Scientists Work on New Particle Accelerator

While a surfer might feel the rush of riding some of the Pacific Ocean's largest waves, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are feeling the same excitement in the lab, but on a much smaller scale.

Researchers at the Berkeley Lab plan to use microscopic waves to charge and accelerate some of the smallest particles in the universe.

The process will take place in the lab's "table-top" Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator, a device that is planned to be built by fall 2009 and will replace the lab's current, smaller accelerator.

While the particles will be accelerated in a tube that is only one meter long, scientists said the process for getting the particles up to speed is far from simple.

The scientists must first charge a chamber of atomic gas through which the particles will travel.

A laser beam will then puncture the gas and cause a "wake" that will accelerate and charge the particle that follows the beam, said Paul Preuss, a member of the communications department for the lab.

In an online video, project leader Wim Leemans compared the acceleration process to a surfer catching a wave behind a passing motorboat.

"Laser poles excite the wake in the plasma and electrons surf this wake and therefore reach very high energy," Leemans said in the video.

He said that the plasma would produce "a thousand times bigger electric field than (a) conventional accelerator."

The new accelerator will replace the lab's current device, which has a chamber that is only 3.3 centimeters long and does not charge the particle as much, Preuss said.

The current device can charge the particles to 1 billion electron volts. Researchers said they hope that the new accelerator will charge the particles to 10 billion electron volts.

Charging the particles to 10

billion electron volts would be a major achievement given that the particles will only be charged over one meter, Preuss said.

Sami Tantawi, an associate professor of particle physics and astrophysics at Stanford University, said an effective compact accelerator would increase accessibility to particle accelerators and could hugely impact the scientific community.

"Using these tools are extremely expensive," he said. "People wait in line, sometimes for years to use them: pharmaceutical companies, engineering and archaeological researches, you name it."

John Fox, a consulting professor for applied physics at Stanford University, said the project could be successful and has the ability to revolutionize physics in college classrooms.

"If the accelerator facility gets smaller, it would become less expensive," he said. "It will open up research in new areas."

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