02 November 2007

ACIGA

Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy

AGASA

Akeno Giant Air Shower Array --- a cosmic-ray detctor in Japan.

AGS

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron --- a 33-GeV proton accelerator at BNL.

ALEPH

Apparatus for LEp PHysics --- LEP detector

AMANDA

Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array --- a high-energy neutrino detector in the ice cap at the South Pole.

AMS

Alpha Mass Spectrometer experiment --- a superconducting-magnet particle detector to be flown on the space station to search for cosmic rays of antimatter and dark matter.

ANL

Argonne National Laboratory

APS

The American Physical Society

ASCA

The Japanese Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics mission (ended in 2000)

ATLAS

A Toroidal Lhc ApparatuS --- a detector being built at CERN to study proton-proton interactions at the LHC.

AURA

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc.

AURIGA

gravitational cryogenic resonant antenna in Legnaro, Italy

BATSE

Burst And Transient Spectrometer Experiment aboard CGRO

BEPC

circular Electron-Positron Collider with center-of-mass energy up to 6 GeV and high luminosity, located near Beijing, China.

BeppoSAX

X-ray astronomy satellite, ended in 2002.

Bevatron

circular accelerator at LBNL; previously used to accelerate protons up to 6 GeV, now part of a complex for accelerating nuclei.

BNL

Brookhaven National Laboratory

BOOMERANG

Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation ANd Geophysics

BooNE

Booster Neutrino Experiment

BOREXINO

liquid scintillator solar neutrino experiment at Gran Sasso

Caltech

California Institute of Technology

CAMAC

Computer Automated Measurement And Control --- a standardized electronic connection system, invented by nuclear physicists.

CANGAROO

Collaboration of (between) Australia and Nippon for a GAmma Ray Observatory in the Outback (at Woomera, Australia)

CAT

Computerized Axial Tomography --- ameans of imaging internal structures of objects using beams of X rays that probe different parts of the object from different angles.

CBI

Cosmic Background Imager (in Chile).

CDF

Collider Detector at Fermilab --- a detector experiment at the Tevatron.

Collider Detector Facility

CDHS

CERN-Dortmund-Heidelberg-Saclay

CEBAF

Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility --- renamed the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, located in Virginia.

CERN

Centre Europ\'een de la Recherche Nucl\'eaire

European Organization for Nuclear Research

European Laboratory for Particle Physics (originally the European Center for Nuclear Research), located near Geneva, Switzerland.

CESR

Cornell Electron Storage Ring --- an electron-positron collider with a center-of-mass energy of 10 GeV located in the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies at Cornell University.

CGRO

Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory --- a multiple-detector NASA satellite.

Chandra

Advanced X-Ray astrophysics facility.

CHESS

Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source --- a national facility for energetic X-ray beams.

CHOOZ

in Ardennes, France, completed

CLEO

CLEOpatra

CMS

(the) Compact Muon Solenoid, detector at CERN's LHC experiment (see ATLAS)

COBE

COsmic Background Explorer

COSPAR

Committee On SPAce Research

D0

Detector experiment at the Tevatron at Fermilab

DAPHNE

electron-positron collider at Frascati, Italy.

DASI

Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (CMB anisotropies, at South Pole).

DELPHI

DEtector with Lepton, Photon and Hadron Identification at CERN

DESY

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron laboratory in Hamburg, Germany.

DOD

Department Of Defense

DOE

Department Of Energy

DONUT

Direct Observation of NU Tau

DORIS

Electron-positron colider that used to operate at DESY.

DPB

Division of Physics of Beams of the American Physical Society

DPF

Division of Particles of Fields of the American Physical Society

ESO

the European Southern Observatory

Fly's Eye

giant air-shower detector array, located in Utah, exploring cosmic-ray events at energies greater than 10¹⁷ eV.

FNAL

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; also known as Fermilab (at Batavia, Illinois)

Frejus

ionization detectors, iron calorimeters in Frejus tunnel (1984-1988)

GEO 600

British-German 600m interferometer project

GGM

GarGaMelle, bubble chamber at CERN

GLAST

Gamma-ray Large Array Satellite Telescope --- a mission under consideration by NASA.

GNO

Gallium Neutrino Observatory --- at Gran Sasso; GALLEX successor

GRAPE

GRAvity PipE

HEPAP

Department of Energy's High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel

HERA

Electron-proton circular collider located at DESY.

HPW

Harvard-Penn-Wisconsin

HPWF

Harvard-Penn-Wisconsin-FNAL

HST

Hubble Space Telescope

ICARUS

Imaging Cosmic And Rare Underground Signal --- liquid argon TPC detector at Gran Sasso; also a long-baseline neutrino experiment

IHEP

Institute for High-Energy Physics --- a 76-GeV circular proton accelerator in Protvino, Russia.

IMB

Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven proton-decay experiment (1980-1991)

IRAS

InfraRed Astronomical Satellite

ISABELLE

Intersecting Storage Accelerator at Brookhaven

ISR

Intersecting Storage Ring

JPL

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, USA)

K2K

KEK-to-Kamioka neutrino oscillation experiment

Kamiokande

Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment --- a 3000-ton water-Cerenkov proton decay and neutrino detector experiment (1983-1995) (see Super Kamiokande).

KamLAND

in the Kamioka mine, Japan („100 km effective baseline)

KARMEN

KArlsruhe Rutherford Mittel-Energy Neutrino.

KEK

Koh-Enerugii butsurigaku Kenkyuusho --- Japanese High-Energy Accelerator Research Organization ---a 12-GeV circular proton accelerator at Tsukuba, Japan.

L3

LEP experiment no. 3 at CERN

LAMPF

800-MeV linear proton accelerator at LANL, used for nuclear and elementary-particle physics.

LANL

Los Alamos National Laboratory

LBL

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, now known as

LBNL

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, California)

LEP

Large Electron-Positron collider --- a circular collider at CERN.

LEP II

LEP upgrade to an energy of 200GeV.

LHC

Large Hadron Collider --- a particle accelerator being constructed at CERN. When completed it will be the highest-energy machine.

LIGO

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory --- one detector at Hanford, Washington, and one at Liningstone, Lousiana

LISA

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

LLNL

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

LMC

Large Magellanic Cloud

LSD

Liquid Scintillator Detector --- 90t, in Mt Blanc tunnel (completed)

MACRO

Monopole, Astrophysics, and Cosmic-Ray Observatory located in the Gran Sasso laboratory.

MAP

Microwave Anisotropy Probe

Mark I

Detector at SPEAR that operated from 1972 to 1976.

MAXIMA

Millimeter Anisotropy eXperiment IMaging Array.

MINOS

Main Injector Neutrino OScillation experiment [Oscillation Search] (from FNAL to Soudan mine)

MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MURA

Midwestern University Research Association

MWPC

MultiWire Proportional Chamber --- a type of particle detector with many closely spaced wires, providing good spatial resolution.

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NOMAD

Neutrino Oscillation MAgnetic Detector

NSF

National Science Foundation

NUSEX

NUcleon Stability EXperiment --- in the Mt Blanc tunnel (completed)

OPAL

Omni-Purpose Apparatus at (for) LEP

OPERA

Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (in the CERN to Gran Sasso beam)

PDG

Particle Data Group

PEP

Positron-Electron Project --- a circular collider with a maximum energy of 36 GEV, located at SLAC.

PEP-II

The successor to PEP.

PETRA

Electron-Positron circular collider at DESY.

p(bar)p

Proton-anti-proton collider at CERN

Planck

Cosmic Background anisotropies, to be lauched in 2002.

PS

Proton Synchrotron --- circular proton accelerator with a maximum energy of 28 GeV at CERN.

RHIC

Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider --- at BNL in New York.

Rosat

X-ray satellite, ended in 1999.

SAGE

Soviet-American Gallium Experiment --- Baksan, Russia

SDSS

Sloan Digital Sky Survey

SLAC

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center --- in Stanford, California, the electron linear accelerator there having an energy of 50 GeV.

SLC

Stanford Linear Collider --- at SLAC, a linear electron-positron collider with a center-of-mass energy of about 100 GeV.

SNO

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (detector) --- a 1000-ton heavy-water Cerenkov detector under construction in a mine near Sudbury, Ontario, 6800 feet below ground (Creighton mine). SNO is designed to detect neutrinos produced by fusion reactions in the Sun.

Soudan-II

Detector located in an underground laboratory in a Iron mine about 1/2 mile beneath Soudan, Minnesota. Some physics goals of the experiment are to search for nucleon decay and to study atmospheric neutrino physics. The detector is a 960-ton iron calorimeter surrounded by an active shield of proportional tubes.

SPEAR

Stanford Positron-Electron Accelerator Ring --- Circular electron-positron collider with center-of-mass energy of about 8 GeV that operated at SLAC in the 1970s and 1980s.

Sp(bar)pS

Super Proton-anti-proton Synchrotron collider at CERN

SPS

Super Proton Synchrotron --- an accelerator at CERN.

SSRL

Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory

Superkamiokande

Joint Japan-U.S. collaboration to construct the world's largest underground neutrino observatory. It is a water Cerenkov detector -- a tank of ultrapure water 40 m in diameter and 40 m tall (50000t), viewed by thousands of phototubes -- located in the Kamioka Mine.

TAMA 300

Tokyo Advanced Medium-scale Antenna

Tevatron

Complex of accelerator facilities at Fermilab. The main facility is a circular proton accelerator with superconducting magnets ( the first large accelerator to emply such magnets) that can be used as an antiproton-proton collider with a center-of-mass energy of 2 TeV. Currently the highest-energy collider in the world.

TRISTAN

Circular electron-positron collider, with center-of-mass energy of 60 to 70 GeV, that operated at the KEK laboratory in Japan in the 1980s.

UA1, UA2

Underground Areas 1,2 (detectors at the p(bar)p collider, CERN)

UNK

Accelerator and strage-ring complex, located at Serpukov, Russia.

VEPP-2M

Electron-positron collider near Novosibirsk, Russia.

VIRGO

laser interferometric gravitational wave detector, near Pisa, Italy

WMAP

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

AC

Alternating Current

ADM

Arnowitt-Deser-Misner

AdS

Anti-de Sitter

AGN

Active Galactic Nuclei

ALE

Asymptotically Locally Euclidean

AO

Adaptive Optics

AU

Astronomical Unit: distance Sun-Earth

BCFT

Boundary Conformal Field Theory

BCS

symmetry-breaking theory of superconductivity, for which John Bardeen, Leon Coper, and John Schrieffer won the Nobel Prize in 1972.

BEC

Bose-Einstein Condensation

BH

Black Hole

BPS

Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield

BRST

Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin

BTZ

Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli

CAD

Computer Aided Design

CCD

Charge Coupled Device

CD-ROM

Compact Disk-Read Only Memory

CFT

Conformal Field Theory

CL

Confidence Level

CMBR

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

CPU

Central Processing Unit

DBI

Dirac-Born-Infeld

DC

Direct Current

DIS

Deep Inelastic Scattering

DRAM

Dynamic Random Access Memory

EFT

Effective Field Theory

eom

equation of motion

eos

equation of state

FCNC

Flavor-Changing Neutral Current

FFT

Fast Fourier Transform

GIM

Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani

GPS

Global Positioning System

GSO

Gliozzi-Scherk-Olive

GUT

Grand Unified (Unification) Theory

GW

Gravitational Wave

GWS

Glashow-Weinberg-Salam

I/O

Input/Output

IR

InfraRed

KK

Kaluza-Klein

Linac

abbreviation for LINear ACcelerator.

MACHOs

MAssive Compact Halo Obejects --- thought to populate the halo of the Milky Way.

MIPS

Million Instruction Per Second

MRI

Magnetic Resonance Imaging --- a technique that uses the resonance of the spin of nuclei when exposed to radio waves to image the internal structure of objects.

MSSM

Minimal Supersymmetric[SUSY] (extention of the) Standard Model

NC

Neutral Current

NS

Neutron Star

ODE

Ordinary Differential Equation

OPE

Operator Product Expansion

PDE

Partial Differential Equation

PET

Positron-Emission Tomography. A three-dimensional imaging technique that employs characteristic gamma rays from positron annihilation.

PDF

Probability Density Function

PROM

Programmable Read-Only Memory

QCD

Quantum ChromoDynamics

QED

Quantum ElectroDynamics

(Q. E. D.) Quod Erat Demonstrandum

(Q. E. D.) Quite Easily Done.

QFT

Quantum Field Theory

QGP

Quark-Gluon Plasma

QNL

Quantum Noise Limit

RAM

Random Access Memory

RF

Radio Frequency

RG

Renormalization Group

rms

root mean square

RS

Randall-Sundrum

SUGRA

SUperGRAvity

SUSY

Supersymmetry (or Supersymmetric)

SYM

Super Yang-Mills

TBA

To Be Announced

TBD

To Be Determined

TOE

Theory Of Everything

TNT

TriNitro Toluene

TPC

Time Projection Chamber --- a particle detector in which the position of the track of ionized gas left by a charged particle is detected by the time it takes for electrons in the gas to move to the ends of the chamber.

UV

Ulta Violet

VEV

Vacuum Expectation Value

WIMPs

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles --- a class of hypothetical particles thought to be a candidate for dark matter.

WNC

Weak Neutral Current

WZ

Wess-Zumino

WZW

Wess-Zumino-Witten

Y2K

Ό—ο2000”N–β‘θ

2K

2000‰~–β‘θ (joke!)