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Abstract
This article examines the most recent history of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, with particular emphasis on how this laboratory shifted its research program from accelerator-based particle physics towards astroparticle physics, cosmology and multi-disciplinary photon science. Photon science became the central experimental research program through a series of changes in the organisational, scientific, and infrastructural set-up and in its science policy context. The article shows that SLAC’s reinvention unfolded in a science policy context in which funding priorities drifted towards the materials sciences and the life sciences at the expense of nuclear and particle physics, which had dominated science budgets during the Cold War. SLAC took a lead position in this global development by partly dismantling and also redeploying scientific and technical capabilities from its particle physics program for these new fields, thus, providing novel experimental facilities for user communities to expand across academia and industry.
Abbreviations:
- ARGOS: Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite
- ATLAS: A Toroidal LHC Apparatus
- BES: Basic Energy Sciences
- BMBF: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Federal Ministry of Education and Research)
- DESY: Deutsches Elektronensynchrotron (German Electron Synchrotron)
- DOE: Department of Energy
- FEL: Free Electron Laser
- GLAST: Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope
- HEP: High-Energy Physics
- HEPL: Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory
- ILC: International Linear Collider
- KIPAC: Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- LCLS: Linear Coherent Light Source
- LINAC: Linear Collider
- NLC: Next Linear Collider
- PEP: Positron Electron Proton Ring Accelerator
- SLAC: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center/ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- SLC: Stanford Linear Collider
- SPEAR: Stanford Positron Electron Accelerating Ring
- SPPS: Sub-Picosecond Pulsed Source
- SSRL: Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
- SSRP: Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project
- TESLA: TeV-Energy Superconducting Linear Accelerator
- TTF: TESLA Test Facility
Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank all interviewees who provided valuable information (in alphabetical order): John Arthur, Arthur Bienenstock, Gerhard Casper, Persis Drell, John Galayda, Keith Hodgson, Ingolf Lindau, Burton Richter, Bernd Sonntag, and Joachim Stöhr. Regarding archival material, we are very grateful to Jean Deken, Laura O’Hara, Dorothy Leung (SLAC Archives), Marc Bodnarczuk (SLAC), Daniel Hartwig (Stanford University Archive), Andrew Grandison and Christopher Johns (Department of Energy). Regarding an earlier version of the paper, we are grateful for comments and clarifications from John Arthur, Patricia Dehmer, Keith Hodgson, Ingolf Lindau, and William Madia. The paper was written in Spring 2017 during a sabbatical of the first author at the Center for Organizational Research and Design (CORD) at Arizona State University, Phoenix, supported by Barry Bozeman.
Notes
1. DOE, Annual Report 2017, 186.
2. Hallonsten, “The Parasites”.
3. Hallonsten, Big Science Transformed, 43–67.
4. Kevles, “Big Science”; Johnson, “End of pure science”.
5. Westfall, “Surviving the squeeze”; Westfall, “Surviving to tell the tale”; Westfall, “Institutional persistence”; Crease, “Anxious History”; and Hallonsten, Big Science Transformed, 125–37.
6. House Science Committee, “Deep Republican Science Cuts Approved”.
7. NSB, Science and Engineering Indicators 2016, Appendix Table 04–06.
8. Gibbons, “Science Advice”, 68.
9. NSB, Science and Engineering Indicators 2004, Appendix Table 04–28.
10. Marburger, Science Policy Up Close, 84.
11. Greenberg, Science, Money and Politics, 405.
12. Riordan et al., Tunnel visions, 245–56.
13. Hoddeson et al., Fermilab, 340.
14. See note 9.
15. Neal et al., Beyond Sputnik, 82.
16. Koizumi, “Science Policy”, 292.
17. See note 15.
18. NSB, Science and Engineering Indicators 2016, Appendix Table 04–25.
19. Ibid., Appendix Table 04–06.
20. See note 18.
21. Neal et al., Beyond Sputnik, 35.
22. Hallonsten, “The Parasites”, 264–66.
23. Letter from Robert Byer, Dean of Research, to Jerry Lieberman, Provost, both Stanford University, May 22, 1992, Stanford University Archive AA4.13.
24. Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”; Letter from Gerhard Caspar, President of Stanford University, to Martha Krebs, Department of Energy, 13 July 1994. Stanford University Archive AA4.13.
25. Letter from Donald Kennedy, Stanford University, to Donald Pearman, Department of Energy’s San Francisco Operations Office, 30 July 1991. Stanford University Archive AA4.13.
26. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1990–1995”; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1991–1996”; and SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1992–1997”.
27. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”.
28. Ibid., 2, 32–7.
29. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 7; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1998–2002”, v.
30. Richter, “Center Transition 1993”, 1.
31. Ibid., 7–9.
32. Letter from Arthur Bienenstock, Director at SSRL, to Burton Richter, Director at SLAC, 27 November 1991, SLAC Archives, Richter Series 7.
33. Perl, “Final Version New Constitution”.
34. Falcon, “Special Committee Appointments”, 2.
35. Bienenstock, Arthur: Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Applied Physics at Stanford University, former Director of SSRL (1978–1998). Interview by authors, March 21, 2013 at Stanford University.
36. Falcon, “Special Committee Appointments”, 2–9.
37. Ibid., 8–9.
38. Richter, “1994–1995 Salary Program”.
39. Lyon, “Update”.
40. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1990–1995”, 45; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 84.
41. Richter, “State of SLAC”.
42. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1996–2001”, 8.
43. Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”, 2–3.
44. SSRL, “SSRL Division Questionnaire”, 2.
45. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 16–32.
46. SSRL, “SSRL Division Questionnaire”, 4.
47. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1996–2001”, 12.
48. Bienenstock, “1995 Activity Report”, 2.
49. SSRL, “SSRL Division Questionnaire”, 3.
50. Bienenstock, “1995 Activity Report”, 1.
51. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 2.
52. Westfall, “Retooling for the future”, 599–600; Westfall, “Institutional persistence”.
53. Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”, 2–6.
54. See note 35.
55. Birgeneau and Shen, “Report of the Basic Energy Sciences”.
56. Ibid., 9.
57. Ibid., 8.
58. See note 35.
59. Richter, Burton: Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stanford University, former Director of SLAC (1984–2000), Nobel Laureate in Physics (1976). Interview by authors, 21 March 2013 at SLAC.
60. Service, “Panel Sets Out”, 377.
61. Malakoff, “Prospects Brighten”, 1733.
62. Hallonsten and Heinze, “Formation and Expansion”.
63. Lehman, “Close-out Report”, 3.
64. Ibid., 6. The review panel was chaired by Sam Krinsky (Brookhaven National Laboratory).
65. Lehman, “Close-out Report”, 30.
66. SLAC, “SPEAR 3 Upgrade Project”, 43.
67. Lehman, “Close-out Report”, 39–41; email from Patricia Dehmer to first author, 6 June 2017.
68. Hodgson, Keith: Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University, Former Director of SSRL (1998–2005), former Director of Photon Science and Deputy Director of SLAC (2005–2012). Interview by authors, 22 March 2013 at SLAC.
69. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 2001–2006”, 5.
70. Ibid., 5.
71. SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2011”, 8.
72. SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2013”, 7. The decline in number users at SSRL may have been caused by other factors as well, most notably the competition for users at the other light sources in the U.S.
73. See note 62.
74. Cornacchia and Winick, Proceedings.
75. Pellegrini, “FEL Based SLAC Linac”, 371.
76. The name ‘LCLS’ has been attributed to Herman Winick: Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 685. However, it has also been attributed to Robert Byer: Arthur, John: former Staff Scientist at SSRL, System Manager of Photon Beam System at the LCLS division of SLAC. Interview by authors, 22 March 2013 at SLAC; Winick and Bienenstock, “Proposal”.
77. Ben-Zvi, “Technical Review Report”, 2. The panel was chaired by Ilan Ben-Zvi (Brookhaven National Laboratory).
78. Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 685.
79. Jong, “How Organizational Structures”; Kenney and Goe, “The Role of Social Embeddedness”.
80. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 17.
81. Hallonsten, Big Science Transformed, 125–37.
82. Winick, “The Genesis of LCLS”.
83. Ben-Zvi, “Technical Review Report”, 689. The committee was chaired by Donald H. Levy (University of Chicago).
84. Levy, Committee Free Electron Lasers, 6.
85. Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 685–86.
86. Stöhr, Joachim: Professor of Photon Science at Stanford University, Director of LCLS, former Director of SSRL (2005–2009). Interview by authors, 26 March 2013 at SLAC; Sonntag, Bernd: Professor Emeritus of Physics at Hamburg University, former Deputy Director of the Hamburg Synchrotron Laboratory at the Deutsches Elektronensynchrotron Hamburg. Interview by first author, 11 October 2012 at the University of Wuppertal.
87. Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 686.
88. Winick, “The Genesis of LCLS”, 28.
89. Stöhr, Joachim: Professor of Photon Science at Stanford University, Director of LCLS, former Director of SSRL (2005–2009). Interview by authors, 26 March 2013 at SLAC.
90. Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 691–93.
91. See note 55 above
92. Leone, “Report Basic Energy Sciences”; Letter from Geraldine Richmond, Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, to Martha Krebs, Office of Energy Research, 3 March 1999. The panel was chaired by Stephen R. Leone (National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado).
93. Ibid., 28.
94. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1998–2002”, vi, 3–8; Arthur et al., LCLS Design Report 1998.
95. Melissinos, “Report Policy Committee 1998”, 3; Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”, 3.
96. Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 697.
97. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 3–8; Pellegrini, “History X-ray Lasers”, 697.
98. Arthur, John: former Staff Scientist at SSRL, System Manager of Photon Beam System at the LCLS division of SLAC. Interview by authors, 22 March 2013 at SLAC.
99. See note 89.
100. See note 68.
101. Shenoy and Stöhr, “LCLS.”; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 2001–2006”, 16–7.
102. Arthur et al., LCLS Design Report 2002.
103. Ibid., 12.
104. Letter from Patricia Dehmer, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, to Daniel R. Lehman, Office of Science, 2 February 2002 [printed in Lehman 2002, 3–4]. The review was chaired by Daniel R. Lehman, then Director of the DOE Office of Science’s Office of Project Assessment, and therefore named ‘Lehman Review’. Prior to Lehman, the reviews were called ‘Temple Reviews’ after Edward Temple, then the Director of OPA. The reviews began with Temple as part of the increased oversight and push for accountability at the US national laboratories starting in the 1980s. With Lehman’s retirement in December 2013, the name ‘Lehman Review’ has given way to ‘OPA Review’, i.e. the reviews no longer are named for the head of the Office of Project Assessment; email from Patricia Dehmer to first author, 6 June 2017.
105. Lehman, “Close-out Report”.
106. DESY, “Wissenschaftlicher Jahresbericht”, 234.
107. Galayda, John: Director of LCLS Construction, SLAC. Former director of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) Accelerator Systems Division. Former deputy associate director of APS. Interview by Olof Hallonsten, 12 November 2007 at SLAC.
108. Richmond and Sinha, “BESAC Subcommittee Workshop Report”, 5–10.
109. Dorfan, “October 20 LCLS Groundbreaking Ceremony”.
110. Dorfan, “LCLS Ice Cream Social”; Bostedt et al. “Linac Coherent Light Source”; and White et al., “Linac Coherent Light Source”.
111. SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2012”, 7.
112. White et al. “Linac Coherent Light Source”, 475.
113. See note 111.
114. SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2010”, 41.
115. See note 89.
116. See note 98.
117. Drell, Persis: Professor of Physics at Stanford University, former Director of SLAC (2007–2012). Interview by authors, 23 January 2013 at DESY, Hamburg.
118. DOE. “Selection Preferred Site B-Factory”, 2–6.
119. Richter, “Strategic Planning Speech”.
120. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1998–2002”, vi; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1999–2004”, vii.
121. Workman, Bill. 1998. “Stanford Names New Head of Linear Accelerator” (San Francisco Chronicle, December 23).
122. Casper, Gerhard: former President of Stanford University (1992–2000). Interview by authors, 25 March 2013 at Stanford University.
123. SLAC, “Organizational Charts, 1986–1997”.
124. Dorfan, “SLAC Budget”.
125. Ibid.
126. Dorfan, “FY2003 SLAC Budget”.
127. Dorfan, “Plans for Staff Reductions”.
128. RSAS, “Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize”.
129. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 41.
130. Melissinos, “Report Policy Committee 1997”, 4–9; Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”, 4.
131. See note 117.
132. Stanford University, “Stanford to receive $7.5 million gift”.
133. Davidson, Keay. ‘Headquarters for “dark energy” scientists open. Researchers there will study universe’s “missing mass”.’ (San Francisco Chronicle, 18 March 2006).
134. Dorfan, “Kavli Institute”.
135. Sutherland et al., “Challenges Facing”, 3.
136. SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2009”, 7; SLAC, “Annual Laboratory Plan 2011”, 5.
137. Petit, Charles. ‘Physicists Dream Big Dreams About Smashing Tiny Particles’ (San Francisco Chronicle, 9 March 1998).
