MiniBooNE

MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. It is located in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) beamline where neutrinos are produced by colliding protons from Fermilab's booster-accelerator on a beryllium target; this produces many short-lived particles (mainly charged pions) that decay into neutrinos. The neutrinos pass through solid ground (to filter out particles that are not neutrinos from the beam), through another experiment called ANNIE, then solid ground, then through the Short Baseline Near Detector (SBND, in construction, expected to begin operation 2023), then ground again before it arrives at the MicroBooNE detector 470 meters downrange from the target. After MicroBooNE the neutrinos continue to the MiniBooNE detector and to the ICARUS detector. MicroBooNE is also exposed to the neutrino beam from the Main Injector (NuMI) which enter the detector at a different angle. MicroBooNE's two main physics goals are to investigate the MiniBooNE low-energy excess and neutrino-argon cross sections. As part of the Short Baseline Neutrino program (SBN), it will be one of a series of neutrino detectors along with the new Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) and moved ICARUS detector. MicroBooNE was filled with argon in July 2015 and began data taking. The collaboration announced that they had found evidence of the first neutrino interactions in the detector in November 2015. MicroBooNE collected five years of physics data, ending its run in 2021 as the longest continually operating liquid argon time projection chamber to date.In October 2021 the results of the first three years of operation were reported. Analyses examined the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, one under a single photon hypothesis and under an electron hypothesis. No evidence for either of these explanations was found within MicroBooNE's sensitivity, which is set by the statistics and systematic uncertainty. The Fermilab press release accompanying the results claimed that the electron hypothesis test dealt "a blow to a theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino." However, the accompanying commentary to the MicroBooNE papers, when they were published in Physical Review Letters, was entitled "Neutrino Mystery Endures." The full parameter space of sterile neutrino models hinted at by MiniBooNE and other data remains still under investigation.

Main Injector Experiment for ν-A, or MINERνA, is a neutrino scattering experiment which uses the NuMI beamline at Fermilab. MINERνA seeks to measure low energy neutrino interactions both in support of neutrino oscillation experiments and also to study the strong dynamics of the nucleon and nucleus that affect these interactions.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operated by the Fermi Research Alliance (FRA), a joint venture of the University of Chicago, and the Universities Research Association (URA); although in 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) opened bidding for a new contractor due to concerns about the FRA performance. Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. Fermilab's Main Injector, two miles (3.3 km) in circumference, is the laboratory's most powerful particle accelerator. The accelerator complex that feeds the Main Injector is under upgrade, and construction of the first building for the new PIP-II linear accelerator began in 2020. Until 2011, Fermilab was the home of the 6.28 km (3.90 mi) circumference Tevatron accelerator. The ring-shaped tunnels of the Tevatron and the Main Injector are visible from the air and by satellite. Fermilab aims to become a world center in neutrino physics. It is the host of the multi-billion dollar Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) now under construction. The project has suffered delays and, in 2022, the journals Science and Scientific American each published articles describing the project as "troubled". Ongoing neutrino experiments are ICARUS (Imaging Cosmic and Rare Underground Signals) and NOνA (NuMI Off-Axis νe Appearance). Completed neutrino experiments include MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search), MINOS+, MiniBooNE and SciBooNE (SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment) and MicroBooNE (Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment). On-site experiments outside of the neutrino program include the SeaQuest fixed-target experiment and Muon g-2. Fermilab continues to participate in the work at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); it serves as a Tier 1 site in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. Fermilab also pursues research in quantum information science. It founded the Fermilab Quantum Institute in 2019. Since 2020, it also is home to the SQMS (Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems) Center.Asteroid 11998 Fermilab is named in honor of the laboratory.

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a neutrino experiment under construction, with a near detector at Fermilab and a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility that will observe neutrinos produced at Fermilab. An intense beam of trillions of neutrinos from the production facility at Fermilab (in Illinois) will be sent over a distance of 1,300 kilometers (810 mi) with the goal of understanding the role of neutrinos in the universe. More than 1,000 collaborators work on the project. The experiment is designed for a 20-year period of data collection.The primary science objectives of DUNE are Investigation of neutrino oscillations to test CP violation in the lepton sector, which explores why the universe is made of matter. Determination of the ordering of the neutrino masses. Studies of supernovae and the formation of a neutron star or black hole, even though the detector is 1,490 meters (0.93 mi) deep underground with no direct view of the sky. Search for proton decay, which has never been observed but is predicted by theories that unify the fundamental forces.The science goals were sufficiently compelling in 2014 that the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) ranked this as "the highest priority project in its timeframe" (recommendation 13). The importance of these goals has led to proposals for competing projects in other countries, particularly the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment in Japan, scheduled to begin data-taking in 2027. The DUNE project, overseen by Fermilab, has suffered delays to its schedule and growth of cost from less than $2B to more than $3B, leading to articles in the journals Science and Scientific American that described the project as "troubled." In 2022, the DUNE experiment had a neutrino-beam start-date in the early-2030's, and the project is now phased.

