Stephanie Majewski

A new rap from Alpinekat

2010-01-06T22:25:00.000+01:00

... on black holes! Brought to you by the famed rapper of the Large Hadron Rap, which now has over 5 million views on YouTube.

My favorite part is the end:

The last issue that I
feel the need to address
is this idea that CERN physicists
are wholly obsessed
with finding answers -- so much
that they'd gamble the planet,
their lives, friends, families
and all else that's on it.
They're all people!
And despite what you may fear
they've got reasons of their own
to want to keep the world here.

True dat. Happy new year everyone! Looking forward to more data-taking in February.

A bientôt!

Collisions and more Collisions!

2009-12-16T19:49:00.000+01:00

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...

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!

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 lot of data!

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...)

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!

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.

Happy Holidays to you and yours. I leave you with the LHC, signing off:

A bientôt!

Power cuts and Prospects

2009-12-03T16:50:00.002+01:00

There 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. The Register has a cool pic, so here it is:

Moving on...

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?

A bientôt!

Amazing LHC photos

2009-11-20T21:59:00.003+01:00

Just in time for the restart. See all of the images at The Big Picture, including some poignant shots of the damage from last year. Fingers and toes are crossed.

Here we go.

Splashizzle

2009-11-20T21:34:00.003+01:00

The excitement has returned

2009-11-20T21:12:00.003+01:00

I think the picture says it all. Circulating beam in the LHC.

0.32 nanoOhms!

2009-09-30T17:16:00.003+02:00

If read the title ala Doc Brown in Back to the Future, you'll have the right idea :)

The latest news from the LHC is very encouraging; the average resistance of the splices in Sector 1-2 is 0.32 nOhms. 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 remember from the incident last year, 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.

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":

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.

A bientôt!

Hawking Education

2009-09-11T11:33:00.004+02:00

On Wednesday afternoon, I had the privilege of seeing a lecture by Stephen Hawking on "The Creation of the Universe".

I was up in the cheap seats:

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 :)

I was expecting people to ask questions after, but alas none came. I guess when you're faced with asking him a question:

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, ugh, not the Hawking story... at least she isn't going on about Tom Hanks again ;)

A bientôt!

Origin of Mass

2009-08-31T16:34:00.003+02:00

One of the hottest topics surrounding the LHC is the Higgs boson. Probably in part because of its catchy name and in part because we give it a great responsibility -- it gives other particles mass.

Along these lines, here is great video highlighting the Higgs that was the winner of the ATLAS/CERN Multimedia Contest:

Nicely done, and a well-deserved winning video.

I'd also like to welcome any Cogito 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 interview/forum over that way, so head on over and check it out!

A bientôt!

New Countdown

2009-08-18T10:28:00.002+02:00

Sorry 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.

For the true groupies, a colleague pointed me to a great website:

http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/

that actually gives a brief status update on each of the sectors, along with a "Latest News" tidbit. It currently says:

Sector 78 being cooled down for powering
Sector 45 cool down started
Sector 12 being filled with liquid He
Cool-down of sector 6-7 started

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 road map.

Next, ENERGY! I'm sure by now you have heard that the LHC is going to come up at 7 TeV (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 magnanimous.

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...

...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.

A bientôt!

Back to School!

2009-06-17T16:53:00.021+02:00

For the past week and a half, I attended the 2009 CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School. 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 ;)

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 :)

Visualization of Supersymmetry (Giudice):

We live in the golden region, and would only see the "shadows" from the superspace.

Groove caused by an errant beam in the SPS beam pipe (Wenninger):

The SPS is the ring that accelerates protons up to 450 GeV before they are injected into the LHC.

A healthy busbar, unlike the one that caused the September 19th incident... (Wenninger):

String breaking (Antinori):

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.

Matter glacier (Servant):

Visible matter is the part of the glacier sticking out above the water, dark matter is hidden from view.

The ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker, lit up with a Sept 2008 splash event (Hoecker):

Do you see the Higgs? Ha ha, j/k.

The entire agenda is posted, including video! if you want to learn more.

A bientôt!

Along the Same Lines...

2009-06-01T14:45:00.003+02:00

Apparently Jorge and I are on the same page these days:

This is hilarious, but unfortunately physicists' comments would be way more verbose and argumentative...

A bientôt!

Spotted...

2009-05-26T18:28:00.003+02:00

Pop quiz: Life at CERN is (a) more exciting or (b) less exciting than an episode of Gossip Girl. Answer: it depends on the day.

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...

Spotted, little J. snoring during the LAr meeting.

Is B. leaving ATLAS for CMS?

This just in, N. and S., former collaborators, now collabafoes.

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 rumors website!

Spotted, John Oliver riding the magnet outside R1.

That permanent position at X lab/university? Sorry Lonely Boy, we heard it was offered to Chuck.

Not that I'm advocating a TV show be made about physicists at CERN ... it's not that exciting, and besides there's already one out there.

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 thrilled 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.

XOXO

The Last Little Blue Dipole

2009-04-24T15:02:00.010+02:00

Sounds like a great title for a children's book :) The newest CERN Bulletin is out, and of course the first thing I read is "The Latest from the LHC".

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 incident 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!

Ok, here's a little help by way of a translation of CERN's description:

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.

A bientôt!

Lunch with John Oliver

2009-04-08T13:40:00.005+02:00

Yes, you read that right. Just a normal day in the CERN cafeteria until we got to have lunch with our favorite Daily Show correspondent, John Oliver! Before you sputter in disbelief, here is the proof:

Adam, Me, John Oliver, Regina, and Jason

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:

(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.

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).

A bientôt!

Some bling for the universe?

2009-04-07T09:47:00.008+02:00

Looks like the night sky has some pretty sweet accessories---some sparkly gamma-ray bursts. This little movie from the NASA website 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 Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly known as Prince, oops, I mean GLAST). It nicely puts in the locations of a few familiar constellations and the path of the sun so you can get your bearings.

Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

Symmetry breaking has a nice article explaining that the bright flashes are blazars:

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.

and the dimmer but constant red dots are pulsars:

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.

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.

A bientôt!

Load up your crossbows

2009-04-03T10:31:00.002+02:00

I was wondering why the #4 Google Trend this morning was "Higgs excitation"...

I hope they'll be passing out crossbows in the CERN cafeteria today.

A bientôt!

Fermilab Celebrates April Fool's Day

2009-04-01T11:44:00.002+02:00

Just a quick post to make sure you check out Fermilab Today.

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":

Happy April Fool's Day!

A bientôt!

John Oliver on Science

2009-03-18T16:13:00.002+01:00

On the lighter side, I ♥ 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):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Stem Sell

Going to listen to some tunes on my magic song brick now :)

A bientôt!

Where the web was born

2009-03-13T17:26:00.004+01:00

Happy 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 (webcast) to celebrate.

(photo from mackz)

Here is a link to the CERN Press Release, and there's a nice article in SLAC Today with screenshots of the first SLAC webpages.

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.

A bientôt!

Shhh, it's a secret

2009-03-05T10:04:00.007+01:00

I came across a link to an old Cosmic Variance blog post from Julianne Dalcanton called "The Cult of Genius", and I was compelled to pass it on. Mostly because it so eloquently reveals physicists' biggest secret:

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.

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:

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.

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 bombarded by images like this:

(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)

A bientôt!

Chamonix Summary -- More about the September Incident

2009-03-04T11:30:00.010+01:00

Today I'll continue with some cool photos from the Chamonix summary (as I discussed last week).

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, half was dissipated in the arc that caused the damage:

(photo from slide 7 of the first summary talk). A typical surge protector in your house might be able to absorb and dissipate on the order of 1000 Joules of energy.

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:

And remember the how the soot in the beam pipe needed to be cleaned? Here's a before (left) and after (right):

and a photo of the "Q-tip" (ok, they call it a foam plug) they use to clean the beam pipe...

first dipped in alcohol, then dry.

If this is the kind of thing that floats your boat, you might want to check out the whole video of the Chamonix summary. Beware of the accelerator jargon ... here's some help (and for my own future reference; corrections welcome in the comments):

BIS = beam interlock system
DFB = electrical distribution box
MCI = maximum credible incident
MLI = multilayer insulation
MO = multipole
MPS = machine protection system
MQ = skew quadrupole
QPS = quench protection system
QRL = cryogenic pipeline
SEU = single event upset
SSS = short straight section

A bientôt!

Chamonix Summary -- Dipole Training

2009-02-25T10:33:00.004+01:00

I've been talking about the Chamonix workshop 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 ;)

Yesterday afternoon, we got a 3-hour summary of the workshop (agenda and slides), 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.

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 quenches. 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).

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.

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 nearly 1000 quenches to reach 7 TeV (design energy). 1000 quenches means training magnets for 2 months!

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...

A bientôt!

Latest details about the ongoing LHC repairs

2009-02-16T13:40:00.010+01:00

We'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.

For example, they had to take basically a giant Q-tip dipped in alcohol to clean the soot from the inside of nearly 2 miles 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 quench 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 red blocks that anchor the magnets to the concrete tunnel floor (see the CERN bulletin).

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:

(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.)

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 fashion week to keep me occupied ;)

A bientôt!

Tom Hanks at CERN!

2009-02-12T14:48:00.005+01:00

So, you may have seen in Symmetry Breaking that Entertainment Tonight is broadcasting from CERN, highlighting the upcoming movie release of Angels and Demons. I read the book (CERN has an FAQ page about it) and found it pretty entertaining, even though it's definitely fiction.

Well, we were at the CERN store after lunch today and noticed a large group of reporters gathering across the street at the Globe...

and guess who came out?! Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer, and Ron Howard!!!

How cool is that! Ayelet Zurer looked really pretty, Ron Howard was wearing a CERN hat, and I just got to see Tom Hanks!

A bientôt!

LHC Schedule, Part 2

2009-02-09T20:25:00.003+01:00

Hot off the presses, here's the promised update:

Expected beams in the LHC at the end of September, collisions late October. This is a 6-week delay compared to the previous schedule...

The cause of this delay is due to several factors such as implementation of a new enhanced protection system for the busbar and magnet splices, installation of new pressure relief valves to reduce the collateral damage in case of a repeat incident, application of more stringent safety constraints, and scheduling constraints associated with helium transfer and storage.

In Chamonix there was consensus among all the technical specialists that the new schedule is tight but realistic.

The new pressure relief valves will be installed in the 4 warmed-up sectors this year, and they will be installed in the cold sectors in 2010.

A bientôt!

LHC Schedule, Part 1

2009-02-09T17:16:00.002+01:00

As soon as DG Heuer (DG = Director General of CERN) got back from a workshop in Chamonix (see map) last week,

View Larger Map

he sent CERN users and staff an email along with a Press Release. The contents: a recommendation for running the LHC through the winter of 2009-10 all the way to autumn of 2010, at an energy of 10 TeV (compare this to the "design" energy of 14 TeV, and the proton-antiproton energy of 1.96 TeV at Fermilab's Tevatron). This should give the experiments enough data to get our physics on :)

At this workshop (which was mostly for the Accelerator division, as I understand it only a few representatives from the experiments were invited) they also discussed the cause of September 19th incident and what they've done to detect similar potential problem spots in the machine:

Among the topics discussed in Chamonix was the underlying cause of the incident that brought the LHC to a standstill on 19 September last year. The incident was traced to a faulty electrical connection between segments of the LHC's superconducting cable. Since the incident, enormous progress has been made in developing techniques to detect any small anomaly. These will be used in order to get a complete picture of the resistance in the splices of all magnets installed in the machine. This will allow improved early warning of any additional suspicious splices during operation. The early warning systems will be in place and fully tested before restarting the LHC.

Following the incident, a further two suspect connections have been identified. One of these has now been investigated, revealing that the splice between cables had not been correctly carried out. As a result the magnet containing the second will also be removed from the tunnel for repair. Since resistance tests can only be conducted in cold magnets, three of the LHC's eight sectors remain to be tested: sector 3-4 where the original incident occurred and the sectors on either side. Within sector 3-4, the 53 magnets that are being replaced in the tunnel will all be tested before cool down, and the sectors either side will be cooled down early enough to intervene if necessary with no impact on the schedule. This leaves around 100 dipole magnets that cannot be tested until September, and a correspondingly small chance that repairs may run into currently scheduled running time.

So there's the latest dish on the machine. The "Part 1" in the title of this post refers to the caveat that the schedule recommendation needs to be approved by CERN management in a meeting today. I'll post again when we get word on the decisions that were made in that meeting, which I hope will give us a more detailed restart schedule for this year.

A bientôt!

Super Bowling

2009-02-03T13:23:00.004+01:00

I guess I finally miss the US a bit. I don't think it was just a coincidence that this weekend turned into an homage to the US of A. So far, I've been really trying to embrace the pace, culture, and way of life in France/Switzerland. But you start to miss some things, like being able to stop by and pick up food on the way home without it turning into a 2-hour (and $$$) experience. And being able to pay $1 for a pitcher of beer while wearing rented shoes ... aka bowling ;) And watching football. So it's good to inject some bits of home here and there when you can...

