2009. Ready or not January 2, 2009
Posted by gordonwatts in ATLAS, CERN, D0, Fermilab, LHC, politics, science.4 comments
We’ve made it through the first day of 2009. I have mixed feelings about this coming year.
- Federal Science Funding Levels. The economy is crashing down around our ears. Business responds quickly (layoffs
) – government is a bit slower. If things followed their natural course of action that would mean science funding, along with everything else, will take yet another hit. However, the incoming Obama administration seems to be committed to spending the USA’s way out of this recession, so in the end funding might not change very much. I am hopeful that hard sciences funding will remain at least stable. - Federal Science Funding Directions. Climate change is what the Obama administration is focused on. There is a good chance that if you are researching something connected with climate change you may have access to increased funding opportunities. I would expect a funding profile similar to NIH’s funding during its years of increase. I would like to think that funding will spill over into the physical sciences – it should because there are connections between the physical sciences and clean air technologies. All of this is applied scientific research. I hope that the pure research funding gets an increase as well, as an investment in this countries future (particle physics is pure research, of course). I’m feeling neutral here.
- Federal Science. Obama’s science team is just a BLAST of fresh air when compared to the current administration’s. After all, his DOE nominee is a Nobel prize winning experimental physicist. Even if the science advisor isn’t elevated to a cabinet position (PDF), there will be someone in the room that knows a great deal about science, research, and how it is done. Even if there are cuts to science funding, I’m very hopeful there will be intelligent cuts rather that unscientifically motivated cuts. I’m very hopeful in this respect.
- State Universities. The economy in states is depressing. Some states, like my own (Washington) that rely on sales tax are being hit hard and very fast. State universities can’t escape that, obviously, and my university is no exception. Unfortunately, this usually translates to reduced raises, inability to counter offers from outside, reduced support for research, etc. In our own department I wouldn’t be surprised if some people left for other universities that, for whatever reason, were able to make good offers in this awful climate. There is, in fact, already evidence this is happening. The only consolation is most universities are in the same boat, and so most of them are having similar problems. I know less about private universities, but I do know the endowments of many of them are also having difficulty. I’m very downbeat about this: it will be a rough two years at least, I think.
- My Science. When it comes to the Tevatron and the LHC… Well, I see no reason that the Tevatron shouldn’t continue to break records in luminosity (they just broke one earlier this week). And the experiments will continue to be flooded with data. While it is possible for one experiment or the other to have a catastrophic failure, I doubt that will happen. And they should continue to produce papers and science at a furious rate. I also am looking forward to real LHC collision data this year. While I hope it will be at the full 14 TeV, I suspect it is more likely to be at 2 TeV, just a hair above the Tevatron’s luminosity. We’ll hopefully know what the machine scientists think about that sometime in February. I’m really hopeful about this.
- New Years Resolutions. Well, I made only one. That way I have a hope of keeping it: make bread more often.
I think there is a chance that I will keep this one. Especially now that I’ve said it publically.
Of course, this should also be a fun year, as noted by the Beacon News:
Frustrated with their failed attempt to destroy the world in 2008, the scientists at Fermilab and their counterparts at Switzerland’s CERN physics lab resolve to perfect their new device, the Large Planet-Sucking Black-Hole-o-Tron.
Here is to another great year of data collection and science at the Tevatron and first collision data at the LHC!
Green is a Relative Thing December 23, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in D0, Fermilab.3 comments
I’m ending a series of 3 owl shifts at DZERO right now. The Tevatron, the accelerator at Fermilab, has been going great guns all week. It finally broke today. You know it is bad when the post to Channel 13, the web page that tells you the status of the machine, “Experts working on LRF3; no estimate.” The Linac is busted. That means no data for a while.
