SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ( SLAC ) is a research facility of the Department of Energy of the United States. The laboratory is operated by Stanford University. Research focus of the research facility are the elementary particles, nuclear physics and condensed matter physics. Furthermore, research with synchrotron radiation in the fields of chemistry, biology and medicine.

History and Function

Founded in the laboratory in 1962. Located on the Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The main accelerator of the research facility is a 3 km long linear accelerator, the electrons and positrons can speed up to 50 GeV. It can be a center of mass energy of about 91 GeV can be achieved. The accelerator is located approximately 10 m below ground and crosses the expressway Interstate 280 at the SLAC employs more than 3,000 scientists per year who use the accelerator for experiments in high energy physics and in the field of synchrotron radiation. The abbreviation stands for SLAC Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which is the name of the laboratory was to 2008.

Research

From research at SLAC three Nobel Prizes in physics followed:

Since 1998, electron-positron collisions are evaluated for the BaBar experiment at SLAC, which deals with the CP symmetry.

The conference rooms of the Institute served in the 1980s as a gathering place for pioneers of the home computer revolution. Here the United States, the first website was hosted, the interface of the database SPIRES.

In October 2009, went on the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source in the operation, the first laser in the world for hard X-rays.