National Academies Press: OpenBook
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

Elementary-Particle Physics

Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter

Committee on Elementary-Particle Physics

Board on Physics and Astronomy

Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications

National Research Council


NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C.
1998

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG0296ER40974, the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-9600688, and a grant from the National Research Council's Basic Science Fund.

International Standard Book No 0-309-06037-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 97-81203

Additional copies are available from:
National Academy Press
2404 Constitution Ave., NW Box 285 Washington, DC 20055 800-624-6242 202-334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area) http://www.nap.edu

Copyright 1998 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Front cover: The power of micro-vertex detectors, a new technology, is used to depict an interesting high-energy event. The detectors (shown in grey) are made of silicon and surrounded the collision point where high-energy interactions took place at 300,000 per second. The inner detector was located 3 cm from the collision point, and all detectors had spatial resolutions of about a thousandth of a centimeter. This fine resolution, needed to resolve the high density of tracks (some of which are shown in green and red), allows accurate extrapolation into the interaction region, inside the beam pipe—shown by the inner circle. The green tracks come from the original interaction, whereas the red ones come from two disconnected points. The latter are actually from B mesons that were created at the collision point but traveled several millimeters before decaying. The detector technology clearly reveals such decays even though the mean life is only a billionth of a second. From other information collected, one knows that this event is an example of the production of a pair of the very heavy top quarks, recently discovered by the CDF and DO collaborations at Fermilab. (Courtesy of Joseph Incandela, CDF and Fermilab.)

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

COMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY-PARTICLE PHYSICS

BRUCE WINSTEIN,

Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago,

Chair

EUGENE BEIER,

University of Pennsylvania

JAMES BRAU,

University of Oregon

PERSIS DRELL,

Cornell University

GARY FELDMAN,

Harvard University

JEROME FRIEDMAN,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

HOWARD GEORGI,

Harvard University

DAVID J. GROSS,

Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara

LAWRENCE J. HALL,

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

STEPHEN HOLMES,

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

EUGENE LOH,

University of Utah

HUGH E. MONTGOMERY,

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

NAN PHINNEY,

Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory

THOMAS ROSER,

Brookhaven National Laboratory

MARJORIE SHAPIRO,

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

MELVYN SHOCHET,

Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago

FRANK WILCZEK,

Institute for Advanced Study

MICHAEL WITHERELL,

University of California at Santa Barbara

MICHAEL E. ZELLER,

Yale University

DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director

ROBERT L. RIEMER, Senior Program Officer

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

ROBERT C. DYNES,

University of California at San Diego,

Chair

ROBERT C. RICHARDSON,

Cornell University,

Vice Chair

IRA BERNSTEIN,

Yale University

STEVEN CHU,

Stanford University

VAL FITCH,

Princeton University

IVAR GIAEVER,

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

JOHN P. HUCHRA,

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

ANTHONY C.S. READHEAD,

California Institute of Technology

R.G. HAMISH ROBERTSON,

University of Washington

KATHLEEN C. TAYLOR,

General Motors Corporation

J. ANTHONY TYSON,

Lucent Technologies

GEORGE WHITESIDES,

Harvard University

DAVID WILKINSON,

Princeton University

DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director

ROBERT L. RIEMER, Associate Director

DANIEL F. MORGAN, Program Officer

NATASHA CASEY, Senior Administrative Associate

GRACE WANG, Project Assistant

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS

ROBERT J. HERMANN,

United Technologies Corporation,

Cochair

CARL LINEBERGER,

University of Colorado,

Cochair

PETER M. BANKS,

Environmental Research Institute of Michigan

WILLIAM BROWDER,

Princeton University

LAWRENCE D. BROWN,

University of Pennsylvania

RONALD G. DOUGLAS,

Texas A&M University

JOHN E. ESTES,

University of California, Santa Barbara

MARTHA P. HAYNES,

Cornell University

L. LOUIS HEGEDUS,

Elf Atochem North America, Inc.

JOHN E. HOPCROFT,

Cornell University

CAROL M. JANTZEN,

Westinghouse Savannah River Company

PAUL G. KAMINSKI,

Technovation, Inc.

