Fermilab

Changes in the AD organization

February 1, 2012 | Roger Dixon

Roger Dixon

Roger Dixon, head of the Accelerator Division, wrote this column.

When the Tevatron rode off into the sunset on Sept. 30, people around the laboratory wondered what the people working on the Tevatron would be doing in the future. That was not a problem in the Accelerator Division. We had many projects on the books that were hungry for manpower, and we still do. Nevertheless, the shutdown of the Tevatron was a major transition for our division. As a result, we have made some organizational changes:

  • The most obvious change was that the Tevatron department went away, freeing up eight people for other assignments in the division.
  • The Antiproton Source Department also required major changes: we no longer need to produce antiprotons for the Tevatron. We created the Muon Department since we will use the equipment of the Antiproton Source to create muons for the proposed Muon g-2 experiment and to support the Mu2e experiment. Many Antiproton Source people had already been working on plans for the new Muon Campus, and people from the Tevatron Department and AD Headquarters joined the Muon Department as well to move ahead the projects supporting the muon experiments.
  • In the support departments, most personnel already focused on projects associated with future experiments, including NOvA, Mu2e, Muon g-2 and LBNE. These departments now have extra help from support people who transferred from the former Antiproton Source Department.
  • A large group of AD people continues to work on Accelerator R&D in the SRF Electron Linac and SRF Proton Linac Departments, which were formed last year. They work on the AD efforts related to the Advanced Superconducting Test Accelerator, located at NML, and work on a small proton accelerator, located in the MDB building in the fixed-target area. AD also supports the Muon Test Area, which is located at the end of the linear accelerator and houses the MuCool project.

As you can tell, there are a lot of projects going on at the laboratory. Keeping up with all of these activities will be an enormous challenge for our division.