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December
December 13,
2007
A Step Toward Understanding High-Temperature Superconductors
Scientists can make high-temperature superconductors, but they don't have a good theory for how they work.
December 6,
2007
Using PEP-II as a Low-energy Machine: An Unexpected Use of BaBar Data
The BaBar experiment has been designed for studying charge parity (CP) violation in B meson decays, which requires an available energy slightly above 10 GeV in the electron-positron center-of-mass.
November
November 29,
2007
SLAC's Increased Involvement in the LHC
SLAC's traditional electron and photon based science program has been diversifying to the high-energy frontier over the last few years, with efforts on both the accelerator and the ATLAS detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
November 15,
2007
A New View of Flavor in Supersymmetry Models
Many exciting possibilities exist for physics at the 100 GeV to 1 TeV scale, and one of the most intriguing is the possibility of supersymmetry.
November 8,
2007
In Too DEEP:
Tracking the Changes
in Galaxy Clusters
Made up of hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies each, clusters of galaxies are the most massive objects in the present-day universe.
November 1,
2007
SSRL User Wins
Robin Hill Award
Dr. Junko Yano, a researcher in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, recently received the Robin Hill Award from the International Society for Photosynthesis Research.
October
October 25,
2007
In Search of Exotica
A famous character once said, "Life is like a box of chocolates… You never know what you're gonna get." In particle physics, we do not follow this principle often.
October 18,
2007
ILC NewsLine: ILC Physicists Build Their Dream House
Be it a house renovation or even a proposed particle accelerator, anyone involved in a construction project can appreciate the 1948 classic film Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy.
October 11,
2007
Steps Toward Understanding Autism
Autism is considered among the most devastating neurological disorder conditions of early childhood. Now, researchers working in part at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) Beamline 4-2 have determined a three-dimensional structural model of a complex with the only two extracellular synaptic proteins implicated in autism spectrum disorders and mental retardation.
October 4,
2007
GLAST's Dance Card Begins to Fill
The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is scheduled for launch early next year, and although it will observe a great variety of interesting high-energy sources, one type of object in particular is expected to dominate the gamma-ray sky: a special class of active galactic nuclei known as "blazars."
September
September 20,
2007
The Next Generation of RF Power Sources
Continuing the tradition of extending the state-of-the-art of klystron design, the Klystron and Microwave Department is currently working on the next generation of accelerator radio frequency (RF) power sources to power the International Linear Collider (ILC): the Sheet Beam Klystron (SBK).
September 6,
2007
Taking SUSY One Step Further
Supersymmetry (SUSY), the idea that there is a symmetry between bosons and fermions, is perhaps the most popular framework for new physics beyond the Standard Model. SUSY predicts that every Standard Model particle has an as-yet undiscovered "superpartner."
August
August 30,
2007
The Chemical Form of Mercury in the Fish We Eat
Mercury toxicity is an environmental concern in diverse aquatic systems because methylmercury enters the water column in a number of ways and then biomagnifies through food webs.
August 23,
2007
Busy Times for BaBar
It's been another busy and successful year for BaBar. The B-factory presented an impressive 48 new results at the Lepton-Photon conference in Daegu, South Korea, including some using the most recent Run-6 data.
August 16,
2007
The Shortest Flux Variations Detected from Active Galactic Nuclei
An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the centre of a galaxy that can outshine some or all the electromagnetic radiation of the host galaxy by up to three orders of magnitude.
August 9,
2007
A Historic Magnet Finds New Life in ESA
Old magnets often get reused in new applications, and the latest example of this comes from the End Station A (ESA) test beam program.
August 2,
2007
Learning about QCD from String Theory
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is a very successful theory of the strong nuclear interactions, the interactions that bind together quarks to form protons.
July
July 26,
2007
The Many Sides of Cells
The mechanics of a basic cellular process found in most living organisms, including humans, is no longer a mystery, thanks to work done in part at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL).
July 19,
2007
A T-cell's Guide to Knowing Who's Who
Adaptive immunity relies on the capacity of immune cells to distinguish between the body's own cells and foreign invaders.
July 12,
2007
BaBar SVT: Eight Years of Great Physics
Right at the center of BaBar, inside its protection shield, lives the Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT), a complex device that uses silicon crystals coated with superfine metal strips (about 300,000 of them) to accurately measure the position of the charged particles crossing it.
July 5,
2007
ILC Coupler Activities
at SLAC
While other labs concentrate on developing superconducting cavities for the International Linear Collider (ILC), SLAC is focusing on the technology needed to power them. In addition to klystron, modulator and radio frequency (RF) distribution development, this effort includes a coupler program.
June
June 28,
2007
Wrap-up on 2nd Annual SSRL Summer School
The second annual Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) School on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences was held at SSRL on May 15-17, 2007.
