Particle physics detector in space QED IN BULGARIA STARING AT THE SUN HADRON THERAPY Researchers are still pushing at How will Gran Sasso's Borexino The Proton-Ion Medical Machine the frontiers of QED, as a workshop experiment work and what will it tell Study is exploring how particle physics in Bulgaria revealed us about the nature of neutrinos? can benefit medical treatment All the F.W. Bel I (s) and Whistles. RS -232I/O Port Built-in Rechargeable Battery Min/Maxl Peak Hold 0.25% DC Accuracy Frequency Range DC-20 kHz The New6000Series Gauss/Teslameter Delivers Laboratory Accuracy in a Portable Package You spoke and we listened! The New Model 6010 is the As with all F.W. Bell products, you can expect a superior latest development in the measurement of magnetic flux level of performance, satisfaction and support that can come density using F.W. Bell's state-of-the-art Hall-effect only from a world leader. Look to F.W. Bell when quality and technology. performance matter most. The Model 6010 performs Magnetic field measurements Act Now! from zero to 300 kG (30 T) over 6 ranges with a resolution Special Introductory Free Probe Offer! of 1 mG (0.1 JJT). The Model 6010 measures both DC & Call Today at (407) 678-6900 USA or True RMS AC magnetic fields, at frequencies up to 20 kHz, Go to the Web! www.fwbell.com/html/cerncourier.html with a basic DC accuracy of 0.25%. The Model 6010 provides readings in Gauss, Tesla & Ampere/Meters. The new 6000 Series Hall-effect probe features F.W. Bell's Dynamic Probe Correction technology and temperature measurement capability. Bell Technologies Inc., a SYPRIS company • 6120 Hanging Moss Road, Orlando, Florida 32807 • Fax: (407) 677-5765 DIVISION OF BELL TECHNOLOGIES Contents Covering current developments in high- energy physics and related fields worldwide CERN Courier is distributed to Member State governments, institutes and laboratories affiliated with CERN, and to their personnel. It is published monthly except January and August, in English and French editions. The views expressed are not CERN necessarily those of the CERN management. Editor: Gordon Fraser CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland E-mail [email protected] Fax +41 (22) 782 1906 Web http://www.cerncourier.com COURIER Advisory Board VOLUME 38 NUMBER 7 OCTOBER 1998 E J N Wilson (Chairman), E Lillestol, M Neubert, D Treille; with L Foà, F Close Laboratory correspondents Argonne National Laboratory (USA): D Ayres Brookhaven, National Laboratory (USA): P Yamin • - • ;„r Cornell University (USA): D G Cassel DESY Laboratory (Germany): Ilka Flegel, P Waloschek Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (USA): Judy Jackson ; GSI Darmstadt (Germany): G Siegert * 'mm INFN(ltaly):APascolini IHEP, Beijing (China): Qi Nading Jefferson Laboratory (USA): S Corneliussen JINR Dubna (Russia): B Starchenko KEK National Laboratory (Japan): A Maki ... i Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (USA): B Fein berg LHC underway p5 Nuclei as secret agents pl7 Inside Borexino pl2 Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA): C Hoffmann NIKHEF Laboratory (Netherlands): Margriet van der Heijden Novosibirsk Institute (Russia): S Eidelman News Orsay Laboratory (France): Anne-Marie Lutz PSI Laboratory (Switzerland): P-R Kettle French green light for LHC civil engineering. KODEL establishes Korea as Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK): Jacky Hutchinson major physics player. US 'reneges' on SSC decision. Saclay Laboratory (France): Elisabeth Locci IHEP, Serpukhov (Russia): Yu Ryabov Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (USA): M Riordan Astrowatch TRIUMF Laboratory (Canada): M K Craddock News from the heavens. Produced for CERN by Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd IOP Publishing Ltd, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK Features Tel. +44 (0)117 929 7481 lO E-mail [email protected] Cosmology comes of age Web http://www.iop.org CERN workshop on cosmology and particle physics. Publishing director: Mark Ware Publisher: Mark Wormald How Borexino will stare at the Sun 12 Art director: Andrew Giaquinto Product manager: Hayley Jopson What will Borexino tell us about the nature of neutrinos? Production controller: Paul Johnson Technical illustrator: Alison Tovey Nuclei as secret agents 17 Advertising sales: Jo Nicholas Probing the interface between magnetic and non-magnetic ultra-thin layers. Classified sales: Chris Thomas Advertisement production: Katie Graham Niels Bohr and the 20th century 19 Advertising: Jo Nicholas or Chris Thomas Tel. +44 (0)117 930 1026 Appraising one of the major figures of modern physics. E-mail [email protected] Fax +44 (0)117 930 1178 Precision beams for hadron therapy 20 General distribution How particle physics can benefit medical treatment. Jacques Dallemagne, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. In certain countries, to request copies or to make address changes, contact: LEP helps fill CKM matrix 23 China: Chen Huaiwei, Institute of High Energy Physics, P.O. Box More evidence for the way quarks can transform. 