University of Wisconsin at Madison

Submitted by Allison Van Horn, South Dakota State University, Class of 2018

   It is my greatest pleasure to talk to you about my experiences at the University of Wisconsin and surrounding activities that the Davis Bahcall Scholars were fortunate enough to partake in! To start the day off we visited the IceCube facility in Madison, Wisconsin. During our time at the facility we spoke with various different members of the IceCube team. We learned about IceCube's mission, how they started off, and what the future looks like for their research.
      After meeting with the IceCube members we then went to the University of Wisconsin's Virtual Realization of the actual IceCube experiment. We split into two separate groups; one experiencing the amazing technology of the Virtual Realization, the other group exploring different high-end technologies like the Oculus Rift and the Zscape. As I personally experienced all of these technologies, I started to think of all the many applications that they could be used for. I pondered the thought of using the Virtual Realization for different rehab practices, historical reenactments, and engineering capabilities. I found all of these absolutely amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there!
     After visiting the Virtual Realization, our group then went to visit the University's Nuclear Reactor. We spoke with one graduate student and one undergraduate student who are both specializing in Nuclear Engineering and have worked on the nuclear reactor. We viewed live camera feed of the nuclear reactor and learned about the basic set up of it as well. I found the engineering side of the nuclear reactor to be fascinating! As we were leaving I was trying to think of ways to dispose of the radioactive waste and how that field of work and study could open up so many new jobs.

    After a full day of discovery and exploration I found myself with many new questions about the possibilities of future technology, engineering, and physics. My time spent at the University of Wisconsin's campus as well as the IceCube facility was very well spent and I am so happy that I was fortunate enough to learn about all of these projects in STEM fields that I can hopefully apply to my career in the future.

The Virtual Reality Dome at the University of Wisconsin Discovery Center. 

Frascati National Laboratory

Submitted by Hannah Wisser, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Class of 2017

July 4th, 2014- Frascati

            We met the hot Roman morning optimistic and full of hope as we embarked on our adventure. Today would be the day we would see Frascati National Laboratory. It started off simple enough, leaving the hotel and going to the Metro. However, upon exiting the Metro, we had become lost. The guide did not know which direction our destination lied and it took a good ten minutes to distinguish our left from our right. After several wrong turns we finally decided to do the unthinkable: we asked for directions. The extraordinarily helpful Italians pointed us in the right direction and we arrived at the Laboratory only several minutes late.

            The laboratory covered a vast expanse and was full of twisting roads leading scientists from one detector to the next. We followed these winding roads to the administration building where the mysteries of Frascati were unraveled before us. Detectors by the name of NEMO, DAPHINE, KLOE, and NAUTILUS were explained to us at this time.

            Once the seminar concluded our guide led us to DAPHINE and we stood among the accelerator basking in its technological beauty as dipole and quadropole magnets whirred all around filling the air with their powerful magnetic field. Standing tall above us was the detector itself, not yet turned on, but ready to be booted up and used to monitor collision after collision of subatomic particles.

            With spare time on our hands and an entire campus of detectors, we seized the opportunity and viewed NAUTILUS. A humorous life-sized cutout of Albert Einstein smiled at us upon our entrance and a big green blob of a detector was set behind him. Designed to detect gravity waves it seems almost out of date compared to some newer experiments designed for the same purpose, but using up to date technology for a more sensitive detector. Still, NAUTILUS continues to run in hopes of observing something that might fit the mold for gravity waves.

            We left this establishment full of knowledge and a four course lunch and embarked on the journey back to the apartment where rest and a soft bed was to be had.

The Daphne Detector at Frascati National Laboratory outside of Rome. Picture by Hannah Wisser

The NOvA detector

Submitted by Rachel Williams, Black Hills State University, Class of 2017

Davis-Bahcall Scholar's log, star date 92083.04. 

