For the first time, a team at Fermilab has cooled and operated a superconducting radio-frequency cavity — a crucial component of superconducting particle accelerators — using cryogenic refrigerators, breaking the tradition of cooling cavities by immersing them in a bath of liquid helium. The demonstration is a major breakthrough in the effort to develop lean, compact accelerators for medicine, the environment and industry.
From Gizmodo, Sept. 13, 2019: Physicists at Fermilab have produced and tested a powerful magnet of the sort that could appear in the next generation of particle colliders. Fermilab scientist Alexander Zlobin talks with Gizmodo about the lab’s recent milestone achievement in reaching 14.1 teslas for a steering magnet.
From Tia Sáng, Sept. 13, 2019: Để xây dựng thế hệ máy gia tốc proton mới có khả năng gia tốc hạt lớn hơn, các nhà khoa học cần những nam châm mạnh nhất để có thể lái các hạt tới gần tốc độ ánh sáng lưu chuyển quanh một vòng tròn. Với một kích cỡ vòng tròn cho trước, để đưa năng lượng của chùm tia đạt mức cao hơn, các nam châm của máy gia tốc cần đạt được lực mạnh hơn để giữ cho chùm tia đi đúng hành trình của mình.
From KopalniaWiedzy.pl, Sept. 13, 2019: Naukowcy z Fermilab poinformowali o wygenerowaniu najsilniejszego pola magnetycznego stworzonego na potrzeby akceleratorów cząstek. Nowy rekord wynosi 14,1 tesli, a wynik taki uzyskano w magnecie schłodzonym do 4,5 kelwinów, czyli -268,65 stopnia Celsjusza. Poprzedni rekord, 13,8 tesli, został osiągnięty przed 11 laty w Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
A composer has given new life to an amplifier used within a historically significant particle accelerator.
The first major superconducting section of the PIP-II accelerator has come to Fermilab: the first of 23 cryomodules for the future accelerator. The cryomodules’ job is to get the lab’s powerful proton beam up and moving, sending it to higher and higher energies, approaching the speed of light. This first cryomodule also represents a successful joint effort between Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab to design and produce a critical accelerator component for the future heart of Fermilab.
Particle accelerators are some of the most complicated machines in science. In today’s more autonomous era of self-driving cars and vacuuming robots, efforts are going strong to automate different aspects of the operation of accelerators, and the next generation of particle accelerators promises to be more automated than ever. Scientists are working on ways to run them with a diminishing amount of direction from humans.
What do particle accelerators and craggy outcrops have in common? Both have Tor Raubenheimer trotting the globe. Thanks to both his work at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and his passion for rock climbing, he has gotten to know people and places on several continents.
A Ph.D. student at the Illinois Institute of Technology conducting his research at Fermilab, Bafia is currently researching a method to draw maximum performance from acceleration cavities. The method, called nitrogen doping, increases superconducting radio-frequency cavity efficiency and boosts beams to higher energies over shorter distances. His work earned him the Best Student Poster Prize at the 2019 International Particle Accelerator Conference.
In particle accelerators, the greater a beam’s intensity, the more opportunities there are to study particle interactions. One way to increase the intensity is to merge two beams with a technique called slip-stacking. However, when combining them, the beams’ interaction may cause instability. A Fermilab scientist has created a successful model of the fraught dynamics of two particle beams in close contact, leading to smoother sailing in this area of particle acceleration.