Tevatron: Day of Doom

Sep 30, 2011 09:00

The final store is now circulating in the Tevatron. At breakfast, it was just below 100E30 luminosity units (per square centimeter per second ( Read more... )

physics, tevatron, fermilab, accelerators

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Comments 15

neowolf2 September 30 2011, 14:21:27 UTC
How much induced radioactivity is there in the tunnel? Will the magnets/etc. have to be treated as low level radioactive waste?

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beamjockey September 30 2011, 15:54:42 UTC
It varies, but generally only components in direct contact with the beam show measurable residual radioactivity, not tunnel walls or floor. For (at a guess) 99% of the components in the ring, the amount is mild ( ... )

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mbumby September 30 2011, 17:10:30 UTC
I've been hearing about the planned tours for a while. If there were a special tour that would have a bunch of my favorite people attending, I might be more interested in attending that than a generic one...

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neowolf2 October 1 2011, 11:58:31 UTC
I bet the targets in fixed target experiments get a lot more activation.

Fun fact learned while browsing the FNAL web site: the LSND experiment at Los Alamos put nearly a gram of 800 MeV protons into its target during its run. I imagine the high intensity plans you all have will go even higher.

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(The comment has been removed)

beamjockey September 30 2011, 16:43:25 UTC
You betcha!

Well, not right NOW, because today that beam is shut off to change the polarity of the focusing horn. But when it turns on again, the Main Injector will be shooting neutrinos at the basement of the Soudan Mine.

Unless we were already shooting neutrinos at Soudan, before the polarity change. In which case, we will now be shooting antineutrinos at Soudan. I'm not keeping track.

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mmcirvin September 30 2011, 18:40:51 UTC
Well, heck, if they're violating Lorentz invariance they might violate CPT too; you never know what difference it could make!

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neowolf2 October 1 2011, 11:53:24 UTC
So you're reversing the polarity of the neutrino flux?

I'm sorry, Star Trek is suing you for copyright infringement.

("In our defense, we claim neutrinos are Majorana particles...")

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isherempress September 30 2011, 18:30:05 UTC
Interesting that ~1,000 students received their PhDs for work done on the Tevatron. That's a lot of (ahem) inbreeding, isn't it? Or maybe the study options for particle physicists are somewhat limited...

The most important thing about all of this to me is simple: will you, and our other friends, continue to be employed at FermiLab? xoxo

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wcg September 30 2011, 19:59:17 UTC
I'm sure it's a sad day for you Bill. You've been part of something really amazing. I'm sure you have more amazing things ahead of you, but it's still sad to see something like this end.

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qnofhrt September 30 2011, 21:10:46 UTC
It's a sad day for high energy physics.

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