Science

Radio-frequency quadrupole

The radio-frequency quadrupole accelerator, or RFQ, is the starting point for Fermilab's chain of accelerators, providing the particle beam source for the entire accelerator complex. The 11-foot-long accelerator takes low-energy proton beam from an ion source, accelerates and "bunches" it into separate packets of particles, and injects it into Fermilab's linear accelerator, or Linac. The RFQ accelerates beam from 35 keV to 750 keV.

Linac

Fermilab's linear accelerator, better known as the Linac, is a roughly 500-foot straight accelerator that brings proton beams up to energies of about 400 MeV, providing proton beam for the Booster accelerator and the rest of the chain of accelerators. The Linac provides proton beam for the MuCool test area, which is used to develop accelerator components for a future muon collider.

Booster

Proton beams enter the Fermilab Booster from the Linac, accelerating through its approximately 1,500-foot-circumference ring to an energy of 8 GeV. The Booster will provide low-energy neutrino beam for the MicroBooNE experiment, as well as the Muon g-2 and Mu2e experiments. It also provides beam to the Recycler.

Recycler

The Recycler is a kind of staging area for proton beams after they exit the Booster. Once beam enters the Recycler, a 2-mile-circumference ring, it is "slip stacked" — combined into batches of protons to form a more intense beam. Once that is done, the proton beam enters the Main Injector, on top of which the Recycler sits.

Main Injector

The Main Injector, situated directly beneath the Recycler in the same tunnel and two miles around, ramps up proton beam from the Recycler from 8 GeV to 120 GeV.

The world's highest-intensity neutrino beams are generated from these proton beams. The Main Injector provides neutrino beams for the MINOS, MINERvA and NOvA experiments, as well as the future Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. It will also provide beams of particles called muons for Fermilab's Muon g-2 and Mu2e experiments. It delivers beam to the SeaQuest fixed-target experiment and to a dedicated facility for testing of detector technologies.

Muon Delivery Ring

Some of the proton beam from the Booster will be used to produce pions in a specially designed target system. For the Muon g-2 and Mu2e experiments, these pions will then decay into particles called muons. These muons circulate through the 144-foot-circumference Muon Delivery Ring. The Muon Delivery Ring delivers these muons into a muon storage ring for further study.

Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology Facility

The Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) Facility is America's only test bed for cutting-edge particle beams and for accelerator research aimed at intensity frontier proton accelerators. FAST will also be unique in the United States as a particle beam research facility based on superconducting radio-frequency technology, on which nearly all proposed future accelerators in the world are based.