Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory

The experiments went on, however, and in 1968 experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory showed that quarks were indeed real. When protons were bombarded with high-energy electrons, pointlike charges were discovered inside the proton. These charges could only be charged particles, in other words, quarks. 

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, administered by Stanford University, was founded in 1962 as a center for experimental particle physics, but it took until 1966 for its first linear accelerator to be completed. The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratoiy, built a decade later, became part of SLAC in 1992. Unlike many of other national laboratories that greatly expanded their mission through the years, SLAC always remained a national basic energy research laboratoiy. 

The Office of Science also manages the 10 laboratories within the national laboratory system that was created over half a century ago. Eive of the laboratories are multiprogram facilities Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The other five laboratories are singleprogram national laboratories Ames Laboratory, Eermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Eacility, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. 

The collaboration of institutions studying the GLAST mission concept includes Stanford University, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Naval Research Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Chicago, University of Maryland, University of Washington, Lockheed Research laboratory, Sonoma State University, Max Planck Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University of Tokyo, and Kanagawa University. 

Figure 22-9 The SLAC National Laboratory houses what used to be called the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and is still commonly called that.The accelerator Is 2 miles long and is the longest In the world.

A The Stanford Linear Accelerator (top) is located at Stanford University in California. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory complex in Batavia, Illinois (bottom), includes two cyclotrons in a figure-8 configuration. 

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