China launched a 640-million-yuan (US$77.4 million) project to
retool a Beijing-based electron-positron accelerator, the country's
biggest scientific experimental device, in a bid to keep its
forward role in the world's high-energy physics field.
The most advanced colliding technology is to be used to renovate
the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider (BEPC) built in 1988 at the
Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS).
BEPC used to be the world's eighth biggest high-energy accelerator
experiment center.
To
add a new storage ring to the existing ring of the collider to spur
the electron and positron beams' movement and collision in the
colliding zone, the retooled collider will have 97 pairs of
electron beams as against the original one pair, and its
luminosity, a leading parameter, be 100 times stronger than that of
the original BEPC.
Meanwhile, scientists will make improvements to a probing device,
the Beijing Spectron Meter, to greatly raise its measuring accuracy
and lessen errors, so that it will be adapted to the operation
requirements of the retooled collider.
The upgrading will help the BEPC attain its forward status as one
of the most ideal colliding experiment facilities of its kind.
The electron-positron collider is now applied to a range of
research topics covering material, pharmaceutical, semi-conductor
and micro-electronic researches.
The BEPC and Beijing Spectron Meter have enabled Chinese scientists
to make significant progress over the past 15 years since 1988 in
the field of high-energy physics with serial world-class research
findings.
(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2004)
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