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The Influence of Accelerator Science on Physics Research

Abstract

We evaluate accelerator science in the context of its contributions to the physics community. We address the problem of quantifying these contributions and present a scheme for a numerical evaluation of them. We show by using a statistical sample of important developments in modern physics that accelerator science has influenced 28% of post-1938 physicists and also 28% of post-1938 physics research. We also examine how the influence of accelerator science has evolved over time, and show that on average it has contributed to a physics Nobel Prize-winning research every 2.9 years.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. We have defined accelerator instrumentation as being developed after 1928 to omit cathode-ray tubes from our analysis, and to begin with the invention of the Van de Graaff accelerator in 1929.

References

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Acknowledgment

We thank Roger H. Stuewer for his thoughtful and careful editorial work on our paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enzo F. Haussecker.

Additional information

Enzo F. Haussecker is an Applied Mathematics Major at the University of California, San Diego and Adjunct Researcher at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Alexander W. Chao is a Professor of Physics at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Appendices

Appendix I. The years in which a physicist or physicists received a Nobel Prize for work related to accelerator science

Year

Name

Accelerator-Science Contribution to Nobel Prize-Winning Research

1939

Ernest O. Lawrence

Lawrence invented the cyclotron at the University of Californian at Berkeley in 1929.12

1951

John D. Cockcroft and Ernest T.S. Walton

Cockcroft and Walton invented their eponymous linear positive-ion accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, in 1932.13

1952

Felix Bloch

Bloch used a cyclotron at the Crocker Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley in his discovery of the magnetic moment of the neutron in 1940.14

1957

Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang

Lee and Yang analyzed data on K mesons (θ and τ) from Bevatron experiments at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in 1955,15 which supported their idea in 1956 that parity is not conserved in weak interactions.16

1959

Emilio G. Segrè and Owen Chamberlain

Segrè and Chamberlain discovered the antiproton in 1955 using the Bevatron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.17

1960

Donald A. Glaser

Glaser tested his first experimental six-inch bubble chamber in 1955 with high-energy protons produced by the Brookhaven Cosmotron.18

1961

Robert Hofstadter

Hofstadter carried out electron-scattering experiments on carbon-12 and oxygen-16 in 1959 using the SLAC linac and thereby made discoveries on the structure of nucleons.19

1963

Maria Goeppert Mayer

Goeppert Mayer analyzed experiments using neutron beams produced by the University of Chicago cyclotron in 1947 to measure the nuclear binding energies of krypton and xenon,20 which led to her discoveries on high magic numbers in 1948.21

1967

Hans A. Bethe

Bethe analyzed nuclear reactions involving accelerated protons and other nuclei whereby he discovered in 1939 how energy is produced in stars.22

1968

Luis W. Alvarez

Alvarez discovered a large number of resonance states using his fifteen-inch hydrogen bubble chamber and high-energy proton beams from the Bevatron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.23

1976

Burton Richter and Samuel C.C. Ting

Richter discovered the J/Ψ particle in 1974 using the SPEAR collider at Stanford,24 and Ting discovered the J/Ψ particle independently in 1974 using the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron.25

1979

Sheldon L. Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg

Glashow, Salam, and Weinberg cited experiments on the bombardment of nuclei with neutrinos at CERN in 197326 as confirmation of their prediction of weak neutral currents.27

1980

James W. Cronin and Val L. Fitch

Cronin and Fitch concluded in 1964 that CP (charge-parity) symmetry is violated in the decay of neutral K mesons based upon their experiments using the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron.28

1981

Kai M. Siegbahn

Siegbahn invented a weak-focusing principle for betatrons in 1944 with which he made significant improvements in high-resolution electron spectroscopy.29

1983

William A. Fowler

Fowler collaborated on and analyzed accelerator-based experiments in 1958,30 which he used to support his hypothesis on stellar-fusion processes in 1957.31

1984

Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer

Rubbia led a team of physicists who observed the intermediate vector bosons W and Z in 1983 using CERN’s proton–antiproton collider,32 and van der Meer developed much of the instrumentation needed for these experiments.33

1986

Ernst Ruska

Ruska built the first electron microscope in 1933 based upon a magnetic optical system that provided large magnification.34

1988

Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger

Lederman, Schwartz, and Steinberger discovered the muon neutrino in 1962 using Brookhaven’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron.35

1989

Wolfgang Paul

Paul’s idea in the early 1950s of building ion traps grew out of accelerator physics.36

1990

Jerome I. Friedman, Henry W. Kendall, and Richard E. Taylor

Friedman, Kendall, and Taylor’s experiments in 1974 on deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons used the SLAC linac.37

1992

Georges Charpak

Charpak’s development of multiwire proportional chambers in 1970 was made possible by accelerator-based testing at CERN.38

1995

Martin L. Perl

Perl discovered the tau lepton in 1975 using Stanford’s SPEAR collider.39

2004

David J. Gross, Frank Wilczek, and H. David Politzer

Gross, Wilczek, and Politzer discovered asymptotic freedom in the theory of strong interactions in 1973 based upon results from the SLAC linac on electron-proton scattering.40

2008

Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa

Kobayashi and Maskawa’s theory of quark mixing in 1973 was confirmed by results from the KEKB accelerator at KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization) in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, and the PEP II (Positron Electron Project II) at SLAC,41 which showed that quark mixing in the six-quark model is the dominant source of broken symmetry.42

Appendix II. The years in which there were important developments in accelerator science

Year

Important Development in Accelerator Science

1918

Ernest Rutherford discovers artificial nuclear disintegration by bombarding nitrogen nuclei with RaC (83Bi214) alpha particles.

