Research at Fermilab
Fermilab Experiments and Projects Interactions of Matter, Space and Time Fermilab's mission defines the goal of high-energy physics research: unlocking nature's deepest secrets, and learning how the universe is made and how it works. Fermilab builds and operates the accelerators, detectors and other facilities that physicists need to carry out forefront research in high-energy physics. Fermilab is the largest high-energy physics laboratory in the United States, and is second in the world only to CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Fermilab's Tevatron was the world's second-highest-energy particle accelerator and collider. In the Tevatron, counter-rotating beams of protons and antiprotons produced collisions allowing scientists to examine the most basic building blocks of matter, and the forces acting on them. Particle physics research has grown into an international effort, with experiment collaborations numbering in the hundreds. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is now producing collisions at seven times the energy of the Tevatron. More than 1,200 U.S. scientists are involved in the LHC and its experiments. Dramatic discoveries in high-energy physics, including those at Fermilab, have revolutionized our understanding of the interactions of the particles and forces that determine the nature of matter in the universe. And there are more discoveries ahead, with rough accumulated data from the Tevatron still being measured today. Research at Fermilab will address the grand questions of particle physics today.
The best chance for a discovery in the next two years that would change the direction of particle physics is at Fermilab experiments. |
last modified 12/07/2011 email Fermilab |