Celebrating the Tevatron legacy

Fermilab hosted an exceptional event on 11 June: the Tevatron Impact symposium. More than 800 people attended to hear how the Tevatron advanced our understanding of fundamental physics.

A version of this "Director's Corner" by Pier Oddone first appeared in Fermilab Today on 12 June.

The development of accelerator technology for the Tevatron has influenced every subsequent major hadron accelerator. We heard reviews on the detector technologies and trigger systems developed with the Tevatron that are essential today for high-luminosity machines like the LHC.

There were also talks on the superconducting-wire industry that made MRI magnets ubiquitous, and we discussed the major computational systems that use large farms of Linux-based commodity processors. Researchers who worked on the Tevatron also established multivariate analysis techniques that now allow us to squeeze the maximum information from complex data sets.

One focus of the symposium was the people who had an impact on the Tevatron, as well as how the Tevatron influenced the lives of many. Roughly 1,500 PhDs trained at the Tevatron, cementing research paths and professional relationships that connect high-energy physics collaborations all over the world.

An event like this does not happen without the hard work of many people and the participation of many more. We at Fermilab extend our thanks to the many friends and colleagues from the international community, including CERN’s Director-General Rolf Dieter Heuer, who filled the auditorium. Special thanks also go to the many national and international funding agencies, whose representatives were present and have supported the Tevatron throughout its extraordinary trajectory.

Pier Oddone, Fermilab Director