Yale Wright Laboratory (Wright Lab) is a facility and research community at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

, CT, within the Yale Department of Physics. Wright Lab enables researchers to develop, build and use research instrumentation for experiments in nuclear, particle and astrophysics across the globe that investigate the invisible universe. Before a transformation to its current purpose in 2017, Wright Lab was known as the Arthur W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (WNSL). WNSL housed the first "Emperor" tandem Van de Graaff heavy ion accelerator and was founded by D. Allan Bromley, the "father of heavy-ion physics," in 1961 (see

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, below, for more information).

Facilities

Wright Lab is named for

Arthur Williams Wright Arthur Williams Wright (September 8, 1836 – December 19, 1915) was an American physicist. Wright spent most of his scientific career at Yale University, where he received the first science Ph.D. awarded outside of Europe. His research, which r ...

, who was awarded one of the first three Ph.D.s in science in the Americas (all of which were awarded by Yale University in 1861). The building complex joins two buildings that were constructed and renovated at different times, for different purposes, yet always related to Yale physics research. * The first part of the complex (what is now called the Wright Lab Connector) was built sometime before or during the 1940s and housed an electron

linear accelerator A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear ...

(linac). * The second part of the complex (what is now called Wright Lab West) was built in the 1950s to house the heavy ion linear accelerator (HILAC). * The third part of the complex (what is now called Wright Lab) was built in the 1960s, with all three buildings joined together as the A. W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory, to house and operate the Yale MP-1 "Emperor" tandem Van de Graaff heavy ion accelerator. * The entire complex was renovated from 2013-17 to transform the facility into its current purpose and re-named as the Yale Wright Laboratory (Wright Lab).

History

The history of Wright Lab begins with the creation of accelerator physics in the 1920s, and continues with the creation of the Arthur W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (WNSL) to operate the Yale MP-1 "Emperor" tandem Van de Graaff heavy ion accelerator from 1966 until 2011, and continues further with its transformation into the new Wright Lab, which was dedicated in 2017, to enable Wright Lab's research program in nuclear, particle and astrophysics. A brief timeline is below.

Directors of WNSL and Wright Lab

References

{{Reflist Yale University Laboratories in the United States Nuclear research institutes Particle physics facilities New Haven County, Connecticut Institutes associated with CERN Physics research institutes