Milestone-Proposal:Fermilab Tevatron

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Docket #:2016-08

This Proposal has been approved, and is now a Milestone


To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? No

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes

Has the IEEE Section(s) in which the plaque(s) will be located agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes


Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1983, 1985, continued through 2011

Title of the proposed milestone:

Superconducting Magnet System for the Fermilab Tevatron Accelerator/Collider, 1973-1985

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance: Text absolutely limited by plaque dimensions to 70 words; 60 is preferable for aesthetic reasons.

The first large-scale use of superconducting magnets enabled the construction of the Tevatron. By 1985, the Tevatron achieved energy above 1 Tera electron-volt (TeV) in proton-antiproton collisions, making it the most powerful particle collider in the world until 2009. The Tevatron construction established the superconducting wire manufacturing infrastructure that made applications such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) viable.

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.


IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.


In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

Chicago Section, IEEE Region 4

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: IEEE Council on Superconductivity
Senior Officer Name: Dr. Bruce Strauss

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: IEEE Council on Superconductivity
Senior Officer Name: Dr. Lance Cooley

Unit: IEEE Council on Superconductivity
Senior Officer Name: Dr. Martin Nisenoff, VP Awards and Recognitions

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: Chicago Section, IEEE Region 4
IEEE Section Chair name: David Richardson

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Dr. Martin Nisenoff, VP Awards and Recognitions
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Proposer name: Dr. Lance Cooley
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

The Milestone Plaque will be mounted inside Wilson Hall on the fifteenth floor, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The mounting will be affixed to the permanent concrete structure of the building, at a location where the entire 4-mile circumference Tevatron main ring can be seen.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Kirk and Pine Roads Batavia, Illinois 60510

Wilson Hall can be prominently seen from all roads on the laboratory site. The exact address of Wilson Hall is at the intersection of Kautz Rd. and Road A. The GPS coordinates are latitude 41.83856, longitude -88.26224 in decimal degrees.

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. The Milestone Plaque will be located in Wilson Hall at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). The laboratory site is extensive, covering 6800 acres, including the 4-mile circumference Tevatron main ring. Wilson Hall is the central FNAL building that houses the offices of the laboratory director and the primary operations centers for ongoing particle physics activities. Wilson Hall is also the only tall building on the site, wherein the 15th floor, its top floor, is largely reserved for public outreach and viewing of the site in all directions. Most public laboratory tours begin there, and many static models related to the laboratory’s history and important achievements are located there. Importantly, the entire Tevatron main ring can be seen at the intended location of the Milestone Plaque. The FNAL site, including access to Wilson Hall, is open to the public, but has security procedures similar to other national laboratory sites and U.S. Government buildings. The laboratory has an extensive public outreach program that encourages visits by the public and especially by school and university groups.

The Milestone Plaque will be mounted inside Wilson Hall on the fifteenth floor, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The mounting will be affixed to the permanent concrete structure of the building, at a location where the entire 4-mile circumference Tevatron main ring can be seen.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Kirk and Pine Roads Batavia, Illinois 60510

Wilson Hall can be prominently seen from all roads on the laboratory site. The exact address of Wilson Hall is at the intersection of Kautz Rd. and Road A.

The GPS coordinates are latitude 41.83856, longitude -88.26224 in decimal degrees.

Are the original buildings extant?

YES

The FNAL site is in full operation with an extensive physics and engineering development programs. While new buildings may be constructed, and existing buildings altered, Wilson Hall is iconic for the founding director Robert Wilson, and alterations are strictly controlled by laboratory and U.S. Department of Energy policies.

Details of the plaque mounting:

The Milestone Plaque will be mounted inside Wilson Hall on the fifteenth floor, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The fifteenth floor has windows on all sides for viewing the Fermilab site. The mounting will be affixed to the permanent concrete structure of the building, at a location where the entire 4-mile circumference Tevatron main ring can be seen.

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a government owned contractor operated national laboratory. Visitors will have free access to the site where the Milestone Plaque will be mounted, subject to the usual regulations for access to government owned sites. For most security conditions, a photo identification is sufficient to obtain access to the Milestone Plaque site.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

The United States Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20585

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include justification here. (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)

The Tevatron was the first particle-physics machine to use superconducting magnets as a main component [1]. The ability of the superconducting wire to carry electrical currents far above the capacity of ordinary copper wires, and do so without generating heat, provided the means to sustain magnetic field strengths more than double what could be achieved with copper-iron electromagnets. The Tevatron’s dipole magnets operated at 4.2 tesla during long storage periods when particle collisions were occurring [2]. Arrangement of these magnets in a ring 4 miles in circumference created a synchrotron powerful enough to produce proton-antiproton collisions in excess of 1 tera-electronvolt, TeV, in energy, hence the name “Tevatron”. For more than 2 decades, the Tevatron was the only machine on Earth capable of producing this collision energy, until eclipsed by the Large Hadron Collider in 2009 [3].

