Spring 1998, Vol

S T A N F O R D L I N E A R A CCELERATOR CENTER Spring 1998, Vol. 28, No.1 A PERIODICAL OF PARTICLE PHYSICS SPRING 1998 VOL. 28, N UMBER 1 Editors RENE DONALDSON, BILL KIRK Contributing Editors MICHAEL RIORDAN, GORDON FRASER JUDY JACKSON, PEDRO WALOSCHEK Editorial Advisory Board GEORGE BROWN, LANCE DIXON JOEL PRIMACK, NATALIE ROE ROBERT SIEMANN, GEORGE TRILLING KARL VAN BIBBER Illustrations TERRY A NDERSON Distribution Lake CRYSTAL TILGHMAN Soudan Superior Duluth The Beam Line is published quarterly by the MN Lake Stanford Linear Accelerator Center WI Michigan PO Box 4349, Stanford, CA 94309. Telephone: (650) 926-2585 Madison INTERNET: [email protected] MI FAX: (650) 926-4500 IA Issues of the Beam Line are accessible electronically on the World Wide Web at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/ Fermilab pubs/beamline IL IN SLAC is operated by Stanford University under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy. The opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect the policy of the MO Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Cover:The cover photo was taken in 1917, plus or minus about one year. The photographer is unknown or unre- membered. The young lad shown in the photo with his telescope in the garden of his home in Pretoria, South Africa, is Alan Cousins, at the age of about fourteen (he was born in 1903). Dr. Cousins’ first contribution to the astronomical literature was published in 1924. Seventy-four years have passed since then, but Alan William James Cousins is still at work at his home base, the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), having recently published his latest paper (“Atmospheric Extinc- tion,” The Observatory, April 1998). He will be 95 in August of this year, continuing a long life among the stars. Happy birthday! SPRING 1998 CONTENTS FEATURES 2 ALL WE WANT IS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST MACHINE! One of our Contributing Editors follows up on his article in the last issue on the origins of international collaboration in Europe to describe the creation of CERN. Gordon Fraser 9 SEARCHING FOR NEUTRINO OSCILLATIONS The author describes why understanding neutrino oscillations might be critical to the question of whether neutrinos have mass. Maury Goodman 17 PHYSICS WITH CHARM A Fermilab physicist describes why the study of the charm quark might open the way to physics beyond the Standard Model. Jeffrey A. Appel DEPARTMENTS 22 THE UNIVERSE AT LARGE This Was the Year That Was (Astrophysics in 1997) Virginia Trimble 31 CONTRIBUTORS DATES TO REMEMBER BEAM LINE Contributing Editor Gordon Fraser follows All We Want Is th up on his piece on the origins of international collaboration in Europe (Winter 1997) to describe the creation of CERN. This article is adapted from a chapter in his book The Quark Machines on the politi- cal history of particle physics and the parallel evolution of its big machines. Isidor Rabi had proposed the idea of a European physics laboratory at a UNESCO conference in Florence in June 1950. The signatories to the initial 1952 agreement to establish CERN sent him this letter. 2 SPRING 1998 World’s Biggest Machine! by GORDON FRASER ETWEEN 1949 AND 1959, the dream of an international European laboratory for particle physics—‘CERN’—became a reality, briefly sporting the world’s highest energy proton synchrotron. In those ten years, scientists from countries that had been Bat war only a few years earlier set aside their differences and collaborated in a dramatic demonstration of what could be achieved when national characteristics dovetail smoothly in the achievem ent of a com mon goal. The ideals and insights of CERN ’s founding fathers provide vital lessons in the continued quest for wider international collaboration in particle physics. Scientific objectivity is a com mon bond between winner of the 1929 Nobel prize for his elucidation nations. In every country, scientists address the of particle waves. De Broglie maintained that sci- same problems. If one nation hushes up its research entific collaboration between European countries findings, the knowledge will ultimately be acquired could open up projects that were beyond the means elsewhere. Scientific curiosity cannot be quenched. of individual nations. Following up with his own In the after math of World War II, science was seen ideas, Dautry affirmed that astronomy and astro- as a potential olive branch. However the war had physics on one hand, and atomic energy on the oth- shifted much of the scenery. Major efforts to har- er, would be ideal vehicles for such international ness fission and microwaves had demonstrated the collaboration. value of large-scale collaboration. Militant nation- Dautry could call on powerful colleagues in al pride had given way to new international aware- France. One was Pierre Auger, who had made