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CORNELL LABORATORY FOR ACCELERATOR-BASED SCIENCES AND EDUCATION

CLASSE NEWS | 10 Mar 2015

Cornell's Next Generation Accelerator Module moves across Campus

On Tuesday, March 10th, a large red pipe will be transported across campus, again. While on September 22, this pipe was empty during transportation from Wilson Lab to Newman Lab, it is now a fully equipped future particle accelerator module.

"The red pipe is just the outer vessel, which happens to be a carbon steel pipe commonly used for oil pipeline", said Ralf Eichhorn, project manager for the main linac cryomodule.

At the heart of the new accelerator are six superconducting cavities, located inside the red vessel, which transfer energy to the particle beam with unparalleled efficiency. They were built on the Cornell campus in Newman Lab, and this is where the final assembly of the whole module took place over more than two years.

The construction of this major device has taken more than 50 000 hours of labor and has involved dozens of scientists, engineers and technicians from the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE). The device is the outcome of a 10-year NSF-funded R&D program to develop a new generation of accelerators that is far more energy efficient than before. Inspired by the possibility of producing high power X-rays for scientific research using Energy-Recovery Linear Accelerator technology, it can also be used for a wider range of other accelerators, including other types X-ray source, particle colliders studying the gluons that bind atomic nuclei, and even nuclear reactors, where such accelerators could improve safety.

The final assembly of the accelerator module was completed by the end of last year. For testing, the device will be transported back to Wilson Lab. With its highly sensitive interior, the transportation has to be done slowly and carefully- probably like a procession.

Come back tomorrow for more details and pictures.