The Future
RHIC began operation in 2000 and until November 2010 was the most powerful heavy-ion collider in the world. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN, while used mainly for colliding protons, operates with heavy ions for about one month per year. LHC will eventually operate 28 times higher ion energies, although current LHC operation is at half this energy. As of 2012 RHIC and the LHC are the only operating hadron colliders in the world.
Due to the longer operating time per year, a greater number of colliding ion species and collision energies can be studied at RHIC. In addition and unlike the LHC, RHIC is able to accelerate spin polarized protons, which would leave RHIC as the world's highest energy accelerator for studying spin-polarized proton structure.
A planned major upgrade is eRHIC: The construction of a 10 GeV high intensity electron/positron beam facility, allowing electron-ion collisions. At least one new detector will have to be built to study the collisions. A recent review is given by A. Deshpande et al..
In October 2006, then Interim Director of BNL, Sam Aronson, has contested the claim in a Physics Today report that "Tevatron is unlikely to outlive the decade. Neither is ... the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider", referring to a report of the National Research Council.
Read more about this topic: Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
Famous quotes containing the words the future and/or future:
“The difference between Pound and Whitman is not between the democrat who in deep distress could look hopefully toward the future and the fascist madly in love with the past. It is that between the woodsman and the woodcarver. It is that between the mystic harking back to his vision and the artist whose first allegiance is to his craft, and so to the reality it presents.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
“Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon—destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroy us. A nation that doesn’t read much doesn’t know much. And a nation that doesn’t know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth...The challenge, therefore, is to convince future generations of children that carrying a book is more rewarding than carrying guns.”
—Jim Trelease (20th century)
“The future is the worst thing about the present.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)