Fermilab beyond the Tevatron

[beamjockey]

A notice appeared in the 31 August edition of Fermilab Today:

Tevatron shutdown event - Sept. 30
On Friday, Sept. 30, the Tevatron will shut down for the last time after 28 years of operation at the frontiers of particle physics.

All employees and users are invited to watch a broadcast of the activities that will take place in the CDF and DZero control rooms and in the Main Control Room as the collider and experiments are shut down. Fermilab Director Pier Oddone will host the broadcast, which will begin at 2 p.m. Employees are invited to watch the broadcast from Ramsey Auditorium, or online.

A lab-wide party in celebration of the Tevatron will take place[...] More information and details will soon be available online.

I'm always up for a party (such as this one or this one (more pictures). Still, some of my friends and relatives have expressed concern that America's biggest accelerator is shutting down. What will happen to Fermilab?

Allow me to assure you that there are still several accelerators here, and that some of them will continue to provide beam to experiments. Also, three machines that are now busy supporting Tevatron operation will become available for other purposes.

We are left with these, all of which can handle protons:

Linac: 400 MeV linear accelerator

Booster: 8 GeV synchrotron

Main Injector: 120 GeV, capable of 150 GeV

Recycler: 8 GeV storage ring

Antiproton Accumulator: 8 GeV storage ring

Antiproton Debuncher: 8 GeV storage ring

In addition, there is a 5 MeV pelletron, running electrons, that I have heard will probably be retired, and a number of small machines involved in research for future electron accelerator components, such as superconducting radiofrequency cavities.

The Linac feeds protons to the Booster, which feeds the Main Injector; in addition, all three of these machines provide beam to fixed-target experiments.

The Recycler, Accumulator, and Debuncher (all of which carry antiprotons today) will be idle once the Tevatron shuts off, but there are plans to adapt the Recycler to improve Main Injector intensity, and to use the Accumulator and Debuncher for future experiments.

So there are still several rings in our circus, and even if our elephant is retiring, the show will go on.

Comments

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

http://www.4shared.com/audio/LsI4HTZt/Before_They_Close_The_Minstrel.html

[C]Poster's peeling underneath
Last [G7]summer's morning glory [C]vine
Old white hat and a stump o' cigar
And an [G7]empty bottle o' wine

Lay me [C]down, Caro[F]lina, lay me [C]down
Don't wanna wake up in the [F]morn[C]ing no [G7]more
Sing me one [C]slow sad [C7] song for this one [F]last old [Dm]time
Before they [G7] close the minstrel [C] show

Banjo's got a broken string
Don't 'spect I'll get to fix it now
There won't be no more chance to sing
Well I'm rusty anyhow

Daddy Bones is dead, I guess
You probably don't know or care
Frank and Archie's gone away
Somewhere, I don't know where

The money and the crowd ran out
Before we left the last town
This old show done played its round
Run the curtain down

I don't know where we go from here
Comes to that I just don't care
Maybe we'll go to a better place
And the minstrel show'll be there

-- "Before They Close The Minstrel Show" by Bob Coltman

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

The Pelletron is neat. They use it to make an intense electron beam to cool antiprotons, right? Send the "spent" e-beam back up against the electrostatic potential to recover almost all the unused beam energy.