On Friday we called and ordered Domino's pizza. Delivery wasn't possible to France, but we went and picked it up, saving 40% on delivery charges! It still wasn't cheap compared to Domino's in the US, but hey, we were in the mood to splurge. And later that evening, we went bowling! Granted there were no $1 (or even 1€) pitchers, but it felt like the real deal:

And on Sunday night we gathered with a bunch of other football fans to watch the Super Bowl at Pickwick's in Geneva, complete with Madden commentary (although no US commercials). The game started around midnight, and we didn't get home until 5am, but man am I glad we stayed until the end. What a game!

To finish it off with some physics, there was also an LHC update this weekend. It's pretty jargon-y, but the basic gist is that they can now identify the problem that caused the incident in September, and they found and are going to fix another magnet with the same problem (in Sector 6-7). They've also made more progress replacing the damaged magnets in Sector 3-4 (where the incident occurred).

A bientôt!

Geek Chic Boogie

2009-01-22T10:09:00.005+01:00

Everyone at CERN seemed to be glued to the footage of the Obama inauguration on Tuesday. It was covered fully on French TV, and I personally streamed it live from my laptop in my office. It seems like everyone is putting their own spin on how the Obama administration will affect them, so of course I had to point you all to an article in the NY Times science section called "In ‘Geek Chic’ and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science". How cool is that?! The article makes some interesting points:

In a new survey of 19,000 doctoral students at the University of California, Dr. Mason and her colleagues found that while two-thirds of the respondents either had or planned to have children, 84 percent of the women and 74 percent of the men expressed worry about the family-unfriendliness of their intended profession, and many had changed their plans accordingly.

It makes me wonder why scientists do this to themselves. If most men and women worry about the family-unfriendliness of scientific careers, why don't we do something to change it? People assume that this is a women's issue, but I would argue that in the modern family, it's a men's issue too. It seems to me that by improving the situation, we would not only attract more women to scientific careers, but also help retain men and make everyone happier. So I was pleased to read this part as well:

Dr. Mason and other legal experts suggest that President Obama might be able to change things significantly for young women in science — and young men — by signing an executive order that would provide added family leave and parental benefits to the recipients of federal grants, a huge pool of people that includes many research scientists.

The rest of the article talks about the importance of making 'Geek Chic', and I'm all for it! In a recent Google blog post about involving young girls in a robotics competition, a girl named Tal said that she originally thought technology was "just for geeks", but given the chance to tinker around, she got hooked. So thanks to Tal for doing her part to make geek chic. Between Tal and a scientist blogger named Dr. Isis who continually posts pictures of fabulous shoes, I'm convinced that Geek Chic will be the new trend :)

So put on your dancing shoes and get your boogie on (Nick, this one's for you!):

A bientôt!

"The latest from the LHC"

2009-01-16T11:04:00.003+01:00

I will just copy and paste from the CERN Bulletin ...

As promised by the Director-General, we will start a series of regular updates detailing the status of the LHC repairs, consolidation and commissioning.
As of last week all magnets in the damaged area of sector 3-4 have been removed and raised to the surface. In total 39 dipoles and 14 short straight sections are now on the surface. Four replacement magnets have been lowered and installed, and by the end of this week this figure should total seven. Cold testing replacement magnets in SM18 has resumed after the Christmas shutdown. The civil engineering work to repair the slight damage to the concrete has been completed. Outside the damaged area the Vacuum Group are cleaning some of the beam screens in situ.
Both sector 1-2 and sector 5-6 are also now at room temperature and accessible. As well as routine maintenance in these sectors, one magnet from sector 1-2 which was found to have high resistance (approximately 100 nano-ohms, two orders of magnitude higher than the specified resistance) has been removed and is on the surface ready to be opened and investigated.

Already, I am much happier about the information flow.

There is also a really cool set of photos documenting the transport of one of these magnets from the tunnel to the surface to be repaired. If you go to this CERN Document Server page and click on the first photo, you can see a nice slideshow. Sorry you only get a teaser pic here:

A bientôt!

Happy 2009!

2009-01-06T11:14:00.003+01:00

I hope you all had a nice break for the holidays. I went back to the US (I spent a week at BNL, and then went home to Chicago) and enjoyed some much-needed down time, and even managed to disconnect completely for a few days in there. I didn't manage to see everyone I wanted to, so sorry to the people I missed!

I'm back at CERN, and it's cold and snowy here. Perfect hot chocolate weather. There's a nice thick layer of ice on the streets and sidewalks, so it's rather treacherous, but it looks pretty. Here's the view from my office window:

So, we have a new year, a new CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer, and hopefully the first LHC collisions this summer*! (*caveat: this is my tempered optimism, and summer continues until Sept 22nd...)

A bientôt!

Scientists to Invade Washington in January

2008-12-20T17:21:00.002+01:00

This week, our president-elect announced his pick for science advisor (John Holdren). There's a nice article in Physics Today about Dr. Holdren. And, the president-elect's weekly address is all about science:

This is my favorite part:

"Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It is time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.

Right now, in labs, classrooms and companies across America, our leading minds are hard at work chasing the next big idea, on the cusp of breakthroughs that could revolutionize our lives. But history tells us that they cannot do it alone. From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier because we had leaders who paved the way: leaders like President Kennedy, who inspired us to push the boundaries of the known world and achieve the impossible; leaders who not only invested in our scientists, but who respected the integrity of the scientific process.

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work."

It makes me want to jump up and down saying "Yes, our president-elect gets it!".

He also appointed Harold Varmus and Eric Lander to his advisory council, and Jane Lubchenco to be the head of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). So along with Steve Chu, there are going to be a lot of smart sciencey-types in D.C. come January 20th. I'm (cautiously) thrilled!

A bientôt!

Obama's Energy Secretary

2008-12-11T00:19:00.002+01:00

A few news-worthy items have cropped up in the past couple days. The first is the official CERN press release confirming that the LHC will start up again in 2009 (phew!). I know a lot of people were relieved to hear that, because the rumors had been swirling. However, for some graduate students, it might be too late... I have heard of a few who can't wait. They are switching over to one of the experiments at Fermilab's Tevatron because their grad school clock is running out, and they need some actual data for their Ph.D. theses. It's rough though ... moving from X grad school to CERN and then to Fermilab (outside of Chicago) in the span of a few years takes its toll.