KENNETH H. KELLER,

University of Minnesota

KENNETH I. KELLERMANN,

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

MARGARET G. KIVELSON,

University of California, Los Angeles

DANIEL KLEPPNER,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

JOHN KREICK,

Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company

MARSHA I. LESTER,

University of Pennsylvania

NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS,

Brookhaven National Laboratory

CHANG-LIN TIEN,

University of California, Berkeley

NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

Preface

The Committee on Elementary-Particle Physics (CEPP) was established by the Board on Physics and Astronomy as part of its decadal survey series Physics in a New Era. CEPP met six times over the course of 18 months, and it heard from program managers at the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation and from congressional staff. The committee solicited input from the elementary-particle physics community through an email address, an Internet Web page, and a meeting after the 1996 Snowmass meeting of the American Physical Society's Divisions of Particles and Fields and Physics of Beams. At the seminar run by the International Committee for Future Accelerators at its October 1996 meeting in Japan, members of the committee initiated and participated in discussions on international collaboration.

CEPP was charged to describe what has been learned over the last two decades and to identify key physics objectives for the coming decades. The committee considered the facilities, instruments, and detectors that are required to carry out research in this field and outlined future options under realistic scenarios. The committee also outlined the field's relationships with other areas of physics and technology, and considered the general issues of education, manpower, and international cooperation; elementary-particle physic's relevance to society; its contributions to the welfare of the country; and the practical benefits of accelerator science and technology.

The committee would like to thank Donald C. Shapero and Robert L. Riemer from the Board on Physics and Astronomy for their efforts throughout the course of this study, attempting to steer its work toward a completed manuscript with the proper message, properly written. Katharine Metropolis edited parts of the report, and it is much to the better due to her efforts. The committee grate

Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

fully acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals who provided either material or particular advice that influenced its study: Jonathan A. Bagger, R. Michael Barnett, David G. Cassel, Gordon Cates, Ernie Fontes, Gerald Gabrielse, Christopher T. Hill, Joseph Robert Incandela, Judy Jackson, Andreas S. Kronfeld, Paul Langacker, Peter J. Limon, Yorikiyo Nagashima, Rene A. Ong, Michael Peskin, Nir Polonsky, Chris Quigg, Frank Sciulli, Stephen H. Shenker, Michael S. Turner, and Bill Willis. The committee also thanks Stephanie Selice, who edited the final production draft of the report.

The committee's work was supported by grants from the National Research Council's Basic Science Fund, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research, and the National Science Foundation's Physics Division. The committee thanks them for their support.

Finally, the committee would like to acknowledge David N. Schramm, who inspired this new survey of all fields of physics and was chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy for most of the period of this study. We share with the physics and astronomy communities a deep regret for his untimely passing (shortly before this report was completed) and for the loss of his leadership.

BRUCE WINSTEIN

CHAIR

COMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY-PARTICLE PHYSICS

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

Acknowledgments

This report has been reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council's (NRC's) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and the NRC in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The content of the review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report:

Robert K. Adair, Yale University

Lawrence M. Krauss, Case Western Reserve University

Leon Lederman, Fermilab

Francis Low, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael Riordan, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

John Schwarz, California Institute of Technology

Sam B. Treiman, Princeton University

Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University

Although the individuals listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final content of this report rests solely with the authoring committee and the NRC.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
This page in the original is blank.
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

3

 

Symmetries, Forces, and Particle

 

33

   

Introduction

 

33

   

Symmetries

 

34

   

Symmetries and Particle Physics

 

35

   

Local or Gauge Symmetries

 

37

   

The Standard Model

 

39

   

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

 

42

   

Higgs Boson

 

43

   

Generation-Changing Interactions

 

43

   

Beyond the Standard Model

 

45

   

Symmetry Breaking and Supersymmetry

 

45

   

Grand Unification

 

47

   

Why Are There Three Generations?

