IT鈥橲 just a gleam in the eyes of physicists now, but a state-of-the-art
linear particle accelerator could be built in Germany, the US or even Japan.
快猫短视频s are vying for the chance to host a new particle smasher that could
shed light on conditions in the Universe a split second after the big bang.
鈥淧eople seem to have the feeling that only one or maybe two will be built,鈥�
says Gerhard Materlik of the DESY accelerator lab in Hamburg. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure that at
least one of them will be built鈥攚e hope in Hamburg.鈥�
Last week, DESY published plans for a new collider called TESLA (TeV-Energy
Superconducting Linear Accelerator). The accelerator would use superconducting
magnets to accelerate beams of electrons and their antiparticles, positrons,
smashing them into each other at energies of 500 billion
electronvolts鈥攆ive times that achieved in similar machines so far. This
would recreate the conditions that existed 10-12 seconds after the big
bang.
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快猫短视频s think this accelerator would complement the ring-shaped Large
Hadron Collider, which is being built near Geneva. If the LHC identifies exotic
particles such as the Higgs boson, a hypothetical particle that would clarify
what gives particles mass, TESLA could pin down its properties in detail.
Construction could begin as early as 2003.
Plans for a linear collider in the US were the hot topic at a workshop last
week at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 鈥淭he overwhelming consensus was
that people loved the idea,鈥� says Morris Swartz of Johns Hopkins, who organised
the meeting. 鈥淲ere we to lose the next big project, then our domestic programme
would be harmed.鈥�
Although it would probably use different technologies, the American collider
would smash particles together at about the same energies as TESLA. Japanese
scientists are also proposing a similar accelerator. All three could be
completed by 2010.