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In this issue:
The LSST's Supersized Sweep of the Sky
Workshop Highlights Coming Test Beam Activities
SLAC Blood Drive Next Wednesday

SLAC Today

Thursday - March 24, 2011

The LSST's Supersized Sweep of the Sky

A digital illustration of the completed LSST facility. (Illustration: Todd Mason Productions.)

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will plumb a bigger volume of the universe than any survey before it, isn't just a challenge for astronomers. It also requires the expertise of high-energy physicists, who play key roles in advancing the flourishing field of survey astronomy.

The LSST is Large—that's what the L stands for. The SS stands for Synoptic Survey, so it promises to look at every aspect of a very big whole. When it comes to the tools of physics research, high-energy physicists reign over the very large. They build accelerators that stretch for miles, detectors the size of apartment buildings, data sets so big that no commercial database can hold them, and collaborations that rival the populations of small cities. The Large Synoptic Survey's scale gives it the ring of a giant particle physics project.

But the LSST's final letter is for Telescope, the canonical tool of astronomy. And the LSST, like its name, is a merger of high-energy physics and astronomy. From the beginning, the two fields have joined forces to conceive, design and build the giant telescope.

Read more in Symmetry magazine...

Workshop Highlights
Coming Test Beam Activities

ESTB 2011 participants. (Photo by Barbara Hemstad.)

Last Thursday, the Accelerator Research Division's Test Facilities Department hosted the first End Station A Test Beam Workshop at SLAC. The End Station A Test Beam Project, which will provide an electron beam for use in research and development, attracted 50 attendees total, including 24 from 16 outside institutions and five different countries. Even ahead of the workshop, the organizers had already received eight proposals with requests for beam time. There were 13 presentations from potential users spanning a wide diversity of research projects, including silicon detector and silicon readout R&D, advances for the ATLAS detector and Super sensors, new calibration measurements for the Fermi Large Area Telescope detector, accelerator R&D studies for proposed future linear colliders, fundamental measurements of cosmic particle showers and more. All participants were enthusiastic about the project and very appreciative that later this year SLAC will once again provide test beams to the community. Read more...

SLAC Blood Drive Next Wednesday

Give a Pint, Get a Pint

The next SLAC Blood Drive will take place on Wednesday, March 30, in the Panofsky Auditorium breezeway. In addition to the satisfaction of knowing they've helped to provide hope and life to a patient in a local hospital, blood donors will also receive a coupon for a free pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream.

Donors with appointments will be given priority, but walk-ins are welcome too. To make an appointment, open bloodcenter.stanford.edu, click on "Schedule an Appointment," and search by sponsor code 0136.

For more information, please contact Lauren Barbieri (x2354) or visit bloodcenter.stanford.edu.

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