obnoxio@BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU (the Clown) (04/24/87)
About two months ago the question of whether supercolliders have any applications was raised. I posted an article describing some of the important technological/economic spin-offs that have resulted from CERN's research program. I recently came across an article giving a much more direct application: A De Rujula, S L Glashow, R R Wilson, G Charpak "Neutrino Exploration of the Earth" _Physics Reviews_ v99 #6 (1983) p341. In brief, they consider using neutrinos with energies in the 1-20 Tev range as a form of whole earth tomography. The mind boggles, but they give a pretty detailed case. They consider $1G and three years to be an optimistic estimate of the cost/time involved. Creating such a beam requires, of course, a giant collider. They pro- pose outfitting a proton synchroton with an attached moveable "snout" to aim the proton beam in a particular direction, which then smashes into a target, producing a pion kaon beam, etc, which then decay into the desired very high energy neutrinos. For maximum flexibility, they propose that this multi-kilometer sized synchroton should be floated out at sea! The specific applications they suggest are: GENIUS: Geological Exploration by Neutrino Induced Underground Sound GEMINI: Geological Exploration by Muons Induced by Neutrino Interactions GEOSCAN: GEOlogical SCAN (of the entire planet) GENIUS and GEMINI are meant to be aimed through a generally shallow chord; GEOSCAN is meant to go straight through the core. GENIUS is based on the sound that the sudden deposition of energy from elsewhere causes to be emitted. They do not know if this sound can be easily separated from background seismic noises. Its purpose is to detect oil and gas deposits. GEMINI is based on the muons characteristically emitted by high-Z ores that might be passed through shortly before reaching the surface. GEOSCAN would be of primary interest to theoretical geologists only. It would have the extra difficulty of requiring a snout that can take a beam of protons and aim it straight down. For more information, see the article. I have no idea of what to make of it, since I've only skimmed it, but I'm not the sort of person to argue physics with Glashow. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720