Unless you count spinoffs, I don’t really see any. Big accelerator projects tend to be on the cutting edge of, for example magnet technology, or even a bit beyond. For example, the fused-silica photon-guide bars of the DIRC, Detector of Internally Reflected Cherenkov light, in the BaBar detector, were made to specifications that were a little beyond what the technology of the late nineties could actually manage. The company made a loss delivering them. Even now, we’re talking about recycling the bars for the SuperB experiment rather than having new ones made. Similarly the magnets, and their cooling systems, of the LHC (both accelerator and detectors) are some of the most powerful on Earth. The huge datasets also tend to require new analysis methods, which is to say, algorithms and database handling; but here I have to caution that the methods in question might only be new to particle physicists, who after all aren’t formally trained in programming and such. (Although perhaps we should be.)
So, to the extent that such engineering advances might make their way into other fields, take your choice. But as for the actual science, I think it is as close to knowledge for the sake of knowledge as you’re going to get.
A few years ago, I heard about a very penetrating scanner for shipping containers, that used muons, which are second-generation particles, analogous to charm, but for leptons. I don’t know whether it’s still promising or not.
I don’t know of any other applications for second- or third-generation particles. They all have so much shorter lifetimes than muons, it’s hard to do anything with them.
What do you see as the biggest practical technological application of particle physics (e.g., quarks and charms) that will come out in 4-10 years?
Unless you count spinoffs, I don’t really see any. Big accelerator projects tend to be on the cutting edge of, for example magnet technology, or even a bit beyond. For example, the fused-silica photon-guide bars of the DIRC, Detector of Internally Reflected Cherenkov light, in the BaBar detector, were made to specifications that were a little beyond what the technology of the late nineties could actually manage. The company made a loss delivering them. Even now, we’re talking about recycling the bars for the SuperB experiment rather than having new ones made. Similarly the magnets, and their cooling systems, of the LHC (both accelerator and detectors) are some of the most powerful on Earth. The huge datasets also tend to require new analysis methods, which is to say, algorithms and database handling; but here I have to caution that the methods in question might only be new to particle physicists, who after all aren’t formally trained in programming and such. (Although perhaps we should be.)
So, to the extent that such engineering advances might make their way into other fields, take your choice. But as for the actual science, I think it is as close to knowledge for the sake of knowledge as you’re going to get.
A few years ago, I heard about a very penetrating scanner for shipping containers, that used muons, which are second-generation particles, analogous to charm, but for leptons. I don’t know whether it’s still promising or not.
I don’t know of any other applications for second- or third-generation particles. They all have so much shorter lifetimes than muons, it’s hard to do anything with them.
The muon-based scanner is still alive—it was mentioned in a recent APS news. Apparently, it relies on cosmic ray muons only.