what you may fear<br />
they've got reasons of their own<br />
to want to keep the world here.<br />
</i><br />
</blockquote> True dat. Happy new year everyone! Looking forward to more data-taking in February.<br />
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A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-7723185833568280652009-12-16T19:49:00.000+01:002009-12-16T19:49:35.115+01:00Collisions and more Collisions!The past two weeks have been thrilling. It's nice to take a moment and reflect, because the LHC and the four experiments (ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE) have accomplished so much...<br />
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There were collisions at injection energy (900 GeV), including higher intensity / more bunches. There were collisions at higher energy (2.36 TeV), making the LHC the highest energy man-made particle collider ever!<br />
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I'm mostly surprised and amazed by how well the ATLAS detector performed. Sure, my collaborators have been preparing for this for years, but I was cynical as anyone about how well we would do under pressure... LHC beams injected, now colliding, now "stable beams", go! I think we surpassed many expectations. And we collected a <b>lot</b> of data!<br />
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The fun part now is combing through those runs and cherry picking the best ones. We call this "data quality", and though the term becomes jargon within the collaboration, its meaning is important. We ask basic questions like What were the LHC conditions? Were all of the detectors on and functioning properly? Were we reading out the data? Was the magnetic field on? How about the other one? (on ATLAS we have a solenoid and the famous toroids with the orange stripes...)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/atlas/photos/atlas-toroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/atlas/photos/atlas-toroid.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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I've really been looking forward to this Christmas shutdown. So, it may seem kind of nerdy, but although many of my fellow collaborators will head home for some much-needed vaca with their fams, I will be hanging around my apartment in Saint Genis, analyzing this early data. I'll be looking at indicators of data quality and trying to extract some physics. (Don't worry, I'll take some time off to celebrate Christmas and New Years' with friends.) And I'm really excited to be rid of the meetings and distractions for 2 whole weeks!<br />
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Perhaps it's a bit cheesy, but I have this great feeling that I am living the dream right now. As a grad student on BaBar, I desperately wanted to be a postdoc at CERN, on an LHC experiment, for the startup of the new greatest collider in the world. I pushed really hard my last year to finish my thesis and get out in time so I wouldn't miss all of the fun :) Delays aside, here I am! The night we got the first stable collisions I was sitting at Point 1 until 3am, eagerly marking every LHC bunch injection. The beam intensity went up by steps, closely followed by my enthusiasm. The Liquid Argon Calorimeter performed beautifully, calmly collecting data as if it was no big deal; it was built for high energy collisions, not cosmics! This is what I got into physics for, this thrill. It's awesome, and there's a lot more to come next year.<br />
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Happy Holidays to you and yours. I leave you with the LHC, signing off:<br />
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A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-85803052138634468352009-12-03T16:50:00.002+01:002009-12-03T17:22:50.907+01:00Power cuts and ProspectsThere was a power outage at CERN yesterday, yes. Welcome to France (no offense France, but it seems to happen a lot more often here than at home). The weird part is that the press is making kind of a big deal about it ... like that bird and baguette thing that seemed completely overblown. Sigh. Yes this power cut caused some problems, especially affecting the computing and web servers (and the LHC, but not the cooling of the magnets). But folks, that's what happens when you pull the plug on a computer. It turns off, and you can't see any webpages it may be hosting when it is off. <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/02/lhc_power_failure_again/">The Register</a> has a cool pic, so here it is: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://regmedia.co.uk/2009/12/02/lhc_blown_bit.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 403px;" src="http://regmedia.co.uk/2009/12/02/lhc_blown_bit.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Moving on...</span> <br /><br />We are poised to take real collision data this weekend! Now is the time to be really getting excited :) Granted, the collisions will probably be at injection energy (900 GeV), which is totally known territory, but this feels like the real thing. This is the beginning of making sure the ATLAS detector is stable and we record data efficiently over several shifts. We may even have enough data to start calibrating our detector and start looking at some basic physics. So no supersymmetry yet, but how about some jets?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/public/EVTDISPLAY/atlas2009-vp1-140541-416712-2jet-web.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 413px;" src="http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/public/EVTDISPLAY/atlas2009-vp1-140541-416712-2jet-web.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-48517066005474199952009-11-20T21:59:00.003+01:002009-11-20T22:03:32.643+01:00Amazing LHC photosJust in time for the restart. See all of the images at <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/large_hadron_collider_ready_to.html">The Big Picture</a>, including some poignant shots of the damage from last year. Fingers and toes are crossed.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lhc_11_20/l14_00808022.