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The sound of accelerator cavities

Liquid helium’s curious properties help scientists focus on cavity defects.

| 21 April 2011

Heat waves aren’t always a bad thing. For scientists working on accelerator cavities, they provide a simple way to locate hard-to-see surface defects, which can turn an otherwise superconducting cavity into a dud. Cornell University’s second-sound detection system homes in on a cavity defect, such as a pit hiding in the cavity wall, by tracking […]

Second sound sounds promising

Cornell proposes new cavity temperature mapping technique

| 26 June 2008

Is it a microphone? Is it a thermometer? It’s an oscillating superleak transducer! Cornell’s re-entrant nine-cell cavity was tested with the second-sound method. The yellow dot shows where a quench occurred. “Our superconducting technology group here at Cornell is doing some very fundamental R&D,” says Hasan Padamsee, physics professor at Cornell university and expert in […]