Image courtesy University of Zurich
FAIR will be one of the largest joint research projects and most sophisticated accelerator centres worldwide, with Germany contributing roughly three-quarters of the total cost of €1 billion.
The agreement was signed on behalf of Germany by Helge Braun, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Education and Research, and Peter Ammon, State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office. Also signing the agreement were science ministers and state secretaries from Finland, France, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden.
Hessian Premier Volker Bouffier and State Secretary Braun also signed an agreement governing the cooperation on FAIR between the German federal government and the federal state of Hesse.
“FAIR will enable us to produce cosmic matter in the laboratory, and scientists from all over the world will be able to explore new dimensions of matter, including antimatter and hot stellar matter. They will develop innovative high-performance computers for their basic research and expect to achieve breakthroughs for new nanomaterials and biomedical applications,” said Horst Stöcker, Scientific Director of GSI.
The establishment of a company, FAIR GmbH, to build the accelerator was part of the agreement. “We will coordinate the construction of the accelerator and experiment facilities. The participating countries will contribute their technical and scientific expertise to the project, in addition to their financial and in–kind input,” said Boris Sharkov, the first Scientific Director of FAIR GmbH.
The FAIR accelerator is one of the largest projects for basic research in physics worldwide. Roughly 3,000 scientists from more than 40 countries are already working on planning of the accelerator facilities. FAIR will generate antiproton and ion beams of a previously unparalleled intensity and quality. When completed, it will comprise eight ring accelerators of up to 1,100 metres in circumference, two linear accelerators and around 3.5 kilometres of beam pipes. The existing GSI accelerators will serve as pre-accelerators for the new facility.
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