Researchers at SLAC and other institutions are creating a sort of pest control for particle beams: squashing the clouds of electrons that gather in accelerators and disrupt experiments. “Some methods are already there… we know they work,” said Mauro Pivi, a SLAC scientist in the Accelerator Design Department. But in order for future colliders such […]
SLAC’s new associate lab director
From SLAC Today: Clobbering Electron Clouds
From SLAC today: People: Andrei Seryi
Since beginning his career in 1986, SLAC senior scientist and project manager for FACET Andrei Seryi has worked at five labs in three countries, with the last 10 years at SLAC. In this decade, Seryi has led international collaborations to design and build linear accelerator experimental facilities, all while continuing his accelerator research and design […]
From SLAC today: Bringing Power to the International Linear Collider
Measuring in at more than 30 kilometers, the proposed International Linear Collider would be the longest particle accelerator ever built, providing physicists a better view of subatomic world than ever before achieved. But becoming the biggest isn’t easy. The ILC’s unprecedented scale presents plenty of challenges, and more than 200 labs and institutions around the […]
From SLAC Today: New Modulator Prototype Put to the Test
Yesterday, a team of physicists and engineers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory completed initial testing on a new power source, the Marx modulator, connected to its target device, and launched a yearlong test. This test will be the final step in proving the reliability of a device poised to transform the way particle accelerators are […]
From SLAC Today: Simulating a More Efficient Linear Collider
Scientists around the world are working hard to hammer out a workable blueprint for the next big particle accelerator, the International Linear Collider, by 2012. A group at SLAC is doing its part, running supercomputer simulations to maximize the accelerator’s performance and keep costs down on the proposed multi-billion-dollar collider. The team, from SLAC’s Advanced […]
From SLAC Today: A Flight Simulator for the World’s Smallest Beam
Commissioning has begun at the Japan-based Accelerator Test Facility 2, a major technology test bed for future accelerators, including the proposed International Linear Collider, or ILC. During the two-year commissioning process, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory physicists are shuttling back and forth to KEK, the high-energy accelerator lab in Tsukuba, to join an international team of scientistsworking around […]
Life after the LOI
SiD Workshop at SLAC
SiD workshop participants taking a break from discussion the LOI. (Photo: Norman Graf) A Silicon Detector (SiD) workshop was held at SLAC from 2 to 4 March, with the express purpose of reviewing the status of the SiD Letter of Intent, organising the final steps in its completion, and beginning to think of life after […]
From SLAC Today: Groovy Beam Pipe Update
Something unwanted lurks within accelerator beam pipes around the world: stray electrons. This haze of electrons interacts with positron and proton beams, often causing distortion. Previous tests showed that an insert designed by SLAC researchers works well to capture stray electrons in an environment with no magnetic field. Now, recent tests carried out at the […]