Leonid Rivkin

PSI, Villigen, Switzerland

Leonid Rivkin (left) with Günther Dissertori
Leonid Rivkin (left) with Günther Dissertori

Date

1 October 2008

Title

Engines of Discovery: The Role of Accelerators in Scientific Exploration

Abstract

Hundred and ten years have passed between J.J. Thomson used a cathode ray tube to discover the electron and the start of commissioning of the LHC collider, where protons are accelerated to 7 TeV. This span of nine orders of magnitude in energy allowed the nuclear and particle physicists to establish the present day standard model of the fundamental laws of nature. The accelerated and manipulated particle beams, these ‘altered states’ of matter have powered scientific exploration in a wide variety of disciplines. The future synchrotron light sources are extending the laser based techniques into the X-ray domain, including structure determination on an atomic scale in both space and time. The talk will focus on the present state and the future directions of development of particle accelerators and their applications.

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