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7-foot Bubble Chamber

Brookhaven's 7-foot Bubble Chamber operated on principles similar to those used in the 80-inch chamber. Particles from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) were made to pass through liquid hydrogen which was chilled to super-cold temperatures of minus 415 degrees Fahrenheit.  As particles passed through the liquid, the volume of the chamber was rapidly expanded by a large hydraulic piston. This expansion caused bubbles to form along the tracks of passing particles. Cameras atop the chamber captured the short-lived bubble tracks for analysis. 

This was the first particle detector of its type in which the chamber through which the particles passed was surrounded by a superconducting magnet.

The detector began routine operations in 1974.  The following year, the 7-foot chamber was used to discover the charmed baryon, a particle composed of three quarks, one of which was the "charmed" quark. This result helped physicists confirm a new member of the quark family. 

Like the 80-inch Bubble Chamber before it, this detector eventually became obsolete, a victim of ever-evolving technology. The superior technology in this case was the wire chamber which had arrays that could "sense" the passage of particles. Using electrically sensitive wires, researchers could record only those sub-atomic events that met specified conditions, ignoring the thousands of events that were of no interest. The time and labor savings due to the elimination of manual scanning of track photographs was enormous. The bulk of particle analysis could now be done by computer.

 
 


DOE, Office of ScienceOne 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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