Turkish Accelerator Center

Selcuk Cihangir, Fermilab

Turkey is at the verge of joining a small group of countries in the world that fund and operate a substantial accelerator center capable of conducting research in physical, chemical, medical and pharmaceutical sciences. Efforts towards this end have been made over the last ten years.

The first phase of the project is the construction of a testing and research facility called the Turkish Accelerator and Radiation Laboratory at Ankara, or TARLA for short. This facility is scheduled for completion in 2012.

Recently, three scientists from Turkey visited accelerator facilities in the US to exchange ideas and gather information.Prof. Pervin Arikan of Gazi University, Prof. Omer Yavas of Ankara University and Prof. Suat Ozkorucuklu of Suleyman Demirel University were at Jefferson Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Argonne Laboratory presenting the project they are working on to the experts in the field. Their official visit was organized by an Argonne physicist Dr. Ercan Alp. In addition, they spent a day in Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The event was the subject of an article in the Symmetry Magazine[2] and a news item in Fermilab Today daily news portal[3].

The Turkish Accelerator Center (TAC) will be the second facility in the Middle East. The first one, Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, SESAME [1], is built in Jordan. Dr. Ercan Alp has been involved with SESAME organization since its inception in 1999, serving first as co-chair of the Science Advisory Committee, and later as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee up to present time.

Turkey’s State Planning Organization (Devlet Planlama Teskilati) sponsors the project. The money is in the range of 10-15 million US dollars and subject to escalation. The universities that are working on the project are: Ankara, Gazi, Bogazici, Dogus, Istanbul, Uludag, Dumlupinar, Erciyas, Nigde and Suleyman Demirel Universities.

An International Science Advisory Board was formed. Its first meeting is scheduled to be on October 7-9, 2009. There are 14 people on the Board:

Ercan Alp (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
Behçet Alpat (INFN Perugia, Italy)
David M. Asner (CLEO, Canada)
Swapan Chattopadhyay (Cockroft Institute, UK)*
Wolfgang Eberhardt (BESSY, Germany)
Eusike J. Minehara (JAERI, Japan)
Luigi Palumbo (INFN Frascati, Italy)
Ken Peach (JAI, Oxford University, England)
Roland Sauerbrey (FZD, Germany)
Zehra Sayers (Sabanci University, Turkey)
Saleh Sultansoy (TOBB ETU, Turkey)
Gökhan Unel (CERN, Switzerland)
Helmut Wiedemann (Stanford University, USA)*
Frank Zimmermann (CERN, Switzerland)

There is also a Machine Advisory Board, for the first facility, TARLA:

Peter Michel (FZD, Germany)
Hideaki Ohgaki (Kyoto University, Japan)
Dieter Trines (DESY, Germany)
Ernst Weihreter (BESSY, Germany)

The development of this facility will advance Turkey’s research in particle physics, as well as in health and material sciences, engineering and software systems. It will be a place where scientists from all fields gather, exchange ideas, train students. It may even promote collaboration and dialogs between the countries in the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans.

References

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