im- ness. Embarrassed by having caused so much strife portant contributions to atomic and nuclear physics and inflicting it on the rest of the planet, Europe in the 1930s and became Director of Exact and Nat- felt it had to present a more united front. ural Sciences of the new United Nations Educa- The United States, as the leading postwar sci- tional, Scientific and Cultural Organization entific power, attracted scientific emigrants from (UNESCO). Another prominent French figure was Europe in what would eventually be called the nuclear fission pioneer Lew Kowarski, who had “brain drain.” This leak first had to be stemmed worked in Britain during the war and understood if the Continent was not to find itself starved of tal- the special position of the United Kingdom, which ent. Following the Congress of Europe in The Hague was trying to “go it alone.” in May 1949, the European Cultural Conference At the UNESCO General Conference held in in Lausanne in December 1949, attended by 170 in- Florence in June 1950, however, the seed planted at fluential people from 22 countries, helped set the Lausanne still lay dormant. In the U.S. delegation stage. was Isidor Rabi, winner of the 1944 Nobel physics At Lausanne, the Swiss writer Denis de Rouge- prize who had supervised research at the MIT Ra- mont, founder of the European Cultural Centre, de- diation Laboratory during the war. After the war plored an increasing trend towards secrecy in nu- Rabi, with Norman Ramsey, had pushed for the es- clear physics and advocated a “European centre for tablishment of a major new U.S. research labora- atomic research.” Then Raoul Dautry, Adminis- tory, Brookhaven, on New York’s Long Island. In trator-General of the French Atomic Energy Rabi’s mind this was a role model for what could Commission, read a message from Louis de Broglie, be achieved elsewhere. BEAMLINE3 Upon arriving at Florence, Rabi for Europe at a meeting of a United was surprised to discover that the Nations agency had opened a new agenda included no mention of the door. European physics collaboration The two men who took Rabi’s ba- mooted at Lausanne. Setting up phys- ton and sprinted with it were just ics laboratories was something Rabi those who had helped him draft the knew well, but international com- Florence resolution—Amaldi and mittee work was not. The first thing Auger. Just a few weeks later, Amaldi was to get an item onto the agenda, was stimulated by a visit to Brook- overcoming the apparent indifference haven, where the Cosmotron was of his American colleagues. More already taking shape. Few Europeans helpful were Auger and the Italian had ever seen a physics effort of such physicist Edoardo Amaldi, who had proportions. “Colossale,” he re- worked in Enrico Fermi’s Rome lab- marked. oratory before the war. Invited to the Under the auspices of the Euro- United States by Fermi, Amaldi pre- pean Cultural Centre, a meeting was ferred to stay in Italy and help restore organized in Geneva in December Italian physics after the chaos of the 1950 with delegates from Belgium, war. Amaldi went on to become one France, Italy, the Netherlands, Nor- Edoardo Amaldi in 1971 at the age of 63. of Europe’s great postwar scientific way, and Switzerland. Auger un- One of Europe’s leading postwar statesmen, his achievements appear- veiled a plan for a new laboratory scientific statesmen, he played a key administrative role in the founding of ing to stem from a deep sense of duty dedicated to the physics of elemen- CERN. (Courtesy CERN) rather than personal ambition. tary particles. He knew that in- Drafted with the assistance of triguing new discoveries had already Auger and Amaldi, the proposal from been made in cosmic rays, but that Rabi at Florence requested UNESCO this windfall sprouting could become “to assist and encourage the forma- a major harvest once the big new U.S. tion and organization of regional accelerators were up and running. research centres and laboratories in Initial contacts with Britain had order to increase and make more established that while its physicists fruitful the international collabora- were not against the idea of a Euro- tion of scientists in the search for pean laboratory, they still wanted to new knowledge in fields where the go their own way. Their support was effort of any one country in the re- vital to get the idea off the ground, gion is insufficient for the task.” Rabi however, as in Europe only Britain pointed out that the initiative “was had experience in major projects. Pos- primarily intended to help countries sible sites mentioned for the new which had previously made great European laboratory included Gene- contributions to science,” and va and Copenhagen. that “the creation of a centre in The resolution passed at the Europe . might give the impetus Geneva meeting was startling.

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