Dec. 8, 1997 Contact Ross West (541) 346-2060 Source: Jim Brau (541) 346-4766, Ray Frey (541) 346-5873 Editor's Note: The article described below is available on the Internet at <http://www.uoregon.edu/~oq/winter97/features/crashmain.html> . For a hard copy, contact University of Oregon science writer Ross West at (541) 346-2060. EUGENE--Two University of Oregon physicists are playing a key role in one of science's most advanced explorations of the sub-atomic world, according to an article published in the winter issue of Oregon Quarterly magazine. Physicists Jim Brau and Ray Frey are conducting their research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), which the article describes as one of the top "Big Science installations around the globe [that] peer into the Alice in Wonderland world that exists on the scale of the atom." SLAC's particle accelerator--or atom smasher--is among the most powerful and technologically complex machines on earth, according to the article. Brau has worked at SLAC for more than 25 years, while also serving since 1988 as a cornerstone of the UO's high energy physics group. Much of his effort at SLAC has been focused on designing and refining detection devices, the sensory organs that researchers use to explore a world far beyond the limitations of human perception. He now serves as project manager and chief physicist of an extremely sensitive instrument, called the "vertex detector" that observes the cascading fireworks that ensue when sub-atomic particles collide. The article likens the device to a police officer's radar gun: "Brau's detector performs the mind-boggling feat of getting the drop on individual `cars' that are a fraction of the size of an atom and only visible for less than a millionth of a millionth of a second. More remarkable still, the vertex detector is the size of a beer can." The current research effort at SLAC is an experiment known as SLD (for SLAC Large Detector). The experiment involves one of the most exotic sub-atomic particles, the Zdeg. (pronounced "zee zero") boson. Brau and Frey, are in the inner circle of the SLD research group. By studying the Zdeg., researchers hope to expand the limits of scientific understanding of important atomic forces. According to Frey, physicists have a model which explains nearly everything in the area of known physics. "But," he says, "known physics ends at a wall and on the other side of the wall is the realm of unknown physics. We don't know what's over there. It might be a slimy green monster, and in fact, here and there we are starting to catch glimpses of things that looks like tentacles." To explore the "slimy monster," Brau and Frey intend to work on the Next Linear Collider, a machine much more powerful than the 30-year-old SLAC accelerator. The NLC is a collaborative international project; a prototype for one small section of it now being tested at SLAC features "a German alignment system that ensures particles pass precisely through magnets built in Russia. French detectors monitor the American beam, the focus of which is measured by a Japanese laser system," according to the Oregon Quarterly article. Oregon Quarterly, a publication of the University of Oregon, has a circulation of more than 100,000. It is distributed to friends, faculty and alumni of the University of Oregon. -30- #P-7316/Local, OrDailies, OrSci, PDX