Lazier, Matt

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                                                                                                                                                  DoWN ThE RAbbIT holE cAl PolY ExPloREs MYsTERIEs oF FAMED sUPER collIDER Jennifer Klay b Y  M A T T l A Z I E R  PhysiCs ProFessor JenniFer Klay and five Cal Poly stu- about it: how viscous is it? is it transparent or opaque? We dents are playing a part in heavy-duty scientific experimentation want to study these kinds of observable qualities.” at the world’s largest supercollider near Geneva, switzerland. Klay became involved in the large hadron Collider along But you’d do just as well to think of their work as a history les- with a group of fellow researchers at the lawrence Berkeley son. The most ancient of history, in fact – as in: What happened national lab in Berkeley, where she was doing post-doctorate in the first few moments of the existence of our universe? work. she continued her work on the collider while working asThat’s what Klay, her students and about 7,000 other scien- a staff scientist at the lawrence livermore lab in livermore. tists from around the world hope to get a glimpse of through When she came to Cal Poly, she immediately sought grant their work on the large hadron Collider. funding from the national science Foundation to hire student The facility – a 17-mile-long, ring-shaped tunnel built 328 assistants and get the university involved in the supercollider feet beneath the Franco-swiss border – operated successfully project. she received a three-year, $267,000 grant last year for the first time in september before shutting down for addi- then set about finding students interested in taking part. tional work after a malfunction. The supercollider – built at the That wasn’t difficult. ryan Ward, alexander donoghue and european organization for nuclear research (Cern) with a scott lewis quickly signed on. price tag of as much as $10 bil­ “i’ve always been fascinated withlion – is expected to be up and subatomic particles and how things‘The proTons and neu­get weird” at that level, said Ward,Klay, who joined Cal Poly’s Trons in The nucleus…. a third-year physics student who isfaculty in January 2007, has been running again in the spring. also pursuing a master’s degree iniT’s The sTuff The universe math. “Plus, this is the biggest ma-years in one of the four experi- was made of’ chine of its kind in the world. it’s thements that will be undertaken at involved for more than seven largest man-made concentration ofthe massive particle accelerator. it’s called a large ion Collider energy in the world. if that isn’t exciting, i don’t know what is.” experiment, or aliCe, and its aim is no less than to recreate (on donoghue, a fourth-year physics major, agreed, calling it “a a smaller scale) the conditions of the Big Bang by smashing parti- chance to be part of history.” cles together in a vacuum at nearly light speed, then studying the “it was an opportunity to widen my field of knowledge,” he ensuing soup of subatomic particles in the fraction of a second it said. “The stuff i did isn’t directly in my field of interest. But takes them to cool into more familiar nuclear matter. we had to figure out all the elements of making (our part of the Think of it like water, Klay said, which can exist in several experiment) work. We had to use every element of physics.” states – liquid, steam, ice. nuclear matter is the same way, nor- specifically, the students have been working on a 50-ton mally acting like a liquid. electromagnetic calorimeter, or eMCal – a collection of lead “The protons and neutrons in the nucleus, we are trying to bricks that detects photons, electrons and other charged parti-boil to create this steam we call quark-gluon plasma,” Klay said. cles. (Through much of Klay’s seven years working on aliCe, “it’s the stuff the universe was made of. We want to answer the she worked to help persuade the u.s. department of energy question: how did it go on to become the normal nuclear mat- to fund eMCal. The energy department agreed last year to ter we know now? From there, we want to understand things commit $10 million.) continued on next page… 26  WINTER 2008 CAL POLY MAGAZINE 27                                                                                                                                             Jennifer Klay PhysiCs ProFessor JenniFer Klay and five Cal Poly stu- about it: how viscous is it? is it transparent or opaque? We dents are playing a part in heavy-duty scientific experimentation want to study these kinds of observable qualities.” at the world’s largest supercollider near Geneva, switzerland. Klay became involved in the large hadron Collider along But you’d do just as well to think of their work as a history les- with a group of fellow researchers at the lawrence Berkeley son. The most ancient of history, in fact – as in: What happened national lab in Berkeley, where she was doing post-doctorate in the first few moments of the existence of our universe? work. she continued her work on the collider while working asThat’s what Klay, her students and about 7,000 other scien- a staff scientist at the lawrence livermore lab in livermore. tists from around the world hope to get a glimpse of through When she came to Cal Poly, she immediately sought grant their work on the large hadron Collider. funding from the national science Foundation to hire student The facility – a 17-mile-long, ring-shaped tunnel built 328 assistants and get the university involved in the supercollider feet beneath the Franco-swiss border – operated successfully project. she received a three-year, $267,000 grant last year for the first time in september before shutting down for addi- then set about finding students interested in taking part. tional work after a malfunction. The supercollider – built at the That wasn’t difficult. ryan Ward, alexander donoghue and european organization for nuclear research (Cern) with a scott lewis quickly signed on. price tag of as much as $10 bil­ “i’ve always been fascinated withlion – is expected to be up and subatomic particles and how things‘The proTons and neu­get weird” at that level, said Ward,Klay, who joined Cal Poly’s Trons in The nucleus…. a third-year physics student who isfaculty in January 2007, has been running again in the spring. also pursuing a master’s degree iniT’s The sTuff The universe math. “Plus, this is the biggest ma-years in one of the four experi- was made of’ chine