Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time Charting The
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PREPUBLICATION COPY SUBJECT TO EDITORIAL CORRECTIONS Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time Charting the Course for Elementary Particle Physics Committee on Elementary Particle Physics in the 21st Century Board on Physics and Astronomy Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001 NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. This study was supported by Grant No. PHY-0432486 between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation and Contract No. DE-FG02-04ER41327 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project. International Standard Book Number 0-309-10195-6 (Book) Additional copies of this report are available from the National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area); Internet, http://www.nap.edu. Cover: Industrial designer Jan-Henrik Anderson, working with particle physicists, portrays the collision of a proton and an anti-proton in the Fermilab Tevatron accelerator. By parameterizing the different properties of subatomic particles with different visual elements (color, number and direction of helical turns, visual weight of solid and void space, and so on), Anderson creates a visual interpretation of the particle physics at work. [Courtesy of J-H. Anderson] Copyright 2006 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Wm. A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council. www.national-academies.org COMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY HAROLD T. SHAPIRO, Princeton University, Chair SALLY DAWSON, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Vice Chair NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE, Lockheed Martin Corporation (retired) JONATHAN A. BAGGER, Johns Hopkins University PHILIP N. BURROWS, Oxford University SANDRA M. FABER, University of California Observatories STUART J. FREEDMAN, University of California at Berkeley JEROME I. FRIEDMAN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology DAVID J. GROSS, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics JOSEPH S. HEZIR, EOP Group, Inc. NORBERT HOLTKAMP, Oak Ridge National Laboratory TAKAAKI KAJITA, University of Tokyo NEAL F. LANE, Rice University NIGEL LOCKYER, University of Pennsylvania SIDNEY R. NAGEL, University of Chicago HOMER A. NEAL, University of Michigan J. RITCHIE PATTERSON, Cornell University HELEN QUINN, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center CHARLES V. SHANK, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory PAUL STEINHARDT, Princeton University HAROLD E. VARMUS, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center EDWARD WITTEN, Institute for Advanced Study Staff DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director TIMOTHY I. MEYER, Senior Program Officer DAVID B. LANG, Research Associate VAN AN, Financial Associate STEVE OLSON, Consultant Editor iv Unedited Prepublication Draft BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY BURTON RICHTER, Stanford University, Chair ANNEILA L. SARGENT, California Institute of Technology, Vice Chair ELIHU ABRAHAMS, Rutgers University JONATHAN A. BAGGER, Johns Hopkins University RONALD C. DAVIDSON, Princeton University RAYMOND J. FONCK, University of Wisconsin at Madison ANDREA M. GHEZ, University of California at Los Angeles PETER F. GREEN, University of Michigan LAURA H. GREENE, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign WICK HAXTON, University of Washington FRANCES HELLMAN, University of California at Berkeley ERICH P. IPPEN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology MARC A. KASTNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology CHRISTOPHER F. McKEE, University of California at Berkeley JULIA M. PHILLIPS, Sandia National Laboratories WILLIAM PHILLIPS, National Institute of Standards and Technology THOMAS M. THEIS, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center C. MEGAN URRY, Yale University Staff DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director TIMOTHY I. MEYER, Senior Program Officer MICHAEL H. MOLONEY, Senior Program Officer ROBERT L. RIEMER, Senior Program Officer NATALIA J. MELCER, Program Officer BRIAN D. DEWHURST, Senior Program Associate DAVID B. LANG, Research Associate PAMELA A. LEWIS, Program Associate PHILLIP D. LONG, Senior Program Assistant VAN AN, Financial Associate v Preface he principal charge to the Committee on Elementary Particle Physics in the 21st Century was to recommend priorities for the U.S. particle physics program for the next 15 years. T Described in the Executive Summary and more fully presented in the Overview, the committee’s considered response is laid out in detail in the main text of this report, which begins by discussing the scientific challenges in particle physics and conveying the current status of the U.S. program, and then presents the committee’s consensus on the best way to sustain a competitive and globally relevant U.S. particle physics program. Given the charge (see Appendix B), the composition of this committee was something of an experiment for the National Academies. The committee included but went well beyond particle physicists and accelerator scientists to comprise condensed matter physicists, astrophysicists, astronomers, biologists, industrialists, and a variety of experts in public policy, particularly science policy. As a result, a good deal of education was necessary during the course of the study, and those of us who are not particle physicist would like to express our gratitude for the intellectual generosity and patience of the committee’s physicists as they provided us with the level of understanding necessary to proceed with our task. In the same vein, the committee owes a great deal for their assistance to our colleagues at the major particle physics laboratories in the United States (Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), and to colleagues abroad at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, the CERN laboratory in Geneva, and the J-PARC and KEK laboratories in Japan. For the non-physicists on the committee, the task was both intellectually exciting and sobering. Simply stated, we were not fully aware of the challenge faced by the U.S. particle physics program in sustaining its tradition of leadership. Given the globalization of particle physics (and with Europe investing twice as much as the United States and Japan investing nearly half of the U.S. annual budget for particle physics), identifying a compelling leadership role for the United States was not simple. Since the unfortunate demise of the Superconducting Super Collider in the early 1990s