The new Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology has been inaugurated at SLAC. It is named after physicist and philanthropist Fred Kavli, whose Kavli Foundation pledged $7.5 million to establish the new institute. The institute, which will focus on recent developments in astrophysics, high-energy physics and cosmology, will eventually be located in a new building at SLAC between the research office building and the auditorium, and will open its doors in 2005. At the site of the future institute, Kavli unveiled a 2 m tall, steel and glass sculpture that incorporates a piece of SLAC history in the form of the window from the 1 m (40 inch) bubble chamber.
Roger Blandford, who will become the institute’s director in October, was one of the speakers at the ceremony. He said that initially he intends to follow a roadmap that balances theory, computational astrophysics and phenomenology on one side, and experimental astrophysics and high-energy observing on the other. It will draw upon existing strengths in theoretical physics and astrophysics, gravitational physics and underground physics at Stanford. As Blandford noted, “Part of the excitement of the field is that it is impossible to predict where it will be in five years’ time and what its scientific focus will be”.
