Fermilab's Test Beam Facility

Originally part of Fermilab’s fixed-target program in the 1970s, the Meson Laboratory was repurposed in the early 2000s to be an experimentation site open to any scientist requiring the use of high-energy particle beams. Following its transformation as Fermilab’s Test Beam Facility (FTBF), the laboratory is one of only two high-energy hadron test beams in the world, and is the only such site in the United States.

FTBF allows researchers to test their detectors using three beam types: the primary beam for 120 GeV protons, the secondary beam for 1 GeV pions, muons, and electrons, and the tertiary beam for 200 MeV pions and protons. Different experiments call for different energies and intensities, and FTBF strives to accommodate the needs of visiting experimenters.

The facility also provides its own instrumentation to visiting researchers for the purpose of calibrating user prototypes. By comparing the results of their devices with those of the provided particle tracking instrumentation, users can ensure they implement the correct thresholds, trigger timing, and identification methods for their projects. The types of instrumentation provided by the facility include scintillator counters, multiwire proportional chambers (MWPCs), Cherenkov detectors, segmented wire ionization chambers, time-of-flight systems, Silicon pixel telescopes, and lead glass calorimeters.

FTBF also provides its services to resident physicists at Fermilab itself, and has tested detector components for large projects such as MINOS, MINERvA, BooNE and SeaQuest. It is possible that the facility could have a future as a medical imaging apparatus testing site as well. The Test Beam Facility is an integral part of an active high-energy, high-intensity global effort and is kept up to date to maintain the ability to accommodate its users.