The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (also known as Fermilab), east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider ever built, after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. The Tevatron was a synchrotron that accelerated protons and antiprotons in a 6.28 km (3.90 mi) ring to energies of up to 1 TeV, hence its name. The Tevatron was completed in 1983 at a cost of $120 million and significant upgrade investments were made during its active years of 1983–2011. The main achievement of the Tevatron was the discovery in 1995 of the top quark—the last fundamental fermion predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. On July 2, 2012, scientists of the CDF and DØ collider experiment teams at Fermilab announced the findings from the analysis of around 500 trillion collisions produced from the Tevatron collider since 2001, and found that the existence of the suspected Higgs boson was highly likely with a confidence of 99.8%, later improved to over 99.9%.The Tevatron ceased operations on 30 September 2011, due to budget cuts and because of the completion of the LHC, which began operations in early 2010 and is far more powerful (planned energies were two 7 TeV beams at the LHC compared to 1 TeV at the Tevatron). The main ring of the Tevatron will probably be reused in future experiments, and its components may be transferred to other particle accelerators.

SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment (SciBooNE), was a neutrino experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the USA. It observed neutrinos of the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) that are produced when protons from the Fermilab Booster-accelerator were made to hit a beryllium target; this led to the production of many short-lived particles that decayed into neutrinos. The SciBooNE detector was located some 100 meters downrange from the beryllium target, with a 50 meter decay-volume (where the particle decay into neutrinos) and absorber combined with 50 meters of solid ground between the target and the detector to absorb other particles than neutrinos. The neutrino-beam continued through SciBooNE and ground to the MiniBooNE-detector, located some 540 meters downrange from the target. SciBooNE was designed to make precise measurements of neutrino and antineutrino cross-sections on carbon and iron nuclei, and combine with MiniBooNE to improve neutrino oscillation searches for sterile neutrinos. The cross section measurements have been used by the T2K experiment which began running in Japan in 2009. The SciBooNE detector had three subsystems: SciBar, the EC (electron catcher) and the MRD (muon range detector). They can be seen in the event display of SciBooNE's first neutrino event. Many of the components of SciBooNE were recycled from other experiments; thus the budget of SciBooNE was as low as 1.2 million dollars. SciBooNE took data from June 2007 to August 2008. The operation consisted of 3 data runs; run 1 and 3 were antineutrino studies and run 2 was neutrino study. Data analysis and results were published after 2008. In total, SciBooNE published eight peer-reviewed journal articles, garnering over 711 citations, and many more articles in conference proceedings. Highlights include results about muon neutrino disappearance and muon antineutrino disappearance, which were world-leading at the time of publication. In Fermilab's records, the SciBooNE experiment status is listed as "Completed: Aug. 1, 2013".The SciBooNE collaboration was a group of approximately 60 scientists from 17 institutions in five countries (Italy, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom and USA). SciBooNE is led by Tsuyoshi Nakaya (Kyoto University) and Morgan Wascko (Imperial College, London).The SciBooNE experiment hall has since been taken over by the ANNIE experiment.

The Tri-Cities, or Tri-City area, is a vernacular region that is situated between the large cities of Aurora and Elgin, Illinois, and encompasses the cities of Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles. A "vernacular region" is a distinctive area where the inhabitants collectively consider themselves interconnected by a shared history, mutual interests, and a common identity. Such regions are "intellectual inventions" and a form of shorthand to identify things, people, and places. Vernacular regions reflect a "sense of place," but rarely coincide with established jurisdictional borders.The Tri-City area is primarily located in Kane County, though Batavia and St. Charles include parcels in DuPage County. The three communities are often grouped together due to their shared history, close proximity on the Fox River, relative socioeconomic condition, and similar population sizes. They are among the oldest in Kane County as well as the state.

The Judge Isaac Wilson House is a historic residence in Batavia, Illinois. It was the home of Isaac Wilson, a former Congressman who moved to the Batavia region and later named the settlement. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Marmion Academy (formerly Marmion Military Academy) is a grade 9–12 Roman Catholic high school for boys in Aurora, Illinois, United States. It is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford. The academy is owned and operated by the Benedictine monks of Marmion Abbey on campus. The leadership formation programs include: Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) program and a United States Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program that has been a part of the academy since its early years, but was not a part of the school in the inaugural year of 1933–34.The school is a part of the Chicago Catholic League.

The Eastside Community Center, formerly the Catholic Holy Cross Church, is an historic building in Batavia, Illinois. It was built in 1897 to serve the Holy Cross congregation of Batavia, many of whom were Irish immigrants who came to work in local quarries. The building operated as a church until the 1990s, when the property was transferred to the Batavia Park District. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Fox Valley Ice Arena is a public skating facility offering basic to advanced skating lessons for both figure skating and hockey. In addition, it is home to the Chicago Steel of the United States Hockey League. It contains two rinks: one measures 200' x 85' (the size of a National Hockey League rink) and the other 200' x 100' (an international-size rink). The arena is also an official rink partner of the Chicago Blackhawks. Fox Valley Ice Arena has a full service fitness facility on the premise, and a restaurant, Chelios Pub and Grill.

The Louise White School is a Registered Historic Place in Batavia, Illinois. It was in active use as a school for 85 years, and served as home of the Chautauqua movement in north central Illinois.