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If there’s one thing that worries U.S. accelerator scientists, it’s the prospect of fewer resources and researchers for their craft in the years to come, panelists said Friday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

“It is time for the U.S. community to rethink what is the plan for U.S. accelerator science,” said Cherry Murray, principal associate director for science and technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. “How should we fund it? How should we plan it? How can we better enter into international agreements?”

The panel focused on the history and the current state of accelerator science, or the study of the physics of beams and subatomic particles.

The funding question is one of the hardest to answer, as money will need to come from a variety of sources. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science has allocated a large portion of its $4.3 million budget for 2009 to accelerator research.

“About 30 percent, or a third of that, actually goes directly into supporting accelerators and accelerator [research and design],” said Patricia Dehmer, deputy director for the Office of Science.

Recognizing the importance of accelerator research to the advancement of other sciences, the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that promotes progress in science, also provides funding for this type of research. Research in this science has led to developments in medicine, energy and national security.

For this reason, the panel stressed the importance of accelerators.

“We must ensure advances in accelerator science if we are going to see the corresponding advances in their uses,” said panelist Arthur Bienenstock, a physicist from Stanford University.

For example, proton therapy cancer treatment came from accelerator science.

“Proton therapy for cancer is potentially very important because you have the ability to deposit most of the protons right at the tumor and destroy the tumor without destroying a lot of the surrounding tissue,” Bienenstock said.

To continue these advances, several different groups must come together, panelists said.

“Agencies, labs and universities together have to work together and are the key to a solution,” said panelist Maury Tigner, physics professor at Cornell University.

Twenty-four American universities run accelerator science programs, with half offering a doctorate. A major concern, however, involves graduate students leaving the U.S. after completing their studies for Europe and China, where there are more and sometimes better facilities.

“Worldwide, there are about 200-250 Ph.D. students in accelerator sciences and about one third of them are in the United States,” Tigner said.

Batavia-based Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory offers several graduate fellowship programs for accelerator science.

As students leave the country, America’s lead in the field declines

“Arguably, the U.S. has had a lead in accelerator science and technology for a very long time, at least from the WWII era until about now,” Murray said. “However, it appears that both Europe and Asia are not only catching up, but overtaking the U.S.”

European labs are pushing the science to it limits, hoping to create accelerators that will handle a variety of research functions.

“The Europeans are thinking crazy big,” said James Rosenzweig, physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Without future researchers, the science won’t be able to progress, he noted.

“It’s not true that we’re at the end of the game yet, but we sure can see where we’re heading and that is for a brick wall,” Rosenzweig said.