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 990px; height: 658px;" src="http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lhc_11_20/l14_00808022.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Here we go.Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-75423709922333351562009-11-20T21:34:00.003+01:002009-11-20T21:36:01.917+01:00Splashizzle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/public/EVTDISPLAY/atlas2009-vp1-140370-2154-web.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 453px;" src="http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/public/EVTDISPLAY/atlas2009-vp1-140370-2154-web.png" border="0" alt="" /></a>Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-66919222429081326732009-11-20T21:12:00.003+01:002009-11-20T21:14:22.663+01:00The excitement has returned<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Swb4Z4BlHUI/AAAAAAAAByQ/fIg7x_cqGPc/s1600/Screen+shot+2009-11-20+at+2.11.30+PM.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 106px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Swb4Z4BlHUI/AAAAAAAAByQ/fIg7x_cqGPc/s320/Screen+shot+2009-11-20+at+2.11.30+PM.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406281526124289346" /></a><br /><br />I think the picture says it all. Circulating beam in the LHC.Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-73571119880453606172009-09-30T17:16:00.003+02:002009-09-30T17:35:09.161+02:000.32 nanoOhms!If read the title ala Doc Brown in <span style="font-style:italic;">Back to the Future</span>, you'll have the right idea :)<br /><br /><a href="http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/">The latest news from the LHC</a> is very encouraging; the average resistance of the splices in Sector 1-2 is <span style="font-weight:bold;">0.32 nOhms</span>. It's great news because 1) the resistances are within specs for that sector and 2) they are able to measure the resistances that precisely! If you <a href="http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/37830">remember from the incident last year</a>, one of these splices with a high resistance (probably around 100 nOhms) caused a massive quench and the release of helium... and our >1 year delay.<br /><br />So we continue to monitor the cooling progress, especially of Sector 6-7, which will be the last 1/8th of the ring to be "cold":<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/file/images/MAGNETS_Sector67_smaller.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 480px; height: 350px;" src="http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/file/images/MAGNETS_Sector67_smaller.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />You can see it still has a way to go before 1.9 K, but it's getting there. Nothing like low resistances to brighten my week :) Let's hope the rest of the sectors follow suit.<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-69950724777181118712009-09-11T11:33:00.004+02:002009-09-11T11:49:29.616+02:00Hawking EducationOn Wednesday afternoon, I had the privilege of seeing a lecture by Stephen Hawking on "The Creation of the Universe".<br /><br />I was up in the cheap seats:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SqobFeqp6LI/AAAAAAAAByI/soJ-xeKX9Mc/s1600-h/StephenHawking.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 305px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SqobFeqp6LI/AAAAAAAAByI/soJ-xeKX9Mc/s400/StephenHawking.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380142485792745650" /></a><br /><br />and had to get there almost 90 minutes ahead of time for one of the last seats in the auditorium. But it was worth it :)<br /><br />I was expecting people to ask questions after, but alas none came. I guess when you're faced with asking <span style="font-style:italic;">him</span> a question:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2009/0909118/0909118_02/0909118_02-A5-at-72-dpi.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 561px; height: 373px;" src="http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2009/0909118/0909118_02/0909118_02-A5-at-72-dpi.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />a little trepidation is normal. I feel like I'm building up a repertoire of stories to bore future generations of students... "I remember when the LHC was just about to start, Stephen Hawking came to give a lecture at CERN..." And the students will think to themselves, <span style="font-style:italic;">ugh, not the Hawking story... at least she isn't going on about Tom Hanks again</span> ;)<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-39388635444647809072009-08-31T16:34:00.003+02:002009-08-31T16:50:47.501+02:00Origin of MassOne of the hottest topics surrounding the LHC is the Higgs boson. Probably in part because of its catchy <a href="http://www.particlephysics.ac.uk/news/picture-of-the-week/picture-archive/the-man-behind-the-higgs-particle/000105_sm.jpg">name</a> and in part because we give it a great responsibility -- it gives other particles mass.<br /><br />Along these lines, here is great video highlighting the Higgs that was the winner of the <a href="http://www.atlas.ch/contest/">ATLAS/CERN Multimedia Contest</a>:<br /><center><br /><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://www.atlas.ch/contest/swf/Origin_of_mass.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <embed src="http://www.atlas.ch/contest/swf/Origin_of_mass.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object><br /></center><br />Nicely done, and a well-deserved winning video. <br /><br />I'd also like to welcome any <a href="http://www.cogito.org">Cogito</a> readers! Cogito is a forum for young people who are interested in science to connect with each other and experts. I have been participating in an <a href="http://www.cogito.org/Interviews/InterviewsDetail.aspx?ContentID=17819">interview/forum</a> over that way, so head on over and check it out!<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-83528599686224579982009-08-18T10:28:00.002+02:002009-08-18T11:03:48.193+02:00New CountdownSorry for the hiatus! It's been a busy, fun summer and I will be sure to update you all on my travels... but for today, I'm back to focusing on the LHC.