Friday Flyer - March 2, 2018

Spotlight on the University of Washington QuarkNet Center

With a great view of Mt. Rainier in the distance, the UW center is located in Seattle with Shih-Chieh Hsu and Michael Park serving as mentors. Last year, the center hosted 38 students and 2 teachers at a CMS masterclass in March, pictured below. While on campus, students toured the university's Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. During the summer, UW held both a LIGO e-Lab workshop and a cosmic ray workshop. During the cosmic workshop, participants took advantage of the nearby mountains, measuring a 30% increase in flux rates at 900 meters when compared to sea level measurements! 

News from QuarkNet Central

International Muon Week will take place March 12–16, 2018 with two potential different defined projects: muon flux (most users) and speed of muons (advanced users). Now is the time to get those detectors up and running. If you need help, you can access the expertise of the cosmic fellows by sending e-mail to e-labs-help@fnal.gov, or contact Mark. 

International Masterclasses 2018 are going full force at CERN and start soon at Fermilab. Follow them on the IMC twitter feed, or tweet your own masterclass experience, #LHCIMC18. Here's the latest IMC circular, with several reminders and updates. If you have not yet signed up for a masterclass and are interested in joining, contact Ken. 

QuarkNet Nuts and Bolts

Need help with the e-Lab while preparing for International Muon Week? Remember you can access the e-Lab help desk by selecting the "life-ring" help desk icon at the top of any e-Lab page when logged in. You can also send e-mail to e-labs-help@fnal.gov, or contact one of the QuarkNet staff members for help. 

Physics Experiment Roundup

In QuarkNet, we emphasize how important collaboration is between our physicists, teachers, and students. We know collaboration is key in the particle physics community more broadly as well, and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is no exception.

Resources

Recently, Fermilab hosted more than 300 high school students for a viewing of the movie Hidden Figures followed by a panel discussion. The panelists included Fermilab engineer Maurice Ball and neutrino physicist Jessica Esquivel. Fermilab's Don Lincoln talked relativity, specifically, how people often get time dilation wrong. And last, sometimes nothing is something; the null result can put boundaries on new physics, as described in this symmetry article. 

Just for Fun

"Tracks" and "interactions" are two words that are used often in particle physics. Can you identify what left these tracks recently at Fermilab? And here's xkcd featuring an interaction.

QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Deborah Roudebush: droudebush@cox.net
Jeremy Smith: jsmith10@bcps.org
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu