First Proton‐Antiproton Collisions at Tevatron

In the small hours of Sunday morning, 13 October, the first proton‐antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron p̄p collider at Fermilab were observed by the CDF detector, which surrounds the intersection point where the two countercirculating beams repeatedly crash into one another (see cover). As its name implies, the 4‐mile‐circumference Tevatron ring of superconducting magnets is designed to accelerate the countercirculating protons and antiprotons to 1 TeV (${10}^{12}$ electron volts). The engineering test run that provided these first recorded collisions achieved beam energies of 800 GeV, giving us p̄p collision energies of 1.6 TeV in the center of mass, about three times the collision energy available at the CERN p̄p collider. One expects to be doing p̄p collider physics with 1‐TeV beams next fall, when the CDF detector and a second experimental hall (which will eventually accommodate the D‐zero detector system) are completed.

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