Looking at the accelerator’s log book (not accessible from outside fermilab) we found an interesting entry (we means myself and the other 3 people here on shift):
An energy-conservation timeline has been loaded
We called to find out what that means. Mike, from the Main Control Room, told us that is is like putting your car at idle. The Main Injector normally is constantly ramping protons up to 150 GeV energy and slamming them into a target. It does this once about every 2 seconds. With the Linac broken, however, there are no protons to accelerate – so why ramp every 2 seconds. It takes energy to ramp… The effective equivalent of putting your car as idle when you are at a stop light rather than keeping it revving at 4000 RPM’s.
Fermilab uses a lot of power – in 2007 the power consumed was about that required to run 45,000 homes. A lot!! As you can imagine this has impacts both on operating costs and general “greenness” (pollution, etc.). There is a broad effort to reduce power at Fermilab, but this is the first one I have seen in the science program. Very cool.
You might ask – since there is no beam, why run the Linac at all? Why not just shut it off. I will point you to a previous posting of mine:
On Tuesday I decided to shut down my home computer. I’m not sure why I decided to do that – I almost never do. … When I hit the “power” button on the 2.5 year old Dell XPS/200 machine the power light briefly flickered yellow… and that was it.
The accelerator is so large and so complex and there are so many different parts (and computers!) that shutting it down and then turning it on is something that is only done when a very long shutdown is planned. Very long means months. Otherwise things fail and then it takes much longer to get back to doing the science.
For those not familiar with the operation of the Tevatron, the “no estimate” isn’t as bad as it might sound. It just means the experts who have looked at the problem scratched their collective heads and said “Hmmm, I don’t recognize this!”. Usually that means it will take several hours to get things going again. Experiments treat it as an opportunity, actually. The machine has no protons circulating and so we can take special calibrations. Or sometimes we can get access to the detector and fix things.
Tomorrow I jump on a plane and my actual Christmas break starts! Happy holiday’s everyone!
The Atom Smashers November 24, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Fermilab, USA, science.10 comments
The Atom Smashers (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/) will show on PBS on Tuesday night. It looks like it focuses on Fermilab and the particle physics research occurring there. I like their tag line:
After funding cut backs, Fermilab—a premier U.S. government research laboratory focusing on particle physics—is struggling to survive. Physics, politics and international competition collide as scientists race to find one of the most elusive sub-atomic particles ever theorized: the Higgs boson.
Elsewhere on the site the film makers claim they don’t try to answer questions – but rather to get you to "think":
We hope this film will raise the awareness of America’s strange relationship with science. We don’t attempt to answer questions in our film, but rather to raise them. Is this research worth doing? Should we care about it? Should the U.S. participate in it or let it get done elsewhere? Also, we hope to help demystify science and scientists. We’d love it if a viewer came away thinking, “You know, those scientists are not really that different from me."
That last line being one of the main points of this blog!! Leave a comment if you get a chance to see it – I’d like to know what you think!
This show is part of PBS’ Independent Lens project. I have no idea if it will be available online. I hope so as I don’t have a TV receiver (their videos online are all very short, so I might be out of luck)!
P.S. Sorry about the links (and lack of them) – the computer I’m on doesn’t have my normal blogging software and so is a pain-in-the-butt to use.
Parts Not Available? eBay! October 6, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in D0, Fermilab.3 comments
The DZERO detector – or at least parts of it – are quite old now. And the goal of the Tevatron is to collect as much data as possible as cheaply as possible. So what do you do when you need a spare part that hasn’t been manufactured in 12 years? You can redesign the system to use a modern part… or you go to eBay. I didn’t realize this, but this is what we do at Fermilab for very old parts. How cool is that!? Smart use of money… which I’m guessing is going to be in very short supply in the near future!
UPDATE: Turns out I misheard. The parts were actually purchased on the grey market – eBay came up when the person was explaining what the grey market was. Sorry about that!
5 fb-1 – thanks, Fermilab! September 29, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in D0, Fermilab.add a comment
Fermilab just reached 5 fb-1 of data delivered to the experiments. When things started in March of 2001 I don’t think I ever expected us to get here – but the recent performance of the Tevatron has been stellar! The DZERO experiment has recorded 4.36 fb-1 of data (I expect CDF is close to that). The 13% dead time is due to downtime on our detector’s part – broken bits and normal trigger dead time.