 

48

   

Physics of the Planck Scale

 

49

   

String Theory

 

50

4

 

The Past 25 Years: Establishing the Standard Model

 

52

   

Introduction

 

52

   

The World of Elementary-Particle Physics Circa 1972

 

52

   

The Forces

 

53

   

The Electroweak Force

 

53

   

The Strong Force

 

56

   

Constituent Particles

 

59

   

Discovery of the Charm Quark

 

59

   

Discovery of the Tau Lepton

 

59

   

Discovery of the Bottom Quark

 

61

   

Discovery of the Top Quark

 

62

   

Counting the Number of Generations

 

63

   

Particle-Antiparticle Asymmetry

 

63

   

Other Studies

 

65

   

Measuring the Mass of Neutrinos

 

65

   

Searching for Proton Decay

 

66

   

Other Physics Beyond the Standard Model

 

66

   

Summary

 

66

5

 

The Physics of the Next Decade

 

68

   

Overview

 

68

   

What Is the Origin of Mass?

 

70

   

Why Are There Energy Scales that Are So Vastly Different?

 

71

   

What Is the Origin of Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry?

 

72

   

Patterns of Quark and Lepton Masses and Transitions

 

73

   

Understanding the Strong Force

 

75

   

Are There Unexpected Phenomena?

 

76

   

Summary

 

77

Page xiii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

6

 

Accelerators and Detectors: The Tools of Elementary-Particle Physics

 

78

   

Introduction

 

78

   

Particle Accelerators

 

84

   

Performance of Existing Accelerators

 

84

   

Accelerator Facilities Under Construction

 

86

   

Options for Future Facilities

 

88

   

Detectors in Elementary-Particle Physics

 

91

   

Particle Detection

 

92

   

Particle Detector Topologies

 

93

   

Challenges for the Next 10 to 20 Years

 

98

7

 

The Role of New Facilities

 

101

   

Overview

 

101

   

The Landscape in 2010

 

102

   

Future Colliders

 

104

   

The Physics Need

 

105

   

Colliders to Address the Physics Need

 

105

   

The Next Steps

 

108

8

 

Accelerator-Detector Technology and Benefits to Society

 

110

   

Introduction

 

110

   

The Machine Frontier

 

111

   

Synchrotron Radiation: Using X-Ray Light to See the World in Atomic Detail

 

111

   

Science and Industry in a Partnership Down to the Wire

 

114

   

The Detector Frontier

 

115

   

The Computing Frontier and Elementary-Particle Physics

 

116

   

Technologies for the Next 20 Years

 

119

9

 

Interactions with and Connections to Other Branches of Physics and Technology

 

121

   

Introduction

 

121

   

Cosmology

 

121

   

Dark Matter

 

122

   

Structure Formation

 

125

   

Baryogenesis and Nucleosynthesis

 

126

   

Astrophysics

 

127

   

Physics of the Sun

 

127

   

Supernovas

 

127

   

Cosmic Rays

 

127

   

Nuclear Physics

 

129

   

Atomic Physics

 

130

   

Condensed-Matter Physics

 

131

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

Plates

1

Fig. 4.6

 

CDF Experiment

 

174

2

Fig 6.2

 

SLAC

 

175

3

Fig. 6.3

 

Reconstructed B-Decay

 

176

4

Fig 8.2

 

(Top) Macro Molecular Crystalography (Bottom) Structural Elements of AIDS Virus

 

177

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×

Elementary Particle Physics

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R1
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R2
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R3
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R4
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R5
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R6
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R7
Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R8
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R9
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R10
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R11
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R12
Page xiii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R13
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R14
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R15
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1998. Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/6045.
×
Page R16
Next: Executive Summary »
Elementary-Particle Physics: Revealing the Secrets of Energy and Matter Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $53.00 Buy Ebook | $42.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Part of the Physics in a New Era series of assessments of the various branches of the field, Elementary-Particle Physics reviews progress in the field over the past 10 years and recommends actions needed to address the key questions that remain unanswered. It explains in simple terms the present picture of how matter is constructed. As physicists have probed ever deeper into the structure of matter, they have begun to explore one of the most fundamental questions that one can ask about the universe: What gives matter its mass? A new international accelerator to be built at the European laboratory CERN will begin to explore some of the mechanisms proposed to give matter its heft. The committee recommends full U.S. participation in this project as well as various other experiments and studies to be carried out now and in the longer term.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!