The second is the news reports naming President-Elect Obama's new Energy Secretary, current Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory director and Nobel laureate, Steven Chu. I think Energy Secretary is an amazingly difficult position right now, because not only do you have to deal with the major issue of oil and moving toward alternative fuels, you can't lose track of the Office of Science (the DOE Office of Science is the largest source of funding for basic scientific research in the U.S.). To me, this choice indicates a strong commitment to basic scientific research over the next four years... I hope!

It's also pretty exciting from a personal perspective, because merely 6 years ago I was sitting in Steve Chu's grad quantum mechanics class my first quarter at Stanford! (Actually, in December 2002 I was probably sweating it out over our last problem set and final exam...) So congratulations and good luck to him! He has a really tough job to do.

A bientôt!

Hard at work on repairs...

2008-12-01T16:58:00.003+01:00

A cool photo of someone hard at work on the first replacement magnet for sector 3-4 (the damaged sector).

A bientôt!

Photos of LHC Damage

2008-12-01T14:06:00.005+01:00

Finally, some photos of the damage to the LHC from the September 19th incident have been released. These are from a talk given by the CERN Director-General on Friday (agenda):

The first photo looks like a magnet that moved off of its mount (the red boxes) that secured it to the concrete floor. The second photo is of a region between two magnets that was crushed when the magnets moved after the helium was released. It's amazing to actually see a visual ... I have a lot of respect for the accelerator physicists and engineers who are working to not only fix the damaged components, but also to prevent this type of incident from occurring again.

I'd like to echo the sentiments of US/LHC Blogger Seth Zenz (who posted the link to Director Aymar's talk) ... thanks for the information and photos! Looking forward to the LHC being back online next year.

A bientôt!

Still Alive

2008-11-21T10:47:00.007+01:00

I realize it's been a while since I posted last! I've been busy, working hard and taking advantage of my proximity to some amazing cities ... I visited Paris and Vienna over the past two weekends :) You can be jealous now, because the crepes and strudel, respectively, were fantastic!

We got some news on the LHC over the past few days -- well, news from the press, not CERN, which I still think is a little backwards. According to various news sites (e.g., the Associated Press), the LHC won't come back online until June at the earliest. They also report that the repairs will cost $21 million, no small chunk of change. As winter is arriving, the days are getting shorter, and the date of first collisions gets farther away, it's a challenge to stay positive about our elusive goal: data!

However, we find small morsels of inspiration where we can. Today it's a photo from the LIFE Magazine archives. Taken in 1955, the photo is of Albert Einstein's messy desk at Princeton:

It definitely makes me feel better about my own messy desk :)

A bientôt!

Don't forget to Vote!!

2008-11-04T10:00:00.002+01:00

Go out and vote today! No excuses! All the cool kids are doing it ;) You can find out your polling place with the Google Voter Info Site. And bring a friend or co-worker along with you.

We'll be watching from here ... after work I'm heading to a sold-out all-night election party in Geneva. It seems like the whole world is watching the U.S. today, so make us proud!

A bientôt!

Acceptance

2008-10-27T16:49:00.003+01:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, my thesis was on an experiment called BaBar... as things go in particle physics, just because you're "done" with your previous job/experiment doesn't mean all of the loose ends are completely wrapped up. My loose end was a 15-page journal article on my thesis research, and I'm now happy to say that it was accepted to a journal called Physical Review D and will be published shortly:

Dear Dr. Majewski:

The manuscript "Measurements of B(B⁰ → Λ_c⁺ p) and B(B^- → Λ_c⁺ p π^-) and studies of Λ_c⁺π^- resonances" by Aubert, B. et al. is being accepted for publication in Physical Review D...

Sincerely,

Urs M. Heller
Associate Editor
Physical Review D

It's a little sad, because it marks the formal end of my time on BaBar, but it feels pretty good to have the paper finished and accepted. (Plus, even a year later it's still pretty cool to be addressed as "Dr. Majewski"...) Time to celebrate!

A bientôt!

Sticky tape

2008-10-24T10:31:00.012+02:00

The observant among you might notice that my monitor counter is gone. That's because it's here! 50 days and a 70 euro tax later..... (grumble, grumble).

However, a couple people emailed/pointed out this Nature article about how peeling sticky tape generates x-rays. Although it's not really related to the LHC, it's pretty cool, and they have a video! Here's the short version:

My attempt to embed the long version failed, so here's the link:
http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/x-rays/

The long version is a lot better!

A bientôt!

LHC Incident Report Released

2008-10-17T10:02:00.005+02:00

The report from the September 19th incident has been released by CERN (see my previous post on the LHC Delay). Here are links to the press release and to the full technical report. In case you're too lazy to click ;) I'll give you a brief version by quoting the "good" parts:

On 19 September 2008, during powering tests of the main dipole circuit in Sector 3-4 of the LHC, a fault occurred in the electrical bus connection in the region between a dipole and a quadrupole, resulting in mechanical damage and release of helium from the magnet cold mass into the tunnel. Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no-one was put at risk....

During the ramping-up of current in the main dipole circuit at the nominal rate of 10 A/s, a resistive zone developed leading in less than one second to a resistive voltage of 1 V at 9 kA. The power supply, unable to maintain the current ramp, tripped off and the energy discharge switch opened, inserting dump resistors into the circuit to produce a fast current decrease.... Within one second, an electrical arc developed, puncturing the helium enclosure and leading to a release of helium into the insulation vacuum of the cryostat.... The spring-loaded relief discs on the vacuum enclosure opened when the pressure exceeded atmospheric, thus releasing helium into the tunnel...

At the bottom of the press release, they define the term cold mass:

The magnets, equipped with their helium vessel and end covers, constitute the "cold masses".... The weight of the cold mass is transmitted to the vacuum enclosure via cold support posts and is further transmitted to the tunnel floor by adjustable support jacks, anchored in the concrete.

Here is an illustration of the electrical connection between the two magnets where the resistance developed:

The press release goes on to itemize the damage, which I've arranged into a list:

"contamination by soot-like dust which propagated over some distance in the beam pipes"

"damage to the multilayer insulation blankets of the cryostats" (the magnet "sleeves")

"the cryostats housing [the] quadrupoles broke their anchors in the concrete floor of the tunnel and were moved away from their original positions"

"the electric and fluid connections pull[ed] the dipole cold masses in the subsector from the cold internal supports inside their undisplaced cryostats"

"the displacement of the quadrupoles cryostats damaged "jumper" connections to the cryogenic distribution line, but without rupturing its insulation vacuum"

The bottom line is that "at most 5 quadrupoles and 24 dipoles" [magnets] need to be fixed, and they need to be brought out of the tunnel and up to the surface for that to happen. They also say that more magnets might need to be cleaned (from that "soot-like dust") and get new "multilayer insulation" (new "sleeves"); these might need to come up to the surface, or they are considering trying to clean the magnets in place in the tunnel. The good news is that "Spare magnets and spare components appear to be available in adequate types and sufficient quantities to allow replacement of the damaged ones..." So let's be optimistic that everything will be fixed in time to start up again next spring!

