Superconducting cyclotrons

The impending completion of a 500‐MeV superconducting heavy‐ion cyclotron at Michigan State University—first beam is expected in September—is indicative of two important trends in nuclear physics. Although very few data exist at present on collisions of heavy ions at beam energies between the nuclear Fermi energy (about 36 MeV per nucleon) and the GeV regime of relativistic energies, it is generally believed that this “intermediate” region will soon provide much enlightenment about the properties of nuclear matter. Secondly, there is a growing consensus that superconducting cyclotrons are a particularly efficient and cost‐effective way of attaining this region of heavy‐ion beams.