The Tevatron, where top quarks were first observed, is closing at the end of the year. After 28 years of research, it is time for this accelerator to shut down its beams, and pass the crown to the LHC.

Data analysis from the Tevatron's collisions will take a few more years to complete, and at least, I hope that there will be something interesting from that data.

More here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tevatron-three-deacades-of-discovery
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=waiting-for-the-higgs

To me this is like shutting down smaller/older observatories since there is now the Hubble and the other ground based monsters of much greater power. Can there be too many investigative sources?

RS

From the perspective of cost, yes.

Great news for Fermilab: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-20m-going-to-fermilab-for-new-accelerator-20111217,0,444514.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChicagoBreakingNews+%28Chicago+Breaking+News%29

They are going to have a new accelerator!

Sweet.

RS

That article did not say very much.

Will it be some synchrotron-radiation light source? There are already several accelerators that do that, and the Tevatron could be repurposed as one. But the rumors I've seen is that it will be used as a neutrino source. Its accelerated protons will get smashed into a stationary target instead of other accelerated particles. The particles produced will produce lots of particles as they decay, some of them neutrinos.

Will it be some new high-energy one accelerator? In the fashion of the LHC succeeding the LEP in its tunnels. That would be awfully expensive, and require superconducting magnets capable of making much stronger fields than the Tevatron's could.