Bevalac makes a successful debut

On 1 August, physicists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory successfully accelerated carbon‐12 ions in the Bevalac. This new heavy‐ion accelerator is a hybrid of existing accelerators; the SuperHILAC serves as the injector and the Bevatron provides the final acceleration (see PHYSICS TODAY. June, page 20). On the initial run, the carbon ions achieved an energy of 2.1 GeV per nucleon. Before the Bevalac. the most powerful heavy‐ion accelerator was one in Canberra. Australia, with an energy of 20 MeV/nucleon.