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Physics Club Trip to
FERMI  NATIONAL   ACCELATOR  LABORATORY
(FNAL)

12-15-Aug-99

FNAL is one of the top facilities in the world for “high energy” particle physics research. It currently (1999) has the highest energy particle accelerator. The site is about 25 square miles containing particle accelerators, experiment halls, support facilities, and plenty of open land for wildlife.

PEOPLE

Students: Kevin Campbell Faculty Susan Boland
Andy Cleveland John Reid
Andy Crawford
Christine Marshall

ITINERARY

Thursday 12-aug-99 Friday Saturday Sunday
Drive from
Lock Haven to Chicago
with tour of GE
armature plant
in Eire PA 		Tour Fermilab Tour Chicago Drive back to PA

NOTES ON TRIP

Thursday

We stopped in Erie to pick up Christine. She was able to get us a tour of a GE railroad engine armature rebuilding facility. This is where she had been doing her summer internship. The facility was part of a large plant. We were there for an hour. These motors are HUGE!! - 1 m diameter and about 1.5 m long. One of the supervisors gave us the tour. The place was very loud and we had to wear earplugs. It was hard to hear our guide as we walked through. He took us through the whole process, which included an initial cleaning, disassembly, examination of housing structure, coil testing, coil rebuilding, re-assembly, pressure (vacuum) sealing, final testing. Before we left Christine took us aside and we got a chance to look closely at several motors. She showed us a motor that had been burnt out. There was serious damage to a huge coupling gear and internal wire wraps. She speculated that this was the result of a derailment! She showed us the internal structure of the motor pointing out the exciter coils and commutator coils.

On the long drive out we had some discussion about particle physics and particle detectors. This was a good primer for what we would see at FNAL

Friday

08:00-10:00 Overview of Lab
We started with driving around the site and I pointed out general features such as the linear accelerator (linac), booster ring, accelerator ring, fixed target lines, detector buildings, computer center and other facilities, prairie restoration project, the herd of buffalo, etc. We went to the top of the “high rise” where they have many demos set up as well as a great view of the site.

10:00-12:00 Accelerator Facilities
At the “high rise” we met with Bob Mau in accelerator operations. He and Sarat gave us a great tour. They started with a brief discussion of the main injector using the mockup in the atrium. They showed us the auditorium and explained how FNAL is a major facility used by scientists around the world. We then began a more detailed tour of the accelerator. We started with the VERY large Cockroft Walton accelerator. These guys work with this equipment and know it well. It was the best description I’ve heard. We then continued on down the linac. Sarat discussed power supplies, clysterons, RF cavities, etc. He also discussed the neutron therapy facility. We spent a brief period in the booster. We ended the tour in the FNAL accelerator control room. He took us though the control and monitoring programs and we got a detailed description of an accelerator operator’s job.

1:00-2:30 Collider Detector Facility (CDF)
CDF is the premier experiment of FNAL and one of the premier experiments of high energy elementary particle physics. It is a detector that detects the by-products of collisions between protons and anti-protons. The experiment consists of several hundred physicists. The experiment is most famous for co-discovery of the top quark.

We walked over to CDF and met with Rick St. Denis. We stood on the mezzanine above the HUGE CDF detector, which was rolled out of the beam line and being worked on. He gave us a good overview of the standard model of particle physics and related it to the search for the top quark and finally to the detector itself. The detector is about 30 ft tall and about 50 ft long. It consists primarily of tracking chambers and calorimeters. He went through each system and discussed the physics of how they work. He also discussed the large amount (a million particle collisions per second) of data that must analyze in order to study the physics.

02:30- High Rise and Visitors Center
We returned to the high rise and spent some more time on the top floor discussing the displays. We also watched a good video which gave an overview of the lab. We finished up at the visitor’s center where they had some hands-on exhibits related to particle physics.

In between each of these periods we would talk over what we saw. I would try to answer questions and elaborate or give background, or relate to class work.

At the end of the day we found a good Italian restaurant and had a relaxing dinner talking accelerator physics.

Saturday

We drove into Chicago and spent most of the day at the Museum of Science and Industry. After viewing an IMAX film (Flight) we split up and met back at 5:30. When the museum closed we walked over to the lake shore and walked the beach for short while. Then we drove into the city and had pizza at Gino's Restaurant.