Cosmotron

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The Cosmotron

The cosmotron was a synchrotron - particle of 23 m diameter at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Brookhaven (New York) , USA .

history

In April 1948 the American Atomic Energy Agency ( AEC) approved a plan to build a proton synchrotron with a previously unattained proton energy of around 3 GeV . Until then, particles of this speed were only known from cosmic rays , hence the name Cosmotron.

In May 1952 a proton energy of 1 GeV was reached, and in January 1953 the planned energy of 3.3 GeV.

With the Cosmotron the charged mesons known from cosmic rays as well as the so-called V-particles could be generated. The research of many phenomena has been simplified considerably so that extensive insights into the internal structure of the nucleons became possible.

After the by far more powerful Alternating Gradient Synchrotron went into operation in July 1960, the Cosmotron slowly lost its usefulness and was shut down in 1966 and finally scrapped in 1969.

technology

During the construction of the iron core in 1950.
Model of a segment of the cosmotron. The box-shaped cross-section of the vacuum chamber is clearly visible.

The Cosmotron weighed about 1800 t and consisted of 288 electromagnets with C-shaped iron cores, the gap opening of which was about 20 cm high and 60 cm deep. The magnets were arranged ring-symmetrically in four segments, so that a magnetic field gradient with ring-shaped symmetry prevailed within the evacuated circumferential ring. The circulating protons were focused on the given trajectory solely by this field gradient, which, however, required a large ring chamber and therefore large magnets. In the next-generation accelerators, the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at BNL and the Proton Synchrotron at CERN , the focusing has been significantly refined using a method of changing field gradients along the direction of flight, so that ring chambers and magnets with significantly smaller cross-sections of around 5 cm are used could.

What was new about the Cosmotron was that the accelerated particles could be discharged radially out of the circulating ring to the experiments. Previously, experiments had to be built into the accelerator itself.

Web links

Commons : Cosmotron  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b BNL: Brookhaven History - The Cosmotron ( English ) Retrieved on Nov. 28, 2009.
  2. ^ Ernest Courant, BNL: Brookhaven and CERN: the AGS and the PS ( English ) Oct. 19, 2007. Retrieved Nov. 28, 2009.
  3. ↑ Jack Steinberger: When the bubble chamber first burst onto the scene ( English ) Apr. 30, 2001. Accessed Nov. 28, 2009.
  4. ^ BNL: Brookhaven History - The Alternating Gradient Concept ( English ) Retrieved on Nov. 28, 2009.