SLAC continues R&D on 100‐GeV linear collider

SLAC is now using about ten percent of its operating budget for research and development on the SLAC Linear Collider, which would be the world's first linear collider. Unlike a storage ring, a linear collider eliminates the synchrotron radiation produced in circular devices by using an electron linac and a positron linac and then aiming the two beams at each other once (PHYSICS TODAY, January 1980, page 19); after the collision the remaining electrons and positrons are discarded.