Tevatron still kicking proton/antiproton butt!

I thought I would share this post from the Tevatron's Facebook page (can be found here).
Just in the last week we had 6 of the top 10 initial luminosity stores from the Tevatron and the accelerator delivered 78 pb-1 of data in just the last week!
This is really an amazing accomplishment for this accelerator and with this rate of data delivery we can be sure that both experiments that operate on the Main Ring (CDF and D0) will have lots of data to analyze before the planned shutdown in September.
For those of you that don't exactly know what these numbers mean, this is just a simple way of measuring the amount of interactions (or collisions) that we will get during the operation of the accelerator. The higher the luminosity, the greater chance that the collisions will occur and the more interesting data we have to record. What is truly amazing is after 25 years of operations the Tevatron is performing like never before and delivering data and unprecedented rates! This means that there is a greater chance of catching a glimpse at rare processes in physics that may be buried in our data.
Even more clear explanations and updated numbers for the Tevatron can be found here:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/now/tevlum.html
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/now/tevlumexp.html

Support your Schools

Very simple, this came across my Facebook news feed  and I think it speaks volumes to the problem with the way education is viewed in the United States.

Quote from the photo:
"School elections and levies today in Helena- this picture was taken by a good friend and school librarian here in Helena. She couldn't help herself, had to go back and add the correction sign under the vote no sign. Poor funding really does have a long term result!"

Important Reults coming from XENON100

In an article titled Dark Matter Results from 100 Live Days of XENON100 Data the XENON collaboration reports some of the most stringent restrictions on direct dark matter searches to date.

You can find the article here on the arXiv.

With only 3 candidate events on a background of ~2.4 this puts strict restrictions on the available parameter space for WIMP dark matter candidates.

Just eking out their CDMS rivals their results spell trouble for many SUSY models that predict Lightest Stable Particles (LSP's) of low mass range to make up the world of dark matter we observe from astronomy.

Any way you take it, science is honing in on what dark matter "could" be by excluding where it isn't!

Explanation of hints at new physics from CDF

There is a good summary article in the New York Times (see link here) that talks about the exciting new physics that will be reported today from CDF (Collider Detection at Fermilab).

I spoke about this in my previous blog post (see link here) and the talk is being given today at Fermilab.

The basic summary, "If it is real, than it is really exciting!" says it best.

Imporant new result from CDF

So there is a really exciting Wine and Cheese Seminar scheduled for Wednesday April 6th at Fermilab to talk about an exciting result being reported in the "W+2 Jet " channel.

You will be able to find the talk here: http://theory.fnal.gov/jetp/

IF streaming video is available for this talk you will find it here: http://vms-db-srv.fnal.gov/fmi/xsl/VMS_Site_2/000Return/video/r_live.xsl


For those of you on the fringe of particle physics this will be talk about a new result from the collaboration about production of a fundamental particle known as a W boson. This particle is one of the fundamental messenger particles in the Standard Model. A "Jet" is just a deposit of energy found in our detector coming from the collision.

What is exciting about this somehow boring sounding title is that there could be evidence for all kind of interesting things when looking at what is thought to be "well understood".

No matter how you look at it, this result was important enough to schedule a special seminar...so lots of eyes in the physics world will be looking at it

TED Talk "Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war "

A good friend of mine recently posted this talk on his Facebook feed and I simply found the power of looking at the data brought to bear by this group of physicists on the complex problem of war and insurgency strategy really fascinating.

I would say the graph shown at the end where he plots "alpha" over time for the Iraq War the proverbial "punchline" to the true power of showing that what they have modeled here has some actual real world value.

Recontres de Morinond

I thought I would share a good link to find all the current talks being given in the particle physics world from the conference Recontres de Moriond.

The link to the talks is here

As said on the website the purpose of this conference is:

The purpose of the Rencontres de Moriond is to discuss recent findings and new ideas in physics in a pleasant, relaxed and convivial atmosphere. The meeting is intended to promote fruitful collaboration between various communities and institutes by bringing together a small number of scientists in inspiring surroundings.

Of course being in the Italian alps helps the relaxing and convivial atmosphere, I am sure. 

While I'm not personally giving any talks at this conference many people I know are and you can expect some big name talks coming from the Tevatron.