SPEAR
This article is about the particle accelerator. For other uses, see spear (disambiguation).
SPEAR (originally Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Rings, now simply a name) was a collider at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It began running in 1972, colliding electrons and positrons with an energy of 3 GeV. During the 1970s, experiments at the accelerator played a key role in particle physics research, including the discovery of the
J/ψ
meson (awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics), many charmonium states, and the discovery of the tau (awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics).
Today, SPEAR is used as a synchrotron radiation source for the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). The latest major upgrade of the ring in that finished in 2004 rendered it the current name SPEAR3.
References
- Brief explanation of the acronym in SLACspeak
- 25th Anniversary Info from SLAC
- SPEAR history from CERN Courier
External links
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