<br /><br />For the true groupies, a colleague pointed me to a great website:<br /><br /><a href="http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/">http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/</a><br /><br />that actually gives a brief status update on each of the sectors, along with a "Latest News" tidbit. It currently says:<br /><br /><ul style="padding-left: 20%;"><li> <p class="style12">Sector 78 being cooled down for powering</p> </li><li> <p class="style12">Sector 45 cool down started</p> </li><li> <p class="style12">Sector 12 being filled with liquid He</p> </li><li> <p class="style12">Cool-down of sector 6-7 started</p> </li></ul><br />This should provide a great source of the newest information on the status of the LHC; they update it about once/week. It's a little jargon-y, but don't forget you have a <a href="http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/">road map</a>.<br /><br />Next, <span style="font-weight: bold;">ENERGY</span>! I'm sure by now you have heard that <a href="http://user.web.cern.ch/user/news/2009/090806-LHC-restart-energy.html">the LHC is going to come up at 7 TeV</a> (that would be 7,000,000,000,000 electron Volts; 3.5 TeV per beam) during the 2009-2010 run, about 1/2 the design energy (14 TeV). But no worries, we will anyway need some time to commission ATLAS and CMS, and the LHC operators will get a chance to take this new machine for a real spin at about 1/2 max before ramping up to the maximum possible energy when the machine is ready for it. This might have been a bit of a surprise if you hadn't been paying close attention... but being a little conservative for this run is ok in my book.... and it's still 3.5 times the energy of Fermilab's Tevatron (Booyah! not that it's a competition... ok, maybe a little bit ;) ... but they do have more data than us... for now...). Ok, maybe I feel a bit bad about talking smack to the Tevatron when Fermilab's director is so <a href="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2009/today09-08-11.html">magnanimous</a>.<br /><br />And, for the skeptics, perhaps you need a 3 minute reminder what went wrong last year, why the bleeding edge sometimes hurts, and why we're doing this in the first place...<br /><br /><center><br /><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/embed/BrianCox_2009U-embed_high.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/BrianCox-2009U.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=531" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/embed/BrianCox_2009U-embed_high.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/BrianCox-2009U.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=531"></embed></object><br /></center><br /><br />...I got goosebumps at the end. The LHC temperature map is back on my dashboard, and it's time to start a new countdown to collisions.<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-36543481486906881152009-06-17T16:53:00.021+02:002009-06-19T15:48:33.701+02:00Back to School!For the past week and a half, I attended the <a href="http://hcpss.web.cern.ch/hcpss/2009/default.htm">2009 CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School</a>. It was very satisfying to be in full-time learning mode for a while... a nice break from coding at my desk all the time :) We had some great speakers -- most of them took their charge very seriously, and you could tell that they put a lot of work and thought into their slides, even if they sometimes couldn't cram in all of the information they wanted to ;)<br /><br />Here are some of my favorite photos/figures from the lectures (note that these are stolen from the ppt/pdf files at the link below). Hopefully they will give you a taste of the wide range of topics covered, and inspire you to investigate further :)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Visualization of Supersymmetry (Giudice)</span>:<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuCgIXjU4I/AAAAAAAABxY/lMgTbcnWV_s/s1600-h/susy.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 252px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuCgIXjU4I/AAAAAAAABxY/lMgTbcnWV_s/s320/susy.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349012470946288514" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">We live in the golden region, and would only see the "shadows" from the superspace.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Groove caused by an errant beam in the SPS beam pipe (Wenninger)</span>:<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuO6F5H3NI/AAAAAAAABxg/FSweoCCphD8/s1600-h/spsbeamgroove.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuO6F5H3NI/AAAAAAAABxg/FSweoCCphD8/s320/spsbeamgroove.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349026111097920722" border="0" /></a>The SPS is the ring that accelerates protons up to 450 GeV before they are injected into the LHC.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">A healthy busbar, unlike the one that caused the September 19th incident... (Wenninger)</span>:<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuQwivqUvI/AAAAAAAABxo/Kf8vjS4q2bg/s1600-h/busbarjoint.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 108px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuQwivqUvI/AAAAAAAABxo/Kf8vjS4q2bg/s320/busbarjoint.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349028146067428082" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">String breaking (Antinori)</span>:<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuRhbcllFI/AAAAAAAABxw/WMwxVrqlV5s/s1600-h/stringbreaking.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuRhbcllFI/AAAAAAAABxw/WMwxVrqlV5s/s320/stringbreaking.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349028985921967186" border="0" /></a>The concept of strings is useful for describing pulling apart 2 quarks... eventually it becomes "easier" to pop a new quark-anti-quark pair out of the vacuum than to keep pulling.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Matter glacier (Servant)</span>:<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuSZ5xWgsI/AAAAAAAABx4/QxbS-7h1adk/s1600-h/darkmatterglacier.