By With particle accelerators being a relatively new way of conducting scientific research and come up with brilliant new ideas for various domains, the question remains: what exactly can such an accelerator do? For example, the European Large Hadron Collider is conducting studies in search for the God particle (the Higgs boson). As for American particle accelerators, such as the newIllinoisAcceleratorResearchCentercreated by Fermilab, the private sector seems to be the best option in order to conduct experiments.
Fermilab’s particle accelerator is expected to be up and running in 2013, in the area where the Tevatron used to be. TheIllinoisAcceleratorResearchCenter’s goal will be to develop new technology which is to be used in domains like medicine, industry and national security. The new particle accelerator is to conduct various scientific researches mostly based on the private industry sector. Fermilab is quite optimistic regarding the outcome of this project, given that the accelerator-related industries produce around $500 billion per year.
The only immediate concern regarding this project is the lack of trained scientists that can fully operate such a machine, especially when such technology can boost the American economy. The new facility will have cryogenics infrastructure, space for test accelerators, high-capacity electrical power systems, temperature-controlled workspaces and many other features that require capable scientists in order to function as required.
Fermilab’s future projects that should revolutionize the particle-accelerator understanding include: Project X (a proton accelerator that should improve the accelerator tech, bringing new capabilities and features), the LBNE project (generating a neutrino beam in order to determine properties of matter and antimatter presented in the Universe) and the Mu2e experiment (designed to study the transformation from muons to electrons – this is still a theory and it will be up to this project to answer this scientific mystery).
The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) should improve the American economy, providing advances in many scientific areas.