Press Conferences at APS Meeitng in Denver, May 2-5, 2009

April 22, 2009 — The following press conferences will take place
during the 2009 April Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS),
which will be held May 2-5 in Denver at the Sheraton Denver Hotel.
More pressroom information is listed below, including details on how
to obtain complimentary registration as a journalist.

Contact James Riordon (riordon@aps.org, office: 1-301-209-3238, cell:
1-301-919-2173) for instructions for dialing in to press conferences
remotely.

BRIEF SCHEDULE OF PRESS CONFERENCES

Saturday, May 2
11:30 a.m. – Superconducting Sensors Probe the Early Big Bang
1:30 p.m. – Future Global Physics Projects

Sunday, May 3
11:30 a.m. – Science Policy: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
2:00 p.m. – Neutrino Mass and the Origin of Matter

Monday, May 4
10:00 a.m. – Gravitational Waves, Pulsars, and Mountains on Neutron Stars
11:30 a.m. – The LHC Returns
1:00 p.m. – Geoengineering: Stop-Gap Approaches to Climate Change?
2:00 p.m. – Astrophysics in the Lab

PRESS CONFERENCE DETAILS

Saturday, May 2, 11:30 a.m.
Superconducting Sensors Probe the Early Big Bang (Session C12)

A novel detector, developed by scientists at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) at Boulder, not only senses the
arrival of single photons but can determine each photon’s energy.
Moreover, even the polarization of the incoming light can be
determined. This last feature is especially valuable for using
cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) photons — light left over from the
period when the first stable atoms formed about 400,000 years after
the big bang — to deduce properties of gravitational waves from an
even earlier period. This is because early gravity waves (which
squeeze and pull on spacetime) would have imparted an orientation, or
polarization, to the CMB light. The NIST detector exploits the quantum
phenomenon of superconductivity. The incoming photons break up a
number of Cooper pairs (pairs of electrons forming a supercurrent),
whose movement is monitored by a nearby SQUID (superconducting quantum
interference device). The readout provides information about the
photon’s energy and polarization. Three NIST scientists, Kent Irwin,
Ki Won Yoon (paper C12.1), and Joel Ullum will report on the
development of the sensor and on its likely uses, not only in
astrophysics but also in such as down-to-earth tasks as searching for
contraband nuclear materials.

Saturday, May 2, 1:30 p.m.
Future Global Physics Projects (Session D4)

Some of the most important scientific and technical questions of the
21st century are ones that may only be tackled through future projects
that will be massive in scope, years in planning, and billions of
dollars in execution. They will require strong input from government,
industry, and intellectual resources from around the world, and global
partnerships formed to tackle such future projects will be both
essential and inevitable. In Denver, a panel of distinguished speakers
will discuss such partnerships in the context of several future global
physics projects that are now in various stages of development. They
will address fundamental questions such as how nations come together
to establish priorities for basic science and targeted R&D, what
mechanisms will emerge for funding global projects, how their benefits
can be equitably shared, and whether there is need for a dedicated
international science agency.

Attending the press conference beforehand will be panelists Pier
Oddone (pjoddone@fnal.gov), who is the director of Fermilab, and Chris
Llewellyn-Smith (C.Llewellyn-Smith@physics.ox.ac.uk), a Visiting
Professor at Oxford University, chairs councils for both the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and
Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and its Applications in the
Middle East (SESAME). Llewellyn-Smith is a former director of the UK’s
fusion program and the former Director General of CERN, the European
Organization for Nuclear Research. Joining them will be Pushpa Bhat
(pushpa@fnal.gov), a Fermilab scientist working on the Tevatron and
LHC experiments and an officer of the APS Forum on Physics & Society
(FPS), and former FPS chair Lawrence Krauss, who is the director of
the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University (krauss@asu.edu)
and a frequent commentator on science and social issues.

Sunday, May 3, 11:30 a.m.
Science Policy: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Session G7)

Many of the challenges facing our society in the 21st century will
demand solutions drawn from both policy and science. Science and
policy have a long history of being intertwined in the United States,
but what will the future bring? How will scientists and policy makers
interact to confront the most important global issues of today and
tomorrow — energy, climate change, national security, education,
healthcare, and others? The speakers in Session G7 will address some
of these questions and will be giving a press conference afterwards.
They are:

Jack Gibbons (jackgibbons@hughes.net), former director of the U.S.
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Assistant to the
President for Science and Technology, and Director of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1993-98. He will discuss
the evolution of conservation in energy policy and examine two
contrasting views of the subject. The first, which he considers to be
incorrect, sees conservation as a denial of amenities. A more examined
worldview, on the other hand, understands energy production and
consumption to be intimately connected and sees conservation as a key
technological strategy for the future.

