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[ Previous Page | Brochure | Next Page ] Where the Lab is Headed Jefferson Lab is headed toward new scientific questions - the ones being turned up in the dynamic research process now going on. Answering them will require even better particle-detection and data-acquisition technology. This second generation of CEBAF science will also require upgrading the accelerator to 12 GeV, double the present energy.
Increasing the energy means improving the accelerating cavities and building the upgraded cryomodules that will contain them - ten cryomodules to be added to the accelerator outright, and, depending on performance, up to six more to replace some of the present ones. The new seven-cell cavities in the upgraded cryomodules will have higher gradient, boosting the beam's energy faster within a given length. They will also operate with a better Q, or quality factor, reducing power consumption and cost. Together with constructing a fourth experimental hall, Hall D, the upgrade also requires increasing the fields in the magnets that transport the beam, adding a tenth beam-recirculation arc between the two linacs (linear accelerators), and doubling the capacity of the central helium refrigeration plant. (The accelerating cavities can operate superconductively because they are immersed in liquid helium at 2 degrees Kelvin, some 456 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.)
When CEBAF was originally planned for 4 GeV, its designers, mindful of the future, made sure to accommodate
the possibility of future upgrades. That same principle will apply in 12 GeV preparations. In the still
longer term, the energy might well be doubled yet again, to 24 GeV - for a third generation of Jefferson Lab science.
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