DOE panel recommends closing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Science : The US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Science Advisory Committee has issued its recommendations for funding nuclear physics research in the face of budget cuts. Charged with weighing the relative importance of three facilities, the committee settled on shutting down the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. RHIC, as its name suggests, collides heavy nuclei to produce quarkâgluon plasmas. Although RHIC has been key in developing scientific understanding of those substances, its ability to study them has been overshadowed by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The two facilities that NSAC recommended to continue funding are the recently upgraded Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia, and the planned Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University. CEBAF collides electrons with protons and neutrons to study the particles’ internal construction, and FRIB will study exotic nuclei created in supernovas.