A Quantum Diaries Survivor

Today is the first day of the CDF week in Paris. A full week of discussion on the status of the experiment and the challenges awaiting us, and a detailed insight in the scores of analyses being brought forward by a thinning but still powerful group of highly experienced and focused physicists.

It’s good to be in CDF. An experiment that has run for very nearly a quarter of a century, and a collaboration which by trial and error has reached a wonderful equilibrium between its many souls - conservativeness defenders, bold seekers of the unexpected, precision measurement guys. All supported and intermingled with a backbone of detector fixers, electronic geniuses, bright thinkers. A bunch of extraordinary people, if you ask me. And the results are for everybody to see, although I will avoid listing them here.

This week, we will have more time to interact and entertain in relaxed discussions than what normally happens during the two-day CDF collaboration meetings held at Fermilab. And we will have invited talks by a few distinguished theorists and experimentalists to stimulate our brainstorming. Here is a list:

• I.Antoniadis will discusss “Physics and signatures of extra dimensions“
• D.Boutigny will talk about the “French computing center and perspectives“
• C.Grojean will tell us of “Electroweak theory beyond the Standard Model“
• S.Heinemeyer is on “Higgs & Susy at CDF II before LHC takes over“
• M.Mangano will give a “Workshop summary and further thoughts“
• L.Rolandi will have a “Perspective of an outsider on Higgs hunting at CDF“
• G.Salam will discuss “Jets, higher order & interplay between them“.

 As you see, a nice list of interesting topics, which I look forward to hear about. If you have a particular interest in any of these topics, drop me a line and I will try to cover them here.