New beam source for Brookhaven accelerators
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new source of ions will soon be the starting point for the beams entering two major research facilities at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory - the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, where physicists are recreating conditions of the early universe to learn more about the forces that hold matter together, and the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists study the effects of space radiation to help find ways to protect astronauts. The new facility, the Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS), will produce and accelerate beams with greater versatility than the current system, allowing studies with new kinds of ions previously unavailable to the researchers. EBIS recently received formal approval to start operations from DOE.