June 21,
2007
New Measurement of the Unitarity Triangle
Using information obtained from detailed studies of B meson decays to K*0rho+ and rho+rho- can teach us about the tiny difference between matter and anti-matter. Our understanding of this phenomenon is encoded in three angles of a special triangle, called the unitarity triangle.
June 14,
2007
D Meson Mixing—
Might it be New Physics?
One way to hunt for new physics beyond the Standard Model is to observe processes that are expected to be very rare. If the rates for rare processes are found to be higher, or lower, than what is predicted by the Standard Model, this gives a clear signal for the existence of new physics.
June 7,
2007
From Stars to Galaxies
Dust may seem to be nothing but a nuisance in daily life, but in structure formation in the early universe, it's extremely important.
May
May 31,
2007
Closing in on
Dangerous Infections
A team of researchers working at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) has determined the atomic structure of an assemblage of fiber-forming proteins found in the cell membranes of many dangerous types of bacteria.
May 24,
2007
"ILC Tribes" Gather
Last month Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory served as host for a "gathering of the International Linear Collider (ILC) tribes." Three back-to-back meetings covered superconducting (SC) technology R&D, an international review of the ILC Global Design Effort (GDE) and a review of R&D progress in the Americas.
May 17,
2007
Revealing the Molecular Origins of Life
Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, using macromolecular crystallography beam line 9-1 at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have determined the three-dimensional structure of an RNA enzyme, or "ribozyme," that carries out a fundamental reaction required to make new RNA molecules.
May 10,
2007
BaBar Data Acquisition
In the BaBar interaction region at PEP-II, bunches of electrons and positrons cross each other 250 million times per second.
May 3,
2007
The Danger of Inflation
The theory of cosmic inflation has been very successful in explaining the flatness of the universe and the large-scale distribution of matter.
April
April 19,
2007
Electron Cloud Workshops
Electron cloud phenomena in accelerators have become such an important topic that there have been two recent workshops on the subject.
April 12,
2007
Taming a Potent Toxin
Botulinum neurotoxin is produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum and is the most potent toxin known, inducing a potentially fatal paralysis known as botulism.
April 5,
2007
Computer Simulations of the Growth of Massive Black Holes
In recent years, observations have given spectacular insights into the formation of black holes and galaxies.
March
March 29,
2007
A New (or Old) Way to Make Gravity Consistent with Quantum Mechanics?
In 1916, Albert Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity, which describes the gravitational force in terms of curved space-time. This theory has successfully predicted gravitational lensing of light, relativistic time delays, black holes and gravitational radiation (the latter has only been detected indirectly so far).
March 22,
2007
Mixed-up Quarks
In the core of an atom lies the nucleus, composed of protons and neutrons. If we look closer, however, the proton and neutron are made of simpler entities, called quarks.
March 15,
2007
New Release of Lucretia Beam Dynamics Simulation Software
On February 13, The SLAC International Linear Collider (ILC) Division released a new version of the Lucretia beam dynamics simulation package.
March 8,
2007
SSRL: Five Images for the Price of One
Scientists at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have demonstrated a novel approach for improving the efficiency of an x-ray microscopy technique that may in particular prove beneficial for imaging radiation-sensitive objects such as biological samples.
March 1,
2007
Computer Simulations
of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Recently, a team of KIPAC researchers led by Roger Blandford was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to study gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and supernovae through computer simulations.
February
February 22,
2007
SLAC's ATLAS Team
at CERN Gears Up
February 14th marked seven months of official SLAC involvement in the ATLAS experiment. ATLAS is one of several detectors that sits at a future interaction point for proton-proton collisions on CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
February 15,
2007
A Universe without
Weak Interactions
One of the biggest problems facing theoretical particle physics since the discovery of the Standard Model is the hierarchy problem.
February 8,
2007
BaBar's Astonishing Decays
In the year following the discovery at SLAC (and simultaneously at Brookhaven National Lab) of the J/ψ in November 1974, a whole family of particles, whimsically called charmonia, appeared in experiments here and at DESY, in Hamburg, Germany.
February 1,
2007
SSRL: Decoding an
Infectious Mystery
Malaria infects 300 to 500 million people and takes 2 million lives each year, making it one of the deadliest diseases worldwide. Now, researchers working at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have solved the structure of a protein complex that may one day be exploited to combat drug-resistant strands of the parasite that causes the illness.
January
January 18,
2007
ILC's Marx Modulator
The current design for the International Linear Collider (ILC) requires 576, 10-megawatt klystron tubes to supply microwave power along its 40 km linear accelerator.
January 11,
2007
Test Groups Commission New Macromolecular Crystallography Device
The Stanford Synchrotron Light Source (SSRL) has a new gadget.
January 4,
2007
Batch Cosmology
Traditional optical astronomy, built around "observing runs," takes the team to the mountain for a night or more of dedicated telescope time.
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