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 237px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuSZ5xWgsI/AAAAAAAABx4/QxbS-7h1adk/s320/darkmatterglacier.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349029956134798018" border="0" /></a>Visible matter is the part of the glacier sticking out above the water, dark matter is hidden from view.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker, lit up with a Sept 2008 splash event (Hoecker)</span>:<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuWzrMCiPI/AAAAAAAAByA/koTHfGQ2jV8/s1600-h/atlastrt.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 120px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SjuWzrMCiPI/AAAAAAAAByA/koTHfGQ2jV8/s320/atlastrt.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349034796943313138" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Do you see the Higgs? Ha ha, j/k.<br /></div><br />The entire <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?confId=44587&view=nicecompact">agenda</a> is posted, including video! if you want to learn more.<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-78893515599395219312009-06-01T14:45:00.003+02:002009-06-01T15:03:17.329+02:00Along the Same Lines...Apparently Jorge and I are on the same page these days:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd052709s.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 600px;" src="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd052709s.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />This is hilarious, but unfortunately physicists' comments would be way more verbose and argumentative...<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-54141072266671079232009-05-26T18:28:00.003+02:002009-05-26T19:11:11.096+02:00Spotted...Pop quiz: Life at CERN is (a) more exciting or (b) less exciting than an episode of <span style="font-style:italic;">Gossip Girl</span>. Answer: it depends on the day.<br /><br />Last September, the answer was (a) on a daily basis. Lately, I would have to answer (b). No data, no news from the LHC, and a bunch of Swiss/French holidays in May have made for a quiet month. But in the calm before the storm we are sometimes (often?) no better than gossiping teenagers...<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Spotted, little J. snoring during the LAr meeting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Is B. leaving ATLAS for CMS?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">This just in, N. and S., former collaborators, now collabafoes.</span><br /><br />Granted, we are a little less obvious than sending text messages. But instead we use blogs, emails, hypernews, and wikis to do our dirty work. If you don't believe me, check out our <a href="http://www.freewebs.com/heprumor/">rumors website</a>!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Spotted, John Oliver riding the magnet outside R1.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">That permanent position at X lab/university? Sorry Lonely Boy, we heard it was offered to Chuck.</span><br /><br />Not that I'm advocating a TV show be made about physicists at CERN ... it's not <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> exciting, and besides there's already <a href="http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_bang_theory/">one out there</a>.<br /><br />So, while we lie in wait ready to pounce on the first collisions, snarky side arguments and passive-aggressive turf wars are par for the course. I don't particularly enjoy them, but I figure they are kind of like training for the free-for-all that will come when data arrives and everyone starts their bump-hunting. Don't get me wrong, everyone will be <span style="font-style:italic;">thrilled</span> for a good couple days after first collisions. But with any luck, if things go smoothly we will be scrambling to analyze, analyze, analyze ... because the clock is ticking and the timer goes off when the first papers come out. We will be competing against CMS, but we will also be competing with each other to be in that first batch. Getting your Ph.D., a job, or tenure depends on it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">XOXO</span>Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-79913904975427770862009-04-24T15:02:00.010+02:002009-04-24T15:51:46.486+02:00The Last Little Blue DipoleSounds like a great title for a children's book :) The newest CERN Bulletin is out, and of course the first thing I read is "<a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/article?issue=18/2009&name=CERNBulletin&category=News%20Articles&number=3&ln=en">The Latest from the LHC</a>". <br /><br />This week's update explains that the last blue dipole magnet is all better and finally gets to join his friends in sector 3-4 (the sector had the <span style="font-style:italic;">incident</span> last September). And, as a bonus they linked to a video! I realize that the video is in French ... so think of it as a taste of life at CERN, where language barriers mean you don't always know exactly what's going on, but you get the gist... love the fast forward/reverse and the cheesy music!<br /><br /><center><embed src="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/mediaplayer.swf" width="470" height="320" bgcolor="undefined" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="file=http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Video/Public/Movies/2009/CERN-MOVIE-2009-020/CERN-MOVIE-2009-020-0753-kbps-640x360-25-fps-audio-64-kbps-44-kHz-stereo.flv"></embed></center><br /><br />Ok, here's a little help by way of a translation of CERN's description:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Since 14 November 2008, there were 54 magnets reinstalled in sector 3-4, 1 magnet in sector 1-2, and 1 magnet in sector 6-7. For the descent of the last superconducting dipole of 16 April 2009, Pascal Brunero, monitoring the work in the EN/HE group in charge of transport and handling, has responded to an interview for the bulletins.