Elementary-Particle Physics Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter (1998) / Chapter Skim
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8 Accelerator-Detector Technology and Benefits to Society
8 Accelerator-Detector Technology and Benefits to Society
Pages 110-120
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From page 110... ...
These tools can, however, and often do find application beyond the restricted realm of elementary-particle physics research. This chapter discusses a few examples of the application of elementaryparticle physics technologies to the more general benefit of society in areas as diverse as biology, medicine, microelectronics, and national defense.
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From page 111... ...
Using intense proton beams impinging on a target to produce neutrons can be a safer alternative to nuclear reactors. Proposed applications include the production of tritium, the destruction of plutonium and other high-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production and nuclear power plants, and even energy production by initiating fission in a subcritical reactor.
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From page 112... ...
Circulating beams of electrons produce the most intense beams of x rays in the world. Early in the development of electron storage rings, facilities such as the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL)
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From page 113... ...
In a different field of study, biologists have fully realized the efficacy of using synchrotron x rays to study large molecules of physiologically important materials such as proteins and viruses. Because these huge molecules have many thousands of atoms, a technique called macromolecular crystallography makes use of digital detectors and computers to collect and analyze rapidly vast quantities of x-ray diffraction data.
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From page 114... ...
The present trend toward ultraminiature design, exemplified by the rapid evolution of the integrated circuit, is creating the need to manufacture products with physical features smaller than the wavelength of visible light. A technique called x-ray lithography is just beginning to create micromechanical devices, machines with moving parts having dimensions as small or smaller than the width of a hair.
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From page 115... ...
In the words of the late Robert Marsh of Teledyne Wah Chang, still the world's largest supplier of superconducting alloys, "Every program in superconductivity that there is today owes itself in some measure to the fact that Fermilab built the Tevatron and it worked." THE DETECTOR FRONTIER The particle detectors utilized by elementary-particle physicists have evolved in sophistication over the past 50 years, providing the ability to investigate phenomena at continually advancing energy and intensity frontiers. Requirements for more precise spatial resolution, higher rate capability, and the ability to function in very high radiation environments stimulate the particle physics community to develop new and improved techniques.
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From page 116... ...
Detectors with sufficient spatial resolution can observe internal features of the body to a precision of several millimeters. Crystals, such as those described above, do an excellent job of measuring energy but cannot currently provide spatial resolution at the millimeter level, as required in medical applications, at an affordable cost.
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From page 117... ...
A prime example is the development of massively parallel processor "farms." To allow rapid analysis of events recorded in their experiments, physicists at particle physics labs started to build stripped-down (no monitor, no disk) computing engines.
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From page 118... ...
The ensuing popular explosion of the Internet can probably be attributed primarily to the development of a comfortable, universal hypertext interface for exchanging text, graphics, and images. The World Wide Web was invented at CERN to enable the organization and exchange of information between particle physics collaborators at locations all over the world.
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From page 119... ...
TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS Continued advancement in the capabilities of the accelerators and detectors used in support of elementary-particle physics research is critically dependent on continuing advances in the underlying technologies. Although many of these advances are directly pursued in the laboratories and universities carrying out research in EPP, others occur independently as a result of research in other fields or in industry and are adopted by experimental particle physics.
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From page 120... ...
Enhanced pattern recognition techniques and software algorithms will be required to sort out signatures in detectors recording tens of simultaneous events with hundreds of tracks each. What applications, if any, these developments will find in other fields is impossible to predict, but based on history it is safe to say that many will find application in areas beyond experimental particle physics.
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