What is Fermilab Booster?

Fermilab Booster is a particle accelerator located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. It is part of a complex of accelerators used for high-energy physics research. The Fermilab Booster is the first stage of the accelerator complex, which boosts the energy of protons before they are sent to the Main Injector, a larger accelerator that provides beams of particles for various experiments.

The history of Fermilab Booster

The Fermilab Booster was built in the early 1970s as part of the National Accelerator Laboratory (NAL), which was later renamed Fermilab. It was designed to provide a beam of protons with an energy of 400 million electron volts (MeV) for the Main Injector. Over the years, the Booster has undergone several upgrades to increase its beam intensity and energy. Today, it can deliver beams with energies up to 8 billion electron volts (GeV).

How does Fermilab Booster work?

The Fermilab Booster is a synchrotron, which means it uses a magnetic field to accelerate and guide particles in a circular path. Protons are injected into the Booster at a low energy and then accelerated through a series of radiofrequency cavities. The Booster uses a series of magnets to bend the beam, keeping it on a circular path. As the protons gain energy, they are transferred to the Main Injector, where they are further accelerated to even higher energies.

Example applications of Fermilab Booster

The Fermilab Booster is used for a variety of experiments in high-energy physics. One example is the MINOS experiment, which studies neutrinos by sending a beam of them from Fermilab to a detector 450 miles away in northern Minnesota. Another experiment, called Mu2e, is designed to search for a rare process called neutrino-less muon-to-electron conversion, which could help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. The Fermilab Booster is also used for testing accelerator technology and developing new techniques for particle acceleration.