918, Beijing, People's Republic of China Germany: Gabriela Heessel or Astrid Nagel, DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22603 Hamburg 52 QED: surviving the bad press 25 Italy: Mrs Pieri or Mrs Montanari, INFN, Casella Postale 56, 00044 "Frontier tests of QED and physics of the vacuum" workshop report. Frascati, Roma United Kingdom: Su Lockley, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire 0X11 OQX SLC perched on a high 29 USA/Canada: Janice Voss, Creative Mailing Services, P.O. Box 1147, Stanford's Linear Collider set some impressive records in its final year. St Charles, Illinois 60174. Tel. 630-377-1589. Fax 630-377-1569 Published by: European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, A hundred years ago... 31 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. Tel. +41 (22) 767 6111 Telefax +41 (22) 767 65 55 An occasional series of articles looks back at physics a century ago. USA: Controlled Circulation Periodicals postage paid at St Charles, People 32 Illinois Printed by: Warners (Midlands) pic, Bourne, Lines, UK Point of View 38 © 1998 CERN Chris Llewellyn Smith explains why particle physics deserves support. ISSN 0304-288X Cover: Summer in space - the Space Shuttle Discovery, with payload doors open, viewed from the Russian Mir station prior to the final Shuttle-Mir docking in June. As well as the large SPACEHAB module with equipment for transfer to Mir, Discovery also carried the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS - September, page 28), the first major particle physics detector to go into space. The 4000- loP pound SPACEHAB module is clearly visible, with the smaller AMS unit immediately aft. (Photo NASA) CERN Courier October 1998 3 Space saving power supplies from Glassman pack more punch - Full story below Glassman launches MORE new products to celebrate 21 years at top High Performance Dividers Ross compact and lightweight base-mounted HV dividers handle maximum operating voltages from 3kV to lOOOkV DC or PK AC, or up to 1350kV impulse. Offering high accuracy and bandwidths to over 20MHz, models are available in compensated resistance-capacitance types or uncompensated resistive or capacitive types, for indoor and SLIMLINE outdoor use. 1£0W The NEW Series FC -v.-,<** Up to 60kV • Air Dielectric from GLASSMAN • CE Approved High Power, Low Profile The new LV series high-voltage power supply from Glassman provides high efficiency and high power in a compact enclosure. Available in lkW (0 to 600V) or 3kW (0 to 300V) supplies, all units are standard 19" rack mounting. lkW models are only 1.75" high, and 3kW models 3.5" high. 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For more HV News 0 12 5 6 3 0 0 7, Fa 3 0 17 Glassman Europe Ltd., 21 Campbell Court, Campbell Road, Bramley, Tadley, Hampshire RG26 5EG email: [email protected] Around the Labs Experiments wanted French green light for for CERN neutrino LHC civil engineering beam to Gran Sasso The Scientific Committees of the SPS at CERN Progress on CERN's next major particle accel­ and of the Gran Sasso laboratories will meet erator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), took at CERN on 3-4 November for a thorough another step forward recently when French discussion of the opportunities offered by a Prime Minister Lionel Jospin signed the decree neutrino beam pointing from CERN to Gran allowing LHC civil engineering work to com­ Sasso.There is a call for ideas for experiments mence on French territory.This important that could exploit this beam to elucidate landmark comes after a long and painstaking neutrino masses and mixings. Documents of study of the environmental impact of the pro­ up to 10 pages describing these experiments, ject and follows approval of civil engineering along with a cost estimate, should be submit­ on Swiss territory earlier this year (January, ted to both Committees before 10 October.