Friday Flyer - September 15, 2023
Thie Friday Flyer is back for the 2023-2024 academic year! Nice to be with you again!
Spotlight on Summer 2023
What a summer! There were 39 QuarkNet center workshops or meetings. We had three Coding Camps: Coding Camps 0 and 1 were virtual while Coding Camp 2 was held at Fermilab. Also at Fermilab: our flagship Data Camp. Those were a great success. QuarkNet staff or fellows helped to facilitate 30 workshops and camps.
Coding Camp 0 was an innovation to bring in participants who wanted a soft ramp-up. We also had several new "national" workshops that staff and fellows brought to or piloted at centers: Science and Art, NOvA Data, Dark Matter, New Questions in Particle Physics, Data Activities, and Belle II Data.
The New Questions in Particle Physics Workshop was very much develop-as-you-go and as a result had really interesting highlights. For example, part of the workshop involved doing a calculation of the mass of the W boson. (More on that below.) A simplifying breakthrough came at Data Camp, where the W boson group showed how making the right pt cuts simplified the measurement. Ken took note and adapted it for next and subsequent New Questions Workshops! Then a Virtual QuarkNet Center member completed the still-in-progress python notebook version of the calculation, also deployed soon after. And then there is another part of New Questions: studying the g-2 experiment at Fermilab. (See below again!) On August 10, the last day of the last New Questions Workshop, this time in Boston, Fermilab announced the latest results, so the participants not only studied g-2 but watch the livestream of the announcement together.
Were all the highlights from New Questions? Not really. Teachers combined Science and Art in New Mexico in addition to taking cosmic ray detectors up a mountain on a cable car, making measurements all the way. Coding fellows facilitated the first-ever workshop at the new University of Alabama center. Virginia Tech mentor Camillo Mariani gave a talk on neutrinos simultaneously to three centers in-person and virtually. And several centers have large numbers of (bright, enthusiastic) new QuarkNet members.
What a summer. And now we go on to a busy autumn!
News from QuarkNet Central
When oh when: If you are wondering what is coming up when in QuarkNet, take a look at the QuarkNet Calendar. When logged in, go to COMMUNITY > EVENTS. As we improve this, you will see more information about not only coming events but applications, due dates, etc.
Mark your calendar: Masterclasses and more are coming up! The first International Masterclasses (IMC) Circular will come out on October 6, and we can begin the ramp-up for masterclasses in February and March of 2024. World Wide Data Day is coming up November 9, and we'll start that ramp up in early October. Also, look out for International Cosmic Day on November 21. Stay tuned to FF for more!
Mostly for mentors: It is the beginning of a new QuarkNet year. This means we will be looking for Annual Reports and invoices from centers for the year that just ended on August 31. Sooner is better! Not sure what to do? Ask the staff!
Low five: We have accounted for all but five of our Cosmic Watch small detectors, and we need them all back for study. If you have one, please contact Ken.
The data is active: New materials have arrived in the Data Activities Portfolio. We've added a new extension to the Z mass activity to build spreadsheet skills and enable students to look at more data, and we now have Spanish language files for The Case of the Hidden Neutrino and Making it 'Round the Bend.
Physics Experiment Roundup
A lot has been going on that breaks new ground or at least calls the path through old ground into question. Physicists are starting to zoom in on the mass of the neutrino just a bit, according to APS Physics, while the W boson mass has been the subject of controversy, as explained in CERN Courier. And the g-2 experiment came out with new results, already mentioned above which confirm the previous results which are potentially at odds with The Standard Model. Interactions has one report while APS Physics has another. QuarkNet teachers took a look at both the W mass and g-2 in the New Questions in Particle Physics Workshops offered at centers this summer. More: ATLAS has set record precision on the Higgs mass, as seen in Interactions while CERN Bulletin reports from the Quark Matter Conference that ALICE has announced new charmonia measurements (think J/ψ and ψ)..
Looking to the future, Scientific American has an article on the possibility of a muon collider while APS Physics reports progress on nuclear fusion.
Resources
The astro world did not take the summer off. We have some interesting articles from the final frontier, starting with new physics in spinning black holes, how particles called hypertritons, studied in ALICE, could give new clues about neutron stars, and learning more about neutrinos from supernovae, all in APS Physics.
We also have some great videos. Kirstie Duffy has been at it again in Even Bananas, offering Can AI do neutrino physics? and What is the lifespan of a neutrino? (Good question!) Don Lincoln has been busy as well with Cosmic rays and the mummy's curse, which gives a nod to our Mark Adams, and How Einstein saved magnet theory.
Round it off with interesting CERN news. We have the winners of Beamline for Schools this year from Interactions and, in CERN Bulletin, the opening next week of the new Science Gateway at CERN.
Just for Fun
Fermilab News gives us a bit of fun looking back at this summer when teachers became students again in our very own Data Camp 2023. Symmetry joins in with a trip through the American Midwest over the DUNE beamline and a wrap up of the summer with a rap for particle physics. Be sure to scroll to the end of each Symmetry article for payoff!
Speaking of rap, well, yeah: old fave.
For XKCD, it is already fall, sort of and not far to Halloween, sort of.
QuarkNet Staff
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Spencer Pasero: spasero@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu