Scientists working at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will present talks on plans for the proposed Project X accelerator at Fermilab; the latest Higgs search results from the Tevatron collider experiments; and an update on the search for dark matter using a bubble chamber. The talks will take place Feb. 12-16 in Chicago at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Here are the details:
Friday, Feb. 13, at 10:30 a.m.: Beyond E=mc2
Project X is a proposed 700-meter-long high-intensity proton accelerator with a beam power of one megawatt at a beam energy of 8 billion electron volts (8 GeV). The accelerator would power the next generation of neutrino and rare decay experiments at Fermilab. This session will focus on the scientific goals of high-intensity accelerators, including Project X.
Saturday, Feb. 14, at 10:30 a.m.: Exciting experiments at Fermilab
Fermilab physicist Mike Crisler will talk about the Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics. COUPP has revived and updated the bubble chamber technology of the 1970s to search for dark matter particles. Dark matter comprises 83% of the mass of the universe. Scientists suspect that dark matter is made of particles not yet observed in any experiment. COUPP may become the first experiment to see the interaction of a dark matter particle with ordinary matter.
Sunday, Feb. 15, 1:30 p.m.: From the Tevatron to the Large Hadron Collider
The race to find the Higgs particle continues. In August 2008, the CDF and DZero collider experiments at Fermilab announced their first direct exclusion limits for the elusive Higgs particle. The particle explains why some elementary particles such as quarks have mass while others do not. Since August, the Tevatron collider has shattered numerous records, producing more proton-antiproton collisions than every before. Jacobo Konigsberg and Dmitri Denisov, co-spokespersons of the two collider experiments, will present the latest results of their experiments. The session will also feature talks by Lyn Evans, project leader of the Large Hadron Collider and named "Newsmaker of the Year" by Nature magazine; Marzio Nessi, project manager of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC; and Tejinder (Jim) Virdee, spokesperson of the CMS experiment at the LHC.
Monday, Feb. 16, 9:00 a.m.: Media availability: From the Tevatron to the LHC
Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab; Jacobo Konigsberg, CDF co-spokesperson; Dmitri Denisov, DZero co-spokesperson; Lyn Evans, LHC project leader; and Tejinder (Jim) Virdee, CMS spokesperson will answer questions from the media in the AAAS Newsroom at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
Monday, Feb. 16, 9:30 a.m.: From the Beginning to the End of the Universe
This session will show how research in the past decade has dramatically changed our view of the possible origin of our universe and its ultimate fate. Current research continues to shed light on these two cosmic questions. Scott Dodelson, Fermilab, will talk about gravitational waves.
Fermilab is a Department of Energy national laboratory operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and funds research across a broad range of disciplines.