The Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS) was established in 1946 to support basic research in the fields of nuclear and elementary particle physics. The Laboratory is the largest university-based center for experimental and theoretical nuclear and particle physics in the country. It maintains and administers facilities devoted to studies in these fields.
The Bates Linear Accelerator Center, located twenty miles north of the campus in Middleton, MA, has recently ended its 30 year history as a national experimental nuclear physics facility. It now serves as a research and engineering resource funded by the Department of Energy for all LNS experiments. Bates is also active in a number of initiatives for MIT, other laboratories, and industry that utilize its expertise with accelerator and detector technology
Nuclear physics research is currently finalizing the analysis of recent data from experiments at Bates as well as continuing experiments at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., the Mainz Microtron Facility in Mainz, Germany, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory in Durham, NC, and the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center in Los Alamos, NM.
Experimental programs in relativistic heavy ion physics and high-energy spin physics are based at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, NY. In elementary particle physics, LNS groups perform experiments at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and are preparing for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, being constructed at CERN under LNS leadership, will be placed on the International Space Station for a several-year mission.
A new group has recently joined to explore the properties of neutrinos and dark matter. Experiments are in progress at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Ontario and are under construction in Karlsruhe, Germany.
High Energy Physics
Nuclear Physics
Neutrino and Dark Matter Physics
Accelerator Physics at the Bates Linear Accelerator Center
Bates Linear Accelerator
Center for Theoretical Physics
The completion of Bates operation for nuclear physics during 2005 offers the possibility for new directions for use of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. An interdisciplinary Center for Accelerator Science and Technology (CAST) is being developed that would make use of this outstanding resource, operating the Bates electron accelerator on a limited basis, as well as using resources within other laboratories at MIT, for both research and for training graduate students. The research and development program will also be involved with major accelerator facilities such as at Jefferson and Brookhaven Laboratories, and with development of new accelerators such as an X-ray Free Electron Laser and the International Linear Collider.