4 Tesla Magnet Facility
Argonne researchers recently acquired two decommissioned magnets from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners from hospitals in Minnesota and California that will be used as proving grounds for instruments used in high-energy and nuclear physics experiments.
The two new magnets have a strength of 4 Tesla, which makes them ideal for benchmarking experiments that test instruments for the g minus 2 (“g-2”) muon experiment currently being assembled at the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The Muon g-2 experiment will use Fermilab’s powerful accelerators to explore the interactions of muons, which are short-lived particles, with a strong magnetic field in “empty” space.
The experiment relies on highly precise measurements of the strong magnetic field; the magnets will greatly aid these measurements. The magnet allows for the measurement and calibration of the experiment’s custom-built probes, as it provides not only a strong field but one that is uniform and stable.
In addition to their strength, these repurposed magnets offer another notable advantage: Originally used as a human patient MRI magnet, they have a wide bore so that large detector components can easily fit inside.