ISABELLE

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Hadron Colliders: Past, Present, and Future
Intersecting Storage Rings	CERN, 1971–1984
Super Proton Synchrotron	CERN, 1981–1984
ISABELLE	BNL, cancelled in 1983
Tevatron	Fermilab, 1987–2009
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider	BNL, operational since 2000
Superconducting Super Collider	cancelled in 1993
Large Hadron Collider	CERN, 2007–2020s
Very Large Hadron Collider	mid-to-late 21st century

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.

[edit] 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.^[1] The AdA accelerator, an electron-positron system, followed in 1961 at Frascati National Laboratories, Italy, later moved to Orsay Laboratory, France.^[2] The idea of using alternating gradient synchrotron (AGS) technology ^[3] to build storage rings for a proton-proton colliding beam accelerator was considered at a summer study held at Brookhaven in 1963.^[4] 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.

[edit] The ISABELLE project

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.

A design study for a proton storage ring system was completed at Brookhaven in 1973.^[5] 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.^{[6] [7]} 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.^[8] In July, 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled the ISABELLE project after spending more than US$200 million on it.^[9] 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.^[10] 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.^[11]

[edit] See also

• List of accelerators in particle physics
• Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, newest U.S. high energy facility, opened 1972, Tevatron to close 2009^[12]
• 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 2007

[edit] References and notes

1. ^ Burton Richter (2005). Autobiography. Nobel Foundation.
2. ^ Carlo Bernardini (Jun 6 2004). AdA: the First Electron-Positron Collider. CERN, Geneva. Adapted from Physics in Perspective (Springer) 2:135-140 (2000).
3. ^ Brookhaven National Laboratory (2004). Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. U.S. Department of Energy.
4. ^ Brookhaven National Laboratory (2004). The long road from ISABELLE to RHIC. U.S. Department of Energy.
5. ^ Frederick E. Mills (1973). ISABELLE Design Study. Brookhaven National Laboratory.
6. ^ John G. Cramer (Sep 30 1990). Big Bangs in the Lab. Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, Seattle, WA.
7. ^ Walter Sullivan (Jun 7 1981). Troubles continue for L.I. accelerator. New York Times.
8. ^ Robert P. Crease (Sep 2004). CERN, the US and the W. PhysicsWeb.
9. ^ William J. Broad (Jul 14 1983). Big accelerator on Long Island gets 'NO' vote. New York Times.
10. ^ Michael Wines (Oct 20 1993). House Kills the Supercollider and Now it Might Stay Dead. New York Times.
11. ^ Gregory H. Friedman (Mar 6 2002). Audit Report on Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Project. U.S. Department of Energy.
12. ^ Steve Holmes (Feb 15 2006). Fermilab Accelerator R&D Overview. U.S. Department of Energy. See "Strategic Framework"