Like other particle colliders, the purpose of the Tevatron was to discover new fundamental particles and gain understanding about the origins of energy and forces. When the Tevatron was constructed, the list of fundamental particles that make up the Standard Model of Particle Physics, also called the Standard Model, was incomplete, with many of its fundamental components predicted by theory but not measured or observed directly. Discovery of the Top Quark in 1995 [4], high-precision data about physical processes involving quarks, and observation of other particles made of multiple quarks solidified the theoretical predictions of the Standard Model.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

The Tevatron is a practical implementation of a colliding beam accelerator, a concept developed in 1956 for electrons and positrons [8], and extended to hadrons in 1963 [9]. Colliders that use protons or anti-protons require high magnetic fields and large storage rings, since protons and anti-protons are 2,000 times more massive than electrons or positrons. The challenges of designing and building copper-iron electromagnets with the required precision and strength had been solved during the 1970s at CERN and at U.S. national laboratories, with limitations imposed by the power dissipation and field strength of copper-iron electromagnets.

A U.S. project called ISABELLE [10], which started in 1978, attempted to use superconducting magnets to increase the energy reach of colliding beams. However, the project could not produce reliable magnets with the required strength or field quality in mass production, despite the demonstration of prototypes with the necessary properties. Among the major flaws of ISABELLE, the superconducting wire and cable technology was not suitable for mass production of highly reliable and precise magnets [11].

The research and development program leading up to the Tevatron, which took place largely in parallel with ISABELLE, solved many technological hurdles related to wire manufacturing for superconducting magnets. These solutions facilitated further improvements in magnet technology and led to the manufacturing of very reliable magnets. In particular, the Tevatron program developed multi-filamentary wires, used twisting to reduce losses due to field changes, and implemented Rutherford cabling instead of braided cabling. The particular geometry of the cable facilitated a saddle-shaped magnet winding, which could efficiently use external support with a “Roman arch” structure to counter-act the mechanical forces produced by high magnetic fields [12].

The federally-funded project to build the Tevatron cost over $120 million, not including detectors or later upgrades. The magnet development project began in 1974 and achieved significant improvement of the superconducting wire performance while reducing its cost. The wire technology implemented during Tevatron construction became a model from which all later conductors descended.

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

The Tevatron was also the first large-scale application of mass-produced superconducting magnets. Over 1,000 magnets were built, tested, and installed in the main ring [2,5]. At the time of the Tevatron’s construction, manufacturing of the copper-clad, niobium-titanium alloy superconducting wire was on a scale of hundreds of kilograms. The Tevatron required approximately 200 metric tons, i.e. 200,000 kilograms, of conductor [2], establishing a record as the world’s largest procurement of superconducting wire at that time [6]. This necessitated the development of large-scale infrastructure in industries associated with wire manufacture, including raw materials refining, ingot melting, composite material extrusion, and wire drawing. The scale-up of manufacturing also instigated other changes associated with performance, reliability, and cost [7]. These changes enabled commercial applications that rely upon superconducting magnets, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices, to obtain low-cost, reliable wire. Later particle accelerators relied upon this same infrastructure or its direct descendants for superconducting wire manufacture.

Why was the achievement successful and impactful?


Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.

The full text of the supporting materials have been submitted to the staff of the IEEE History Center, and will be supplied to the advocate for reference.

[1] Edwards, Helen T. "The Tevatron energy doubler: a superconducting accelerator." Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 35.1 (1985): 605-660.

[2] Orr, J. R. "Status of the energy saver." IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 30.4 (1983): 1967-1969.

[3] "LHC sets new world record" (Press release). CERN. 30 November 2009.

[4] “Physicists discover top quark” (Press release). Fermilab. 2 March 1995; Abe, F., et al. "Observation of top quark production in p p collisions with the collider detector at Fermilab." Physical Review Letters 74.14 (1995): 2626.

[5] Cooper, W.E. Fisk, H., Gross, D., Lundy, R., Schmidt, E., Turkot, F. “Fermilab Tevatron Quadrupoles”, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 19.3 (1983) 1372-1377.

[6] Tollestrup, Alvin V. "The Tevatron Hadron Collider: A Short History." NATO ASI SERIES B PHYSICS 352 (1996): 499-524.

[7] Cooley, L. D., A. K. Ghosh, and R. M. Scanlan. "Costs of high-field superconducting strands for particle accelerator magnets." Superconductor Science and Technology 18.4 (2005): R51.

[8] Kerst, D. W., et al. "Attainment of very high energy by means of intersecting beams of particles." Physical Review 102.2 (1956): 590.

[9] Proc. Brookhaven Summer study on storage rings, accelerators and experimentation at super-high energies, BNL-7534, Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, New York (1963) (Note: this document is very large 64k, and will be made available to the advocate using a dropbox.)

[10] Hahn, H., M. Month, and R. R. Rau. "Proton-proton intersecting storage accelerator facility ISABELLE at the Brookhaven National Laboratory." Reviews of Modern Physics 49.3 (1977): 625.

[11] Walters, C. "Magnetization and design of multistrand superconducting conductors." IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 11.2 (1975): 328-331.

[12] Palmer, R., and A. V. Tollestrup. "Superconducting magnet technology for accelerators." Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 34.1 (1984): 247-284.

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.


Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.