The evolution of high energy accelerators Page: 4 of 11
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Next came the realization that there seemed to be nothing
standing in the way of much higher energies for proton synchro-
trons. Several proposals for proton synchrotrons appeared,
notably one for a 1 BeV machine at Birmingham, England (Oliphant,
Gooden and Hide) and one for a 10 BeV machine by Brobeck at Berke-
ley. Discussions between Leland Haworth at Brookhaven, Ernest
Lawrence at Berkeley, and the AEC authorities led to the decision
that both Brookhaven and Berkeley, instead of competing for the
10-Bev prize, would each build a smaller proton synchrotron, one
around 3 BeV and one at 6. Haworth chose the smaller size with
the hope of getting it finished faster; in later years he often
said that this was one of the best decisions he had ever made.
And now we get into some of my personal recollections. An
Accelerator Project was set up at Brookhaven under M S Livingston.
In the spring of 1947 he, PM Morse (director of Brookhaven) and
R A Patterson (personnel director) visited Cornell, where I was a
post-doc under H A Bethe, and invited me to Brookhaven for the
summer. The next year I joined for good. Among others in the
accelerator group were G K Green, John and Hildred Blewett, and a
young theorist named Nelson Blachman with whom I worked on several
of the theoretical problems of the proposed machine (named the
Cosmotron).
One of the important problems we tackled was the dynamics of
particle oscillations, both transverse (betatron oscillations) and
longitudinal (synchrotron oscillations) as modified by the fact
that this machine, unlike the earlier electron synchrotrons and
cyclotrons, had straight sections between the circular arcs, i.e.
non-circular orbits. (Dennison and Berlin, following a suggestion
by H. R. Crane, had tackled a similar problem here at Michigan; I
think Serber was also involved). We derived a matrix formalism for
handling the spatially periodic force fields seen by the parti-
cles, and found that (a) the frequencies of the oscillations are
more complicated to calculate than in the circular case; (b) that
the amplitudes of oscillations are modulated, and (c) that there
might, especially if the straight sections were long, be a "trans-
ition energy" at which the stable and metastable phase equilibrium
points that give phase stability exchange roles - but we saw that
in the Cosmotron, with its rather short straight sections, this
problem would be avoided.
The more practical people worked hard on the magnets, vacuum
systems, rf etc, and by the spring of 1952 the machine was fin-
ished. On May 20, 1952 a beam was injected into the Cosmotron and
accelerated to 1.3 BeV - by far the highest energy in the world
ever attained by artificial acceleration. Soon we surpassed that
record and got to 2.3 BeV in June, and to 3 GeV (the design ener-
gy) the next year.
Soon important physics was done with this new machine. Fore-
most was the exploration of the "strange particles" previously
found only in cosmic rays, and in particular the verification of
the Pais - Gell-Mann hypothesis of associated production of
hyperons and strange mesons, which was accomplished by Fowler,
Shutt, Thorndike and Whittemore in 1953.
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Courant, E. D. The evolution of high energy accelerators, report, October 1, 1989; Upton, New York. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1093599/m1/4/: accessed April 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.