The SPS accelerator at CERN was used as their first collider. The Tevatron began operation as an 800 GeV fixed target machine, but the eventual goal was to use it as a proton-antiproton collider. Building on the CERN innovations and experiences, Fermilab began construction on our own antiproton source. The first colliding beams in the Tevatron were established late in 1985 during a study period following a fixed target run. The antiproton source was commissioned and the first collider run began late in 1986.
Luminosity is a measure of the number of collisions at an experiment.
Through a series of improvements to Fermilab s accelerator s, there has been steady improvement in the Tevatron s luminosity. Since that time the luminosity has increased by more than a factor of 20. With the addition of the Main Injector and other accelerator improvements, the luminosity is expected to increase by another factor of 4. The largest bottleneck in a proton-antiproton collider is the time required to accumulate the required number of antiprotons. Considerable time and money has been spent improving the accumulation rate.