Fermilab Fermilab Physics, the Frontier, and Megascience LILLIAN HODDESON, ADRIENNE W. KOLB, AND CATHERINE WESTFALL The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London LILLIAN HODDESONis the Thomas M. Siebel Professor of History of Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. ADRIENNE W. KOLBis the Fermilab archivist. CATHERINE WESTFALLis visiting associate professor at Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University. Illustration on pages xii–xiii: Birds in flight over the Fermilab prairie. (Courtesy of Angela Gonzales.) Illustration on closing pages: Reflections of the Fermilab frontier. (Courtesy of Angela Gonzales.) The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2008 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2008 Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-34623-6 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-34623-4 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoddeson, Lillian. Fermilab : physics, the frontier, and megascience / Lillian Hod- deson, Adrienne W. Kolb, and Catherine Westfall. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-34623-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-34623-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory—History. 2. Particle accelerators—Research—United States. 3. Particles (Nuclear physics)—Research—United States I. Kolb, Adrienne W. II. Westfall, Catherine. III. Title. QC789.2.U62.F474 2008 539.730973—dc22 2008006254 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Dedicated to CAROL AND MICHAEL, CHRISTINE, JEFFREY, AND KAREN, AND FORREST in their quests for new frontiers Contents Acronyms and Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1 The Call of the Frontier 9 PART ONE An American Dream 17 2 The Several Hundred GeV Accelerator, 1959–1963 19 3 The Berkeley Design, 1963–1965 39 4 Midwest Passage, 1965–1967 64 PART TWO A New Frontier on the Illinois Prairie 93 5 Wilson’s Vision 95 6 Constructing the Ring, 1968–1972 127 7 A Users’ Paradise, 1968–1978 157 8 Beyond the Horizon: The Energy Doubler, 1967–1978 196 PART THREE The Road to Megascience 225 9 Lederman’s Vision 227 10 Completing the Doubler, 1978–1984 246 11 Bigger Science: Experiment Strings, 1970–1988 262 12 Megascience Realized: Colliding Beams, 1967–1989 281 13 The Super Collider Affair 312 Epilogue: Light on the Horizon, 1989–1995 335 Authors’ Statements and Other Acknowledgements 355 Appendix: Fermilab Approved Experiments, 1970–1992 365 Notes 375 Bibliography 443 Index 471 Acronyms and Abbreviations ACP Advanced Computer Program AEC Atomic Energy Commission AGS Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (Brookhaven National Laboratory [Brookhaven, NY]) AIP American Institute of Physics ANL Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, IL) APS American Physical Society AUI Associated Universities, Inc. BeV Billion Electron Volts BOB Bureau of the Budget BOO Board of Overseers BNL Brookhaven National Laboratory (Brookhaven, NY) CBA Colliding Beams Accelerator CDF Colliding Detector at Fermilab (Fermi National Accelera- tor Laboratory [Batavia, IL]) CDG Central Design Group (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory [Berkeley, CA]) CEA Cambridge Electron Accelerator CEBAF Colliding Electron Beams Accelerator Facility (Newport News, VA) CERN European Center for Nuclear Research (Geneva) CESR Cornell Electron Storage Ring (Ithaca, NY) DESY Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Hamburg) DOE Department of Energy DPF Division of Particles and Fields (American Physical Society) DZero Detector at DØ (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory [Batavia, IL]) ix ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ECFA European Committee for Future Accelerators ERDA Energy Research and Development Administration FFAG Fixed-Field Alternating Gradient FNAL Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, IL) GAC General Advisory Committee GAO General Accounting Office GeV giga electron volts (= billion electron volts [BeV]) HEPAP High Energy Physics Advisory Panel HERA Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage (Hamburg) IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) ICFA International Committee for Future Accelerators IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IHEP Institute for High Energy Physics (Serpukhov, Russia) ISA Intersecting Storage Accelerator (ISABELLE, Brookhaven National Labo- ratory [Brookhaven, NY]) ISR Intersecting Storage Rings (CERN) IUPAP International Union of Pure and Applied Physics JCAE Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (U.S. Congress) JINR Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia) KEK Ko Enerugii Butsurigaku Kenkyusho (Tsukuba, Japan) KeV Thousand Electron Volts LBJ Library Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum (Austin, TX) LBL/LBNL/LRL Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley, CA) LEP Large Electron-Positron (CERN) LHC Large Hadron Collider (CERN) MeV million electron volts MOU memorandum of understanding MURA Midwestern Universities Research Association (Madison, WI) NAL National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory [Batavia, IL]) NAS National Academy of Sciences NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NRC National Research Council NSF National Science Foundation OER Office of Energy Research OMB Office of Management and Budget PAC Physics Advisory Committee PEP Positron-Electron Project (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [Menlo Park, CA]) PMG Project Management Group PS Proton Synchrotron (CERN) PSAC President’s Science Advisory Committee RDS Reference Designs Study (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory [Berkeley, CA]) x ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS RF radio frequency RFP request for proposal SLAC Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Menlo Park, CA) SLC Stanford Linear Collider (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [Menlo Park, CA]) SLIC segmented liquid ionization calorimeter SMD silicon microstrip detector SPEAR Stanford Positron-Electron Accelerator Rings SppS Super Proton-Antiproton Synchrotron (CERN) SPS Super Proton Synchrotron (CERN) SSC Superconducting Super Collider (Waxahachie, TX) SURA Southeastern Universities Research Association TAC Texas Accelerator Center (The Woodlands, TX) TeV trillion electron volts TNL truly national laboratory TPL Tagged Photon Laboratory (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory [Batavia, IL]) TPMS Tagged Photon Magnetic Spectrometer (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory [Batavia, IL]) UA1 Underground Area 1 (Super Proton Synchrotron, CERN) UA2 Underground Area 2 (Super Proton Synchrotron, CERN) UPC Underground Parameters Committee URA Universities Research Association, Inc. VBA Very Big Accelerator WAG Western Accelerator Group ZGS Zero Gradient Synchrotron (Argonne, IL) xi Introduction On a clear summer afternoon in 2007, as the authors of this book complete their manuscript, a passenger peers through the window of an airplane. As his plane flies into Chicago’s O’Hare Field from the west, he notices a large ring on the ground below (see fig. I.1). Near it he sees a towering white structure, a group of colorful smaller buildings, an expanse of forest, open fields, and lakes. “What is that ring?” he asks his neighbor. “Fermilab,” she replies. “It’s a physics laboratory. The government supports research there into what the universe is made of.” “Why the ring?” “It’s the four-mile-round main ring of a machine called the Tevatron. It turns protons into tools for looking in- side the atomic nucleus. Huge magnets steer the protons around the ring, while high voltages accelerate them. When they reach their peak energy they collide with targets, some- times other particles.Teams of physicists study the colli- sions as they explore the scientific frontier. Strangely, Fer- milab’s site is maintained to resemble the American West as it was a century ago. There’s even a herd of buffalo!” ∗∗∗ To this hypothetical airplane conversation, intended to in- troduce Fermilab and its frontierlike site to a member of the public, this book adds a historical dimension and asks why and how Fermilab saw the birth of an approach we call “megascience.” We draw on the powerful frontier imagery, 1 INTRODUCTION I.1 The ring of the frontier, 1972. (Courtesy of Angela Gonzales.) which the physicists who work at Fermilab themselves use, and form it into a conceptual tool to help us tell Fermilab’s story to a broad audience that includes historians and general readers, as well as physicists. Many writers have used the term “megascience” interchangeably with “big science,”1 to refer loosely to research supported by large sums of money, often in the form of government grants, and conducted over long time spans by large groups using large pieces of equipment.2 In this book, however, the term “megascience” has a more specific meaning distinct 2 INTRODUCTION from what is typically called big science. In most writings “big science” refers to the large-scale research conducted in the decades following World War II, when the funding for science in the United States was widely experienced as unlimited, allowing the research to grow very rapidly, with many parameters (e.g., size, cost, numbers of collaborators, time scales) increasing exponentially. Megascience, however, as we use the term, evolved in a time when the government’s funding for science was slow- ing down. While many parameters still grew, they did so more slowly than in the first two postwar decades, causing dramatic changes in the nature of the research. The scholarly focus of this