Solving for X
A proposed new accelerator complex at Fermilab would open up the Intensity Frontier of particle physics.
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Editorial:
Reflections at 50On the occasion of our 50th issue, we recall how a little girl and a stuffed bear helped set the course for symmetry.
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Department:
Signal to BackgroundWalking a mile for a piece of the LSST; brewing Atom Smasher beer; building a detector one Lego at a time; playing a particle card game; recycling BaBar; correction.
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Department:
symmetrybreakingA summary of recent stories published online in symmetrybreaking, www.symmetrymagazine.org/blog/october2011
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Feature:
A Physicist in the Cancer LabNicole Ackerman thought she would always be a particle physicist—until a newfound interest in biology drew her toward medical imaging. Her research on Cherenkov radiation, the blue glow from charged particles outracing light, could aid development of cancer treatments.
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Feature:
Now Playing: Reality. In 3DCould your life be a 3D movie? A new Fermilab experiment aims to put on the special glasses and find out.
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Gallery:
NOνA ConstructionNeutrino science meets Minnesota wilderness.
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Deconstruction:
Neutrino ExperimentsNeutrinos zip straight through the Earth, while rarely leaving a trace. Yet these particles may hold answers to many of the key questions of 21st century particle physics. Around the world, scientists are creating an array of increasingly sophisticated neutrino experiments to find these answers.
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Accelerator Apps:
Ink CuringNext time you pour yourself a bowl of Cheerios, thank the particle accelerator that brought you the bright yellow box. A growing number of printing companies are using innovative accelerator technology to print the cereal boxes that grace the breakfast table.
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Logbook:
Cyclotron PatentIn the spring of 1929, when the young Ernest O. Lawrence came across diagrams of Rolf Widerøe’s staged linear accelerator, he recognized that the design suggested the repeated delivery of energy to particles using low voltage. Later, he decided to bend Widerøe’s staged linear accelerator into a ring—the first cyclotron.
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Explain it in 60 Seconds:
SymmetrySymmetry is an expression of exact correspondence between things. In everyday life, it shows itself in the cycle of the seasons and the tones and chords of songs. Scientists use symmetry to explain and predict the properties of molecules, atoms, and the universe’s fundamental particles and forces.
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As symmetry celebrates its 50th issue, big changes are afoot at Fermilab. The lab’s Tevatron Collider, once the most powerful particle collider in the world, is shutting down, and a new project is on the horizon: Project X. This proposed $1.8 billion accelerator complex would keep Fermilab at the forefront of high-energy physics, this time at the Intensity Frontier—a realm in which scientists bring incredible numbers of particles into collision to search for extremely rare processes with a big physics impact. It’s exactly the kind of place where discoveries may lie. See “Solving for X”. Photo illustrations: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab and Sandbox Studio
Cargo Scanning
Aug 2010
A growing number of ports and border crossings are turning to high-energy X-rays generated by particle accelerators to keep cargo safe and block contraband from entering the country...
Dark Energy
Oct/Nov 2007
In fall 1997, the High-z Supernova Search Team calculated the mass of the universe and discovered that the universe was expanding faster and faster. How could that be?
Z boson
Aug 2008
The Z boson is a heavy particle that is one of the carriers of the weak force. Its discovery completed the Standard Model of particle physics...
