The Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE) is a

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

facility located in Wilson Laboratory on the

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

campus in

Ithaca, NY Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

. CLASSE formed from the merger of the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and the Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) in July 2006. Ritchie Patterson is the Director of CLASSE. The Wilson Synchrotron Lab, which houses both the

Cornell Electron Storage Ring The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR, pronounced Caesar) is a particle accelerator operated by Cornell University and located 40 feet beneath a football field on their Ithaca campus. The accelerator has contributed to fundamental research in hi ...

(CESR) and CHESS, is named after

Robert R. Wilson Robert Rathbun Wilson (March 4, 1914 – January 16, 2000) was an American physicist known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, as a sculptor, and as an architect of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), ...

, known for his work as a group leader in the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

, for being the first director of the

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

, and for contributing to the design of CESR.

LEPP

The Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) is a

high-energy physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

laboratory studying fundamental particles and their interactions. In operation below the athletic fields on campus is the 768 meter Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR). CESR is an

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

positron The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. It has an electric charge of +1 '' e'', a spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and the same mass as an electron. When a positron collides ...

collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators. Colliders are used as a research tool in particle ...

operating at a center-of-mass energy in the range of 3.5-12

GeV GEV may refer to: * ''G.E.V.'' (board game), a tabletop game by Steve Jackson Games * Ashe County Airport, in North Carolina, United States * Gällivare Lapland Airport, in Sweden * Generalized extreme value distribution * Gev Sella, Israeli-Sou ...

. Completed in 1979, CESR stores beams accelerated by the Cornell

Synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed p ...

. Adding to a long history of significant developments, such as superconducting radio frequency cavities and pretzel orbits, the accelerator group is now developing an entirely new type of superconducting

linear accelerator A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear beam ...

called the Energy Recovery Linear accelerator (ERL). The group is also involved in the design of damping rings, tracking simulations, RF cavities, and accelerator operation for the

International Linear Collider The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator. It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV). Although early proposed ...

(ILC). Cornell University has the largest graduate program in accelerator physics in the US.

CHESS

The Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) is a high-intensity, high-energy

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

light source. The lab provides

synchrotron radiation Synchrotron radiation (also known as magnetobremsstrahlung radiation) is the electromagnetic radiation emitted when relativistic charged particles are subject to an acceleration perpendicular to their velocity (). It is produced artificially in ...

facilities for multidisciplinary scientific research, with a particular focus on protein crystallographic studies under the auspices of the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

(NIH). CHESS was built between 1978 and 1980 as a synchrotron x-ray facility tied to the

(CESR) High-Energy Physics program (sometimes referred to, and better known as,

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

), which produces an electron energy of 5.5

. The original laboratory, CHESS West, included three instrumented

beamline In accelerator physics, a beamline refers to the trajectory of the beam of particles, including the overall construction of the path segment (guide tubes, diagnostic devices) along a specific path of an accelerator facility. This part is either ...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

six independent experimental stations. The CHESS East laboratory was constructed during 1988–1989, adding two beam lines and four instrumented experimental stations. CHESS East contains a

biohazard A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can adversely affect human health. A bioh ...

level BL3 facility (built with funds from the NIH). Construction began in 1999 for an addition to the facility called the "G-line" to provide a new beam line and three additional experimental stations. This station, commissioned in 2002, was "constructed with extensive toxic gas handling capabilities advancing the prospects for in-situ crystal growth experiments." Work performed at CHESS and at the

National Synchrotron Light Source The National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Upton, New York was a national user research facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Built from 1978 through 1984, and officially shut down o ...

(NSLS) at

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...

led to the 2003

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in Chemistry, awarded to Dr.

Roderick MacKinnon Roderick MacKinnon (born February 19, 1956) is an American biophysicist, neuroscientist, and businessman. He is a professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter ...

, M.D "for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels".

References

External links

CHESS Home PageLEPP Home PageLightsources.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornell Laboratory For Accelerator-Based Sciences And Education

Synchrotron radiation facilities Research institutes in New York (state) 2006 establishments in New York (state)