Greetings,
Welcome to another edition of the McDonald Institute newsletter! As summer draws to a close, and the new semester approaches, we hope that you managed to find some time to relax and recharge this season.
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CFI Major Science Initiative funding for SNOLAB |
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The funding is being awarded in recognition of the continued success of astroparticle physics in Canada and the commitment to building a collaborative, innovative, and inter-disciplinary community of researchers, engineers, and administrators.
“SNOLAB is delighted to receive continued support from the federal government through the CFI. The $40.9M secured over the next three years, with co-funding from the Province of Ontario and support from Vale, will allow SNOLAB to continue to maintain and develop a world-leading deep underground research facility and investigate some of the fundamental questions in contemporary science. These funds will allow us to continue to attract world-class experiments to Sudbury, providing great opportunities for Canadian researchers and industry.” Says SNOLAB Executive Director, Nigel Smith, thanking the CFI for the support.
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“Sustained investment in SNOLAB has developed our infrastructure and highly skilled staff” explains Dr. Smith. “These capabilities have allowed us to direct our research strengths to address the immediate challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic in collaboration with other Canadian national research facilities.”
Researchers at SNOLAB, in partnership with TRIUMF in Vancouver, BC, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario, and the McDonald Institute, have been instrumental in the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) project. The collective community expertise in gas handling and control systems used in dark matter experiments has contributed greatly to the design-to-manufacture process of the MVM ventilator which is now in production.
The quick response of Canada's research institutions represents the community’s strength in collaboration and adaptability in this time of need demonstrating the multi-purpose practicality of the continued development of scientific communities in Canada.
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Annual Canadian APP National Meeting
There is still time to register for the Annual National Meeting of the Canadian Astroparticle Physics Community, which will occur online in separate morning and afternoon sessions Aug. 25-27. We would be delighted to have you attend any number of these scheduled events.
Please indicate your interest in the National Meeting HERE, no later than August 17.
We are especially keen to encourage students to attend student-oriented sessions Aug. 25, 26 and 27 hosted on an advanced virtual conferencing platform (VirBELA), which utilizes gaming technology to recreate immersive, social engagement in a 3D virtual environment. We also invite students to also attend career-science oriented sessions hosted on Zoom, Aug. 25 and 27.
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The VirBELA Auditorium used during a large assembly.
Click the picture for an introductory video to the program.
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Because of the extended disruption to this year’s conference and symposia schedules, we are using a state-of-the-art remote meeting platform to meet pressing needs for students:
The immersive nature of the platform is our best opportunity to reproduce a speaking experience that is not possible through video-conference calling.
We see that a comfort level and practical experience with advanced virtual remote meeting tools may become an important career skill as the world continues to battle the pandemic and begins to confront anthropogenically driven climate change (including moderated air travel).
We really miss the presence of free-flowing social networking opportunities for students, which are difficult to re-create using videoconferencing tools when more than a handful of people are present.
The McDonald Institute has booked spaces in this venue for online social mixers, presentations, posters and its first student recognition awards. We hope its use within the National Meeting program will entertain, engage and inspire students’ thinking about the use of remote collaboration tools in the global astroparticle physics enterprise.
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The ultimate finale: Katie Mack's "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)"
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Within the next billion years, earth's oceans will have dried out after a 10% increase in our sun's brightness and size. After one of the most significant star formation events 9 billion years ago, 95% of stars that have and will ever exist have already been born. The universe that we understand today is heading towards an inevitable end. The question is how?
While humanity has, for the most part, focused on the beginning of our Universe, Astrophysicist and Professor Katie Mack began to research another parallel question, "how will this all end?". Not the earth, or our galaxy, but everything that we have ever known to exist. Dr. Mack's curiosity, (that she has even put to use in an entrepreneurial conference using Vacuum decay to encourage individuals to seize the now) has culminated into five mind-boggling ways the universe may end.
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The most popular theory, according to Dr. Mack, is Heat Death, also referred to as the Big Freeze. As the universe expands, galaxies spread further apart, leading to fewer interactions. With less galactic interaction, there is less gas for stars to form. Stars will begin to fade away and die while particles decay. Black holes will evaporate, and at a certain point - there will be nothing but a cold, dark, empty universe. "At that point, you've maximized the entropy in the universe, and nothing can happen anymore," she said in an interview with the BBC's Sky at Night.
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"The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)" available August 4th, brings the subject of ultimate destruction to the everyday reader. Dr. Mack eases into the grim yet fun possibilities with jargon-free language (promising minimal equations). The book does not require the audience to have any prior knowledge in either physics or astronomy while still providing depth on some of the most exciting theories conceived. Destruction such as "The Big Tear" or "The Big Crunch" await the reader's curiosity.
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In this interview with During @ScienceComedian, Dr. Mack says she thinks the most exciting ending to the universe would be Vacuum Decay.
Dr. Mack describes this as an event that occurs when there is a random quantum event that happens in our universe. A bubble, conceived of a different kind of space, expands at the speed of light and destroys everything in its path. Everything in existence quickly becomes swallowed by the bubble, and at the very end, the bubble collapses into a black hole. Unlike the other extreme scenarios that she proposes, Vacuum Decay holds a little less certainty as to when it will occur. "The fun thing about it," Dr. Mack says, "is that it could happen at any moment."
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With proper investment, the pacific ocean is ready for (neutrino) business.
For the last fifty years, researchers have been trying to establish detectors in the pacific ocean, but saltwater has always been an issue. While ideas from 50 years ago still stand, technology such as connections, enclosures and cables were not available to the same degree as they are now. Nowadays, the equipment is more readily available.
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Design of the proposed final stage of instrumentation of the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment consisting of seven segments optimized for energies above 50 TeV (left) and the design of an individual segment that is planned to be installed in a four weeks sea operation in 2023/24 as Pacific Ocean Neutrino Explorer standalone detector. (Credit: TUM) |
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The P-ONE team is searching for rare high-energy neutrinos, which arrive at Earth infrequently. At its current iteration, P-ONE sensitivity is too low to contribute meaningfully to the broader high-energy neutrino research community. However, by constructing the full experiment, it will provide the cheapest way to extend detection capability while adding an ideal location to the global network of detectors. Experiments such as IceCube will be augmented, allowing them additional coverage of the Northern Hemisphere. “The perfect distribution of large-scale detectors to get a global coverage would be a detector in the Mediterranean, a detector in Lake Baikal, in Siberia, and having a detector in the pacific,” says Carsten Krauss, (University of Alberta), an experimental physicist on the P-ONE project. This global coverage of detectors is ultimately the long-term goal P-ONE is working towards. |
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Neutrino telescopes, existing and under construction, around the globe with their horizontal coverage from which high energy neutrinos will not be affected by the Earth absorption. (Credit: M. Huber/TUM) |
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Artist creates multi-year sound-art with the P-ONE experiment. |
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Thanks to Jol Thoms for this contribution.
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Radio Amnion: Sonic Transmissions of Care with/in Oceanic Space, 2020.
Courtesy of Jol Thoms and Radio Amnion.
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The Radio Amnion Sonic Platform is a sound sculpture housed within one of ‘P-ONE’s glass spheres - an inverted bronze tetrahedral speaker system. The sculpture quietly streams artists and musicians’ compositions of care for the ocean waters of Earth during each full moon, beginning with the Harvest Moon on October 1st, 2020.
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P-ONE, in the Cascadia Basin of Ocean Network Canada’s NEPTUNE Observatory uniquely links (physical) cosmology to environment and ecology in a profound and moving manner: deep space and deep-sea explicitly overlap and the space between Nature and Technology shifts, upsetting, like the neutrino itself, epistemic classifications. As Environmental Humanities Researcher Astrida Neimanis writes, “Water connects the human scale to other scales of life, both unfathomable and imperceptible. We are all bodies of water, in the constitutional, genealogical, and geographical sense.”
Radio Amnion taps into multiple registers of the imperceptible, from weak interaction physics to cultural and spiritual practices, that attend to and care for the Earth in many different ways. One might recall author Stanislaw Lem and filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s sentient ocean planet Solaris, or cultural practices of blessing water and its use in healing practices, as well as water’s capacity to slow down light, allowing for the tell-tale sign of Cherenkov radiation.
Crucially for the Oceans – the waters that give our planet Life – Radio Amnion transmits artists’ soundings and voicings, affirmations and resonances to celebrate the many flavors of engaging the unknown, while bringing new voices and perspectives to the sites of Physics and Oceanography by centering feminist, queer, anti-racist and decolonial practitioners. Radio Amnion foregrounds a radical relationality for the possibility of a more just future.
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Robinson excites the Reddit Space Community
Thousands gathered on July 2nd to engage with the University of Montreal Astrophysics professor and researcher Dr. Alan Robinson to ask questions as part of the Astrophysics Ask Me Anything series hosted by the McDonald Institute.
Dr.Robinson's session sported particular success, earning over 5.4 thousand upvotes and bringing over 440 questions. Dr. Robinson answered a wide variety of topics including (but not limited to) dark matter, black holes and XENON1T. One Redditor even asked about Robinson's favourite restaurants during his time spent in Chicago (apparently Chicago-Reader featured restaurant Munster Donut, is not to be missed!)
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The Astrophysics Ask Me Anything series aims to allow the public to probe the minds and experiences of trained Astrophysicists. The events begin with a live segment where audience members can speak directly to the guest speaker. This later transitions onto the r/Space Subreddit, which allows for members of the public to continue to engage with the speaker after the live portion is complete. Dr. Robinson's spotlight is the fifth installment in the AAMA series, which occurs bi-monthly. The series has previously hosted Astrophysics Experimentalist Aaron Vincent and PICO collaborator Ken Clark.
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We would also like to give some virtual high-fives to our intrepid group of outreach champions for stepping in to help answer the 446 questions!
Thank you!
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Achieving success in your career requires ongoing training and education. The Professional Development and Learning Series at the McDonald Institute is designed to identify, develop, and enhance the transferable skills needed for successful careers. Students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty come together as a community for weekly online seminars covering topics of career preparation for academic and non-academic jobs, Startup entrepreneurship, managing complex research, competitive presentations, communication skills, and inclusivity in the workplace. The series draws on experts to lead conversations and enhance learning opportunities.
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Tuesday August 11, 2020, 1:30pm – 3:00pm EDT
So, you’re finishing your PhD… Now what? Insights on the process, value, and benefits of a postdoctoral research position.
Nearing the end of your doctoral studies is both exciting and nerve-racking! You’re probably plagued by the ambiguous question: “What are you going to do when you’re done?” To illuminate one pathway you might pursue, we welcome postdoctoral researchers Drs. Yi-Hsuan “Cindy” Lin (SNOLAB), Sarah Schon (Queen’s University), Pietro Giampa (TRIUMF), Alberto Tonero (Carleton University), and Sumanta Pal (University of Alberta) to the Professional Development and Learning Series!
Guided by your questions, we’re excited for a lively discussion focused on postdoctoral experiences affiliated with the McDonald Institute across Canada. This panel discussion is geared towards PhD students interested in learning more about postdoctoral researcher experiences, but all are welcome to attend.
Register HERE (Please add your own question(s) to the registration form.
We will guide the conversation based on your interests and panelists’ experiences!)
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Frontier Research Venture Fund Announcement
The McDonald Institute is seeking new applicants for the fourth round of the FRVF competition! Applications for this round of funding will be accepted until Friday August 28th.
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Please ensure that your application reflects potential changes to research programs and operations due to COVID-19. Any implications for timelines and project implementation will be considered during the adjudication process and throughout the award period.
Please review the Guidelines below and our webpage for details
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SNOLAB Seminar Series
New Limit from the Search for Neutrinoless-Double-Beta-Decay of 100Mo with the CUPID-Mo Experiment
Monday, August 17th, at 1 pm ET
Dr. Ben Schmidt, LBL, US
DARWIN and its Science Program
Monday, August 24th, at 1 pm ET
Prof. Laura Baudis, University of Zurich, Switzerland
ProtoDUNE/DUNE Single-Phase Cryogenic Infrastructure and its Science Program
Monday, August 31st, at 1 pm ET
Dr. Stefania Bordoni, CERN, Switzerland
Directional DM Experiments
Monday, September 14th, at 1 pm ET
Prof. Elisabetta Baracchini, GSSI, Italy
Reducing the Impact of Radioactivity on Quantum Circuits in a Deep-Underground Facility
Monday, September 21st, at 1 pm ET
Dr. Laura Cardani, Roma1 INFN
For those interested in attending, please send an email to Mark Richardson indicating your interest.
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G.I.R.L.S. Initiative launches STEM Stories:
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What does it take to become a scientist? Where do they come from, and how did they get to where they are? STEM Stories explores the lives of top female scientists and their pathways to becoming leading experts in the world.
Tune in weekly, Thursdays at 1 pm EDT / 11 am PDT to hear and interact with the top minds in science. This 20-minute program will feature a 10-minute autobiography by guest scientists, followed by a 10-minute live Q&A.
Everyone is welcome to join and participate in the journey and exploration of the lives of the greatest minds of our time.
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Thank you for your continued interest in the Canadian astroparticle physics community.
If you would like to view past newsletters from the McDonald Institute, please visit the: Newsletter Archive.
Stay home and stay safe, and thank you all for doing your part!
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