138. DESY, “Wissenschaftlicher Jahresbericht”, 7, 32, 188.
139. Henley, “Report Science Policy Committee”, 7–8.
140. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1998–2002”, vi; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1999–2004”, vii; SLAC, “Institutional Plan 2001–2006”; and DOE, DoE Business Plan.
141. Dorfan, “The Future of SLAC”, 2.
142. Ibid., 2.
143. Jonathan Dorfan to step down as SLAC director. Stanford Press Release, 12 March 2007.
144. Dorfan, “Concluding my tenure”; Persis S. Drell named fourth director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre. Stanford Press Release, 6 December 2007.
145. Stanford University, “New name for SLAC”.
146. SLAC, “Organizational Charts, 1971–1997”.
147. DOE, “DoE Laboratory Plan”, 14.
148. Ibid., 16.
149. DOE, “DoE Laboratory Plan”, 16.
150. Drell, “From the Director”.
151. Cho, “Quick and Painful Rebirth”, 223.
152. Ibid.
153. See note 117.
154. See note 151.
155. Perlman, David. ‘Famed physics laboratory mired in naming spat’ (San Francisco Chronicle, 28 July 2008).
156. DOE, Type a Accident Investigation, ES-1, 2–2.
157. Ibid., ES-1, ES-2.
158. Ibid., 4–2.
159. Ibid., ES-1.
160. Richter, “All Hands Meeting on ES&H”; Marburger, “Science Policy”, 67–72.
161. Friedly, Jock. ‘Government “Tiger Teams” sweep Linear Accelerator Center’ (Palo Alto Weekly, 30 October 1991).
162. SLAC, “Institutional Plan 1993–1998”, 51.
163. SLAC, “Strategic Facilities Plan”, 6.
164. Dorfan, “Organizational Changes”; Dorfan, “New Management Team”.
165. Dorfan, “Annual Safety and Security Briefing 2005”; Dorfan, “Director’s Office Organizational Changes”; and Dorfan, “Annual Safety and Security Briefing 2006”.
166. Dorfan, “All Hands Meeting”.
167. SLAC Today, 2007, various issues: 30 August September 5, 13, 18, 24; October 12, 19, 24, 30.
168. Sutherland et al., “Challenges Facing”, 8.
169. William Madia, quoted in: Sutherland et al., “Challenges Facing”, 15.
170. Arthur, John: former Staff Scientist at SSRL, System Manager of Photon Beam System at the LCLS division of SLAC. Interview by authors, 22 March 2013 at SLAC; Bienenstock, Arthur: Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Applied Physics at Stanford University, former Director of SSRL (1978–1998). Interview by authors, 21 March 2013 at Stanford University; Hodgson, Keith: Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University, Former Director of SSRL (1998–2005), former Director of Photon Science and Deputy Director of SLAC (2005–2012). Interview by authors, 22 March 2013 at SLAC; Lindau, Ingolf: Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and Professor of Photon Science at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, former Associate Director of SSRL (1980–1990). Interview by authors, 25 March 2013 at SLAC.
171. William Madia, quoted in: Sutherland et al., “Challenges Facing”, 10–4.
172. Letter from Gerhard Casper, Stanford University to Federico Pena, Department of Energy, 28 October 1997. Stanford University Archive AA4.13.; Letter from Gerhard Casper, Stanford University to Hazel O’Leary, Department of Energy, 26 August 1996. Stanford University Archive AA4.13.
173. See note 122.
174. See note 68.
175. See note 35.
176. See note 117.
177. Ibid.
178. Persis Drell, quoted in: Sutherland et al., “Challenges Facing”, 17.
179. SLAC Today, 2007, various issues: August 30; September 5, 13, 18, 24; October 12, 19, 24, 30.
180. See note 117.
181. See note 89.
182. William Madia Appointed Stanford’s Vice President for SLAC. Stanford Press Release, 22 January 2008.
183. See note 117.
184. Ibid.
185. DOE, “Laboratory Performance Report Cards”.
186. See note 68.
187. SLAC Today, “Persis Drell to step down.”
188. SLAC Today, “Chi-Chang Kao named SLAC director”. Roger Blandford and William Madia chaired the search committee that selected Chi-Chang Kao.
189. Crease, Westfall, “The New Big Science”; Hallonsten, “Big Science Transformed”, 125–37.
190. Crease, “Recombinant science”; Hallonsten, “Big Science Transformed”, 125–37.