Meson factories

Among the recommendations made last year by the Ramsey Panel to study needs in high‐energy physics was an endorsement of MURA’s proposal to build a high‐intensity 12.5 BeV machine. Because it was expected that the energy range of the MURA accelerator would overlap that of the so‐called “meson factories”, the Ramsey report advised against authorizing the latter type of accelerator for the time being. Meson factories are medium‐energy accelerators (300–1000 MeV), capable of producing proton beams of much greater intensity than other types of existing machines. The report stated that for research in particle physics, the MURA accelerator and the meson factory would be roughly comparable. It was noted, however, that a meson factory might also serve as a powerful tool for investigating nuclear structure, and the panel recommended that studies be continued on the possible use of meson factories for this purpose.