The 100-meter-long Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor, or MAGIS-100 for short, is an upcoming quantum project at Fermilab that aims to detect gravitational waves using lasers, free-falling strontium particles, and quantum superpostion. As part of the engineering team for the project I design support, alignment, structural, and installation systems. The device at its core is a precisely aligned 100m long vertical vacuum tube attached to the wall of the Fermilab MINOS shaft. The entirety of the vacuum tube is magnetically shielded, and all materials used around the beam pipe must have low magnetic permeability.
The combined difficulties of installing such a complex experiment in a shaft nearly as deep as a football field is long, and the magnetic restrictions preventing the use of carbon steels make this a challenging yet exciting project. By utilizing careful material selection and support placement I have been able to design structures that do not interfere with the experiment, and maintain high safety factors despite the challenging space constraints of the MINOS shaft.
Seen above are some of the small scale installation prototype components and a Valla V90R mobile crane that may be used to aid in installation of the project.
