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Mark Oliphant Frs and the Birmingham Proton Synchrotron

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Mark Oliphant Frs and the Birmingham Proton Synchrotron UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES SCHOOL OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY MARK OLIPHANT FRS AND THE BIRMINGHAM PROTON SYNCHROTRON A thesis submitted for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By David Ellyard B.Sc (Hons), Dip.Ed, M.Ed. December 2011 ORIGINALITY STATEMENT I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. 20 December 2011 2 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.' 26 November 2012 AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format. 26 November 2012 3 Acknowledgements In submitting this thesis, I wish to acknowledge the powerful ongoing support I have received from my supervisor Professor David Miller. We have had many discussions over the last four years from which I have derived great benefit and he has reviewed the many drafts of this work with insight, patience and a keen eye. My interactions with him have been a source of pleasurable intellectual stimulation. I have also received support from my co-supervisor, Dr Nick Rasmussen. In undertaking this work, I am of course conscious of the influence of Professor Mark Oliphant, whose career in experimental nuclear physics first engaged my attention when I co-wrote his biography in 1981. I was also honoured to enjoy his friendship. Since that time, it has been my intention to examine more rigorously his contribution in that field, and in particular his role in the development of the proton synchrotron, the technology which has dominated research into the structure of matter to the present day. This thesis is the outcome of that intention. I wish also to thank the many people who have helped me access the documentary materials on which this thesis has drawn so heavily, including the staff at the various archives I have used. My friend Ann Turner has ruthlessly proof-read this thesis. It is a much better piece of work for her participation. Finally I thank my family, especially my wife, for their support and forbearance. Four years is a long time, and they have been with me all the way. 4 Abstract The years immediately after World War II saw the development of a new generation of particle accelerators known as “proton synchrotrons”. These provided beams of particles carrying energy an order of magnitude greater than previously available, permitting study of phenomena not previously accessible for examination. The first such machine to be proposed, funded, designed and commenced was initiated at the University of Birmingham by Australian-born physicist Mark Oliphant FRS. Nearly concurrently, two similar machines were commenced in the United States, the Cosmotron at Brookhaven and the Bevatron at Berkeley. While it is generally acknowledged that Oliphant was one of three researchers (the others being the American McMillan and the Russian Veksler) to have independently come upon the operating principles of the synchrotron, this thesis demonstrates that he was more than simply “first among equals” in this field. Developed by examination of primary sources not previously systematically studied, a chronology of Oliphant's activities in this field clearly shows that he was well in advance of others in proposing the use of such a machine to accelerate protons. Furthermore, his ideas had significant influence on the teams building the American machines. We also demonstrate that the Birmingham accelerator was in large measure an embodiment of Oliphant's own personality and style, for better and for worse. Without his initiative and influence, and the utilization of the considerable “capital” accumulated through his career, the machine would not even have been commenced in economically- stressed immediate post-war Britain. The enterprise reflected his preferred way of working; a minimum of detailed, reliance on innovation to solve problems as they arose and inadequate use of engineering 5 expertise. For these and other reasons, his accelerator was not the first to generate a beam, despite its lead time. The thesis sets this pioneering endeavour against a number of backgrounds: Oliphant's long involvement with accelerator building; the growth of the technology of experimental nuclear physics through previous decades and the growth of the phenomenon of Big Science. It also recounts in detail the conception, funding, design, construction and impact of the machine up until its shutdown in 1967. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction: Nuclear physics in transition 9 2. The Proton Synchrotron: Who Did What When? 21 3. The quest for higher energies: Experimental nuclear 39 physics to 1932 4. Building “capital”: Oliphant in the 1930s 73 6 5. Oliphant at War: 1939 to 1945 160 6. The Birmingham Proton Synchrotron 221 1944 to 1946: Conception and Funding 7. The Birmingham Proton Synchrotron 314 1946 to 1953: Design and Construction 8. The Birmingham Proton Synchrotron 379 1953 to 1967: Operation and Impact 9. Was the Birmingham Enterprise Big Science? 44768 10. Conclusions 483 APPENDIX of synchrotron-related PhDs 505 Sources 507 7 Mark Oliphant FRS at the age of 38 just prior to World War II This image gives some sense of scale of the Birmingham proton synchrotron, by comparing the human figures against the magnet in the background. 8 CHAPTER ONE Introduction Nuclear physics in transition In 1946, a team of physicists and technicians at the University of Birmingham, led by the Australian-born Mark Oliphant, began to construct a large particle accelerator of radically new design, intended to generate beams of protons of unprecedented energy for research in nuclear physics. Across the Atlantic, similar developments were underway, though some distance behind those in Birmingham. Collectively, these initiatives would lead before the mid 1950s to the inauguration of three first-generation machines of this new type, known as “proton synchrotrons”. In the history of experimental nuclear physics (also becoming known at this time as “high-energy physics” and later as “particle physics”), the years immediately following World War II marked the start of a major transition. Over the previous decade and a half advances in nuclear physics had depended increasingly on bombarding targets with beams of high-energy particles, such as electrons, protons or deuterons, artificially-accelerated by equipment of growing size, complexity and cost. Experimenters using such machines were seeking to initiate some form of nuclear reaction that would throw light on the way atomic nuclei, and the particles that comprise them, interacted and on the forces that controlled those interactions. Machines for accelerating the bombarding particles had been of two basic designs; “linear accelerators” which imparted a steady and continuous acceleration using high electric voltages (hundreds of thousands or even millions of volts), and “cyclotrons”, which imparted a large number of discrete accelerations to particles as they spiralled 9 around a magnetic field. A third method, the “betatron”, was available for accelerating electrons. As new generations of equipment were created, some balance was sought between two demands; the need for a substantial number of bombarding particles, since that would make interactions more likely, and the quest to give those particles higher energies, since that was expected to reveal new sorts of interactions. The first required a high beam current, the second a high beam energy. As nuclear physicists began to return to their laboratories after war-time enterprises such as the development of radar and the building of the first atom bombs, the limitations of the existing methods to accelerate particles, particularly protons, were beginning to show. Impediments to generating ever higher energies were appearing, some natural (relativistic effects), some economic (the growing cost of the equipment). A new approach was needed. The proton synchrotron was one such innovation. One of the motivations for the push to higher energies was a desire to recreate under controlled conditions in the laboratory phenomena which had previously been observed only in cosmic radiation. At those energies, new phenomena had already been seen, including the production of previously unknown particles such as positrons and mesons. As we shall see, Oliphant used the desire to produce “artificial cosmic rays” to justify the substantial investment needed for his proton synchrotron.
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