The current results the Tevatron is releasing are all for 3 fb-1 of data – so we have an additional 2/5ths worth of data to improve everything (like our Higgs).
Thanks!!
LHC is Turning on FAST September 19, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Fermilab, LHC.10 comments
During Frank’s talk he said that he was a bit "depressed that it took 25 years to build machine, but just a few weeks to commission" – implying it wasn’t enough of a challenge.
I am, frankly, amazed at how fast this thing has turned on. None of my previous experience had prepared me for how fast they have turned on. The engineering job is incredible. Here they turned on 10 September and they are talking about first collisions (at 900 GeV — really small compared to the planned 14 TeV final operation) this coming weekend!
Given the number of moving parts, electronics, etc., in this machine… well, this is a breath-taking to have gotten this far. As a long-time member of the US community I’m also feeling a bit embarrassed. Our last start up – Fermilab Run 2 – was not nearly as smooth. One key difference between the LHC and Fermilab’s startup, btw, is that all the bits are present in the accelerator from the get-go. Fermilab has continuously been adding bits to the accelerator to improve it (many bits were delayed due to the funding profile).
If we in the USA get a chance to build another accelerator we are going to have to make sure we step up and match (or come close to matching) CERN’s accelerator division!
UPDATE: Yeah Yeah. I know. 2 months of downtime now. What can I say? The accident was probably caused by me posting this. I don’t know if you saw the CERN press release – but note how it said that in a non-super conducting machine this fix would take a few days? The 2 months is because they have to warm the machine up and then cool it down again. What is a magnet replacement at Fermilab? 8 days? I wonder what the difference is in the cryo systems?
Will it really take ATLAS 3 years to see 5 sigma Higgs? August 20, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in ATLAS, CERN, D0, Fermilab.15 comments
Probably (for ATLAS new predictions on this should be released in a few months). But in the context of the Tevatron and the LHC Higgs search that isn’t really what is important.
The ATLAS prediction that it might take 3 years to reach the 5 sigma level for a low mass Higgs discovery got a lot of airplay. It got me to thinking. Lets say the two accelerators are in close competition for the Higgs. The Tevatron can really only speak to the 3 sigma level. It isn’t ever going to get to the 5 sigma level. Further, at the Tevatron the CDF and DZERO experiments will have to combine their results to even reach this 3 sigma level. So, I find it highly unlikely that the LHC will sit back and let the Tevatron get away with this. I certainly wouldn’t (and I’m on a LHC experiment). So what to do? Obvious – beat the Tevatron at its own game: combine results from CMS and ATLAS and the 3 sigma level will be obtained much more quickly. At that point the LHC has stolen the thunder from the Tevatron and CMS and ATLAS can now race each other to individual discoveries of the Higgs at the 5 sigma level.
I don’t expect the experiments to combine for the 5 sigma discovery (I could well be wrong, of course – I know of no plans to not do this or to do this!). There are many forces at play that are driving each experiment to make the first paper submission of a 5 sigma signal. This may, indeed, be what gives the Tevatron space to slip in with a 3 sigma evidence paper. And in the grand scheme of things – the Tevatron goes out with a 3 sigma evidence and the LHC with a 5 sigma discovery – that doesn’t seem like a bad “split”. But who has ever heard of the free market working like that!?
As a member of DZERO I want to push as hard as possible to nail a low mass Higgs. As a member of ATLAS, I want the experiment to scramble as fast as possible to get the Higgs – evidence and discovery. After all, that is one of the LHC’s main points.
Play it safe, or… August 17, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in ATLAS, CERN, D0, Fermilab.add a comment
There was an unspoken theme at the DZERO workshop this week. Stick with the Tevatron for a huge, but iffy, payoff. Or switch to the LHC now because it is a “sure” bet (as sure as anything gets in research).
