ISABELLE

Hadron colliders


Caption=Aerial view of Brookhaven National Laboratory. The giant ring at the top of the picture identifies the tunnel and experimental hall for ISABELLE, later used for the RHIC, as land was being restored after its construction in the early 1980s.

ISABELLE was a 200+200 GeV proton-proton colliding beam particle accelerator partially built by the United States government at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, before it was cancelled in July, 1983.

Colliding beam accelerators

A colliding beam, storage ring accelerator was first proposed by Gerard O'Neill of Princeton in 1956, who built an electron-electron system beginning in 1957 with assistance from Burton Richter, William C. Barber and Bernard Gittelman. [cite web | author=Burton Richter | title=Autobiography | publisher=Nobel Foundation | year=2005 | url=http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1976/richter-autobio.html ] The AdA accelerator, an electron-positron system, followed in 1961 at Frascati National Laboratories, Italy, later moved to Orsay Laboratory, France. [cite web | author=Carlo Bernardini | title=AdA: the First Electron-Positron Collider | publisher=CERN, Geneva | year=Jun 6 2004 | url=http://cas.web.cern.ch/cas/Baden/PDF/bernardinismall.pdf Adapted from "Physics in Perspective" (Springer) 2:135-140 (2000).] The idea of using alternating gradient synchrotron (AGS) technology [cite web | author=Brookhaven National Laboratory | title=Alternating Gradient Synchrotron | publisher=U.S. Department of Energy | year=2004 | url=http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/AGS_history.asp ] to build storage rings for a proton-proton colliding beam accelerator was considered at a summer study held at Brookhaven in 1963. [cite web | author=Brookhaven National Laboratory | title=The long road from ISABELLE to RHIC | publisher=U.S. Department of Energy | year=2004 | url=http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/RHIC_history.asp ] The Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) facility at CERN, a 30+30 GeV proton-proton system, opened in 1971 and became the first high energy hadron collider. The SPEAR collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a 3+3 GeV electron-positron system, was completed in 1972 and soon contributed to discoveries of the ψ meson and τ lepton, both recognized in Nobel Prizes. The ψ had previously been found in a fixed-target experiment at the Brookhaven AGS, where it was called the J, but it was better measured with SPEAR.

The ISABELLE project

A design study for a proton storage ring system was completed at Brookhaven in 1973. [cite web | author=Frederick E. Mills | title=ISABELLE Design Study | publisher=Brookhaven National Laboratory | year=1973 | url=http://epaper.kek.jp/p73/PDF/PAC1973_1036.PDF ] In 1974 the U.S. High Energy Physics Advisory Panel recommended that ISABELLE (the Intersecting Storage Accelerator + "belle") should be built at Brookhaven. It was to be a 200+200 GeV proton-proton system using superconducting magnets. New York politicians, spurred by the sometimes impetuous Sen. Moynihan, pushed though funding before development of magnet technology had been completed. Construction began in 1978. The following year a prototype magnet was successfully tested. In 1981, however, production models of magnets failed at less than the magnetic field intensity needed for operation. [cite web | author=John G. Cramer | title=Big Bangs in the Lab | publisher=Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, Seattle, WA | year=Sep 30 1990 | url=http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw46.html ] [cite web | author=Walter Sullivan | title=Troubles continue for L.I. accelerator | publisher=New York Times | year=Jun 7 1981 | url=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/physics/index.html?s=oldest&offset=10& ] Delays in the project led to competitive evaluation against a proposal for a much larger machine, eventually called the Superconducting Supercollider, a proton-proton system aimed at 20,000+20,000 GeV; while developments in Europe at CERN, including discovery of the W and Z bosons, appeared to make ISABELLE redundant. [cite web | author=Robert P. Crease | title=CERN, the US and the W | publisher=PhysicsWeb | year=Sep 2004 | url=http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/9/2 ] In July, 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled the ISABELLE project after spending more than US$200 million on it. [cite web | author=William J. Broad | title=Big accelerator on Long Island gets 'NO' vote | publisher=New York Times | year=Jul 14 1983 | url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60F1FFD3E5D0C778DDDAE0894DB484D81&] Cancellation of ISABELLE accelerated the United States fall from dominance in high energy physics and proved a harbinger for the much more costly cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider in October, 1993. [cite web | author=Michael Wines | title=House Kills the Supercollider and Now it Might Stay Dead | publisher=New York Times | year=Oct 20 1993 | url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00616F7385E0C738EDDA90994DB494D81 ] After years of planning and development, parts of the tunnel, experimental hall and magnet infrastructure built for ISABELLE were salvaged and reused by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a US$617 million joint project of the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation which was approved in 1991 and began operation in 2000. [cite web | author=Gregory H. Friedman | title=Audit Report on Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Project | publisher=U.S. Department of Energy | year=Mar 6 2002 |url=http://www.ig.doe.gov/pdf/ig-0543.pdf ]

ee also

* List of accelerators in particle physics
* Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, newest U.S. high energy facility, opened 1972, Tevatron to close 2009 [cite web | author=Steve Holmes | title=Fermilab Accelerator R&D Overview | publisher=U.S. Department of Energy | year=Feb 15 2006 | url=http://accelerator-rd.org/FNAL/AARD_Holmes.pdf See "Strategic Framework"]
* Super Proton Synchrotron, accelerator at CERN used to discover the W and Z bosons
* Large Electron-Positron Collider, accelerator also at CERN, operated from 1989 to 2000
* Large Hadron Collider, new accelerator being built in the CERN LEP tunnel, to open 2008

References and notes