The past few weeks have been an example of what happens all too often in physics. An overwhelming amount of work and activity. Between job hunting, making a decision on possible long-term career choices, writing a proposal for a new experiment, managing the construction and commissionig activity for a detector upgrade on the current experiment, facing hardware related problems and difficulties, and moving -- a purely perosnal thing unrelated to physics-- there was little time to breathe yet alone to write a coherent blog. Sometimes I wonder how long I can do this. But then I'm surprised how I cannot avoid juggling so many things at the same time. Somehow it drives me and fuels me until I feel completely overwhelmed and need to step aside to take a break.
Some brief news from the last few weeks: After some long period of indecision, I decided to stay in Berkeley for now to focus on our effort towards a new reactor neutrino oscillation experiment at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in China and to complete and install the calibration system we built for KamLAND. Both of these projects make heavy use of the resources at Berkeley Lab and I felt that I would be most effective pursuing them here. Eventually, I would still like to move into a faculty position. For them time being though I wanted to focus on these projects .... and on improving my blog. ;)
Over the last month or two we have also stepped up our effort on the proposal for a reactor neutrino experiment at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in China.
A new committee -- the Neutrino Science Assessment Group (NuSAG) -- has formed in the US to look at new proposals and evaluate the future of neutrino science. We made a first presentation to NuSAG on June 1 and are now working on the questions they gave us for the second round. Getting a new experiment funded is tough. Planning an experiment overseas is even more difficult. What are the odds of this being successful? I don't know. But after spending more than 2 years to initiate the effort this is now the time when the rubber hits the road. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
The new 4pi calibration system we built for KamLAND is almost ready to be installed in KamLAND. In May and June we went through two technical reviews which went pretty well, I think. We are still waiting for the final report. Once the technical soundness of the projects has been blessed and we have finished the final tests the system is ready. The installation itself will be a challenging undertaking. One of the last problems we are facing is that the cable used in the system has too much background radioactivity. The plan is to immerse the systrem in our very clean neut
rino detector. Recent tests showed that the cable in question might have some potassium-40 contamination. Looks like somone might have eaten a banana before handling the cable sample. We are working on resolving this.
Tomorrow, I will escape. Not to a vacation but to a workshop in Seattle. A few days away from the daily routine of getting up early in Berkeley to call vendors on the East Coast and staying up late to communicate with my colleagues in Japan will be a refreshing break.
Ooops, I almost forgot there is still a talk to prepare for the INT conference in Seattle.....