The Tevatron's been shut down

[Trekkin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15079119

As of 2 PM local time, the Tevatron is no longer firing particle beams.

This kind of reminds me of the space shuttle, only in that all the really cool machines I grew up hearing about aren't being used anymore.

That said, I'm not well versed in particle physics, being a biologist. Does anyone out there with a bit more background know how significant or relevant the Tevatron as a facility was to the field as it stands?

[H Birchgrove]

Hmm I suppose they need to make priorities but I thought the competition between Fermilab and CERN was healthy for both.

[Shishnarfne]

The Tevatron experiment was the second highest energy particle physics collider in the world, behind only the LHC at CERN.
The most noteworthy success was the top quark discovery. The biggest question mark is the elusive Higgs boson (the LHC is still looking, but Fermilab was able to place some limits on the possible mass).
The Tevatron did run for longer than originally planned, but did not receive Department of Energy funding to remain open longer (there was a proposal to keep it running a few more years, but that was dropped).

Until the LHC came online, the Tevatron was the highest energy collider in the world. It held this distinct for roughly twenty years of operation (not counting time for the run II upgrade and various repairs). There really aren't very many particle physics collider facilities in operation (they tend to be expensive to build and maintain).

Fermilab has other experiments still running, but will no longer be running the high energy collider physics experiments.

Regarding competition with CERN: the LHC has higher energy and higher intensity beam capabilities, so the Tevatron really only had an advantage in previously acquired data and better understood performance.

I have a unique perspective as I am using data gathered by CDF (one of the two detectors for the Tevatron) to try to complete my physics thesis. It certainly is somewhat saddening, even if fully understandable that it will no longer be in operation.