beam Archives

Testing wraps up for first Fermilab-designed cryomodule for PIP-II accelerator

Cryomodules of five different types, one of which is the SSR1 pictured here, boost the energy of the beam. cryomodule, beam, PIP-II, superconducting technology, accelerator Photo: Tom Nicol, Fermilab

A Fermilab team has completed tests for a crucial superconducting segment for the PIP-II particle accelerator, the future heart of the Fermilab accelerator chain. The segment, called a cryomodule, will be one of many, but this is the first to be fully designed, assembled and tested at Fermilab. It represents a journey of technical challenges and opportunities for innovation in superconducting accelerator technology.

What is luminosity?

Later this decade, the Large Hadron Collider will be upgraded to the High-Luminosity LHC. What does “luminosity” mean in particle physics, and why measure it instead of collisions?

First experiments receive beam in the new Irradiation Test Area

The new Irradiation Test Area has met a milestone: On Jan. 11, it began transporting a high-intensity proton beam to the very first set of user experiments. The ITA will play a critical role in High-Luminosity LHC projects and others to come. The beginning of operations ushers in a new era of instrumentation development in high-energy physics.

Next-generation particle beam cooling experiment underway at Fermilab accelerator

Fermilab's optical stochastic cooling experiment is now under way at the 40-meter-circumference Integrable Optics Test Accelerator, a versatile particle storage ring designed to pursue innovations in accelerator science. Photo: Giulio Stancari, Fermilab

High-intensity particle beams enable researchers to probe rare physics phenomena. A proposed technique called optical stochastic cooling could achieve brighter beams 10,000 times faster than current technology allows. A proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate OSC has begun at Fermilab’s Integrable Optics Test Accelerator.

Robert Ainsworth awarded $2.5 million to improve particle beams for high-intensity experiments

Fermilab scientist Robert Ainsworth has won a $2.5 million Department of Energy Early Career Research Award to study different ways of ensuring stability in high-intensity proton beams. By studying how certain types of beam instabilities emerge and evolve under different conditions, his team can help sharpen scientists’ methods for correcting them or avoiding them to begin with.

Discovery of a new type of particle beam instability

Fermilab scientist Alexey Burov has discovered that accelerator scientists misinterpreted a certain collection of phenomena found in intense proton beams for decades. Researchers had misidentified these beam instabilities, assigning them to particular class when, in fact, they belong to a new type of class: convective instabilities. In a paper published this year, Burov explains the problem and proposes a more effective suppression of the unwanted beam disorder.