A bientôt!

The Candidates talk about Women in Science

2008-10-16T16:37:00.007+02:00

So, since I'm a chick, and a physicist, the whole "women in science" issue is important to me. Basically, I think we need more of them :) And recently I have been consumed by election fever (watching the debates, filling out my foreign absentee ballot), as I'm sure many of you have been. So I thought it was particularly interesting that over the summer, the Association for Women in Science asked each candidate a bunch of questions about women in science ... and, this week the candidates responded (which I thought was amazing, frankly). Here's an excerpt from the full questions and responses:

In a September 2006 report, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, the National Academies stated that, in order to maintain scientific and engineering leadership amid increasing economic and educational globalization, the United States must aggressively pursue the innovative capacity of all people, regardless of sex. Although women make up almost half of the U.S. workforce, they continue to be underrepresented in STEM professions, particularly in the higher academic faculty ranks and leadership positions. As President of the United States, how do you plan to address the need for more women in STEM?

Sen. Barack Obama:

Joe Biden and I agree with the conclusion of the National Academies’ Bias and Barriers report that the United States must aggressively pursue the innovative capacity of all people. In a globalized world, our prosperity and national security depend on our ability to lead the world in innovation. Other nations are now challenging that leadership, and in responding we must call upon talent and creativity of all of our people. We will need to significantly increase our STEM workforce, and to do that we will need to engage not just women and minorities but also persons with disabilities, English language learners, and students from low income families.

Women are significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce, and especially in the leadership positions in research and academia. We need women in leadership roles both for their contribution and for the message of encouragement and opportunity that their presence sends to our daughters. We support a range of proactive measures that will open opportunities in science to women, such as requiring minority and female representation on government panels developing innovation and competitiveness strategies, and establishing mentoring programs to support women and underrepresented groups in STEM education programs - two measures that I helped pass as part of the America COMPETES Act. We also support improved educational opportunities for all students, increased responsibilities and accountability for those receiving federal research funding, equitable enforcement of existing laws such as Title IX, continuation and strengthening of programs aimed at broader engagement in the STEM disciplines, full funding for the America COMPETES Act, and increased funding for the National Institutes of Health.

Sen. John McCain:

I am committed to ensuring a diverse workforce. Discrimination on the basis of sex is abhorrent, and my administration will vigorously enforce federal anti-discrimination laws. All people should have the opportunity to reach their potential based on merit and hard work.

It is also important that we strengthen our public education system’s focus on math, science, and engineering to spark children’s interest in those important fields. That is why I have proposed a dramatic overhaul of Title II of No Child Left Behind to provide funding for incentive bonuses for teachers who choose to teach those subjects. I also support providing funding for low-income students to hire tutors and for local districts to expand online educational opportunities—initiatives that will ensure that learning continues outside of the classroom.

Happy voting, everyone! (I'm mailing in my ballot tomorrow.)

A bientôt!

All Quiet

2008-10-14T13:09:00.005+02:00

It's been a while since I've posted last, and I guess that's mostly because things have quieted down quite a bit. Physics is kind of same-o, same-o. I've finally settled into a bit of a routine, getting used to not having a car (and successfully getting a monthly bus pass), appropriately caffeinating myself throughout the day (too many cups of strong European coffee makes you feel all jittery and unstable...), and figuring out when on earth to get groceries. Actually, I'm still not used to that part yet ... grocery stores here are only open until 7:30pm (for the close one) or 9pm (for the farther one) during the week, all day on Saturday, and they are mostly closed on Sunday. None of this 24-hour, get it whenever you want it culture. I did finally find a small store that's open on Sunday for those emergency purchases. I guess Sunday is really supposed to be a chill day, so this past one we tried to embrace that by cramming a gaggle of physicists into our living room for brunch... almost 3 loaves of brioche later, we successfully stuffed ourselves with "french toast", mimosas, and good conversation. Even the french toast was a challenge, because we had to trek all the way to Geneva to the American Market for brown sugar (and splurged on some authentic Mrs. Butterworth).

My biggest outstanding complaint is that my own personal 2-year-old computer monitor that I shipped to myself on September 4th still hasn't arrived. Apparently it's been in French Customs since September 10th! From various google searches, this sort of delay is completely normal, and they'll probably eventually send me a letter asking for so many € to claim it. So I thought I'd start a little counter on the left to keep track of how long it's been since I mailed it... at this point, it's so ridiculous it's humorous.

A bientôt!

New digs

2008-10-02T10:04:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was moving day, so after some heavy lifting I am finally moved in to my new apartment. It's a fully-furnished 2-bedroom in France, about a block from a bus stop so I will continue to take the bus to and from work. (I also have a CERN bike that I can use, but so far laziness has won in the mornings...) It's a lovely fall day today, and the Cubs are in the playoffs, so life is good.

It's been pretty quiet here at CERN. The lawsuit against the LHC was thrown out of court, previously scheduled meetings are continuing (even though they don't seem quite as urgent without beams), and it seems like everyone has settled back into their routines.

On the funding front, Congress has passed a continuing resolution until March of 2009, which means that the funding levels for science stay at the same level as FY08 (FY=fiscal year, which starts on October 1 ... we're now in FY09). These continuing resolutions are always tough because we don't even get a 3% boost to compensate for inflation. But the funding agencies and national labs weren't surprised; this is an election year, after all, so no one expected a new budget until we have a new president. In my opinion, this yearly budget thing seems pretty antiquated, and doesn't really work for science because it doesn't provide the funding continuity needed for long-term projects. Of course, I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the support we get from Congress, but it feels like they never pass the budget by October 1 anyway.... check out this plot from the Dept of Energy Office of Science website of how "on time" Congress has been with the budget over the past 30 years (green is early, red is late):

The past 8 years are kind of appalling if you ask me. Can you imagine paying your rent or your mortgage 150 days late?

A bientôt!

P.S. If you find this science funding/policy stuff interesting, you can subscribe to the American Institute of Physics FYI updates.

