Physics Today, August 1999 pages 54 - 56

German Synchrotron Light Source May Find New Home Somewhere in Middle East

Toni Feder

Scientists and policymakers agreed in June to press ahead with a plan to turn a secondhand synchrotron light source from Germany into an international facility intended to promote peace, as well as science, in the Middle East.

That consensus was reached at a meeting hosted in Paris by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). But to make the project happen, a site still needs to be chosen, scientists and engineers from the region need to be trained to run the facility, and funds need to be raised. And things have to move quickly, because the available synchrotron, BESSY I (Berliner Elektronen-Speicherring fur Synchrotronstrahlung), has to be cleared out of its building in West Berlin by the end of next year (to make way for the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science).

The idea to relocate BESSY I to the Middle East came from Herman Winick, of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center: "I thought the region could use something besides killing each other, and scientific collaboration has been a force for peace before - in the cold war, for example. I got excited about promoting the peace process." In 1997, Winick talked to Gustav-Adolf Voss, a retired scientist from the German Electron- Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, who then talked to both the German government and the Middle East Scientific Collaboration, an organization founded about three years ago to foster cooperation among scientists in the region. The idea took hold.

UNESCO director general Federico Mayor opened the Paris meeting by saying, "UNESCO is ready and eager to help in your efforts, as it did for CERN in postwar Europe. The Middle East project would in turn become a quite extraordinary example of science overcoming divisions to bring nations together in a spirit of peace and cooperation . . . offering an impressive practical illustration of `science for peace'."  As a neutral party that has a good rapport with both Arabs and Israelis, UNESCO will, among other things, deal with Germany about BESSY I's transfer. The synchrotron would be the centerpiece of the Middle East's first major research facility, and involvement of scientists from Europe and the US is seen as key for establishing a high scientific level and smoothing interactions among scientists from traditionally hostile countries.

Settling on a site

At the Paris meeting, five sites were volunteered for the synchrotron: in Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, and the Palestinian Authority. A planning council, consisting of up to two representatives from each participating government, will consider official bids and, based on factors such as availability of reliable electric power, is slated to pick a site by November. (Spain and the Ukraine would also like to inherit BESSY I, but the Middle East is the preferred location.)

Israel, the only country in the region with a sizable number of synchrotron users (roughly 100), is not vying to host the facility. Says Eliezer Rabinovici, a physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "The reasons for having it in any other country are stronger than to have it in Israel. I'd be glad to have it where several countries meet, or to have the Palestinians host it - one attraction would be to have it in the West Bank."  For their part, Palestinian scientists feel a sense of entitlement and believe that by their serving as host, the facility would have the greatest potential for promoting peace in the region. Says Bethlehem University physics chair Hanna Hallak, "Our people have paid the highest price [in the Arab - Israeli conflict]. The situation has stunted our technical development."  Adds Said Assaf, who heads the Arafat National Scientific Centre for Applied Research in Ramallah, "Siting the synchrotron in Palestine would be fantastic beyond imagination. And it's central. It would be driving distance for many."

Selecting a site is a delicate matter, notes Herwig Schopper, a former director general of CERN, who is chairing the planning council: "We must be careful. I've seen projects fail because no site was agreed to." However, all the contenders have said they will support the project whether or not they get to host it.

Good as new

The plan would be to upgrade the 17-year-old BESSY I, much as Thailand is doing with a synchrotron light source it got from Japan (see next story). Specifically, the circumference would be expanded from 62m to 101m, and the machine would be fitted with more wigglers and undulators, which, along with an increase in the electron storage energy from 800MeV to 1GeV, would extend the spectral range to hard x rays up to 20-25keV; a new vacuum system, a more powerful radio frequency accelerating system, and a new computer control system would also be installed.

The rebuilt machine, for now called BESSY IA, "would be at least as good as new, and it would be proven and debugged," says Voss. Adds Winick, It would be a `two-and-a-half' or a `super second' generation machine. Newer [so-called third-generation] machines have a smaller beam focus, but that isn't necessary for everything - it's not necessary for studies in structural biology, environmental science, or other hard x-ray applications.

Germany would donate the synchrotron. Relocating and refurbishing it would cost about $21 million, or about one-third the price of a comparable new machine, says Voss. That estimate includes packing, shipping, reassembling, and upgrading the synchrotron, as well as minimal local infrastructure. But it doesn't include the salaries for 35-60 scientists and engineers to run BESSY IA, which would add up to several million dollars a year, money that everyone agrees will be tough to raise. Says Voss, "Only if annual [operating] funds can be secured over a reasonable period such as ten years does it make sense to go through the trouble of upgrading and relocation.

It's not clear where the money would come from, except that it's not likely to be from the Middle East. Unless the region's wealthier countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, can be persuaded to join the project. But they and several other Middle East countries did not attend the Paris meeting, which participants ascribe variously to Israeli - Arab relations, Arab - US relations, or internal problems; in addition, science is a low priority in much of the Middle East. The project's planners hope to drum up funding from the European Union and the US. Assaf, who is heading up a committee to look into financing the project, has his sights set on a chunk of the $1.7 billion or so associated with last October's Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. However, if it is okayed by the US Congress, the Wye money would be tied to specific steps being taken toward peace, and would go toward building infrastructure such as roads and schools. An undeterred Assaf says, "Palestinians are in the best political position to raise the money." (Some of Assaf's colleagues are floating a proposal for equipment to prepare and study materials such as crystal growth equipment, microscopes, and spectrometers that they are hoping to piggyback on proposals to fund BESSY IA.)

More apparently available than cash is training, another necessary ingredient for the project's success. Synchrotron users from around the world including Germany, France, Italy, Israel, Greece, the US, and Iran (home to the region's only synchrotron light source, a small, 0.3 GeV machine used for medical and agricultural research) are offering to help train scientists from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, who have little experience running a large research facility or using synchrotron radiation. Winick announced in Paris that he's received positive preliminary feedback about bringing scientists from the region to work at the US Department of Energy's four synchrotrons. (However, scientists from some participating countries could have trouble gaining entry to US labs due to DOE's recent security woes.)

Science large and small

Then there are the questions of whether a big project is the best way to boost science in the Middle East, and whether the region has enough potential synchrotron users to sustain a large facility like BESSY IA. "If everybody knew they needed a machine, it would be easier, says UNESCO's Siegbert Raither. The advantage of this particular project, he continues, "is the opportunity - the Germans are making a gift. It's a large project, in terms of cost, size, and sophistication. But the fact that you can do tabletop experiments is a powerful argument in its favor."

Khaled El-Shuraydeh, of Jordan's Council for Science and Technology, guesses that about a dozen scientists from his country would use the synchrotron. That's Assaf's estimate for the number of potential Palestinian users, too - out of 400 science PhDs, including 70 physicists, he notes. That's enough, says Schopper. "We don't have to start big."  And the region's scientists hope that the center would lure home their colleagues, many of whom are working in the US and Europe. At the end of the Paris meeting, the participants set up committees to look into the scientific, technical, and financial aspects of the proposed Middle East facility. An Israeli nominated a Palestinian to serve on one of them, which "wouldn't have happened ten years ago, "observes Israel's Rabinovici, a string theorist who says his main interest in the project is its potential for fostering peace. About the hurdles ahead, Rabinovici sums up, "We have to make sure we have the human resources in the region. We have to build a first-class machine that will attract people from around the world. And we have to raise the finances. None of these obstacles is insurmountable. But it's important to me that if we do this, it should succeed." Or, as Palestinian physicist Ghassan Saffarini puts it, "We don't want to end up with a cathedral in the desert."

Toni Feder