This is all about the Standard Model Higgs search at the two accelerators. If such a Higgs does exist the LHC is bound to discover it. The LHC has some “difficulty” at low mass Higgs (below about 125 or so). Difficulty for the LHC means it could take up to 3 years for a single experiment to declare a 5 sigma discovery, the gold standard of “discovery”.
At the Tevatron the Higgs analysis is all about difficulty. Each new Higgs result you hear or read about is a tour-de-force of new techniques and new methods of extracting every last bit of signal out of the experiments. As a graduate student I never remember techniques this sophisticated. And the LHC pre-trial analyses are not as sophisticated either (on the other hand, they don’t need to be).
Global fits to the Standard Model currently predict the Higgs to be low mass – between 114 GeV and 120 or 125 GeV. The Tevatron is currently x2 away from being sensitive to this mass range. By doubling our dataset to 6 fb-1 of data and making a number of improvements to our analyses, we expect that we should be there. These improvements are not easy – it will require a lot of work and a lot of people. Nor are they assured. At best, if the Higgs is there, and we aren’t unlucky, we should be able to see it at the 3 sigma level. But never the 5 sigma discovery level. That will have to be left to the LHC in any case.
So is it worth sticking with the Tevatron? Well… the payoff would be huge to see something at the 3 sigma level. So it is like a lottery with high stakes. The chance of winning is not all that sure, but the jackpot is big!
Me? Well, I’m working on both the LHC and the Tevatron (as are many US physicists). I have a student working on the Higgs search at Fermilab, for example. I’m deeply involved in a number of topics at the LHC as well.
What will happen? Hard to tell. Things to watch? Well, that is easy. There are only two things that really matter here – the performance of the Tevatron and the performance of the LHC. Each physicist who is on both collaborations is performing some complex calculus to optimize their time on the two experiments depending on the chances of success.
I wish us all luck.
How Hard Will The Hunt Be? August 6, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in D0, Fermilab, Higgs, physics.2 comments
Yesterday I mentioned that the Tevatron experiments had finally started to rule out the Higgs. I thought I’d post another plot that shows exactly how hard it will be – and so gives you an idea of how much hope the Tevatron has of actually catching the Higgs. Click on the plot to get an enlarged version of the jpeg (here for details).
The most important lines in that plot are the black one (1-CLs Observed) and and the 95% CL thick blue line. The thick blue line is the point at which, in our best statistical estimate, we are 95% confident that we have not observed anything. While the blue line is the “goal”, the black line is where we are now – the current observation. A lot goes into that black line – many different physics analysis contribute (from both D0 and CDF), the physics of the Higgs decay, the physics of how the Higgs boson is supposedly made, and how good our detector is at seeing the Higgs. As you can see, we have just peaked above the 95% level near 170. And that is what allows us to say that we’ve excluded the Higgs around 170 GeV.
Now, the future. You’ll note that the curve is pretty flat near where it peaks above 170. That says to me that when we add more data and minor analysis improvements we will be able to quickly broaden the amount of the observed line is above the 95% CL line. Where the black line is steeply falling, however, it require a huge amount of work (even if it is possible at the Tevatron).
Finally, in yesterday’s post the plot started at 114 GeV. This one starts at 155. What about everything from 114 to 155? Yes — we are working on that. For example, at D0 we have individual results already (and if you look at this plot, given the discussion, you can see that how we are doing as far as getting towards ruling things out at low mass – though the plot is a very different type of plot – but you can guess what is going on if you are not familiar with it). I couldn’t find the recent update of the CDF combined results. But the low mass combination between the experiments was not completed in time for ICHEP. I’m hopeful that we will see it soon – but as they say, it ain’t out until it is ready to be out!
New Fermilab Photos July 3, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Fermilab, photography.add a comment
I’m always on the watch for new photos relating to particle physics. It seems there is a fairly new group on Flickr — Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Check it out, and if you have pictures of Fermilab, do contribute them!
