The 32nd session of Council: Towards a 300 GeV laboratory
The European Committee for Future Accelerators ECFA has been reconvened, under the Chairmanship of Professor Amaldi (Italy), to consider the European high-energy physics situation as it has developed since the first ECFA presented its conclusions in 1963, the "Amaldi Report". Two full meetings of the new ECFA have been held this year and the Committee set up two Working Groups – the first to consider relations between national and international Laboratories; the second to look again at the proposed design of the 300 GeV accelerator recommended in the Amaldi Report and at the possibilities of its experimental exploitation.
Both Working Groups have made interim reports and, though the work of ECFA and the Groups still continues (the final report will be presented in a year's time), the Committee felt itself to be in the position already to present [some] conclusions.
The following extracts are from Professor Amaldi's presentation to Council.
– The conclusions of the Amaldi Report are still essentially valid, for both the "summit" and the "base of the pyramid" programmes. The summit programme concerns the intersecting storage rings ISR at CERN and a new proton accelerator of a very high energy. The base of pyramid programme concerns national or regional projects for meson factories, a high-energy electron machine, etc.
– The 300 GeV project remains the primary objective of the international high-energy programme in Europe. While some aspects of the project are still being studied, it appears that the main characteristics of this accelerator should correspond to the design by the Study Group of CERN based on the recommendations of ECFA in 1963. The Committee therefore urges the Member States to authorize this project at the earliest possible date.
Professor Puppi, speaking as Chairman of the Scientific Policy Committee, endorsed the ECFA conclusions. He said that the project has a sound technical basis, a large measure of support from the European physicists and that a number of suitable sites for the machine had been found. He urged the Council to undertake practical steps to implement the project.
This cover photo shows the Director General, Professor Gregory (right) in conversation with Professor Amaldi, Italy, Chairman of the European Committee for Future Accelerators, during a break at the 32nd CERN Council Meeting in June.
The next steps
Discussion has been going on in the Committee of Council concerning the Convention for the proposed laboratory. There are two possibilities – that the present CERN Laboratory and the 300 GeV Laboratory, while being executively autonomous, be brought under the same umbrella by making a minimum of changes to the present CERN Convention, or that a completely new Convention be drawn up for the new Laboratory.
The first alternative avoids duplication of Councils and Committees and provides for simpler coordination of European policy. It is hoped that at the Council Meeting in December 1966, Governments will express a preference, or even give a decision, as to which of these courses should be followed.
On the burning question of the site for the proposed accelerator, a large, detailed, preliminary report (CERN/644) has been prepared, entitled "Proposals by the CERN Member States for a site for a European 300 GeV proton synchrotron". The introduction to the report emphasizes that the 300 GeV project, involving a ten-fold scaling up of the largest existing accelerator, is near the limit of what is technically feasible. Every component of the machine needs to be chosen to give maximum reliability and one of the most important components is the site.
Since 1962, over 140 places have been considered in an informal way but most were found unsuitable. In response to the request for official offers from Member States, made by the Council in June 1964, 22 proposals were received. [At present] 12 sites in 9 States are under active study.
• Compiled from the report on the 32nd session of Council pp105–108.
Compiler's Note
CERN's Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR), the world's first proton–proton collider, was approved in 1965. With a circumference of 1 km, it was too big for the original CERN/Meyrin site in Switzerland but could be built on French soil by the simple expedient of extending the boundary fence – with permission of course!
The initial proposal for the 300 GeV Super Proton Synchrotron SPS, with a circumference of 7 km, had been to find an entirely new site elsewhere in Europe. However, choosing between the dozen sites on offer proved tendentious until John Adams wisely emphasized the advantages of building the machine close to the CERN/Meyrin site, using the Proton Synchrotron as the injector. And so, in 1971, as the ISR was producing its first collisions, the Member States finally approved a new laboratory, Lab II, to be built in Prévessin, France, some 3 km from the original Lab I in Switzerland. The CERN Labs in the two host states remained administratively separate until 1976, when they united following the start-up of the SPS.
By 1981 the SPS had been converted into the collider that produced the world's first proton–antiproton collisions and in that same year the member states approved CERN's next collider, the 27 km Large Electron Positron ring, LEP.