Neal Lane (neal@rice.edu) of Rice University, former director of the
National Science Foundation, Assistant to the President for Science
and Technology, and Director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy from 1998-2001. He will discuss the extraordinary
opportunities for science to influence important policy decisions in
the coming era, focusing especially on the need for “civic scientists”
who will help the science community deliver common and coherent
messages to political leaders at all levels of government.

Lewis M. Branscomb (lewis_branscomb@harvard.edu), emeritus Director of
Harvard’s Science, Technology and Public Policy Program, served on
President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee and was director
of the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) from 1969-72. He will
discuss science as a model for rational and legitimate government and
examine the traditional marriage between science and politics in the
United States — one consummated by partners needing each other for
different reasons. He will explore how future opportunities may
strengthen bonds between the two and benefit both science and
democracy.

Sunday, May 3, 2:00 p.m.
Neutrino Mass and the Origin of Matter (Papers Q2.3 and G9.1)

The discovery of neutrino masses and the possibility that neutrinos
are their own anti-particles has provided a new way to resolve a
long-standing puzzle of cosmology, i.e. why the universe consists
almost entirely of matter, and very little antimatter. Rabindra
Mohapatra (University of Maryland, rmohapat@physics.umd.edu) explores
the connection between neutrino mass and the matter/antimatter
asymmetry. At the heart of his approach is the so-called “seesaw
mechanism,’’ which provides a way to understand why neutrino masses
are so much smaller than the masses of other standard model particles
by postulating the existence of heavy right-handed neutrinos. The
decay of right-handed neutrinos in the early universe could have
provided the seed for the observed matter/antimatter asymmetry.
Mohapatra will discuss possible tests of this idea in upcoming
neutrino experiments. J. Pedro Ochoa (Caltech,
jpochoa@hep.caltech.edu) is approaching the matter/antimatter
asymmetry from another angle — by a novel analysis method that yields
the best sensitivity yet achieved to data provided by the MINOS
neutrino experiment. MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search)
detects neutrinos that have passed from a source at Fermilab in
Illinois to a mineshaft 735 kilometers away in Minnesota. Clear
indications that the neutrinos are transformed from one type to
another could be a clue to the causes behind the matter/antimatter
asymmetry that makes the universe we see possible.

Monday, May 4, 10:00 a.m.
Gravitational Waves, Pulsars, and Mountains on Neutron Stars (Papers
X5.1 and R11.5)

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) and the
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) should soon open a new
window on the universe by measuring the ripples in space that come
with passing gravitational waves. Andrea Lommen (Franklin and Marshall
College, andrea.lommen@fandm.edu) is investigating an alternative
technique that could give LIGO and LISA a run for their money by
detecting gravitational waves with the help of pulsars. A pulsar is a
spinning star that emits a beam of radiation much like a lighthouse,
which leads to pulses that we detect every time the beam sweeps past
the Earth. Measuring disturbances in pulsar signals could reveal
signatures of gravitational waves. Lommen will discuss the science of
detecting gravitational waves with pulsars, and the applications
possible with the measurements. Charles Horowitz (Indiana University,
horowit@indiana.edu) and colleagues, on the other hand, are pondering
a potential source of gravitational waves — mountains on spinning
neutron stars. The maximum possible size of these mountains depends on
the characteristics of neutron star crust. Their analysis shows that
neutron star crust is likely very strong and can support mountains
large enough that the gravitational wave radiation they produce might
be detectable in large interferometers like LISA and LIGO. They also
find that the energy lost to the gravitational radiation produced by
mountains on neutron stars could limit the maximum spin periods of
some stars.