NOvA far detector! Alrighty, so NOvA was probably my favorite experiment to see before going to FermiLab and Argonne. This off-axis neutrino experiment located in Ash River, Minnesota (very close to the Canadian border) was honestly a surprise to myself and the others. From the outside, it just looks like a long building with granite boulders over most of it... however the surprise was inside. We didn't really realize until we entered that it was quite deep into the ground.

So a little bit about the experiment; the NOvA far detector was constructed as the follow up/sibling neutrino experiment to MINOS (located at the 27th level in the Soudan Mine). The far detector is 810 km away from Fermilab's Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) and it's purpose is to determine mixing angles, CP-violating phase, and the neutrino mass hierarchy through observing the oscillation of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos. 

With 10782 modules, this plastic structure filled with a scintillator oil marks the largest plastic structure in the world. It's huge! "I was amazed at how massive it was." Fellow scholar-mate Allison Van Horn mentioned afterwards, "It was so technical; like a million piece jigsaw puzzle, with oil scintillator, physical rigging, data acquisition, and everything else." Personally, I also thought it was awesome that it was constructed largely by undergrads; to be able to get that much experience as an undergraduate is very helpful and impressive on future resumes.

All in all, NOvA was very surprising and interesting, but makes us all very excited for the LBNE coming to our doorstep back home, and all the opportunities it could bring forth.
Onward to more science! 

Underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso

Submitted by Jack Storm, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Class of 2018

July 9, 2014

            Today was our last day for several things; our last day of tours, going underground, and being in the amazing city that is Roma. It is definitely a bitter-sweet sensation. We hate leaving such a wonderful country and being done with all the tours and insight on real science, but it will be nice to be home. Of course the learning doesn’t stop here though. There is still Neutrino Day for us to take part in, and I know we will learn and have a great time with that.

            This morning we were able to have a little extra time to sleep in, which is always nice. Once we were up we got right to it though, and boy were we excited. Many of our teachers, family and friends back home were jealous of this portion of the trip, both because of us being in Italy for the sight-seeing, but also for the opportunity to visit the famous Gran Sasso underground laboratory. The sights of Rome and the mountains were indeed spectacular, butwhat we really wanted to see were the incredible experiments first hand and to get a taste of what science in the real world was truly like. And we got just that, (not only at Gran Sasso, but throughout out whole trip). Going underground in Italy was much different than back at SRUF or Soudan. Instead of taking a shaky elevator, we took a nice drive through the beautiful mountains and into a long tunnel.It was a nice change.

            Once underground, we were able to see many of the experiments that we had heard so much about in the weeks prior to Italy. Some of those experiments include Cresst, Coure, LVD, GERDA, OPERA, and others. OPERA was interesting because it was detecting the oscillation of tau neutrinos. Tau neutrinos, as we have found out in our lectures, are fairly difficult to detect because they do not stay as that flavor for long. Also, something new that I learned was that scientists use neutrinos to measure the thorium and uranium in the Earth’s mantle. Since we can’t physically reach the mantle, they study the neutrinos as they go through it. This, among other fascinating experiments, made this trip an incredible experience for me. I have enjoyed every minute of it and I can’t wait to share my stories and knowledge. Thank you to all who were involved!

In the tunnel at Gran Sasso. Photo by

Gran Sasso National Laboratory: Day 1

Submitted by Layne Droppers, Iowa State University, Class of 2018

        After a weekend in one of the world’s most historic cities, the Davis-Bahcall Scholars have moved on to the next adventure of their journey. Monday morning we took multiple buses to reach our final destination of Assergi, Italy -- a small town in the mountains which houses the surface facilities of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The rural environment differs greatly from that of Rome, yet it is refreshing to be in such a beautiful, quiet place.

        Monday afternoon started our first round of lectures, given by Dr. Carla Macolino on the current extent of neutrino physics and what big-picture questions that modern physics is attempting to answer with its current batch of experiments. Our lectures continued Tuesday morning with a talk on neutrino oscillations and concluded with a lecture on the search for Dark Matter and its applications here at Gran Sasso -- including The DarkSide experiment which Augustana College and Black Hills State University are a part of. The lectures concluded our activities at the surface lab, but our day was far from over.

