AGS Tunnel

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

News from AGS

Chuck Schaefer
The AGS finished its polarized proton program in November. This 3 week run came on the heels of a 12 week high energy proton program. After a two week cooldown the Linac, Booster, main ring and target caves were surveyed and opened up for maintenance. The operational schedule as it stands now is for a four month shutdown followed by a six week heavy ion program commencing in mid-March. The high energy physics program will immediately follow this, and should continue for most of the rest of the year. One month will be dedicated running time for the g-2 experiment, which ran for the first time for five weeks this passed summer. The g-2 experiment uses a rotating nickel target to produce 3 GeV/c pions. The pions are used as a source of muons. It is the experiment's goal to improve CERN's previous measurement of the anomalous muon magnetic moment by a factor of 20. The experiment uses fast-extracted protons. The resultant prompt exposure rates outside of the target hall were slightly higher than expected by our health physics group. However, access is controlled, and the target hall is remotely situated.

On a political note, the Secretary of Energy, Federico Pena, announced on 25 November the selection of Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) as the new contractor to manage and operate Brookhaven National Laboratory. The Brookhaven Science Associates team is led by the Research Foundation of the State University of New York on behalf of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Battelle Memorial Research Institute of Columbus, Ohio. BSA will replace Associated Universities Inc. which had managed the laboratory since its beginning in 1947. BSA will have a 5 year performance-based contract with performance measures in science and technology, environment, safety and health, and community involvement.


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