Multibunch operation in the Tevatron Collider

The Tevatron Collider at Fermilab is the world´s highest energy hadron collider, colliding protons with antiprotons at a center of mass energy of 1800 GeV. At present six proton bunches collide with six antiproton bunches to generate luminosities of up to 9×10³⁰ cm^-2 s^-1. It is estimated that to reach luminosities significantly greater than 10³¹ cm^-2 s^-1 while minimizing the number of interactions per crossing, the number of bunches will have to be increased. Thirty-six bunch operation looks like the most promising plan. This paper looks at the strategies for increasing the number of particle bunches, the new hardware that needs to be designed and changes to the operating mode in filling the Tevatron. An interactive program which simulates the filling of the Tevatron collider is also presented. The time scale for multibunch operation and progress towards running greater than six bunches is given in this paper