The day
touring Frascati started out like almost every other day in Italy, hot and
humid. We had to take the metro to get
near the lab, and then walk approximately 500 meters before we found the sweet
air conditioned buildings there. We
ended up at the café where the food was extremely cheap and we all enjoyed
various pastries before going to meet our tour guide.
First on the tour was a lecture
over the different experiments being conducted at Frascati. These covered a wide range of topics
including particle/antiparticle collisions, and measuring gravity waves. Among the particle/antiparticle experiments
are ADA, ADONE, and DAFNE. ADA was
created in 1959 and is the first accelerator to collide electrons and positrons. ADONE is the upgraded version of ADA, created
in 1969. It was practically just a
larger, more powerful version of its previous model. The next collider, DAFNE, also collides
electrons and positrons to create phi particles, which decay into kaons. These kaons are then used in other
projects.
Next on the tour, we
had the privilege to view the inside of DAFNE and the exhibits for ADA and
ADONE. We also were able to visit
NAUTILUS, where they are searching for traces of gravitational waves. They do this by keeping a metal bar at .3
kelvin (-272.7 Celsius) year round, watching for its length to fluxuate around
10-18 meters after a supernova, which occurs once every 50 years or
so. Last time there was a supernova like
this all of the gravitational detectors around the world were turned off for
maintenance, and guess what? They have
them ALL off for maintenance AGAIN!
Luckily they have some older detectors on as a backup this time in case
an unforeseen supernova occurs again.
Even through all of the
insufferable heat of the day, the group managed to learn numerous tidbits about
particle accelerators and other aspects of science!
- Zach Crandall, Britton, SD
No comments:
Post a Comment