Vladimir Veksler

Vladimir Veksler was a pioneering Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to the field of high-energy particle accelerator design. He is best known for his independent discovery of the principle of phase stability, which led directly to the invention of the synchrotron, a revolutionary type of particle accelerator. His work laid the foundation for modern experimental particle physics and earned him numerous prestigious awards within the Soviet Union and international recognition.

Early life and education

Vladimir Iosifovich Veksler was born in the city of Zhytomyr, then part of the Russian Empire. He moved to Moscow with his family following the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War. He pursued his higher education at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, graduating in 1931. His early scientific work was conducted at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute and later at the prestigious Lebedev Physical Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, where he began his investigations into cosmic rays and nuclear physics under the influence of prominent Soviet physicists like Sergei Vavilov.

Scientific career and contributions

At the Lebedev Physical Institute, Veksler quickly established himself as an innovative experimentalist. His early research focused on developing new methods for detecting and studying cosmic rays, which were a primary source of high-energy particles before the advent of large accelerators. In the late 1930s and during World War II, he worked on critical applied physics projects for the Soviet state. Following the war, he turned his full attention to the central problem of accelerator physics: overcoming the energy limitations of existing machines like the cyclotron, which were constrained by relativistic effects as particles approached the speed of light.

Development of the synchrotron

In 1944, Veksler published his seminal paper describing the principle of phase stability, also known as autophasing or the Veksler-McMillan principle, as it was independently discovered by American physicist Edwin McMillan shortly thereafter. This theoretical breakthrough solved the key problem of keeping particles in resonance with an accelerating field as their mass increased relativistically. He proposed two new accelerator designs based on this principle: the synchrotron, where the guiding magnetic field increases in time while the particle orbit radius remains constant, and the microtron. The first electron synchrotron was built under his guidance at the Lebedev Physical Institute, proving the concept and revolutionizing high-energy physics. This work directly influenced major projects worldwide, including the Bevatron at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Later work and legacy

Veksler played a central role in organizing large-scale physics projects in the Soviet Union. He was a founding director of the Laboratory of High Energies and became a leading figure at the international Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, where he served as director of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics. There, he oversaw the construction and operation of the Synchrophasotron, a 10 GeV proton synchrotron that was for a time the world's most powerful accelerator. He was also a key proponent for the even larger U-70 synchrotron at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino. His ideas formed the bedrock for all subsequent circular accelerator development, including modern colliders like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Awards and honors

For his groundbreaking contributions, Veksler received the highest accolades from the Soviet state. He was a two-time recipient of the Stalin Prize (later the USSR State Prize) in 1946 and 1951. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1959 and was named a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1963. He was elected a full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1958. His international stature was recognized through memberships in foreign academies and his influential role in fostering scientific cooperation, particularly within the Eastern Bloc through the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energies at JINR is named in his honor.

Category:Soviet physicists Category:Particle accelerator physicists Category:Heroes of Socialist Labor Category:Recipients of the Stalin Prize Category:1907 births Category:1966 deaths