Robert Brian Palmer

Robert Brian Palmer (* 1934 in Harrow near London ) is a British-American physicist who studies the physics of particle accelerators.

life and work

Palmer studied at Imperial College , where he received his doctorate in 1960. He built the first hydrogen bubble chamber in Europe. In 1960 he went to the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to the bubble chamber group under Nicholas P. Samios . In 1964 he co-discovered the Ω-baryon there . He stayed at the BNL, where he founded the accelerator test facility and was Associate Director for High Energy Physics from 1983 to 1986. In 1971/72 he was on a sabbatical year at CERN (where he was involved in the discovery of neutral currents in the Gargamelle bubble chamber). From 1986 to 1991 he was also at SLAC , where he worked on linear accelerator development. Since 1992 he has been Adjunct Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook .

Among other things, Palmer designed superconducting magnets for bubble chambers and later for accelerators, including the first "two in one" magnets, which are used, for example, in the ring of the LHC . In 1982/83 he headed the magnet group at the ISABELLE accelerator, which was given up shortly afterwards, and was involved in magnet development at the Superconducting Super Collider in the early 1990s , where he was also a member of the scientific advisory committee. He proposed a method of stochastic cooling (momentum stochastic cooling 1973) and proposed a laser acceleration concept (Inverse Free Electron Laser) in 1970.

Since 1997 he has been spokesman for the Muon Collider Collaboration at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory .

In 1993 he received the Panofsky Prize (with Samios and Ralph P. Shutt for the discovery of the omega particle) and in 1999 he was awarded the Robert R. Wilson Prize for his many different contributions and inventions in the field of particle accelerators and detectors, including superconducting magnets , longitudinal stochastic cooling, bubble chambers and neutrino rays , ... Accelerating with lasers and its leading role in muon colliders . In 2008, Palmer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences .

literature

• Andrew Sessler, Edmund Wilson Engines of Discovery , World Scientific 2007, p. 148

Web links

• Laudation for Wilson Prize

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Laudation for the Wilson Prize: For his many diverse contributions and innovations in particle accelerator and detector technologies, including superconducting magnets, longitudinal stochastic cooling, bubble chambers and neutrino beam lines, crab crossing in lepton colliders, laser acceleration, and for leadership of the muon collider concept.