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REU Summer Students Contribute to ILC Damping Ring Studies at Cornell University

Damping rings will be an integral part of the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) particle accelerator which is designed to be a 7 mile long electron-positron collider with the highest energies ever achieved in such an accelerator. This past summer, three students participating in the Cornell REU program were involved in investigating important aspects of damping ring physics.

In order to be able to study the fundamental particle interactions produced in the ILC, it is necessary to achieve precision measurements, which are obtained through very high electron-positron colllision rates. Damping rings achieve this by reducing the rather large size of the initial beams to small spots.

wiggler.jpg

Schematic of a CESR wiggler which damps the beam by magnetically wiggling the electrons to create additional synchrotron radiation.

CESR appears to be ideally suited to be a prototype damping ring. It is currently the highest energy wiggler-dominated storage ring in the world, and operates at energies very close to those required for the ILC (a few GeV). After it shuts down for high energy physics particle research in March 2008, running time will be equally shared between CHESS and ILC damping ring studies.

To fully understand the summer student's involvement in the damping ring studies, see the ILC Newsline article