Ever since the laboratory produced its first high-energy
particle beam in 1972, scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory (Fermilab) have worked to answer fundamental questions
about the nature of the universe by revealing its most elementary
particles. As one of the nation’s top federal research institutes,
Fermilab attracts scientific talent from around the world via
employment opportunities, fellowship programs, and collaborative
projects.
But for many of the people who work there, the attractiveness of
the lab goes well beyond the research opportunities it offers. "We
have to have everything on site, making it very much like a town
onto itself,” says Young-Kee Kim, the lab's deputy director. The
lab's townlike character and resources and its sense of community
allow scientists such as junior researcher Jane Nachtman to focus
on science while also raising a family and dealing with the
bureaucracy that's endemic at any government-run facility. “I feel
lucky that I have an employee daycare on site, and that the
administration here is so understanding,” she says. “I think it
makes it easier for me to juggle my family life and career.”
“Our colliders are like time machines for physicists,” says
Young-Kee Kim, the deputy director of Fermilab. “In a sense, we are
creating early universes in our accelerators.”
Time machine
A Department of Energy facility located just outside Chicago,
Illinois, Fermilab "advances the understanding of the fundamental
nature of matter and energy by providing leadership and resources
for qualified researchers to conduct basic research at the
frontiers of high-energy physics and related disciplines," says the
lab's mission statement. For Fermilab's scientists this means
building, maintaining, and operating particle accelerators and
detectors and using them to seek answers to some of science's most
fundamental questions--"unlocking nature's deepest secrets, and
learning how the universe is made and how it works," as the lab's
Web site puts it.
Fermilab is the largest high-energy physics facility in North
America and home to the world’s most powerful particle collider,
the 4-mile-long underground synchrotron ring called the Tevatron.
Accelerating beams of protons and antiprotons in opposite
directions to near the speed of light and colliding them inside the
Tevatron creates a menagerie of particles that physicists then work
to identify. Physicists believe that many of the particles created
in their high-energy collisions existed in nature only during the
earliest moments of the universe.
“Our colliders are like time machines for physicists,” says Kim,
“In a sense, we are creating early universes in our accelerators.”
In 1995, the heaviest elementary particle known to exist--the top
quark--was observed for the first time following a Tevatron
collision. Fermilab also operates a cancer facility where neutron
beams are used to treat tumors that are difficult to kill using
other forms of radiation.
When Nachtman joined the lab 4 years ago, she was charged with
keeping the detectors running 24 hours a day--"carrying a pager so
that I could assist with operational problems that come up any time
of the day or night." Nachtman now is the "convener" of the
"exotics" research group. She is responsible for setting the
group's priorities so that its core goals are met.
Lab life
Life at Fermilab can be hectic. Shifts of workers keep the
machines running around the clock, so new data are always coming
in. It is hard to keep up, but the constant flow of information
makes the lab an exciting place to work. Scientists who choose
Fermilab, Kim says, enjoy the lab's intensity.
Working at Fermilab--and at other national labs--is different
from what academic researchers are used to in one important
respect: National-lab researchers don't have to divide their time
among research, teaching, the search for funding, managing budgets,
and so on. “A big benefit of being at a national laboratory is that
you have a much simpler life because you can concentrate on
research more,” says Kim. She estimates that Fermilab scientists
spend 80% to 90% of their working time conducting experiments and
analyzing data. “If you’re interested in research, I think it’s
easier here than as a young faculty member because you don’t have
to juggle so many things at once.”
Fermilab also provides better and more focused resources than
most universities, says Hogan Nguyen, a member of Fermilab's
permanent scientific staff for the past 9 years. Nguyen is now in
charge of the "Technical Centers" department in the particle
physics division. His job is to oversee the development of the
silicon detectors that track the charged particles produced during
experiments. “With so many research programs running
simultaneously, I feel I have chances to do things here that that
at a university I would have a hard time doing,” he says.
“Resources--in terms of people here--are deeper … than [at] most
academic places. I can work with so many different types of
engineers and technicians that I can put together detectors in a
very short time scale.” Interacting with so many different people
makes it much easier and faster to solve experimental problems and
run data analysis.” adds Nachtman.
But, although the work is focused, it isn't insular. Most of the
lab's projects--indeed, most of the field's projects -- are
multi-institutional. Fermilab cultivates relationships with
universities and works hard to make scientific visitors feel
welcome. Nachtman says her collaborations, internal and external,
have taught her how to communicate better and to work more
effectively. “It's been a definite challenge trying to keep up with
what everyone is doing, but it's just the nature of the work when
in this field.” Nyugen agrees that these characteristics have
become a part of Femilab's character; he is constantly working on
at least two--and often three--large collaborative studies, which
“has a lot of upsides. You get to learn how to cooperate with large
groups and academic colleagues," he says. “There’s a certain amount
of camaraderie that develops, too.”
First-hand
Kim says that many of the students who visit Fermilab to work on
collaborative research projects or internships want to stay on or
to return there later--and a few have pulled it off. Nachtman is an
example. She first visited Fermilab while she was an undergraduate
at the University of Iowa. She was so impressed with the caliber of
science and the work environment that she knew that she would like
to come back someday. “I knew very early on that this was an
exciting place to be a researcher, and I wanted to be part of it,”
she says.
Indeed, although Fermilab sometimes hires particle physicists
with only a Ph.D., it is more common for new permanent staff to be
hired through their fellowship programs, of which the
Wilson and the
People's fellowship programs are the most important. These
program are very competitive; 2-4 Wilson fellowships are awarded
each year from among 100-200 applications. Annual
application deadlines are in late fall; this year's deadline is
3 November. Fellowships last 3 years, but can be renewed for an
additional 2 years pending a performance review. Wilson and Peoples
fellows are considered tenure-track: “Every fellow at the end of
the first extension is automatically considered for a permanent
position at the laboratory,” says Jeffrey Appel, Assistant Director
of Program Planning at Fermilab. Nachtman is currently on a
tenure-track fellowship. She is hoping to be offered a permanent
position when her term ends next year.
An energetic future
Fermilab's Tevatron is expected lose its position as the world's
highest-energy accelerator in 2007 when CERN (the European
Organization for Nuclear Research ), just outside Geneva,
Switzerland, powers up its Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will
be seven times more powerful than the Tevatron. But, says Kim,
that's not all bad for Fermilab; Fermilab researchers are deeply
involved in building the new accelerator. Even though it is based
in Europe, the United States is paying 20% of the project's costs.
Kim says that the LHC will provide plenty of work for Fermilab
researchers. “We are heavily collaborating with CERN on developing
new detectors and upgrading existing detectors for the new
instrument,” she says.
Planning is underway for the International Linear
Collider , an electron-positron accelerator, and an
international scientific panel is deciding where to build it.
Physicists at Fermilab are keeping their fingers crossed. The
decision should be made by 2009 and construction could begin by the
end of the decade. No matter where the new facility is built, it
will be a boon for employment in particle physics, but building it
in the United States would be a big advantage for Fermilab and for
American particle physicists. “Having this on our soil would really
energize the younger generation of scientists and engineers and
attract the best brains from all over the country,” says Kim.