Bye Bye WaMu

2008-09-26T09:27:00.002+02:00

Now I'm really wishing that we had LHC collisions this week to distract ourselves with... unfortunately, all eyes are on the U.S. economy. The latest shoe to drop is Washington Mutual, which just happens to be my bank! I'd been meaning to uh ... switch banks anyway ... right? Looks like JP Morgan Chase has us covered, for the time being at least. It's pretty surreal to be abroad during such a volatile time. Well, I hope Stephen Colbert suspending his show gives the economy the boost it needs. In case you need a laugh:

A bientôt!

P.S. On a personal note, Aunt Helen, I hope your surgery goes smoothly today. My thoughts are with you.

LHC Delay

2008-09-24T17:45:00.003+02:00

So, by now, I'm sure you've read about the LHC delay until April 2009 (if not, read the official press release, and then come back). Don't worry, we have plenty to work on until then! I was bummed at first, but I'm sure this will make first collisions even sweeter!

While they're trying to make the tunnel safe and warm up the magnet enough for the engineers to get in there and really assess the damage, I thought I would remind you all what we're dealing with:

These magnets are HUGE! And really complicated. And really cold (because they have to be superconducting...). I found a nice explanation:

To harness the powerful beams of protons and steer them around the ring, scientists have to create strong magnetic fields. This requires superconducting electromagnets, whose wire coils can carry large electric currents with virtually no resistance. For the wire to become superconducting, the magnets must be kept very cold—in this case at a temperature of -271 degrees Celsius, close to absolute zero.

And the meaningful part for me is that although other accelerators (like the Tevatron at Fermilab) have used superconducting magnets before, the LHC magnets are really pushing the current limits of technology. Plus, each magnet stores a lot of energy. What happened last Friday was a quench. That means that the magnet all of a sudden was no longer superconducting, so it released a lot of energy.

When a quench begins, the beams are shut down and power to the affected magnet is immediately cut. Then heaters fire up, quickly raising the temperature of the whole 14.3-meter-long, 35-ton magnet and dissipating the energy.

Usually, this procedure should mitigate the damage. But something went wrong this time (according to the press release, possibly a bad electrical connection), and caused a lot of cold Helium gas to fill the tunnel. No one was hurt, because no one is allowed in the tunnels when the machine is running (there are lots of strict safety procedures), but any sort of damage to the accelerator pieces in that sector needs to be fixed before we can start running again.

On a positive note, one journalist (Lewis Page, of the Register) jokes that the last time physicists at CERN had some downtime, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web :)

A bientôt!

One week at CERN

2008-09-17T14:43:00.003+02:00

I can hardly believe I've been here only one week (well, 8 days really). My days have been completely packed with work and paperwork. Plus, the wrench thrown in it all was that the apartment in Meyrin that I had arranged mysteriously fell through. The reason the lady gave me was:

I had to return a favor that I was given some time ago. So is life. Sorry.

So last Friday I started scrambling for a new apartment... these things go fast, so I went to see a couple apartments on Saturday during the day, and then Saturday night I called one of the landlords to tell him I wanted that apartment. We signed the lease and put down the security deposit yesterday. It's been a hectic few days! But I am comforted by the fact that I will have a place to live on October 1st and will no longer have to sleep on my very nice friend's futon (thanks Bryan!). The apartment is really cute too, fully-furnished (which is key for someone without any furniture) with a washing machine and dishwasher, and close to a bus stop in France. Although living in France is a bit quieter and more remote than Switzerland, I did not want spend 6 weeks looking for a non-existent Swiss apartment! It's super difficult to find something on the Swiss side, especially now since it seems like everyone wants to be here for the excitement.

I also got a sim card today... if, hypothetically, one were to unlock an iPhone (after perfectly legally cancelling a contract with AT&T), one should be able to put in a prepaid sim card from a European carrier and it should work... for the curious, I will let you know how this hypothetical situation pans out ;)

And, amidst dealing with foreign bureaucracy and cell phones, I'm actually trying to get some work done! I have spent my working hours battling ATLAS software and python (the programming language, not the snake), but that's kind of dull. So to inject some physics (and since I've been asked by almost everyone I know) I'll leave you with another very nice explanation of why mini black holes won't destroy the earth. The American Institute of Physics puts out a very nice News Update that you can subscribe to. For all of you physics fanboys, the articles are pretty accessible and cover more than just particle physics.

This particular article, called "Mini Black Holes No Danger", is dated September 9th, but it kind of got lost in all of the sensational "first beam" coverage. Here's an excerpt:

When the protons collide with each other inside the machine, one thing that scientists are certain won’t happen is the production of miniature black holes that gobble up nearby matter. A new study shows that the continuing existence of old stars in the sky is evidence that small black holes can’t swallow the Earth...

The article goes on to explain why, in a very clear and pedagogical way.

A bientôt!

At Point 1

2008-09-10T16:03:00.004+02:00

I'm currently at Point 1, in the buildings above the ATLAS detector.
I'm here for the video link to Brookhaven, which will happen in ~1/2
hour, so we're drinking coffee in the mean time. We're in the "Media
Room," one floor up from the ATLAS control room. We peeked into the
control room before coming up, and it was very crowded with ATLAS
physicists, including some friendly faces from my previous experiment,
BaBar. Today especially it seems like the world is a very small place,
with all of the attention focused here, at CERN.

Here's a photo of the ATLAS control room when I was there:

The video link with Brookhaven went well ... hard to imagine that they were just waking up when I'd been glued to the webcast for 7 hours already ;) Here are photos from the Brookhaven media day, taken by Peter Steinberg:

If you look closely you can see me on one of the screens!

A bientôt!

Protons in the LHC

2008-09-10T15:22:00.003+02:00

Here is a photo that I took with my phone of a TV in Building 40, at CERN:

I also wanted to capture the Google homepage today:

CCW direction complete!

2008-09-10T15:02:00.002+02:00

Wow, the LHC control room is packed. I'm still following the
webcast ... And now the counterclockwise beam, Beam 2, has made it
through the entire ring! Now both beams have completely circulated
through the entire 27-kilometer ring. This is a great achievement.
Congrats to all of the LHC engineers and accelerator physicists!

Around 4:30pm CERN time I'll be in the ATLAS control room to connect to
Brookhaven and celebrate with them for their media day. I'm thrilled
we have something to celebrate!

A bientôt!

(P.S. sorry about the messiness... I'm posting from my iPhone in the
CERN auditorium)

Beam 2 to Point 1!

