Friday Flyer - March 31, 2023
Sorry! No April Fools Edition! We missed April 1 by one day this year!
Spotlight on the QuarkNet/Fermilab side of International Masterclasses 2023
IMC 2023 is ending today, and a lot happened. QuarkNet and Fermilab had a bunch of videoconferences: 7 for ATLAS, 15 for CMS, 1 ATLAS-CMS mashup, 6 for MINERvA and 2 to pilot the NOvA masterclass. In all, QuarkNet and Fermilab connected with 26 U.S. masterclasses and 23 masterclasses outside the U.S. Oh, and we still have two more coming up "off-shell" in late April for ATLAS and NOvA. QuarkNet and Fermilab IMC also had some interesting firsts. We introduced a quiz for the first time (check the latest version, just revised) in many of our videoconferences. In a more limited way, we tried out using Google forms and sheets as an alternative to CIMA. (H/T to our JHU, Purdue, and Purdue Northwest centers for trying it out and to Jeremy Smith for creating the form!) And last week, the University of Mississippi had a Belle II masterclass connected with KEK and several other U.S. groups. (H/T to mentor Jake Bennett!) We have a lot of thanks to send around, especially to our mentors, tutors, teachers, and videoconference moderators. We are gathering results to evaluate and no doubt have adjustments to make in the future. (We may ask your help!) It will be a busy summer. Related to that: look for ATLAS, CMS, MINERvA, NOvA, and even Belle II data workshops for your centers!
News from QuarkNet Central
QuarkNet Data Camp 2023: Data Camp will be held at Fermilab on July 9-14. In Data Camp, teachers work on rigorous particle physics data analysis, explore QuarkNet Data Activities, and take advantage of the location to learn even more. Get further information from the Data Camp Flyer and contact your mentor or your QuarkNet staff member for a nomination.
QuarkNet Coding Camps 2023: There are two Coding Camps to help you bring data analysis with python notebooks to your classroom. The introductory Coding Camp 1 will take place June 26-30 in a virtual format. The advanced Coding Camp 2 will be held at Fermilab on July 23-28. You can find out more and apply at the Coding Camp webpage.
QuarkNet Educational Discussions: Dr. Quynh Lan Nguyen will present on Gravitational Waves on Wednesday, April 5, at 8:00pm EDT (12:00 UTC). Dr. Nguyen is a theoretical particle astrophysicist at Notre Dame. Find out more at the QED website. If you need the Zoom passcode, email Ken or Shane.
Opportunities at Perimeter: Perimeter Institute in Canada has some interesting courses for teachers coming up, including Wave Functions and Quantum Computers and Canada's contribution to the James Webb Space Telescope. Learn more and register!
International Masterclasses: Don't forget that QuarkNet teachers can go to the Masterclass Stipends 2023 form to receive a stipend for out-of-class hours spent with students on IMC 2023. Last reminder!
Physics Experiment Roundup
Call it LHC Roundup this week, because we have plenty. Let's start with the big news on the ATLAS website and all around the world: ATLAS has a new measurement of the W mass and it is consistent with the Standard Model. You may recall that that CDF at Fermilab had its own, most-precise-ever measurement that was off from the SM prediction. The ATLAS error bar is bigger, but this is the most precise yet from the LHC, all within SM limits. Take a look at the chart in the article! We still have to hear from CMS, and this is already interesting.
The other big news is from Symmetry, which reports that ATLAS and CMS have discovered events in which four top quarks are produced. By discovered we mean that both experiments have seen enough of these events that they exceed the 5-sigma confidence threshold, even though these events are 4000 times rarer than Higgs events. (You may recall from the Calculate the Top Quark Mass activity that even simplified two-dimensional standard top-antitop events can get pretty complicated, so we can just try to imagine the analysis that went into these events!)
And there is more from the LHC, courtesy of CERN Bulletin:
- the upcoming restart of the LHC
- new experiments to study neutrinos at the LHC
- the beam gas curtain, a new instrument for Run 3
- a new tin-niobium magnet for the High Luminosity LHC program.
Rounding out the Roundup, APS Physics updates us on heavy flavor physics results, African Physics Newsletter informs us on where a proposed new African underground lab might be built, Fermilab Today has some fresh DUNE news, and Physics Today celebrates the end of the neutron drought. (What!? Yes, it is, or was, a thing.)
Resources
Let's begin with two interesting resources contributed by QuarkNetters: Name that Neutrino! from Ice Cube and Why are there exactly 3 generations of particles? from Big Think. We can continue with Symmetry, which discusses, with an emphasis on DUNE, how to build a big physics experiment.
We are used to videos from Don Lincoln but how about an article in The Physics Teacher? That is what we have: Using Cosmic Rays to See the Unseeable, with a special section written by our own Mark Adams!
On the people side, we have two particle physicists from Africa. Fermilab News gives us A Minute with Claire Lee. FF remembers Claire from outreach and education work she did in her ATLAS days at Wits and UJ in Johannesburg: she is now at FNAL. African Physics Newsletter gives us more inspiration with The Kid from Kinshasa Who Became a Particle Physicist.
Just for Fun
There are some interesting and different goings-on at Fermilab. Symmetry tells of the fashion side of physics while Fermilab News reports on the annual prairie burn.
Since we have not had any videos yet, here are the Battlestar Galactica Premake Trailer and The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse - not the classic film loop but still very old-school.
QuarkNet Staff
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Spencer Pasero: spasero@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu