Andy’s Los Alamos Blog

Sorry I’m a bit late posting; things have been pretty crazy between training and getting involved in research. Training is a big deal around here. I had general employee training on Tuesday, computer and drug abuse training on Wednesday morning, electricity training today, and I still have RF (radio frequency), chemical, cryogen, pressure, gas, lead, and radiation safety training to look forward to! A lot of people (including myself, sometimes) complain about the amount of training required to do anything around the lab, but it’s good that they get everyone on the same page, and I’ve certainly picked up of safety tips a lot that I can take back the university lab.

My research work thus far has consisted mostly of reading papers written about my project and former/similar ones. If you’re more scientifically inclined, I urge you to check out the research archive at http://www.arxiv.org. Do a search for “dark matter WIMP” and you’ll get a wealth of excellent papers on my topic. arXiv.org is a phenomenal tool for students doing research; bookmark it for later if you’ll be doing any technical research in physics, math, computer, science, or quantitative biology.

I actually did get to help work on an actual dark matter detector (exciting!), and I’m learning a great deal about the state of the art in this field. A major problem, I’ve learned, is background radiation. Everything is radioactive to some extent; people, bricks, and many other things you encounter daily are actually significantly so. Enormous amounts of radiation emanate from the Sun, imparting warmth and sunburns. The common terrestrial sources (e.g. bricks) are all relatively low-level emitters (compared with, say, enriched uranium), and quite innocuous. However, when you’re looking for a particle that will probably come only about once a year and carries a pretty low kinetic energy, your observations can quickly become flooded with even the tiniest source of radioactive contamination. It’s like listening for a pin drop when someone’s yelling in your ear with a megaphone. A major difficulty of detecting WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), which we believe comprise the universe’s dark matter content, is eliminating or filtering out this background radiation.

One thing I’m starting to figure out with this project is how to think like an experimentalist. Sometimes the most intuitive approach is not the best one. Sometimes it’s not even really possible. For example, an engineer friend and I once were debating whether or not my ceiling was level. My proposal: simply place an anti-gravity marble on the ceiling, and observe which way it rolls. Engineer’s proposal: use a level. It’s difficult to get into so practical a frame of mind (”but the math all works out…”).

I’m back in training almost all day Friday, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some more hands-on experience at some point. I’m looking forward to my first real weekend in Los Alamos! Hopefully I’ll be able to get outside, ride the bike around, and get some pictures of the town and surrounding (unbelievably beautiful) country.

As always, thanks for reading.