</span></blockquote><br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-12664429888912994922009-04-08T13:40:00.005+02:002009-04-08T14:09:12.123+02:00Lunch with John OliverYes, you read that right. Just a normal day in the CERN cafeteria until we got to have lunch with our <span style="font-style:italic;">favorite</span> <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/">Daily Show</a> correspondent, John Oliver! Before you sputter in disbelief, here is the proof:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SdyQAd5gUCI/AAAAAAAABxI/ZaK4T4SNFVQ/s1600-h/HPIM1547.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SdyQAd5gUCI/AAAAAAAABxI/ZaK4T4SNFVQ/s320/HPIM1547.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322287197345304610" /></a>Adam, Me, John Oliver, Regina, and Jason<br /><br />He happened to be at CERN, interviewing some awesome physicists (not us -- we will not be on camera), seeing the detectors, etc. and sat with us for lunch! Hilariously, we first caught him riding the large blue magnet outside of the cafeteria like a bronco:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SdyRJOWaoUI/AAAAAAAABxQ/vDAdgA9i93c/s1600-h/photo(6).jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SdyRJOWaoUI/AAAAAAAABxQ/vDAdgA9i93c/s320/photo(6).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322288447302050114" /></a><br /><br />(sorry for the far-away pic ... my phone doesn't zoom) This definitely caused a bit of a buzz among the Americans / Daily Show fans eating lunch. And then we cleared some room so that he, a producer, and their crew could join us at our table.<br /><br />I don't think we embarrassed ourselves too much, and he's just as cool in person as on TV, except a little more jet-lagged maybe :) I'll definitely keep you all updated when the segment airs (our best guess is probably the week after next).<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-16534848672349613602009-04-07T09:47:00.008+02:002009-04-07T12:00:41.149+02:00Some bling for the universe?Looks like the night sky has some pretty sweet accessories---some sparkly gamma-ray bursts. This little movie from the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/flare_fade.html">NASA website</a> shows gamma rays in the "northern galactic sky" from April through October of 2008 (each frame is 1 day). The data was taken by the Large Area Telescope of the <a href="http://www-glast.stanford.edu/">Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope</a> (formerly known as Prince, oops, I mean <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/glast_renamed.html">GLAST</a>). It nicely puts in the locations of a few familiar constellations and the path of the sun so you can get your bearings.<br /><br /><embed src="http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010400/a010407/Fermi_North_Tour_640x360.m4v" width="640" height="376"></embed><br />Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration<br /><br /><a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/04/06/new-video-of-the-frenetically-twinkling-gamma-ray-sky/">Symmetry breaking</a> has a nice article explaining that the bright flashes are blazars:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Some of the most violent energy sources in the universe, blazars are galaxies that emit jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. In a blazar, one of these jets is oriented directly toward Earth, creating a very strong signal in many wavelengths—including gamma rays.</span></blockquote>and the dimmer but constant red dots are pulsars:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">The crushed cores left behind when massive stars explode, pulsars spin rapidly and sweep a lighthouse-like beam across the sky. When this beam is oriented so that it shines on Earth, we observe it to blink on and off as the star spins.<br /><br />It’s funny, but we [the Large Area Telescope collaboration] consider pulsars steady sources,” Digel says. “Unlike blazars, they don’t change in brightness, they only pulse.” Because the slowest gamma-ray pulsars flash a few times per second, their on-and-off nature isn’t visible in the highly compressed time of the movie. But in the telescope’s complete data, the flashes are quite clear; in fact, the Large Area Telescope was the first telescope to discern that one of these sources, LAT PSR J1836+5925 (the one on the left edge of the movie), is in fact a pulsar. Previously, it was known as a steady, unidentified gamma-ray object.</span></blockquote><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-44103202198985339842009-04-03T10:31:00.002+02:002009-04-03T10:34:53.030+02:00Load up your crossbowsI was wondering why the #4 Google Trend this morning was "Higgs excitation"...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/crossbows.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 538px; height: 237px;" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/crossbows.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />I hope they'll be passing out crossbows in the CERN cafeteria today.<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-9447300374129023132009-04-01T11:44:00.002+02:002009-04-01T11:52:25.659+02:00Fermilab Celebrates April Fool's DayJust a quick post to make sure you check out <a href="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/april_fools_2009.html">Fermilab Today</a>.<br /><br />I'm pleased to say that I have met Eric Yurkewicz personally, and I am not surprised that the precocious youth was able to detect that flaw in the LHC. It is only a matter of time before he becomes CERN director-general ;) But I think my favorite story is "Particles attempt lab takeover":<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images09/ParticlesControls-resize.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 450px;" src="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images09/ParticlesControls-resize.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Happy April Fool's Day!<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-35290081196493124032009-03-18T16:13:00.002+01:002009-03-18T16:34:09.875+01:00John Oliver on ScienceOn the lighter side, I <span style='color:red'>♥</span> John Oliver. So I thoroughly enjoyed his "science commentary" on the Daily Show Monday night. Hope you all get a kick out of it too (John Oliver comes on around the 2-minute mark):<br /><br /><style type='text/css'>.cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url('http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png') !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;}</style><div class='cc_box' style='position:relative'><a href='http://www.comedycentral.com' target='_blank' style='display:inline; float:left; width:60px; height:31px;'><div class='cc_home' style='float:left; border:solid 1px #cfcfcf; border-width:1px 0px 0px 1px; width:60px; height:31px; background:url("http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-out.png");'></div></a><div style='font:bold 10px Arial,Helvetica,Verdana,sans-serif; float:left; width:299px; height:31px; border:solid 1px #cfcfcf; border-width:1px 1px 0px 0px; overflow:hidden; color:#707070;'><div class='cc_show' style='position:relative; background-color:#e5e5e5;padding-left:3px; height:14px; padding-top:2px; overflow:hidden;'><a href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/' target='_blank'>The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a><span style='position:absolute; top:2px; right:3px;'>M - Th 11p / 10c</span></div><div class='cc_title' style='font-size:11px; color:#868686; background-color:#f5f5f5; padding:3px; padding-top:1px; line-height:14px; height:21px; overflow:hidden;'><a href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220549&title=stem-sell' target='_blank'>Stem Sell</a></div></div><embed style='float:left; clear:left;' src='http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:220549' width='360' height='301' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='window' allowFullscreen='true' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' flashvars='autoPlay=false' bgcolor='#000000'></embed><div class='cc_links' style='float:left; clear:left; width:358px; border:solid 1px #cfcfcf; border-top:0px; font:10px Arial,Helvetica,Verdana,sans-serif; color:#b9b9b9; background-color:#f5f5f5;'><div style='clear:both'></div></div><div style='clear:both'></div></div><br /><br />Going to listen to some tunes on my magic song brick now :)<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-9106873106712340332009-03-13T17:26:00.004+01:002009-03-13T17:54:10.716+01:00Where the web was bornHappy 20th birthday to the WWW! 20 years ago today the web was "born" here at CERN with the submission of a proposal by Tim Berners-Lee called "Information Management: A Proposal". CERN is also having an event (<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=53764">webcast</a>) to celebrate.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/58054501_2c95b8ac4e.jpg?v=0"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/58054501_2c95b8ac4e.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><center>(photo from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxbraun/">mackz</a>)</center><br /><br />Here is a link to the <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR04.09E.html">CERN Press Release</a>, and there's a nice <a href="http://today.slac.stanford.edu/feature/2009/web-20-years.asp">article in SLAC Today</a> with screenshots of the first SLAC webpages.<br /><br />I know that I can't imagine life/work without those three w's, especially since while I'm at CERN it's my lifeline to family, friends, and news from home.<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-34325826433096323902009-03-05T10:04:00.007+01:002009-03-05T10:48:41.221+01:00Shhh, it's a secretI came across a link to an old <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance">Cosmic Variance</a> blog post from <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/julianne/">Julianne Dalcanton</a> called "<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/02/25/the-cult-of-genius/">The Cult of Genius</a>", and I was compelled to pass it on. Mostly because it so eloquently reveals physicists' biggest secret:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">During high school or college, many aspiring physicists latch onto Feynman or Einstein or Hawking as representing all they hope to become. The problem is, the vast majority of us are just not that smart. Oh sure, we’re plenty clever, and are whizzes at figuring out the tip when the check comes due, but we’re not Feynman-Einstein-Hawking smart. We go through a phase where we hope that we are, and then reality sets in, and we either (1) deal, (2) spend the rest of our career trying to hide the fact that we’re not, or (3) drop out.</span></blockquote>Some of us aren't even so great with the mental math ;) I think that this realization hits most physicists sometime mid-grad school, after finishing classes and shortly after one starts doing research full-time, and it's a bit of an identity crisis. Julianne continues:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Well, screw that. Yes, you have to be clever, but if you have good taste in problems, an ability to forge intellectual connections, an eye for untapped opportunities, drive, and yes, a willingness to work hard, you can have major impacts on the field. While my guess is that this is broadly understood to be true by those of us clever-but-not-F-E-H-smart folks who’ve survived the weeding of graduate school, postdoctoral positions, and assistant professorhood, we do a lousy job of communicating this fact to our students. I’ve always suspected that we lose talent from the field because people opt for Door #3 (drop out) when they face up to the fact that physics is frequently hard, even for very clever people.</span></blockquote><br />So now you know the "secret". Are you convinced? The "Cult of Genius" is a difficult concept to overcome, both within physics and in how physicists relate to the rest of society. Especially when we are <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/03/04/higgs-turning-up-everywhere-this-time-in-paint/">bombarded</a> by images like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/proposer-of-the-god-parti-001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 470px; height: 225px;" src="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/proposer-of-the-god-parti-001.