Stanford Linear Accelerator

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Stanford Linear Accelerator

• Accelerator Physics design, build, maintain
• High Energy Physics particle physics
• Astrophysics and Cosmology

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Accelerator Physics

• Design, build, and run forefront accelerators
• New acceleration technologies
• Improvements in efficiency and reliability of
  existing technologies
• A science in its own right!
• Also a set of very challenging engineering
  problems.

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What is an accelerator?

• A wave guide--accelerator structure
• A microwave generator klystron
• A particle source -- electron gun
• A steering mechanismmagnets
• http//www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/

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Electrons surf the electric
field wave
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SLAC
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Accelerators as X-ray sources

• Basic concept when fast moving electrons are
  deflected by magnets they radiate photons
• Synchrotron radiation bending magnets in storage
  ring (synchrotron)
• Wigglers and undulators additional magnets
  placed along straight section to wiggle the
  beam to make x-ray photons

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LCLS Undulator
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Particle or High Energy physics

• to understand the basic constituents of matter
• and the interactions between them
• --in answering these questions we are probing
  deeply into the workings of the Universe

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Why high energy?

• 1. Energy is inversely proportional to
• wavelength
• Wavelength defines resolution
• --scale at which we can see
• 2. High energy allows us to produce new (more
  massive) particle types

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Particle Physics Experiments

• BaBar the B factory at SLAC
• experiment completed,
• data still being analyzed
• ATLAS _at_LHC Large Hadron Collider
• at CERN (Switzerland)
• began running this year

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Particle detectors

• a multilayered set of components (each layer has
  its own technologies and experts)
• detect and identify all particles produced in a
  collision
• measure as accurately as possible the momentum
  and energy of each particle
• www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/detectors.html

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Particle Physics

• B Factory BaBar Detector
• studying the difference in the
• laws of physics for
• matter
• and
• antimatter

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BaBar Collaboration
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Matter and antimatter in the Universe

• Laws of physics for matter and antimatter are
  very similar
• Universe contains lots of matter, very little
  antimatter
• How did that come about?

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ATLAS _at_LHC

• One of two very large detectors for experiments
  at LHC
• Particle physicists hope for all kinds of
  discoveries with this machine
• Higgs particle ?
• Super-partner particles???
• Indications of new dimensions
• of space????????

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Astrophysics -- KIPAC
Studying the Dark Energy of the Universe
                                                                                       
Studying the Dark Energy of the Universe
                                                                                       
Studying the Dark Energy of the Universe
                                                                                       

• Kavli Institute for
• Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
• experiments
• and
• theory

http//www-group.slac.stanford.edu/kipac/
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Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

• Astronomy observing and cataloguing the objects
• Astrophysicsproviding physical models for what
  produces the observed phenomena
• Particle Astrophysics that part of
  astrophysics where the phenomena are dominantly
  particle physics effects
• Cosmology providing a physical model for the
  evolution of the universe

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Some Particle Astrophysics questions

• What is dark matter?
• What produces the highest energy cosmic rays?
  X-rays?
• How do supernova explosions produce neutrinos?
• What causes the expansion of the Universe to be
  speeding up?
• (or what is dark energy?)

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Fermi Gamma Space Telescope

• launched
• June 11 2008
• detector built at
  SLAC

http//www-glast.sonoma.edu/science/what.html
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LSST

• Large Synoptic Survey telescope
• Under design telescope to be built in Chile
• SLAC will compete to build camera
• --largest ever digital camera
• 3.2 gigapixels!
• http//www.lsst.org/lsst_home.shtml

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Challenges for all this science

• Invention of new devices
• Precision engineering and control
• Making sense of large quantities of data
• Simulations
• Theory