of its kind in the world. it’s thements that will be undertaken at involved for more than seven largest man-made concentration ofthe massive particle accelerator. it’s called a large ion Collider energy in the world. if that isn’t exciting, i don’t know what is.” experiment, or aliCe, and its aim is no less than to recreate (on donoghue, a fourth-year physics major, agreed, calling it “a a smaller scale) the conditions of the Big Bang by smashing parti- chance to be part of history.” cles together in a vacuum at nearly light speed, then studying the “it was an opportunity to widen my field of knowledge,” he ensuing soup of subatomic particles in the fraction of a second it said. “The stuff i did isn’t directly in my field of interest. But takes them to cool into more familiar nuclear matter. we had to figure out all the elements of making (our part of the Think of it like water, Klay said, which can exist in several experiment) work. We had to use every element of physics.” states – liquid, steam, ice. nuclear matter is the same way, nor- specifically, the students have been working on a 50-ton mally acting like a liquid. electromagnetic calorimeter, or eMCal – a collection of lead “The protons and neutrons in the nucleus, we are trying to bricks that detects photons, electrons and other charged parti-boil to create this steam we call quark-gluon plasma,” Klay said. cles. (Through much of Klay’s seven years working on aliCe, “it’s the stuff the universe was made of. We want to answer the she worked to help persuade the u.s. department of energy question: how did it go on to become the normal nuclear mat- to fund eMCal. The energy department agreed last year to ter we know now? From there, we want to understand things commit $10 million.) CAL POLY MAGAZINE 27                                                                                                                            in october 2007, Klay took lewis, donoghue and Ward toCern to test a prototype of the eMCal. The prototype was placedinto the beam line of a lower-energy accelerator, and the studentshelped collect data for one week. The test was a success. Cernpublished a paper on the research, co-authored by the students. Physics students Christopher Brown and Brandon Boswell later joined the group. over the summer, they went with Ward and Klay to Cern to work on the eMCal and undergo train­ing on a complex computer program that will analyze the massive amounts of computer data collected in aliCe. Brown, Boswell and Ward presented some of their research onthe project at the annual meeting of the american Physical soci­ety’s division of nuclear Physics in oakland  in late october. and Klay said Cal Poly’s involvement in the large hadron Collider and aliCe will continue. she hopes to add more stu­dents to the group and already is planning a trip to the collider in summer 2009. “i don’t think Cal Poly has ever been involved in an experi­ment of this magnitude,” Klay said. “What it says is, ‘We can do it here at our institution.’ ” oUR sTUDENTs, YoUR chIlDREN, EVERYoNE’s FUTURE PARENTs PhIlANThRoPYcoUNcIl DRIVEs sUPPoRT FoRExcEPTIoNAl EDUcATIoN b Y s c o T T R o A R K  the Cal Poly studentBody is a critical piece of our so­ciety’s potential, shaping the lead­ers, innovators and world citizens of tomorrow. Parents more than anyone un­derstand this. Many have joined the effort for critical private support as members of the newly formed Parents Philanthropy Council, with a focus on maintaining and increasing the exceptional valueof a Cal Poly education. “The Parents Philanthropy Council was formed to educate parents about the importance of private support for Cal Poly andleslie Daniels (above), Karen Fisher (below) council hopes to reinforce and expand on that record. during their student’s time at Cal Poly, parents will receive letters and phone calls from students and parents, seeking support for the Cal Poly Parent Fund.    one parent and council member is leslie daniels, who cur­rently has two sons, Thomas and daniel logue, attending Cal Poly. “More than state funding is needed to cover the entire cost of educating our students,” said daniels, who serves as the council’s regional chair for the Bay area. “Generous donations help fund scholarships, programs, projects, laboratories and other resources for our students.” another council member is Karen Fisher, the council’s region­al chair for the Central Valley. Fisher’s husband, ron, earned hiscal poly has The highesT giving level from parenTs of any of The 23 csu campuses how it enhances their students’ education,” said Cal Poly VicePresident of advancement sandra ogren. “it also provides an opportunity to raise funds that support the student experience at Cal Poly, engaging parents as key volunteers for the campus.” approximately 10 percent of the university’s budget comes from private gifts and donations, a percentage that is expected to rapidly increase in the coming years due to dwindling state support. This comes as the global marketplace becomes in­creasingly competitive. last year, parents gave approximately 7,800 gifts to Cal Poly totaling just over $1.8 million. Cal Poly has the highest giv­ing level from parents of any of the 23 Csu campuses. The bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cal Poly. Their son, Blake, and daughter, Becca, are current students. “Cal Poly is very spe­cial to my family. i hope that it will become, or continue to be, animportant part of everyone’s family as well,” she said. The formation of the parent’s council comes on the heels of the also newly formed student Philanthropy Council, the first orga­nization of its kind in Cal Poly’s history. it involves student lead­ers in philanthropic projects, educates students about the benefitsof private support, and promotes an awareness and appreciationof philanthropy among students. The student philanthropy coun­cil establishes a line of communication between Cal Poly Founda­tion Board members, alumni and students. The Parent’s Philanthropy Council has seven founding members, and more are joining to volunteer and help spread the word. For more information, contact Anne harris, director of campaign and donor relations, at 805-756-7468 or anharris@calpoly.edu. 28  WINTER 2008 

Down the Rabbit Hole: Cal Poly explores mysteries of famed super collider

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&amp;context=calpoly_magazine

Down the Rabbit Hole: Cal Poly explores mysteries of famed super collider

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