2008-09-10T14:51:00.001+02:00

Beam 2 Update

2008-09-10T14:50:00.002+02:00

Beam 2 to Point 2! Almost all the way around the other direction... I hope we get to ATLAS again from the other way :)

LHC Beam 2

2008-09-10T12:23:00.008+02:00

It seems like the LHC is ready to try out Beam 2. Earlier this morning, we saw Beam 1, which goes in a clockwise direction. Beam 2 will go in a counterclockwise direction.

12:30pm: The first step is to inject the second proton beam, also at an energy of 450 GeV, into the LHC at Point 8 to LHCb.

12:32pm: A cryogenics problem in Sector 81 has delayed the injection of Beam 2. This means that there is a problem with the cooling of these large superconducting magnets. We might be done for today, unless they fix it quickly.

12:34pm: Cameras focus on the cryogenics workstation, with several people staring worriedly at the screens. I feel bad for those guys! Can you imagine cameras focused on you as you're trying to debug a problem? Lots of pressure on them right now.

12:35pm: I'm heading to lunch! I'll check back later to see if the cryogenics situation has improved.

2:35pm: Sorry for the break ... Lunch and then getting a bus card. As I walk into the CERN auditorium, the beam is at Point 5 and they are giving CMS a few events.

2:40pm: Beam 2 to Point 3! The counterclockwise beam has made it through CMS and around 2 more sectors to Point 3.

First beam seen by ATLAS

2008-09-10T11:17:00.004+02:00

I also wanted to share the first beam events seen by ATLAS:

(It's really just the beam smashing into the collimator just before the detector.)

The circular views are cross-sections of the ATLAS detector (so the beam is coming into/out of the page). Green indicates splashes of energy in the calorimeter (calorimeter = energy detector; think high school chemistry class with a styrofoam cup). In the second picture, the red dots are where muons crossed the muon detectors ("hits").

And, for a laugh:

A bientôt!

LHC Ready for Beam 1

2008-09-10T09:11:00.021+02:00

I'm sitting in a conference room in Building 40 at CERN, watching the live webcast.

Here's the news so far:

Beam 1 will enter at Point 2 and start out going clockwise. They will do a few shorter tests, stopping the beam with collimators at various points and running tests before sending it all the way around. The picture shows the ring layout for reference.

9:26am: They are taking a short break to get ready. The conference room has filled up now, and we are enjoying the commentary. There's definitely a buzz, even as we laugh at some of the sillier comments...

9:34am: Lyn Evans gives the ok to inject from Point 2 to Point 3... this proton beam will be at 450 GeV. And there's the flash of the beam! It's about to be injected.

9:38am: They have removed the block at Point 2 and are about to send the beam through Sector 23. Success! The beam has gone 3 kilometers through the sector.

9:43am: The next step is to send the beam through 2 more Sectors to Point 5, where it will be stopped by a collimator just before CMS.

9:45am: We should be able to see the beam pass Point 4 on its way to Point 5... false alarm on the first cycle ... and now they see it pass Point 4. At this point the beam has gone 1o kilometers.

9:47am: Everyone chuckles as the commentator is corrected ... CMS is the 2nd-biggest detector, not the biggest ;)

9:55am: The next step is for the beam to pass through CMS to the beam dump just past Point 6. We're watching the screen showing just before the beam dump, waiting to see the beam make it through Sector 56. Ok, it made it to Point 6. The beam dump is the small straight section sticking out past Point 6 on the picture.

10:00am: Lyn Evans estimates that they'll take the beam the rest of the way around within the hour.

10:02am: They've dumped the beam now.

10:06am: The beam has been taken to Point 7. The next step is through Sector 78 to Point 8, which is where the LHCb experiment is located.

10:12am: The coverage is not so great at the moment ... we saw them clapping, but the commentators are sort of clueless right now ... clarification now... The beam made it to Point 8. There were some problems with the cryogenics in Sector 78 yesterday, so this was a big deal.

10:18am: The next step is through Sector 81. The beam made it to Point 1! It's just before ATLAS.

10:23am: The final leg is through ATLAS and Sector 12, at which point the beam will have traversed the entire ring. We're looking for 2 spots on the screen...

10:25am: There it is! The beam has gone all the way around ... applause on screen and in the conference room here. They are attempting a full turn (straight through) now.

They've declared success and people are dispersing now.

A bientôt!

Leaving!

2008-09-08T18:14:00.003+02:00

Bye! I'm off. My plane leaves shortly, so this has to be quick. The LHC is all over the news (MSNBC). It's great to see that everyone is as excited as I am!

A quick plug ... there will be a show on the History channel tomorrow night at 8pm Eastern called The Next Big Bang. Here's the description:

"After 40 years of planning and construction, the biggest science experiment in history is ready to be tested. The "Large Hadron Collider" is an experiment created by the greatest minds in physics. It cost $10 billion and its resulting data has the potential to explain why we and the Universe exist. Their idea is to smash protons towards one another at the speed of light, trying to mimic what happened in the milliseconds after The Big Bang. Viewers will go on an amazing journey involving the struggles to plan and build the LHC, how it was constructed and what are its mechanics. Explore the future of what's possible through the geniuses of today."

And finally, the first single beam test will occur this Wednesday at CERN (between 9 and 10 am European time). Take note that this doesn't mean the protons are colliding, it's just the first time a single proton beam will go all the way around the ring. Fermilab's having a pajama party to celebrate, and Brookhaven is having a media day. There will also be a live webcast from CERN. Enjoy the festivities!

My next post will be from CERN!!

A bientôt!

P.S. No time for Twitter yet, sorry guys... I'll definitely up the blogging frequency though.

Quick update

2008-09-05T17:12:00.002+02:00

Today is my last day at the lab before leaving for CERN, so of course there are still many things to do. But I thought I'd share a small morsel to tide you over ... I was interviewed by a reporter from Scientific American, and the article was published online yesterday! You can find it here:

How U.S. Researchers Are Making the Switch to the Large Hadron Collider

I'll look into starting a Twitter account this weekend... I'm sure I'll have to get used to updating my status all of the time, but I've been wanting to try it out. Thanks for the suggestion :)

A bientôt!