        After our lectures concluded at noon on Tuesday we took a cable car up into the mountains for lunch and an afternoon of fun. Upon reaching the top and realizing we may have been underdressed, we stocked up on hats and jackets at base camp, grabbed lunch, and then began our trek into the mountains. Our adventures varied from walking along the ridge of the mountains, scaling up the rocks to reach a hidden cave, and hiking to reach deposits of ice and snow. I can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt it is the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. And, to be honest, after the hot and humid days in Italy, the cold was refreshing.

        Tomorrow we will get the opportunity to tour Gran Sasso’s underground facility and see the experiments that are taking place there. I’m excited for this opportunity, yet not quite ready for this experience to be over so soon. I am very glad to have been able to take part in a program that has allowed me to delve into real-world applications of science not only nationally, but internationally. The experience has truly been invaluable.

Gran Sasso National Park. Photo by Jack Storm

Sanford Underground Research Facility

Contributed by Noah Watkins, Augustana College, Class of 2018

To whom it may concern,

My name is Noah Watkins and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the moment I read my acceptance letter into the Davis-Bahcall program was one of the happiest moments of my young life. This has been a dream come true as far as experience in today’s math and physical science related career paths are concerned. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Our trip as Davis-Bahcall Scholars started out in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There we stayed at Black Hills State University and regularly traveled to Homestake Mine in Lead, SD. There we learned about modern particle physics. This is a rapidly developing field of physics that captivates the minds of many brilliant scientists around the world. As someone who plans on studying physics at college it was interesting to see what opportunities lie ahead of me. After covering the basics of the field such as the Standard Model and prevailing theories on the expansion, and by extent fate, of the universe, we put our focus on muons and dark matter. We spent a lot of time looking at what they are, how they interact with the world around us and the different ways one can detect these elusive miniscule particles. While both present their own conundrums of observation, ultimately muons are proven and have established methods of detection while our theories on the predicted dark matter remain undetected and therefore unproven. To wrap up our understanding of particle detectors, we set up muon detectors on the surface as well as at 4850 feet underground in the mine, and observed the Lux experiment also set up on the 4850 level designed to detect dark matter. Pictured below is our leader Dr. Norris in the blue helmet and the ten Davis-Bahcall Scholars heading down the shaft to the 4850 level. I will never forget that trip into the mine not only because we were almost a mile below the surface, of the Earth, but because of the cutting edge physics taking place there.

Heading down the shaft at Sanford Underground Research Facility. Picture by Deirdre Peck. 

Fermilab, Day 2

Submitted by Kassia Symstad, University of Chicago,  Class of 2018

We went back to Fermilab the day after our weekend in Chicago. Of all the labs we'd been to up until then, I enjoyed Fermilab the most--partially because of the interesting buildings, partially because of the interesting experiments, but also because it's in an area of Illinois that isn't too far from where I grew up. I especially appreciated the restored prairie.

We visited and learned about a few of the experiments we'd missed on the first day at Fermilab, including the Tevatron. This underground circular particle accelerator is an impressive feat of physics and engineering, with many complicated pieces such as magnets and muon detectors. It smelled like my grandma's cellar.

Something I found interesting was the creation of antiprotons for the Tevatron. According to the scientists we spoke to at Fermilab, when you smash a proton into a target, a bunch of different kinds of particles are created--sometimes including antiprotons. Magnetic fields are then used to separate the positive and negative charges and keep the antiprotons from annihilating with regular matter. It took about 30 hours to make enough antiprotons to fill the Tevatron ring.

Another experiment we visited had not quite been started, unlike the Tevatron, which has been shut down. The Muon g-2 experiment is studying muons in magnetic fields to learn about the virtual particles that pop in and out of vacuums. The magnet it will use is huge--apparently its size made it quite an adventure to transport it to the lab.

We then finished the day with a talk on the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment, which will be heading to the place we started out: SURF in Lead.

This length of superconducting magnet is just a portion of the g-2 muon ring. Photo by Peggy Norris