Newswise — WASHINGTON D.C., JULY 1, 2015 -- The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today (www.physicstoday.org), the world's most influential and closely followed magazine devoted to physics and the physical science community.
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1) OUT OF THE PARTICLE LABS AND INTO THE FIELDS OF INDUSTRYThis year marks the first annual renewal of the U.S. Department of Energy's $10 million Accelerator Stewardship program, which aims to share accelerator-based technologies pioneered at U.S. particle labs with R&D partners in industry. The program consists of six particle labs -- Fermilab, Argonne, LBNL, SLAC, BNL and Jefferson Lab -- and aims to transfer use of the technologies involved in cancer therapies, industrial and chemical manufacturing, semiconductor research and more. Physics Today's Toni Feder weighs in."'At the moment there is a "valley of death" between the advanced accelerator know-how in the labs and what is marketable,' says Eric Colby [who manages the program]. 'There is a lot of great stuff in the labs. But it's not ready for prime time. Accelerator stewardship aims to do the translational research that will move the technology to a point where others are willing to invest and move the technology into the commercial market.'"MORE: http://tinyurl.com/os5kase
2) UNITED NATIONS NONPROLIFERATION TALKS END IN ACRIMONYDavid Kramer of Physics Today reports on the failure of a month-long U.N. conference for the review of the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The assembled delegates were unable to make progress as some parties called for establishing a zone in the Middle East that would be free of weapons of mass destruction, while others said that was irrelevant to the treaty. "The U.S., U.K., and Canada rejected the proposal and blamed Egypt and other Arab states for their insistence that the WMD conference get under way by March 2016, a timetable that Rose Gottemoeller, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, called unrealistic."MORE: http://tinyurl.com/nfd6nju
3) THE PROMISE OF XFELS: SHORTER, BRIGHTER, FASTER, STRONGERIn this feature, Phil Bucksbaum of Stanford and Nora Berrah of the University of Connecticut discuss the early results of X-ray free-electron lasers that are wowing scientists the world over."The early success of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has bolstered plans for more accelerator-based X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) in Europe and Asia. But the new machines create a challenge: The ultrabright femtosecond pulses generated by XFELs have properties far beyond previous sources. They carry a million times more pulse energy than synchrotron X-rays, are 10,000 times shorter, and have coherence that can produce focused X-ray beams with intensities up to 10^20 W/cm2, more than a billion times greater than any previously achieved. The XFELs demand new research methods that can take advantage of those characteristics."MORE: http://tinyurl.com/njcv8me
4) JOHN BELL - QUANTUM PIONEER, COLLEAGUE, FRIEND John Bell was a seminal contributor to the foundations of quantum physics, but also made outstanding contributions to particle and accelerator physics. In this feature, University of Vienna professor of physics Reinhold Bertlmann fondly recalls his friendship and work with John Bell during their time together at CERN. "John was an impressive man, about 17 years older than me, with metal-rimmed glasses, red hair, and a beard. He asked about my research field, and when I replied 'quarkonium,' he showed great interest. We immediately started a lively discussion in his office -- the beginning of a fruitful collaboration and warm friendship." MORE: http://tinyurl.com/pa2emny
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