Kind of like rolling downhill

2008-09-02T17:55:00.008+02:00

I'm leaving in less than a week! So many things have happened in the past week that I can barely describe them all. But here's what's been going on with me, in no particular order:

The U.S. banking system is not set up for international transactions. At least not for the everyday consumer. International wire transfers can only be initiated from the U.S., in person, at a branch, which doesn't really help if you are elsewhere. And moving any sort of large sum of money, even for perfectly legitimate expenses like a 2-month security deposit on an apartment, is very difficult to do quickly unless you are content to carry cash.
The good old USPS is the cheapest way to mail your stuff abroad, although they don't have any sort of "ground" (=boat) shipping. There is a neat trick for books: m-bags are the equivalent of domestic media mail for shipping copyrighted material internationally to a single address (see photo).
My teeth are pretty sensitive and take a while to heal. I finally got around to testing out my fancy postdoc dental plan this summer (in grad school we had no real dental plan) because I wasn't sure about the European dental system... anyway, several fillings later, my teeth are finally back to normal. Now to kick that Diet Coke habit...
Finding an apartment abroad while you're still here is tough. But I'm happy to report that it can be done, especially if you have friends over there to go take a look at it for you... I will be sharing an apartment in Switzerland with a very nice grad student from Stony Brook who also happens to be heading to CERN for the year. Assuming the security deposit part goes ok (see #1), we'll move in mid-October. I'll post pics later!
Moving is hard, and furniture is heavy. I think we tend to block out how stressful and tough it really is because we're so relieved when it's over. Also, storage units are small. Consequently, the VVA on Long Island are picking up a very large donation today, and some local grad students are taking a bunch of furniture tomorrow afternoon. It's a bit traumatic for me to get rid of so much stuff, especially the huge bookshelf that I built myself when I first started grad school and the office chair that I sat in to write much of my Ph.D. thesis, but it's easier to let go knowing that someone will put it to good use.

Ok, that's all for now ... if this post seems haphazard, that's great, because that describes my past week perfectly. Speeding toward the finish line now ... 6 days until I leave for CERN.

A bientôt!

P.S. In case you haven't seen the LHC rap... the YouTube video has really caught on! (As of this post, over 700,000 views!) The "rapper" is Katie McAlpine, who is a journalist and works for ATLAS. It's quite entertaining (and accurate):

It's starting to sink in now

2008-08-26T20:43:00.003+02:00

I just got a phone call from the French consulate in New York saying that my visa has been approved! In order to spend a year at CERN, you need a French and a Swiss visa. I got my Swiss visa pretty painlessly, but it's a long process for the French visa ...

First you need an invitation letter from CERN where they "invite" you to come to work there (for a year, in my case). I requested it at the beginning of June. CERN sent that letter to the French, who then forwarded it to their consulate in New York. The consulate then sent me a letter in mid-July (6 weeks later!) asking me to come to Manhattan to apply for the visa in person. Luckily, I had already made an appointment at the consulate and showed up on July 21st to submit my application. That was an experience in itself. They are very strict -- you can only show up for your appointment time, and if you are late or don't have an appointment, forget about it. The French consulate visa section is in a swanky neighborhood on the upper East side near Central Park, and as I stood in line to go in I realized that I was surrounded by college-age girls wanting to study abroad for fall semester. The passerby were quite amusing, because they scrutinized the line curiously, wondering why we were lined up at noon on 74th street in 90-degree weather... I half-expected them to jump in line too! They looked disappointed as they read the sign on the building and saw that we weren't getting concert tickets -- just a visa to live in France.

Once I got in the building I waited for ~45 minutes to see the cashier and be fingerprinted. The nice thing about other countries is that a scientist visa is usally free! Then I waited another 90 minutes to be called up to a window, where they ask you such questions as "Do you know any French?". I nervously replied "un peu, but I am learning" and they said they would call me in 2-3 weeks. Over a month later, I finally received my reply! I still need to go back to the consulate so they can physically stick the visa in my passport, but this definitely makes it seem like I'm on the home stretch. 2 weeks to go!

A bientôt!

On vacation this week!

2008-08-18T17:04:00.004+02:00

♪ California Love ♫ (that's a reference to the 2Pac song) I'm in California this week on vacation and to see my grad-school friends Ann and Tommer get married next weekend. I went to graduate school at Stanford University, where I spent five lovely years working very hard and being spoiled by the daily 70-degree weather and sunshine. My Ph.D. thesis was on the BaBar experiment at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). SLAC has a 2-kilometer long accelerator; at the end of it we smashed electrons and anti-electrons (called positrons) together for the BaBar experiment (yes, BaBar like the elephant!). The electrons had an energy of 9 billion electron volts, and the positrons had an energy of 3 billion electron volts. This may seem like a lot of energy, but it's small potatoes compared to the Large Hadron Collider, which is all about colliding protons at 14 trillion electron volts. There's a big difference between smashing point particles like electrons together versus smashing protons together. Protons are a lot messier, since each one has 3 quarks and and even the "glue" holding them together gets involved. The LHC is also a lot bigger -- in my last entry I mentioned that the accelerator physicists injected a proton beam into one section of the LHC. Well, for that small test the beam traveled 3 kilometers -- longer than the entire length of the SLAC accelerator! That's enough physics for the moment... this week I get a reprieve from thinking too hard. The plan today is to go to the beach ☺

A bientôt!

29 Days and Counting...

2008-08-11T04:41:00.007+02:00

You might think I'd be counting down to the date the first proton beams will circulate through the Large Hadron Collider (expected September 10th), or perhaps I should be counting down to the first proton-proton collisions (expected sometime after September 10th...). Bringing up the LHC will be a gradual process, since it's an amazingly complicated machine, and consequently there will be many exciting firsts over the next few months. But I'm counting down to a personal milestone on September 8th -- the date I get on an airplane and move to CERN for a year.

For those of you who don't know, CERN is located near Geneva, Switzerland and is very close to the French border. I'm super excited about moving there and getting to be at the center of the action for the LHC and the ATLAS experiment. But, I'm a bit nervous too. For a girl from the Midwest (go Cubs!), moving to Europe is a big deal. I have a very long to-do list for my move, and it seems like every time I cross something off I add two more items in its place. There are a ton of decisions to make (do I cancel my iPhone plan? should I sell my car? where should I have my November absentee ballot mailed? how many pairs of shoes do I really need to bring?). I hunted around and collected some photos for inspiration (see left) that I stuck at the top of my ever-growing to-do list ... it's a nice way to keep me focused on the goal when it's so easy to be paralyzed by the details.

In the wake of the Olympic opening ceremonies, the LHC opening ceremonies are just beginning (the first protons were injected today). Since watching physicists in front of their computer screens isn't quite as exciting as the men's 4x100 freestyle relay, the TV coverage at CERN will be limited ;) But I hope that over the next year this blog will be a nice informal way for those of you in the states to keep in touch with what's going on at the LHC and ATLAS.

A bientôt!