The long road from ISABELLE to RHIC

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) achieved its first successful operation in the summer of 2000, capping ten years of development. However, the history of RHIC stretches back more than 30, years beginning with an idea for a machine called the Intersecting Storage Accelerator (ISA). 

When single ring accelerators like the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron propel protons against a stationary target to investigate nuclear properties, much of the usable energy in the reaction is lost, carried away in the forward motion of the incident proton. This limits the energy which can be practically achieved by a single ring accelerator. It was recognized by early accelerator physicists that much higher reaction energies could be achieved by colliding two accelerated beams head-on. Using this technique, the energy released can equal the sum total carried in each beam. 

The idea of using storage rings for a colliding beam accelerator was considered at a summer study held at Brookhaven in 1963. Such technology was considered feasible at that time, though it was decided that no construction would take place since it was felt that storage rings lacked the versatility of a single proton accelerator of the same equivalent energy. The idea was revived in 1970 by John Blewett and this time, it was greeted with enthusiasm. A group called the Fitch committee recommended that Brookhaven apply its pioneering development work in superconducting magnets to build two proton intersecting storage rings. This was the beginning of the ISABELLE project.

In 1972, over 100 scientists from the U.S. and abroad met in a three week summer study to discuss machine design. Many new ideas emerged. The next two years were spent in improving the design. In 1974, the U.S. High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) recommended to the Atomic Energy Commission that ISABELLE be built at Brookhaven and that increased funding be provided for the development of the superconducting magnets critical to the accelerator's design. The following year, the first full-size superconducting magnet was successfully tested and the magnetic fields exceeded the expected design strength. 

In 1976, the predecessor organization to the Department of Energy, the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), allocated $1.7  million in construction, planning and design funds. In 1977 the third HEPAP panel recommended that ISABELLE be given top priority, leading President Carter to request $23 million in construction funds in fiscal year 1979. Groundbreaking for ISABELLE was held in October, 1978 (left).

In 1981, however, technical problems were encountered in the fabrication of the superconducting magnets which would power the machine, causing Brookhaven to replace the ISABELLE proposal with a different machine design called the Colliding Beam Accelerator (CBA).  Due to the change in machine plans, the HEPAP voted in 1983 to discontinue construction of the CBA in favor of a new machine to be built in Texas called the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) (which would ironically be abandoned itself a decade later).

Physicists at Brookhaven persevered, continuing to push for an advanced accelerator design. In 1984, the first proposal was submitted for the machine now known as RHIC. RHIC's main function is to search for a state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma. It was considered very cost-effective to build RHIC at Brookhaven because of the existing accelerator infrastructure which could be used to inject protons and heavy ions into the machine as well as the fact that a tunnel (originally excavated for ISABELLE/CBA) was already completed. Brookhaven received funding to proceed with the construction of RHIC in 1991.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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