More universities offer accelerator training
While I was generally pleased by the content and message of Chris Knight's article on accelerator physics as a career in the April 2010 edition of symmetry—particularly by the wise advice offered by my old Caltech undergraduate advisor Alvin Tollestrup—I think Chris missed the growing contributions of smaller US universities to the training of the next generation of accelerator physicists and technologists. Examples might include the free-electron laser programs at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Duke University, the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and my own institution, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Free-electron lasers on the one hand, and high-gradient laser accelerator systems on the other, now offer such smaller schools the opportunity to do competitive front-line research with facilities and resources they can afford, much like the grand old days of “high energy” nuclear and particle physics. And for students at such smaller institutions, with generally smaller and more closely integrated research teams, the only limits to the scope of their training and contributions are set by their ambitions and commitments to the field—an ideal environment for those looking to extend the state of the art.
Caltech did indeed run such a program 50 years ago, and my exposure to Alvin, his colleagues, and staff did much to inspire my own subsequent efforts to demonstrate and develop the free-electron laser and the high-brightness injectors that have helped to make these devices practical.
John Madey, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
The editors respond: Thanks for pointing this out. It has been brought to our attention that the program at Northern Illinois University was also left off the list. Our sincere apologies for these omissions.