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />(a painting by Ken Currie of Peter Higgs, namesake of the elusive Higgs boson, aka the "God particle" that experiments at Fermilab and CERN are searching for)<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-77891384353721861422009-03-04T11:30:00.010+01:002009-03-04T14:09:53.785+01:00Chamonix Summary -- More about the September IncidentToday I'll continue with some cool photos from the <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=52248">Chamonix summary</a> (as I <a href="http://stephatcern.blogspot.com/2009/02/chamonix-summary-dipole-training.html">discussed last week</a>).<br /><br />The first speaker had another photo from the September 19th incident, describing that of the 595 MJ (595,000,000 Joules) of energy stored in the magnets, <span style="font-weight:bold;">half</span> was dissipated in the arc that caused the damage:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa5aBkCLXZI/AAAAAAAABvs/LfLLYFq76Yw/s1600-h/Sector34ArcDamage.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 251px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa5aBkCLXZI/AAAAAAAABvs/LfLLYFq76Yw/s320/Sector34ArcDamage.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309279993615572370" /></a><br /><br />(photo from slide 7 of the <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contribId=0&resId=1&materialId=slides&confId=52248">first summary talk</a>). A typical surge protector in your house might be able to absorb and dissipate on the order of 1000 Joules of energy.<br /><br />And, along with more info about the damage, we get some more photos of repairs... for example, a "jumper" repair on part of the damaged sector:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa55OOUpvVI/AAAAAAAABv0/R65YoW4F2fQ/s1600-h/Sector34JumperRepair.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa55OOUpvVI/AAAAAAAABv0/R65YoW4F2fQ/s320/Sector34JumperRepair.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309314295986240850" /></a><br /><br />And remember the how the soot in the beam pipe needed to be cleaned? Here's a before (left) and after (right):<br /><table border="0"><br /><tr><br /><td><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa58wDxgFYI/AAAAAAAABv8/d7sOKHqFFNw/s1600-h/BeamPipeBeforeCleaning.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 233px; height: 179px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa58wDxgFYI/AAAAAAAABv8/d7sOKHqFFNw/s320/BeamPipeBeforeCleaning.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309318175804888450" /></a></td><br /><td><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa58zsNO4uI/AAAAAAAABwE/N8z8oC36YDY/s1600-h/BeamPipeAfterCleaning.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 228px; height: 180px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa58zsNO4uI/AAAAAAAABwE/N8z8oC36YDY/s320/BeamPipeAfterCleaning.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309318238198227682" /></a></td><br /></tr><br /></table><br /><br />and a photo of the "Q-tip" (ok, they call it a foam plug) they use to clean the beam pipe...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa59AJOfWaI/AAAAAAAABwM/xkwNaymgz2U/s1600-h/BeamPipeQTip.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/Sa59AJOfWaI/AAAAAAAABwM/xkwNaymgz2U/s320/BeamPipeQTip.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309318452146559394" /></a><br /><br />first dipped in alcohol, then dry.<br /><br />If this is the kind of thing that floats your boat, you might want to check out the whole <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/materialDisplay.py?materialId=0&confId=52248">video</a> of the Chamonix summary. Beware of the accelerator jargon ... here's some help (and for my own future reference; corrections welcome in the comments):<br /><br />BIS = beam interlock system<br />DFB = electrical distribution box<br />MCI = maximum credible incident<br />MLI = multilayer insulation<br />MO = multipole<br />MPS = machine protection system<br />MQ = skew quadrupole<br />QPS = quench protection system<br />QRL = cryogenic pipeline<br />SEU = single event upset<br />SSS = short straight section<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-41687343546642365352009-02-25T10:33:00.004+01:002009-02-25T11:32:23.396+01:00Chamonix Summary -- Dipole TrainingI've been talking about the <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=45433">Chamonix workshop</a> for the past few posts, and will spend a few more on it, mostly because I find the accelerator side interesting. Plus, ATLAS kind of depends on those protons eventually colliding ;)<br /><br />Yesterday afternoon, we got a 3-hour summary of the workshop (<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=52248">agenda and slides</a>), so I thought I would share some of the more interesting items. The information (and accelerator acronyms) flew by pretty quickly, so this comes with the usual disclaimer that any mistakes are mine.<br /><br />The first topic is "training" the dipole magnets... For magnets, training is accomplished by gradually increasing the current through the magnet (which increases the magnetic field) until the magnet <a href="http://stephatcern.blogspot.com/2008/09/lhc-delay.html">quenches</a>. Then the current is increased again, hopefully past the previous quench point, until the magnet quenches again at a higher current and magnetic field. The magnet "remembers" how high the current got, so the next time you turn it on (days or weeks later), it should be happy with any current below the highest quench point. And by the way, the currents that we are talking about are ~10000 A (compared to your wall plug of 15-20 A).