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Science 31 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5769, p. 1847
DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5769.1847c
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ScienceScope

It's back to the drawing board for physicists developing an accelerator to generate beams of exotic nuclei. Last month, the Department of Energy (DOE) put a 5-year hold on the proposed $1 billion Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA), which promises to unlock the secrets of stellar explosions (Science, 24 February, p. 1082). Now DOE has scrapped the RIA design and asked the community to devise a cheaper machine that can make a unique contribution.

RIA would have generated exotic nuclei in three ways: by bombarding a target of heavy atoms with protons; by shooting a beam of heavier nuclei through a target of light atoms, causing nuclei in the beam to fragment in flight; and by capturing the fragments in such a beam in a tank of gas and then "reaccelerating" them. DOE would like researchers to focus on reacceleration because it's a novel approach, says Konrad Gelbke, director of the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

But reacceleration is an unproven technology, Gelbke says, and NSCL leads the world in the "fast fragmentation" technique. "Build on your strengths," he says. "That's my motto."




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