1924

Gustav Ising develops the concept of a linear particle accelerator, and four years later Rolf Wideröe builds the world’s first linac in an eighty-eight-centimeter glass tube in Aachen, Germany.

1929

Robert J. Van de Graaff invents his eponymous generator at Princeton University. In 1959 he also constructs the first tandem accelerator at Chalk River, Canada.

1929

Ernest O. Lawrence invents the cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1930 his student M. Stanley Livingston builds a four-inch-diameter cyclotron.

1932

John D. Cockcroft and Ernest T.S. Walton invent their eponymous electrostatic accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, and use it to produce the first man-made nuclear reaction.

1937

The brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian invent the klystron, a high-frequency amplifier for generating microwaves, and William Hansen is instrumental in its development at Stanford University. In 1935 Oskar Heil and Agnesa Arsenjewa-Heil at the Cavendish Laboratory, but while on a trip to Italy, had proposed a similar device.

1940

Donald W. Kerst constructs the first betatron at the University of Illinois, an electron accelerator that Joseph Slepian and others had proposed in the 1920s.

1943

Marcus (Mark) Oliphant develops the concept for a new type of accelerator, which Edwin McMillan later named the synchrotron.

1944

Vladimir Veksler at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, and later Edwin McMillan at the University of California at Berkeley independently discover the principle of phase stability, a cornerstone of modern accelerators, which is first demonstrated on a modified cyclotron at Berkeley in 1946.

1946

Frank Goward constructs the first electron synchrotron in Woolwich, England, which is followed by one built at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, where synchrotron radiation is first observed, thus opening up a new era of accelerator-based light sources.

1946

William Walkinshaw and his team in Malvern, England, build the first electron linac powered by a magnetron. William Hansen and his team at Stanford University independently build a similar electron linac a few months later.

1947

Luis Alvarez builds the first drift-tube linac for accelerating protons at the University of California at Berkeley.

1952

Ernest Courant, M. Stanley Livingston, and Hartland Snyder at Brookhaven National Laboratory discover the principle of strong focusing, which Nicholas Christofilos in Athens, Greece, had conceived independently in 1949 and had patented but did not publish. Strong focusing and phase stability form the foundation of all modern high-energy accelerators.

1956

The first Fixed-Field Alternating-Gradient accelerator is commissioned at the Midwestern Universities Research Association, based upon a concept that Tihiro Ohkawa, Andrei Kolomensky, and Keith Symon invented independently. In 1938 Llewellyn Thomas had conceived an earlier variation of it.

1959

The first two proton synchrotrons using strong focusing—the Proton Synchrotron at CERN and the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven—are built. An electron synchrotron using strong focusing had been built at Cornell University in 1954.

1961

AdA (Anello di Accumulazione), the first electron–positron collider, is built at Frascati, Italy.43 It is followed by two electron–electron colliders, the Princeton-Stanford double-ring collider in the United States and the VEP-1 double-ring collider at Novosibirsk, Russia.

1964

Astron, the first induction linac that Nicholas Christofilos had proposed for nuclear fusion, is built at a branch of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, later renamed the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

1966

Gersh Budker invents electron-beam cooling at the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Akademgorodok, Russia.

1968

Simon van der Meer invents stochastic cooling for cooling antiproton beams. The proton–antiproton collisions studied at CERN lead to the discovery of the W and Z bosons in 1983.

1969

Vladimir Teplyakov and Ilya Kapchinskii invent the radio-frequency quadrupole linac at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow.

1971

Intersecting Storage Rings, the first large proton-proton collider, begins operation at CERN.

1971

John M.J. Madey invents and builds the first free-electron laser at Stanford University.

1983

The Tevatron, the first large accelerator using superconducting magnet technology, is commissioned at Fermilab.

1989

The Stanford Linear Collider, first proposed by Burton Richter, is built at SLAC. Maury Tigner had developed the linear-collider concept in 1965.

1993

Construction of the Superconducting Super Collider, a would-be largest accelerator in the world, begins in 1989. The project is cancelled by the U.S. Congress in 1993.44

1994

The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, the first large accelerator using superconducting radio-frequency technology, is built at the facility now called the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

2005

FLASH (Free-Electron LASer in Hamburg), the first Vacuum Ultraviolet and soft X-ray free-electron laser-user facility, is built at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron) in Hamburg, Germany.

2008

The Large Hadron Collider with a twenty-seven-kilometer circumference begins operation at CERN.

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Haussecker, E.F., Chao, A.W. The Influence of Accelerator Science on Physics Research. Phys. Perspect. 13, 146–160 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-010-0049-y

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Keywords

  • Owen Chamberlain
  • John D. Cockcroft
  • William A. Fowler
  • Robert Hofstadter
  • Gerardus ’t Hooft
  • J. Hans D. Jensen
  • Henry W. Kendall
  • Ernest O. Lawrence
  • Maria Goeppert Mayer
  • Simon van der Meer
  • Wolfgang Paul
  • Martin L. Perl
  • Burton Richter
  • Carlo Rubbia
  • Emilio G. Segrè
  • Richard E. Taylor
  • Samuel C.C. Ting
  • Ernest T.S. Walton
  • Nobel Prize for Physics
  • accelerator science
  • history of physics