<br /><br />The LHC accelerator physicists talk in terms of "number of quenches"—how many times they have to repeat this current increase to quench cycle in order to reach a given magnetic field and therefore energy. The design energy of the LHC is proton collisions at 14 TeV, which means that every magnet in the ring must be trained up to 1/2 of that energy, or 7 TeV. This fall, we are going to run at 10 TeV, so the magnets must be trained up to 5 TeV (which they are, except for the repaired magnets in the sector that had the incident last September). They would like to reach the LHC's design energy for the run in 2011.<br /><br />At Chamonix, they tried to estimate how many quenches it would take to reach given energies in the magnets... keep in mind that they can train magnets in the 8 sectors in parallel, but can only do ~3 quenches per day. Their estimates are that it would take 11 quenches to reach the equivalent current for 6 TeV in each magnet, 84 quenches to reach 6.5 TeV, and <span style="font-weight:bold;">nearly 1000</span> quenches to reach 7 TeV (design energy). 1000 quenches means training magnets for 2 months!<br /><br />So you can see, it gets a lot harder to make that last step from 13 TeV to 14 TeV. Which is why 13 TeV might be the maximum center-of-mass energy reached by the LHC. But I have 2 conclusions: 1) I wouldn't be disappointed with 13 TeV and 2) I'm not going to count these accelerator physicists out just yet... <br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-23522300197472337552009-02-16T13:40:00.010+01:002009-02-16T14:34:42.182+01:00Latest details about the ongoing LHC repairsWe've heard the big news about the LHC schedule that was decided in Chamonix a few weeks ago, so I was not expecting anything too exciting from a talk this morning at our ATLAS collaboration meeting. What did strike me (again) was the size and scale of the task facing the physicists and engineers getting the accelerator back up and ready to go. <br /><br />For example, they had to take basically a giant Q-tip dipped in alcohol to clean the soot from the inside of <span style="font-weight:bold;">nearly 2 miles</span> of beam pipe (the soot being from the incident last September). Another number is 150 miles -- the additional length of cable that needs to be installed for the enhanced <a href="http://stephatcern.blogspot.com/2008/09/lhc-delay.html">quench</a> protection system. And how about $10 million? Compared to the stimulus package it might be peanuts, but it's the additional cost of electricity for running the LHC through next winter (electricity is more expensive in winter than summer here, which is why we would usually shut down in winter). And finally, 104 -- the number of places around the ring where they will reinforce those <a href="http://stephatcern.blogspot.com/2008/12/photos-of-lhc-damage.html">red blocks</a> that anchor the magnets to the concrete tunnel floor (see the <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/popup?name=CERNBulletin&type=breaking_news&record=1161346&ln=en">CERN bulletin</a>).<br /><br />I'm trying to keep these numbers in mind, because otherwise it can be pretty discouraging to scan back through my blog posts to see how the schedule has slipped from September 08 to April 09 to May to June to ... September? October? All because of some missing solder:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZllmIocN7I/AAAAAAAABvk/5jZ0kd-aOfQ/s1600-h/splice.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 241px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZllmIocN7I/AAAAAAAABvk/5jZ0kd-aOfQ/s320/splice.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303381742032009138" /></a><br /><br />(The bad magnet connection. As I understand it, the connection on the left is "bad" because the half-circle is copper-colored, rather than coated with the silver-colored solder that you can see on the connection on the right.)<br /><br />The bottom line is that I need to be patient, because they still have a ton to do to fix the machine and we have months to go before there are protons in the LHC. Good thing there are plenty of photos from <a href="http://www.mbfashionweek.com/newyork/">fashion week</a> to keep me occupied ;)<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-954645698128135745.post-88304649890035781722009-02-12T14:48:00.005+01:002009-02-12T15:10:36.798+01:00Tom Hanks at CERN!So, you may have seen in Symmetry Breaking that <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/11/entertainment-tonight-searches-for-angels-and-demons-at-cern/">Entertainment Tonight</a> is broadcasting from CERN, highlighting the upcoming movie release of <a href="http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/angelsdemons/">Angels and Demons</a>. I read the book (CERN has an <a href="http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html">FAQ page</a> about it) and found it pretty entertaining, even though it's definitely fiction.<br /><br />Well, we were at the CERN store after lunch today and noticed a large group of reporters gathering across the street at the Globe... <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQrDpxV5eI/AAAAAAAABvc/Z5U0sl3cUhI/s1600-h/IMG_2341.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQrDpxV5eI/AAAAAAAABvc/Z5U0sl3cUhI/s320/IMG_2341.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301910003074328034" /></a><br /><br />and guess who came out?! Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer, and Ron Howard!!!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQqcbrA35I/AAAAAAAABvM/ielBDBQ_83k/s1600-h/IMG_2366.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 227px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQqcbrA35I/AAAAAAAABvM/ielBDBQ_83k/s320/IMG_2366.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301909329274789778" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQquIYrDRI/AAAAAAAABvU/fxpzgnOjZ58/s1600-h/IMG_2377.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 225px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sYf3NMrzxQY/SZQquIYrDRI/AAAAAAAABvU/fxpzgnOjZ58/s320/IMG_2377.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301909633335233810" /></a><br /><br />How cool is that! Ayelet Zurer looked really pretty, Ron Howard was wearing a CERN hat, and I just got to see Tom Hanks!<br /><br />A bientôt!Stephanie Majewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217305699810121031noreply@blogger.com6