Monday, May 4 11:30 a.m.
The LHC Returns (Sessions, G14, V1, B9, G2)

The largest and the most complex scientific apparatus in the world,
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), shut down shortly after circulating
its first beams last September, before proton-proton collisions could
begin. Nevertheless, the massive detectors at LHC have been put to a
thorough test in which they recorded millions of high-energy
interactions, courtesy of powerful cosmic rays raining down from
above. Two physicists, Chang Liu of Purdue (lyc@purdue.edu, paper
G14.3) and Andrew York of the University of Tennessee (ayork7@utk.edu,
paper B9.1) will report on this celestial contribution to LHC
preparations, including an interesting effect involving the Moon and
with cosmic-ray energies perhaps as high as 1
million-billion-electron-volts (they’re not sure since the detectors
weren’t designed for such energies). Paris Sphicas of the University
of Athens (sphicas@cern.ch) will review the repair of the magnet
system at CERN and the prospects for energizing the collider. He is
the physics coordinator for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS)
experiment, which entails one of the largest scientific collaborations
in history (paper V1.1). Ken Bloom of the University of Nebraska
(bloom@fnal.gov), will report on the preparations for the immense data
flow anticipated for the CMS detector –as much as 10 peta-bits (10
million-billion bits) per year. He will also explain how the detection
of the top quark at LHC will help scientists to properly calibrate and
commission the collider (paper G2.3).

Monday, May 4, 1:00 p.m.
Geoengineering — Stop-Gap Approaches to Climate Change? (Session Q7)

Among the most far-reaching strategies for dealing with climate change
is geoengineering — a set of engineering approaches that would seek
to alter the climate system on a global scale and reverse or mitigate
the effects of climate change. Session Q7 addresses how effective and
how dangerous geoengineering would be as a stop-gap measure if the
consequences of climate change grow intolerable. David Keith of the
University of Calgary (keith@ucalgary.ca) will discuss the risks and
unknowns of injecting engineered particles into the atmosphere to
absorb sunlight. Alan Robock of Rutgers University
(robock@envsci.rutgers.edu) will discuss the many negative
consequences of the production of a sulfuric acid cloud in the
stratosphere to reduce sunlight. Kenneth Coale of Moss Landing Marine
Laboratories (coale@mlml.calstate.edu) will discuss the challenges of
fertilizing the ocean with iron, which would speed up plankton growth
and increase the absorption of carbon dioxide by these marine
organisms.

Monday, May 4, 2:00 p.m.
Astrophysics in the Lab (Papers W3.3 and K12.3)

It’s often amazing to see just how much some of the smallest objects
in nature can teach us about some of the largest. Jorge Piekarewicz
(Florida State University, jpiekarewicz@fsu.edu) will describe how
laboratory experiments, such as the Parity Radius Experiment (PREx) at
the Jefferson Laboratory, may be used to understand properties of
massive neutron stars. PREx is designed to precisely measure the
radius of neutrons inside the nuclei of lead atoms. A better
understanding of neutrons here on Earth will improve our knowledge of
the massive collections of particles that make up neutron stars. Kelly
Chipps (Rutgers University, kchipps@gmail.com) is investigating
exploding stellar novae by studying the nuclear reactions that drive
the violent events. Chipps and colleagues have managed the first
direct measurement of an important nuclear reaction — the rate of
proton capture in radioactive fluorine-17. The measurement should
enhance the value of gamma-ray telescopes like Fermi and INTEGRAL,
which can detect gamma rays produced in the proton capture reactions
of stellar novae.

MORE PRESSROOM INFORMATION

The main meeting website, which includes information on housing,
exhibits, events, and services is
http://www.aps.org/meetings/april/index.cfm. A full list of meeting
presentations can be accessed at:
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR09/APS_epitome.

Complimentary press registration will allow journalists and public
information officers to attend all scientific sessions and exhibits.
To register as press, contact Phil Schewe (pschewe@aip.org).

— The meeting pressroom will be located in the Sheraton Denver hotel,
Plaza Court 6.
— Pressroom hours: Sat-Mon, 730 a.m.-530 p.m.; Tues, 730 a.m.-noon
— Pressroom phone number: 303-352-2420
— Pressroom fax number: 303-352-2421
— Breakfast and lunch food will be available in the pressroom Sat-Mon

ABOUT APS
The American Physical Society is the world’s leading professional body
of physicists, representing more than 47,000 physicists in academia
and industry in the US and internationally. It has offices in College
Park, MD, Ridge, NY, and Washington, DC.

ABOUT AIP
Headquartered in College Park, MD, the American Institute of Physics
is a not-for-profit membership corporation chartered in New York State
in 1931 for the purpose of promoting the advancement and diffusion of
the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare.