The evolution of cryogenic safety at Fermilab

Over the past twenty-five years, Fermilab has been involved in cryogenic technology as it relates to pursuing experimentation in high energy physics. The Laboratory has instituted a strong cryogenic safety program and has maintained a very positive safety record. The solid commitment of management and the cryogenic community to incorporating safety into the system life cycle has led to policies that set requirements and help establish consistency for the purchase and installation of equipment and the safety analysis and documentation

Laminating Creosote-Treated Hardwoods

A study was conducted to investigate the bondability of four selected hardwood species after being treated with creosote. A completely randomized block factorial design was employed. Experimental factors included five wood species (chestnut oak, red oak, red maple, yellow-poplar, and southern pine), five adhesive systems (elevated temperature cure phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde, room temperature cure phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde, resorcinol-formaldehyde, emulsion polymer isocyanate, and low-viscosity formulation emulsion polymer isocyanate) and two exposure levels (ambient room and vacuum/pressure/soak conditions). Exposure levels effects on the different wood species resulted in highly variable adhesive system performance. Exposure level effects were most evident for the higher density oaks. Shear strength and percent wood failure results for all wood species revealed a general trend towards a higher performance for the two phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde systems. Res-orcinol-based adhesive systems had the highest shear strength values. Percent wood failure values were highest for the elevated temperature cure phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde system for all species. Elevated temperature cure adhesive systems appeared to be required to successfully bond high-density creosote treated species. Successful bonding of medium-density species can be accomplished at room temperatures given proper adhesive system selection

The evolution of cryogenic safety at Fermilab

Over the past twenty-five years, Fermilab has been involved in cryogenic technology as it relates to pursuing experimentation in high energy physics. The Laboratory has instituted a strong cryogenic safety program and has maintained a very positive safety record. The solid commitment of management and the cryogenic community to incorporating safety into the system life cycle has led to policies that set requirements and help establish consistency for the purchase and installation of equipment and the safety analysis and documentation

Permeability of anti-fouling PEGylated surfaces probed by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy

The present work reports on in situ observations of the interaction of organic dye probe molecules and dye-labeled protein with different poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) architectures (linear, dendron, and bottle brush). Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and single molecule event analysis were used to examine the nature and extent of probe朠EG interactions. The data support a sieve-like model in which size-exclusion principles determine the extent of probe朠EG interactions. Small probes are trapped by more dense PEG architectures and large probes interact more with less dense PEG surfaces. These results, and the tunable pore structure of the PEG dendrons employed in this work, suggest the viability of electrochemically-active materials for tunable surfaces

First observations of separated atmospheric nu_mu and bar{nu-mu} events in the MINOS detector

The complete 5.4 kton MINOS far detector has been taking data since the beginning of August 2003 at a depth of 2070 meters water-equivalent in the Soudan mine, Minnesota. This paper presents the first MINOS observations of nuµ and [overline nu ]µ charged-current atmospheric neutrino interactions based on an exposure of 418 days. The ratio of upward- to downward-going events in the data is compared to the Monte Carlo expectation in the absence of neutrino oscillations, giving Rup/downdata/Rup/downMC=0.62-0.14+0.19(stat.)±0.02(sys.). An extended maximum likelihood analysis of the observed L/E distributions excludes the null hypothesis of no neutrino oscillations at the 98% confidence level. Using the curvature of the observed muons in the 1.3 T MINOS magnetic field nuµ and [overline nu ]µ interactions are separated. The ratio of [overline nu ]µ to nuµ events in the data is compared to the Monte Carlo expectation assuming neutrinos and antineutrinos oscillate in the same manner, giving R[overline nu ][sub mu]/nu[sub mu]data/R[overline nu ][sub mu]/nu[sub mu]MC=0.96-0.27+0.38(stat.)±0.15(sys.), where the errors are the statistical and systematic uncertainties. Although the statistics are limited, this is the first direct observation of atmospheric neutrino interactions separately for nuµ and [overline nu ]µ

Measurement of the Ds lifetime

We report precise measurement of the Ds meson lifetime. The data were taken by the SELEX experiment (E781) spectrometer using 600 GeV/c Sigma-, pi- and p beams. The measurement has been done using 918 reconstructed Ds. The lifetime of the Ds is measured to be 472.5 +- 17.2 +- 6.6 fs, using K*(892)0K+- and phi pi+- decay modes. The lifetime ratio of Ds to D0 is 1.145+-0.049.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures submitted to Phys. Lett.

First Observation of the Doubly Charmed Baryon Xi_cc^+

We observe a signal for the doubly charmed baryon Xi_cc^+ in the charged decay mode Xi_cc^+ --> Lambda_c^+ K- pi+ in data from SELEX, the charm hadro-production experiment at Fermilab. We observe an excess of 15.9 events over an expected background of 6.1 +/- 0.5 events, a statistical significance of 6.3sigma. The observed mass of this state is (3519 +/- 1) MeV/c^2. The Gaussian mass width of this state is 3MeV/c^2, consistent with resolution; its lifetime is less than 33fsec at 90% confidence.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Confirmation of the Double Charm Baryon Xi_cc+ via its Decay to p D+ K-

We observes a signal for the double charm baryon Xi_cc+ in the charged decay mode Xi_cc+ -> p D+ K- to complement the previously reported decay Xi_cc+ -> Lambda_c K- pi+ in data from SELEX, the charm hadro-production experiment (E781) at Fermilab. In this new decay mode we observe an excess of 5.62 events over an expected background estimated by event mixing to be 1.38+/-0.13 events. The Poisson probability that a background fluctuation can produce the apparent signal is less than 6.4E-4. The observed mass of this state is (3518+/-3)MeV/c^2, consistent with the published result. Averaging the two results gives a mass of (3518.7+/-1.7)MeV/c^2. The observation of this new weak decay mode confirms the previous SELEX suggestion that this state is a double charm baryon. The relative branching ratio Gamma(Xi_cc+ -> pD+K-)/Gamma(Xi_cc+ -> Lambda_c K- pi+) = 0.36+/-0.21.Comment: 11 pages, 6 included eps figures. v2 includes improved statistical method to determine significance of observation. Submitted to PL