Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (branded as Fermilab) is a national laboratory for high-energy particle physics, located in Batavia, Illinois, United States, near Chicago. It is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and operated by the University of Chicago through the subordinate Fermi Forward Discovery Group LLC.

Fermilab's Main Injector, two miles (3.3 km) in circumference, is the laboratory's most powerful particle accelerator. The accelerator complex that feeds the Main Injector is under upgrade, and construction of the first building for the new PIP-II linear accelerator began in 2020. Until 2011, Fermilab was the home of the 6.28 km (3.90 mi) circumference Tevatron accelerator. The ring-shaped tunnels of the Tevatron and the Main Injector are visible from the air and by satellite.

Fermilab aims to become a world center in neutrino physics. It is the host of the multi-billion dollar Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) now under construction. The project has suffered delays and, in 2022, the journals ''Science'' and ''Scientific American'' each published articles describing the project as "troubled". Ongoing neutrino experiments are ICARUS (Imaging Cosmic and Rare Underground Signals) and NOνA (NuMI Off-Axis ν_e Appearance). Completed neutrino experiments include MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search), MINOS+, MiniBooNE and SciBooNE (SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment) and MicroBooNE (Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment).

On-site experiments outside of the neutrino program include the SeaQuest fixed-target experiment and Muon g-2. Fermilab continues to participate in the work at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); it serves as a Tier 1 site in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. Fermilab also pursues research in quantum information science. It founded the Fermilab Quantum Institute in 2019. Since 2020, it also is home to the SQMS (Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems) Center.

Due to serious performance issues over the period of a decade, the Department of Energy established new management for Fermilab on January 1, 2025. Fermilab is currently managed by the Fermi Forward Discovery Group, LLC (FFDG). This consortium is led by the 2007-2024 management group, the Fermi Research Alliance (FRA), with Amentum Environment & Energy, Inc., and Longenecker & Associates as new additions. Due to the management crisis, the Director of the Laboratory, Lia Merminga, resigned on January 13, 2025 and is temporarily replaced by Acting Director Young-Kee Kim, from the University of Chicago.

Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. Argonne National Laboratory, which is another US DOE national laboratory, is located approximately away.

Asteroid 11998 Fermilab is named in honor of the laboratory. Provided by Wikipedia