It’s gearing up to be a rich spring, and a richer summer. Winter and Summer are the times of year most densely populated by high-energy physics conferences. The biggies for my field are the winter-time Moriond QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) and EW (ElectroWeak) conferences, followed usually in the late spring/early summer by the APS conference, followed in summer by Lepton-Photon, ICHEP (Intl’ Conf. on High-Energy Physics), and/or EPS. You can find all of these things listed well in advance on “hep.net”:http://www.hep.net.
Anyway, riches. I was talking about riches. I’m filling up my plate with a variety of activities for the spring. In an attempt to avoid the nice weather out here in California, I’m throwing myself into my bottomonium studies. My collaboration with Rob McElrath at UC Davis is going to start bearing fruit for both of us over the next few months, as he publishes phenomenology papers on the topic and I expand the search at the B-factory for the processes he and I have discussed.
I’m also heading to Vanderbilt University in late May for the “Frontiers in Contemporary Physics” (2005) conferences, a very well-regarded gathering to discuss the borderlands of physics. I’ll be presenting on behalf of the BaBar collaboration a few topical highlights. That’s gonna be great! This is my first conference in a while now, and it was a privelege to be asked by my collaboration to be one of the BaBar representatives at this meeting.
I’m also working on a variety of other projects. I’ve got my part-time involvement in the Braidwood neutrino experiment proposal. I’ve also got my BaBar event display work, which is getting some new polish now that we’re taking data again. Finally, I’m collaborating with some of my BaBar colleagues to assemble the pieces needed to discuss single-photon trigger physics and mechanics for the experiment. This is a critical ingredient in future studies of bottomonium, as well as exotic new physics searches, which I’d like to see born out by BaBar.
So the plate is full! Winter’s lull brings a new harvest in physics, and I can’t wait to reap!
