🚀 go-pugleaf

About two months ago the question of whether supercolliders have any
applications was raised.  I posted an article describing some of the
important technological/economic spin-offs that have resulted from
CERN's research program.  I recently came across an article giving a
much more direct application:

A De Rujula, S L Glashow, R R Wilson, G Charpak "Neutrino Exploration
of the Earth" _Physics Reviews_ v99 #6 (1983) p341.

In brief, they consider using neutrinos with energies in the 1-20 Tev
range as a form of whole earth tomography.  The mind boggles, but they
give a pretty detailed case.  They consider $1G and three years to be
an optimistic estimate of the cost/time involved.

Creating such a beam requires, of course, a giant collider.  They pro-
pose outfitting a proton synchroton with an attached moveable "snout"
to aim the proton beam in a particular direction, which then smashes
into a target, producing a pion kaon beam, etc, which then decay into
the desired very high energy neutrinos.  For maximum flexibility, they
propose that this multi-kilometer sized synchroton should be floated
out at sea!

The specific applications they suggest are:

GENIUS: Geological Exploration by Neutrino Induced Underground Sound
GEMINI: Geological Exploration by Muons Induced by Neutrino Interactions
GEOSCAN: GEOlogical SCAN (of the entire planet)

GENIUS and GEMINI are meant to be aimed through a generally shallow chord;
GEOSCAN is meant to go straight through the core.

GENIUS is based on the sound that the sudden deposition of energy from
elsewhere causes to be emitted.  They do not know if this sound can be
easily separated from background seismic noises.  Its purpose is to
detect oil and gas deposits.

GEMINI is based on the muons characteristically emitted by high-Z ores
that might be passed through shortly before reaching the surface.

GEOSCAN would be of primary interest to theoretical geologists only.  It
would have the extra difficulty of requiring a snout that can take a beam
of protons and aim it straight down.

For more information, see the article.  I have no idea of what to make
of it, since I've only skimmed it, but I'm not the sort of person to
argue physics with Glashow.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720