Physicist helps prepare report on new kind of particle accelerator

Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
April 14, 2021

Kenneth N. Barish, a professor of physics and astronomy, is a key member of an international team of more than 400 scientists that prepared a report on the Electron-Ion Collider, or EIC, a particle accelerator that will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, along with a detector for capturing electron-ion collisions. 

 

Barish, who also chairs the Department of Physics and Astronomy, was a convenor of the detector working group and served as an author and editor of the report. Titled “Science Requirements and Detector Concepts for the Electron-Ion Collider: EIC Yellow Report,” the report, a first step toward the formation of collaborations, was posted online last month.

 

“The Yellow Report process included the challenging and rewarding process of building a community to analyze detector technology options for an EIC detector that fulfills the physics goals set by the community and endorsed in a National Academy of Sciences report,” Barish said. “The report is the foundation for new collaborations to develop detector proposals, which are due by the end of 2021.”

 

The EIC will help scientists better understand the building blocks of matter. It will be designed and constructed over 10 years.